Transformers: Generation One (Dreamwave)

Transformers: Generation 1 (Volume 1)
Prime Directive, issue #1, drawn by Pat Lee
Publication information
Publisher	Dreamwave Productions
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Miniseries
Publication date	April – September 2002
No. of issues	6
Main character(s)	Autobots, Decepticons
Creative team
Created by	Hasbro
Written by	Chris Sarracini
Artist(s)	Pat Lee
Penciller(s)	Pat Lee, Edwin Garcia
Inker(s)	Rob Armstrong, Erik Sander, Ferdinand Poblete
Colorist(s)	TheRealT!, Ramil Sunga, Gary Yeung, Alan Wang, Talent Pun, Shaun Curtis, Rob Ruffolo, Stuart Ng, Angelo Tsang, Juan Malera, Matt Cossin, Pat Lee

Transformers: Generation One was a Dreamwave Productions comic book series, consisting of two 6-issue limited series and an ongoing title. Within the same continuity were 3 other Dreamwave series: a series of character profiles entitled Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, a prequel miniseries entitled, Transformers: Micromasters and another prequel ongoing miniseries called Transformers: The War Within. In addition, a single story was part of the Transformers Summer Special. All ongoing series were cancelled in 2005 due to Dreamwave's bankruptcy, leaving their plotlines unresolved.

The 'Generation One' term has also come to be associated with the wider Transformers universes based on the original Transformers animated series and Marvel comics.

The Prime Directive miniseries takes place after the Autobots had attempted to leave earth for a second time in a space ship called the Ark II, along with the defeated Decepticons. The Ark II was sabotaged, exploding in the upper atmosphere and sending all the Transformers falling back to Earth, deactivated. The story concerns the reactivation of the Transformers by a scheming entrepreneur and the results when things don't go as planned.

The story begins several years after the destruction of the second Ark. The military, led by General Hallo, recruit an unwilling Spike Witwicky to help them face a new menace - as satellite pictures show a reactivated Megatron destroying a South American rebel camp. Most of the Transformers lost in the Ark disaster have now been recovered by Lazarus, a former US Army officer who has developed a way to control the Transformers, and is now selling them as war machines to the highest bidder, using them to slaughter a group of oil workers as a demonstration. Using a small fragment of the Matrix of Leadership, given to him by Optimus Prime Spike is able to reactivate the one Transformer recovered by the military - Prime himself. Prime is reactivated, but Spike is angry and bitter towards him for his father's death because of their involvement in the war.