Transformers: More than meets the eye Trade 1

I never watched Transformers when I was growing up, in fact the first bit of transformers I was introduced to was when someone I knew borrowed me a VHS (Fuck I feel old) of the original animated film in which Hasbro had decided to kill off most of their toy line to make way for new toys and miniatures.

Since I started reading comics I never had a thought cross my mind that went along the lines of "I think I will read a Transformers trade paperback today" namely because I never really got the appeal that the series made to people, because I was always under the impression that the only reason why the TV series was made alongside the toys was because Hasbro wanted children's money and devised the TV series and toys so that children could play with them  and act out the scenes on the screen.

What I didn't realise was that at 21 years of age I would be so enamoured over a trade paperback, one concerning the trials and tribulations of the people of Cybertron, after the war which had devastated their world, without Optimus Prime and Megatron.

When I started reading this trade paperback, I was forced to by a friend of mine when I was staying on his sofa, whilst this is not the best way to start reading a comic book, I still found the comic book to be highly engaging, darkly witty and packed with information, plot and characterisation.

 From what I have concluded, having read the trade paperback cover to cover at least 5 times, is that I like the new creative direction that James Roberts, Nick Roche and Alex Milne have taken the Transformers universe in, namely because they gave the characters in this story more personality than they have ever had, even Ultra Magnus' lack of a personality actually works like a personality.

The death of Optimus Prime, which is at the start of this trade paperback, is also very intruiging, and shows us what the other people on Cybertron think of the Autobots and the Decepticons, namely in the way that means you get a lot of political intruige and backstabbing from other characters.

The artwork in this comic series is fantastic, in fact the artist gets so much personality out of
the characters, I actually think that there is more character and personality in the faces of robots than in some human characters.

I fully recommend this comic and feel that everyone should read this because of the fact that this comic series shows that any comic series can be revived by thinking about what makes the majority of people shy away from the product that you are trying to sell to them, in this case, a convaluted mess of back history that was cut away by ditching the 2 people that made it hard to get into.

Pros and Cons for this 

Pros
-Fantastic Storytelling
-Amazing artwork
-Interesting characters with inruiging personalities and flaws
-A good way for new fans to get into Transformers.
-The comic has lots of little details in the background that you may find after reading through it again.

Cons
 -Some characters look very similar making it difficult to differentiate.
- A couple of plot points are slightly fragile, but apart from that Grade A.

If you liked this then you might also like.
-Last stand of the Wreckers (Another James Roberts trade, he was co-writer on it.)
-Ex Machina (A good trade, has a lot of political intruige and has a number of characters with believability.)
-Captain Britian and MI13 (We only got 3 trades before it got cancelled *fist shake* but stellar, great cast, personality and belivable story arcs.)