Ponderous. Completely and utterly ponderous. I can’t understand why someone would be given the responsibilities of writing a book that would be so simple to make fun and interesting and turn it into something that’s more boring than a Wikipedia entry on raising fucking corn.

Here’s what I expect out of a Transformers book-- do something cool with the notion that you have characters that can be cool vehicles and cool robots. Have a battle. Write a neat twist. Here’s what I got from T:TDOOP: a slow and plodding wreck that’s all verbal detritus and of the most inconsequential nature. It’s like the board members of the toy company in the movie Big who wanted to make transforming robot toys out of buildings and other things that do nothing. That’s what this story does--nothing.

Optimus Prime wanders Cybertron dealing with returning life forms that are angry the Autobots and Deceptiocons fought and wrecked the planet.

I think IDW demanded that every panel have no less than two dialogue boxes each. That means tons of wordy, boring dialogue. The Decepticons are all locked up with transformation inhibiting chips sucking the cool out of them and the comic.

I think the people who write this book have never read Greek Mythology, science fiction, or other comic books because they know nothing of balancing a story with information AND action. I think they must be technical writers who draft Ikea furniture instructions or textbooks on ancient Russian woodworking.

There's a comic buried beneath all that dialogue.

The story concludes with a split among the factions that sees Rodimus and Ultra Magnus leaving to find the Knights of Cybertron and starting their own book, Transformers; More Than Meets the Eye.It also ends with me not wanting to read another Transformer comic book. And I'm a die-hard Transfan.

Score: 0/5

Writer: James Roberts and John Barber Artist: Nick Roche Colors: Josh Burcham Letters: Shawn Lee Publisher: IDW Publishing Price: $3.99