TFtember: Transformers#1

 "The Transformers" the Transformers#1 (September 1984) with credits to Bill Mantlo (plot), Ralph Macchio (script), Frank Springer (pencils), Kim DeMulder (inks), Nelson Yomtov (colors), Michael Higgins and Rick Parker (letters), and Bob Budiansky (editor)

So, the first issue of the first Transformers comics. 

Here is the explanation of the entire franchise. On the planet Cybertron, a war breaks out between Autobots and Decepticons. The war rages for centuries, even knocking the planet out of orbit. While it careens through the cosmos, it is learned that the planet is going to crash into an asteroid belt. Not wanting to lose their world, a group of Autobots are picked to blow up the space rocks. 

The team leader, Optimus Prime, leads his team to victory, but the Deceptions choose that moment to attack. Locked in a death struggle, Prime crashes the ship into a remote planet, third from the sun. 

Four million years later, a volcano erupts and wakes up the slumbering robots. Mistaking passing cars and planes as the dominant lifeforms, the ship's computer gives the robots alternative forms based on passing vehicles. 

On a scouting mission, the Autobots bump into Buster Witwicky. Buster's cooling his heels at the drive-in, after having a small row with his dad Sparkplug, who wants the younger man to get his head out of his books and learn a trade. 

During this meeting however, the Deceptions attack and the Autobots learn that the cars are not alive, but the humans inside are and would like to continue being so, thank you. An Autobot scout, Bumblebee, is separated from his comrades and found by Buster. Buster takes the car back to the family garage and frantically starts working. Sparkplug comes down due to the noise. He's ecstatic to see his son so interested in the family business but that gives way to horror when the car pleads for help as he's dying...

So, this would be the first appearance of so many characters and setting up the entire franchise. The art is bit rough, with many character's models clearly not finalized yet. Funny aside, this was intended to be a four issue miniseries. Odd to think how think could have gone if they kept to the original idea.