Been a while since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it? Today’s been declared a 40th anniversary celebration of the entire Transformers franchise, and it’s gotten me thinking about my engagement with it—particularly in the realm of comics, a medium that means quite a lot to me.

If there’s any one piece of Transformers media that I would readily and eagerly recommend to prospective newcomers, it would be Daniel Warren Johnson’s new Transformers comic series published by Skybound. A comic so good that it’s a victim of its own reputation—I’d highly recommend you go in blind, but selling new readers on it often necessitates spoiling a few of the many impactful reveals it has in store.

I found Daniel Warren Johnson through his Beta Ray Bill series for Marvel, and instantly became one of the creators whose work I’ll always go out of my way to read. Any time he puts something out, it’ll be on my radar to read at least once. It helps that he often writes and illustrates for his books, making his output uniquely his own. His love for comics is clear in all his work, with energetic and impactful action that makes every impact feel earth-shaking, and emotional intimacy that can make me laugh, cry, and get choked up at the drop of a hat. All this comes together in his work on Transformers in ways I never would’ve imagined possible for the IP. The reveal of Optimus with the arm (and arm-mounted cannon) of Megatron has rightfully become one of the most iconic images in the entire franchise yet. I can’t remember the last time I was so excited for a Transformers anything; comic, show, whatever—but I’ve been totally swept up and cannot recommend this new series enough. Whether or not you like Transformers, I would implore that you read the series purely on its strength as a comic.

Speaking as broadly as I can (and in my own opinion), Transformers comics had it rough for a long time—I’ve touched on this sort of thing before, but for the longest time, they were being published by IDW and reached a point where they were almost exclusively characters standing in a room and talking. It was impressive and compelling every once in a while to see the characters talking, snarking, and philosophizing on levels never seen before, but just because you’re able to do something particularly well doesn’t mean that you should do it exclusively; it’ll wear thin and your audience will grow tired of it quickly. It doesn’t help that the cast began to feel less like characters with depth and more like laundry lists of quirks and personality flaws who were only interested in standing around and getting into repetitive conversations.

Is it entitled to ask for something clearly trying to break out of a mold to return to said mold? On some level, it has to be. Writers of the IDW writers were clearly trying to bring Transformers to another level in terms of storytelling—beats like ‘why would a species that is capable of waging war for millions of years not be capable of love on an equal magnitude’ and ‘what does it mean for an irredeemable megalomaniacal war criminal to try and renounce his ways’ did indeed make for compelling stories. But at some point, I realized how much fluff there was in between those impactful storytelling moments. Combine that with a marked lack of action—which, again, is perhaps bit entitled to complain about in a version of the IP clearly trying to be more intellectual… but at the same time, it’s Transformers, and there were stories by these very same creators at IDW that managed to balance out all the talking with incredible action (the spectacular Wreckers saga by Nick Roche and James Roberts comes to mind). It’s why Daniel Warren Johnson’s work on the franchise has awed me so much—it feels like his series accomplished more in terms of advancing what Transformers is capable of as a franchise in six issues than most comics can in sixty. How wonderfully fitting is it to use Transformers to explore the theme of change?

I sought to pay homage to both the old and the new with this piece, with the iconic frame of Optimus leaping into battle from the 1986 movie combined with the image of Skybound Optimus with Megatron’s arm. A real special anniversary, an eye on the past while stepping into the future. I hope that at least some of my enthusiasm for the franchise came across uncompromised—I know that I can be quite picky and have my own high standards get in the way of my attempts at recommendation. For all my grievances, the IDW comics laid the groundwork for what Skybound is doing now, and it’s not like they set out with the intent to do Transformers ‘wrong’ or anything—the IDW comics hold some of the same passion for the IP and the desire to do more with it that there is in this newest one.

Thank you for reading, for listening, for all that you’ve done and continue to do. I cannot thank you enough for it.