3 out of 5

I’m actually inclined to rate this higher because I enjoyed reading it, but let me keep a level head about it, since it’s essentially an exposition dump, albeit well-handled.

I still don’t have the clearest sense on the timeline for how the Transformers comics came together – from their origins up through pre-movie years and now well beyond – and how continuity has worked along the way, but it seems that John Barber got some attention for trying to shore things up a bit; a little of the old, a little of the new, forging ahead in a straight(er) line.   As a still new reader of the TFormers universe, I’d say I experience the benefits of that when I read a collection like this and can walk away feeling like I understand a kernel of the larger story.

Billed as a movie prequel (haven’t seen the movies; can’t say how it slot in), Formation works well enough as a standalone origin tale as well, covering events that led to the Transformers’ creation, and their split into Autobots and Decepticons, via alternating narrations from good guy Optimus and bad guy Megatron.  The current war that rages as our story opens is explained through flashbacks which further cover some Cybertronian lore, and that the hostilities occurred and still occur over questioning the legitimacy of that lore is a nice way to frame some of the silliness of sentient robots and render it readable without having to be a Transformers fan.  In other words, just enough cynicism is built into the narrative that Barber doesn’t have to over-justify things, also giving him a bit of melodramatic liberty which serves the Optimis / Megatron brother vs. brother machinations well.  In other other words: Cake and eat it too.

Art-wise, Andrew Griffith does an excellent job of fitting in all the bits and bobs Bay-izing of these characters while also imbuing them with individual personalities and distinct looks that make the panels easily readable and the action clear.  Having seen a few TFormers artist now, this is a pretty tough job (minimal expressions, gigantic, blocky characters), and maybe Griffith has an easier time of it as this tale doesn’t call for any humans – thus no scaling is necessary – but it’s still a tall order bringing life to square-edged robots and I was happy to not have to pause at any given point to figure out what was what.  The inking was a little odd at points, with a very thick, cartoonish line, particularly toward the end, but the pacing and overall style remained consistent.

So I actually would say that this is a good starting point, but no amount of well-tempered writing is going to convince those without some interest to give this book a shot.  ‘Formation’ essentially boils down to an info-dump of TFormers history, bounced between two points of view, and it can fall a little too squarely into good guy optimism / bad guy plotting tropes, but Barber had a good sense for just how cheeky / lore-y to get without chasing away the uninitiated.