This is it! A colossal “event” is happening in the Transformers comic world.  A mega crossover featuring the More Than Meets the Eye and Robots In Disguise comic worlds after being separate for a couple of years.  They all come together now and Dark Cybertron #1 is the opening shot. The first of roughly a comic every two weeks story run for the next several months.  Not sure how long this story has been in the making, but we find out in the “written” story that #1 began about six million years ago. Apparently Shockwave in his “mad scientist “ways has been working on an ongoing (and very long) experiment to resurrect Cybertron  and returning  it to a grand golden age glory.  Also, in the process, those Autobots and Decepticons would get wiped out as well. Pretty bold heh? About as bold as a six million year old plan should be.

The comic begins shortly after the “War for Cybertron” is over and an era of peace has begun.  The planet is now led by Starscream and we find out that he has banished Bumble Bee and the Autobots in “the wilderness” as well as the Decepticons (teach them all to mess with Starscream, ha!), Optimus  Prime, now Orion Pax is out  looking to find the rogue scientist Jhiaxus.  And Rodimus is leading a ship and crew (The Lost Light) in search of the mythical Knights of Cybertron. Everybody is everywhere, but they are all about to come together as events unfold to start things rolling.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed reading the comic. It was fun as I re-familiarized myself to characters that I have been watching on TV with my children the last couple of years.  I was amazed at how well things fit right back in to place and I must say the characters have held up well through the years.  Still, there is a whole lot going on in these twenty-four pages and unfortunately, twenty-four pages just isn’t enough time to establish everything that needs to be set up.  Still the common element seen by all is a mysterious sunrise that occurs and is witnessed by all which leads to a nice tie in, but I would have liked to have seen more dialogue between the many characters rather than a line here or there.

Artistically, I loved it. The art had a retro feel to it and the coloring was nice. The panels flowed very quickly and though there was lots of zapping back and forth to several locations, the art stayed solid and consistent.  All characters were drawn well; thank you to all the folks who were responsible which were many.

The writing by John Barber and James Roberts was adequate.  I just wish they would have had a few more pages to flesh out the story some more. Still overall, I feel that this was a very good start to a colossal event. I have my interest peaked and am looking forward to following this crossover to completion.

Score: 3/5

Writers: John Barber and James Roberts Artists: Phil Jimenez (Layouts), Brendan Cahill (Prologue Art), and Andrew Griffith (Finished Art) Publisher: IDW Publishing Price : $3.99 Release Date: 11/06/13