Comic Comparison -- MTMTE #15 and Transformers #66.

Mmm. Visual metaphor.

So I finished reading a comic called Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #15. It was the climax of an ongoing set of plot threads from the book, ending in a huge battle with a super-powerful Decepticon aboard an Autobot space ship.

More Than Meets The Eye is a great book -- especially if you're a hardcore Transformers fan.

So I was a little taken aback when I was reading the Allspark and found that reactions to the issue were far more mixed than is normal for MTMTE. So I went and read the issue again. The second time I started to notice a strange feeling; I'd read this story somewhere else.

So I read it again and it twigged. It's the Furman-ness. Simon Furman was a long-time writer on Transformers in the 1980s and a very big and obvious influence on MTMTE's writer James Roberts. But it was more than just stray scenes that were similar to the old days... it was... the whole issue.

More Than Meets the Eye #15 (Under Cold Blue Stars) was beat-for-beat a copy of Marvel's Generation 1 comic #66 (All Fall Down).

Big big spoilers follow guys, so if you haven't read these two comics yet do so, then come back here with them both in your lap and join me for a little journey of comparisons.

The First Ever Transformers Annual!

MTMTE Annual #1
cover by Tim Seeley.

Well I recently picked up IDW's  The Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye Annual 2012 and it struck me -- this is the first time Transformers has ever gotten an American-style annual! Sure, there's been a tonne of hardcover UK annuals over the years, but never an American-style 'big comic' annual.

So I was kinda excited for it.

The Annual is an oversized (40 page) book, which takes the bold move of actually having a significant plot revelation happen in it -- a part of the ongoing story from More Than Meets the Eye  is resolved here, which is really neat. It harkens back to the old 1960s Marvel comics annuals, which were just over-sized 13th issues for each year.

The unfortunate thing about it, though, is that it's really not very good.