Transformers: The War Within

Generation 1 continuity family War Within Toyline Comics

Well, this about sums up the story!

The War Within is a six-part miniseries published by Dreamwave Productions in 2002, set in the main G1 Dreamwave continuity. It depicts the early days of the Autobot/Decepticon war and Optimus Prime's ascension to leader of the Autobots. The series was successful enough to lead to two sequels.^[1]

Overview

Eons ago on Cybertron, the Great War is in its early stages, with the vicious Megatron cutting a swath through the ranks of the Autobots. When the previous Prime is killed, the High Council chooses a common data entry bot to step up and become the new leader: Optimus Prime, but not everyone is happy with the new choice, as his initial command decision is to surrender Cybertron to the Decepticons. Meanwhile, Megatron works to activate planetary scale engines which could remake the face of Cybertron. He needs one thing to power them... and Optimus Prime has it.

The War Within was the first of any series to seriously re-imagine G1 characters as they might have appeared on Cybertron. Previously, pre-Earth Transformers were often just simplified versions of their Earthly selves, if they were redesigned at all.

Creative team

The series was written by long-time Transformers scribe Simon Furman, marking his return to mainstream Transformers comics. Pencils were by Don Figueroa, who also did the redesigns of dozens of Generation 1 characters for the series.

Items of note

• Though the individual comics from Dreamwave were titled Transformers: The War Within, the collected volume from IDW Publishing is titled Transformers: War Within, possibly for trademark reasons.
• Several of Figueroa's designs were later made into toys for the Titanium Series toy line, including Optimus Prime, Megatron, Grimlock, Prowl and Thundercracker. The Thundercracker design was recolored into Starscream, Skywarp—both of whom had slightly different designs in the series itself—and Sunstorm, who did not exist in the time period. Starscream's design was also adapted for Unicron Trilogy Starscream's Cybertron form. An unpainted prototype was developed for War Within Bumblebee with an alternate head for Cliffjumper, which will likely never see release.

Errors

• On the back cover of the trade paperback collection, "Transformers", in one place, is spelled "Transfrormers", including on the IDW reprint.
• Although perhaps not an overt error per se, Don Figueroa draws the orientation of Optimus Prime's L-shaped shoulder armor with considerable inconsistency throughout the series, rotating it 90° from a "sideways" to a "behind" position over and over again, differing even between pages of the same issues. Likely as a result of this inconsistency, merchandise based on Optimus' War Within design differ in their sculpted representations of this detail, with the Titanium figurine and Pallisades statue depicting the back-facing orientation, while the Titanium 6-inch figure favors the outwards-facing configuration (although on this toy alone these shoulder pieces can move, his transformation hinge prevents them from rotating all the way backwards).

Sequels

• War Within: The Dark Ages
• War Within: The Age of Wrath

Collections

• Transformers: The War Within TPB (July 30, 2003) ISBN 0973278609
• Transformers: War Within Pocket novel (July 14, 2004) ISBN 1897105010
• Transformers: War Within IDW reprint TPB (March 28, 2007) ISBN 1600100562
• Transformers: War Within Omnibus — IDW collection including The War Within: The Dark Ages. (March 1, 2009) ISBN 1600103731
• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection:Volume 29: The War Within: Jazz above a "retro" scene of Megatron holding the head of Emirate Xeon (from issue 2). Jazz art by Guido Guidi, Retro art by Don Figueroa (pencils) and Elaine To (inks). (February 22, 2017)

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  The War Within TPB

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  Pocket Edition

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  IDW reprint

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  War Within Omnibus

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  The Definitive G1 Collection:Volume 29: The War Within

International collections

Japan

Transformers: War Within Vol. 1 (トランスフォーマーウォー・ウィズィン)

• Publisher: JIVE Ltd.
• Published: March 15, 2004
• Translation: Hiroto Ishikawa, Katsuya Akitomo
• ISBN 4902314258
• ISBN 978-4902314250

Spain

Transformers: The War Within was translated and released in Spain by NORMA Editorial

Volume 1

• ISBN 978-84-9847-100-7

Volume 2

• ISBN 978-84-9847-933-1

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References