WARNING: There may or may not be spoilers in this article. It all depends on how long you have been reading Transformers Regeneration One because many of the incidents occur in past issues.
The Transformers have been around since I was a little kid. I remember how much cooler they were than the GoBots I had been playing with. GoBots were still cool, but Transformers… Megatron transformed into a gun! Nothing was cooler than that. The fascination with these “robots in disguise” has never waned for me, I have many of the original comic book series including the original limited series as well as many of the new toys. I even won an Optimus Prime that holds a Pepsi bottle from a contest that Pepsi had back when the first of the live action movies was released. How cool is that?
When I saw that there was a new Transformers comic, and a zero issue at that, to be reviewed this week, I jumped at the chance. I found right away that these were the characters I love, even if I had not been keeping up with this particular storyline. So a few minutes on the internet later, and I was ready to digest all the stuff happening in Transformers Regeneration One #0 this week.
This is the time/space jumping-est issue of any comic I have ever read. Cybertron, the home of the Transformers, is under assault by Bludgeon and Galvatron while Hot Rod, one of the Autobots, searches from some hope, some weapon to save the planet. Underground he is met by the spirit of Primus using the body of Grimlock to communicate. Hot Rod is then thrown into something called Zero Space by Primus. Hot Rod is literally catapulted from one end of time to another, witnessing things that were lost to all Cybertronians from the the beginning of time to seeing his own death in some alternate timeline at the end of time. All of these events happen in issues of Transformers Regeneration One.
There is so much stuff happening in this one issue that I felt as bombarded as Hot Rod was with new and amazing information. There are four different scenarios that Hot Rod witnesses, each one showing some vital piece of information, as veiled as it may be. The first is the Deathbringer and results of that battles as Optimus Prime convinced it to kill itself. Next is the revelation that a before unremembered Transformer named Jhiaxus secretly stole the blueprints of life itself from a group of four other Transformers and then erased himself from everyone’s memory. The third thing that Hot Rod views is the death of Buster Witwicky. And finally, Hot Rod witnesses a battle between another version of himself imbued with the power of the Matrix, Rodimus Prime, beating the everliving out of Galvatron. As Rodimus decides to take the high road and only “arrest” Galvatron, he is destroyed by two other Decepticons and the matrix falls at the feet of our time/space traveling hero, Hot Rod. The hope… the weapon he was looking for. There at his feet. And he becomes Rodimus Prime.
This is a great book and really sets up the coming storyline. I am interested enough to look forward to issue #95. Check it out.
