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G.I. Joe Versus The Transformers (Trade Paperback)

Creative Team: Josh Blaylock, Mike Miller
Publisher: Image

Reviewed by Rob Manuel

Let’s face it.  If you’re anyone like me, then you’re a struggling screenwriter in L.A., living in someone’s dining room, and you were born in the 80’s.  Maybe you don’t live in a world with yellow air and a chandelier over your bed, but more than likely, you lived in the 80’s.  Do you remember a time when people actually cared about Saturday Morning cartoons?  These celluloid masterpieces were sacred and existed long before Cartoon Network.  Nickelodeon only showed classics from Canada. At six o’clock in the morning, small wide-eyed children would rush downstairs to stare at thirty minutes of sugar-coated programming created to sell the new toy of the week.  I get a little misty just thinking about it.  Now you can relive all your geeky childhood dreams with G.I. Joe Versus The Transformers.
 
There’s a planet in a far away galaxy ruled by two warring robot factions, the Autobots and the Decepticons.  Two ships, one from each of the warring gangs, are sent into space, searching for the ultimate source of energy, energon. A meteor shower rocks the feuding ships and sends then plummeting onto an ancient Earth.  Members of each of the ships are sent into sleep mode until awakened… not by a volcano… but by a single man, Cobra Commander – the head of a global terror organization.  Using the transformers' ability to take the shape of any mechanical object, Cobra Commander, with the help of Doctor Mindbinder, reprograms the Autobots and Decepticons to transform into tanks, planes, and
other weapons. A group called G.I. Joe is assembled by the U.S. to counter the threat of Cobra.  They will face their toughest threat in the form of giant robots.
 
Like Alien Versus Predator or Freddy Versus Jason, fans of both series have been begging for these two forces to collide.  Very few ever imagined it would be against one another. They’re all there.  Favorites from both series can be seen, from Scarlet to Snake Eyes and Bumblebee to Starscreen.  You name the character, and you’ll probably see them in the new glossy pages of this comic. Blaylock captures everything you loved about the series as a child as well as everything you hate about the series as an adult.
 
Looking back at the shows now, it’s hard for me to imagine myself as a small hyperactive child sitting through any of it.  If I wouldn’t have gotten up from the slow pacing, I would have surely left as my brain screamed trying to wrap itself around the impossible plot holes.  Much like the marshmallow cereal of the 80’s, Blaylock gives the audience everything they want in a good story, but nothing that they need for a good story.  There are no real characters, decent plot, or story to speak of in this comic.  For example, Bumblebee and
Hotrod, each Autobots, must convince G.I. Joe that the other Autobots have been reprogrammed.  How did they escape?  Why are they cars when Cobra released them
before the Robot Wars?  The story brings up more big geeky questions than Stan Lee at a comic convention.  
 
If you love Transformers, rent the series that just came out on DVD.  If you love G.I. Joe, download the movie from some site.  If you want to waste your money, pick up this book.        

Rating: (1 out of 4 stars)