Well, everyone who knows me has figured out that I already have the Transformers: The Ultimate Guide and to be honest, it's a mixed bag. Some of it is great, some is average, and some of it is either wrong or just messed up.
The writer is Simon Furman, who became known to fans for writing the UK TF G1 comic as well as taking over the later half of the main US TF G1 comic and the short TF G2 comic. He is famous (and infamous) for giving Transformers as more epic feel by retconning them from being naturally evolving machines to being the creations of Primus, the Lord of Light, in his fight against Unicron, the Chaos Bringer. And lately, a tendency emerged in the fandom to explain all the separate continuities as being alternate realities, and Furman further retconned in recent material that Primus and Unicron exist as single entities for the entire multiverse.
Unfortunately, the guide is mostly written from this point of view instead of from an impartial behind-the-scene viewpoint. This leads him to explain the contradictory origins of the G1 Dinobots in the old comics and the cartoon for example as some being myths and distortions of their true origin, which was the one he wrote in the recent Dreamwave comic (and now discontinued, being replaced by yet again a new universe written by Simon Furman for IDW, so using his work as the definite and true origin in-story wasn't a bright move since it will most likely be changed again soon).
This also led Furman to retcon certain elements yet again for the guide since it's basically "Transformers according to Simon Furman", some of which doesn't even match with his own work for Dreamwave (we're talking about little plot points, but for an 'Ultimate Guide', this is kind of inexcusable).
Anyway, here are my impressions of the guide:
The guide is divided in several sections corresponding to the various TF incarnations: G1, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Robots in Disguise, Armada and Energon.
G1 is of course the largest since it's the one with the most different incarnations. Furman tells us the fundamentals of the G1 universe as he's written it, which includes elements from every continuity as well as stuff he had in mind but never wrote, so it's difficult to see any of it as completely official. He then follows it with a giude to some of the toys as well as a basic overview of the cartoon and the old comics.
Mind you, being a big krypto-revisionist (meaning I take what I want from the official material and build my own universe) I love getting as much material as possible, but fans of official stuff who'd like every continuity to be shown in details separately to better differentiate them will be really disappointed. So that's just my disclaimer.
My personal highlights are the exclusive map of (one side of) Cybertron, and the cutaways for Unicron, Optimus Prime and Megatron's internal structures. Down points are the map of the Autobot ship the Ark (using the ugly, boxy and widly fluctuating design from the old comic instead of the sleek and consistent design from the cartoon) and new elements that I personally don't like (like explaining the Decepticons as being TF 'tainted' by Unicron, and thus being the result of demonic corruption instead of simply a result of free will and the desire to dominate others).
The other sections are more straigthfoward, being more a general presentation of the series, with a few episode synopsis and toys shown. I personally don't like that Furman tells us the official pre-BW forms for Optimus Primal and Megatron since neither were ever depicted anywhere. The Robot in Disguise section is also disappointing since the cartoon is not really mentionned (lack of space) and the Energon section at the end is mostly a preview since it was only beginning to come out when the guide was published.
In short, I don't regret buying it since it still gives a good idea of Transformers in general and provides me with new ideas for my own TF universe, but I think it falls quite short in terms of accuracy and objectivity for non-fans.
Okay, I've done enough ranting.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
