THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE DELUXE EDITION Review: Forty Years Later and This Bad Boy Still Runs on Pure Energon

WEEEPAAAAA! Yo, Crusaders, now THIS is the kind of anniversary book that knows exactly why we showed up. The Transformers: The Movie Deluxe Edition brings together both comic adaptations of the legendary animated film, collecting The Transformers: The Movie #1-3 and The Transformers: The Animated Movie #1-4 in one big hardcover blast of Energon-fueled nostalgia. The original adaptation comes from writer Ralph Macchio, with Don Perlin on pencil breakdowns, Ian Akin and Brian Garvey on finishes, Nel Yomtov on colors, Janice Chiang lettering, and Bob Budiansky serving as the original series editor. The later adaptation flips the ignition with Budiansky writing, Don Figueroa on art, Josh Burcham coloring, Robbie Robbins and Neil Uyetake lettering, plus additional color assists from Tim Barnett, Rob Ruffolo, Robby Musso, Matt Moylan, Evan Gauntt and Mark Bristow. Sean Mackiewicz handles collection editing and Andres Juarez the collection design. Translation? This hardcover has a whole damn Cybertronian pit crew behind it.

Story-wise, you already know the road, but reading it in comic form still gives the journey a different kick. Optimus Prime and Megatron are headed toward their brutal final showdown while the war between Autobots and Decepticons explodes into something much bigger, stranger and more dangerous than another Saturday morning skirmish. Hot Rod gets dragged into a destiny he is nowhere near ready for, Ultra Magnus gets handed leadership while everything is on fire, Galvatron comes rolling in with the stability of a shopping cart missing three wheels, and Unicron shows up like the universe’s worst landlord, ready to eat the whole neighborhood. The first adaptation moves FAST, like somebody dumped nitrous into a 1986 Camaro and forgot to install brakes. Scenes stack one on top of another, captions hustle, dialogue pushes the action forward, and the book wastes zero time getting from one major moment to the next. Modern readers may need a few pages to adjust to how packed these older comics are, but once that engine warms up, the ride is pure vintage Transformers mayhem. The later adaptation lets the same story breathe more, giving the characters and action extra runway without losing the urgency that made the movie hit so hard in the first place.

The heart of the book is still Optimus Prime, and man, that material continues to punch way above its weight. The Prime and Megatron conflict lands because neither adaptation treats it like just another action scene. These two have history. They have hate. They have been trying to break each other for what feels like forever, and when things finally go sideways, the consequences matter. That’s where The Transformers: The Movie always separated itself from the safer adventures that came before it. Characters don’t simply get knocked down and return after the commercial break. Leadership changes. Friends are lost. The war suddenly feels expensive. Hot Rod becomes the emotional wild card because he’s impulsive, young, reckless and trying desperately to figure out where he fits while everything around him is collapsing. I actually like him more reading the story this way because the comics make his uncertainty feel less like plot machinery and more like a kid getting tossed the keys to a truck doing ninety on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Good luck, papi.

Visually, this collection is where the fun really kicks into another gear because the two adaptations feel like different eras parked side by side in the same garage. Don Perlin’s work, finished by Ian Akin and Brian Garvey, carries that old-school Marvel Transformers weight. The robots feel chunky, heavy, mechanical and a little rough around the edges in exactly the right way. Nel Yomtov’s colors blast across the pages with loud purples, reds, yellows and deep cosmic blacks that scream 1980s comic shop rack, while Janice Chiang keeps an impressive amount of dialogue, narration and sound effects under control. Then Don Figueroa rolls in and the whole book suddenly gets wider, sleeker and more cinematic. His Transformers have more mechanical detail, stronger scale and bigger physical presence, and Josh Burcham’s colors light those pages up with glowing Energon, hot explosions, deeper shadows and space sequences that feel genuinely enormous. Unicron especially benefits from the later visual approach. That dude doesn’t just look big. He looks like the universe made a bad decision and forgot to put an emergency brake on it.

The coolest part of the Deluxe Edition is that neither adaptation makes the other pointless. The old-school version is dense, direct and all about getting as much story onto the page as humanly possible. The later one trusts the artwork more, opens up the panels and lets action, expression and scale do heavier lifting. Reading them together feels like comparing a classic muscle car to a modern performance rebuild. One rattles, growls and kicks you in the seat when you hit the gas. The other handles tighter, brakes cleaner and gives you more control at high speed. Same road. Different machine. There are moments where the original version feels cramped, and there are spots where the newer version smooths out some of the weird, scrappy flavor I love about the vintage pages, but those differences are exactly what make this collection worth owning. You’re not just rereading the same movie twice. You’re seeing two comic generations race each other through the same story.

So yeah, Crusaders, if The Transformers: The Movie lives somewhere in your childhood circuitry, this hardcover is an easy recommendation. If you’re newer to the franchise, it’s also a great way to see why this movie left such a crater in Transformers fandom. The story is still huge, weird, emotional and fearless. The artwork across both versions gives you two distinctly different flavors of Cybertronian chaos, and the collection works because it celebrates the past without pretending there was only one way to tell this story. Forty years later, Optimus still commands the room, Megatron is still a menace, Hot Rod is still trying to prove himself, Galvatron is still completely off his rocker, and Unicron is still out here treating planets like appetizers.

CRUSADERS SCORE:
4/5

THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE

Writer: Ralph Macchio
Pencil Breakdowns: Don Perlin
Finishes: Ian Akin & Brian Garvey
Colorist: Nel Yomtov
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Original Series Editor: Bob Budiansky

THE TRANSFORMERS: THE ANIMATED MOVIE

Writer: Bob Budiansky
Artist: Don Figueroa
Colorist: Josh Burcham
Color Assists: Tim Barnett, Rob Ruffolo, Robby Musso, Matt Moylan, Evan Gauntt & Mark Bristow
Letterers: Robbie Robbins & Neil Uyetake
Original Series Editor: Chris Ryall

DELUXE EDITION COLLECTION

Collection Covers: Sean Murphy & Simon Gough, Don Figueroa & Josh Burcham
Collection Editor: Sean Mackiewicz
Collection Design: Andres Juarez
Publisher: Image Comics / Skybound Entertainment
ISBN: 978-1-5343-3381-9
Rating: Teen
Price: $34.99 USD