I picked up the first issue of Transformers / GI Joe largely out of curiosity. 

This is the second in a series of inter-franchise crossovers; Image have already published their leg, GI Joe / Transformers, which was a straight crossover and frankly didn't sound particularly interesting.  DreamWave's version is altogether more bizarre, as John Ney Reiber and Jae Lee reposition both sets of characters into World War II.

As Reiber puts it in his foreword, "This story is our attempt to reach back and drag a few old friends from the strange and simple world we once shared with them into the strange and complex world we live and dream in today."  In theory this is all well and good, because the core audience for these books is presumably adults who adored the toys when they were kids.  In practice, especially when coupled with a promise that the characters haven't been changed, it screams of potential to backfire.

It perhaps doesn't help matters that Hasbro were not prepared to have the story take place in World War II, as the creators originally wanted.  Actual references to the Allies and the Axis are off the cards.  The solution which is taken to sidestep this problem is to start the series in the winter of 1938, and have the Decepticons and Cobra launch a pre-emptive strike on Europe which derails history before World War II ever came along.  So it's not really World War II; it's a World War II-like period.

But is it any good?  Well, no, it doesn't really work.  The problem is that unless you're prepared to overhaul the characters quite drastically, they're really not up to being positioned as dark and complex.  They just won't bear the weight.  The promotional art looks great, as you'd expect from Jae Lee, but really, when it comes to telling a story with these characters, it doesn't fit.  If you're going to do something as fundamentally ludicrous as a Transformers and GI Joe crossover in 2003, it's probably easier to embrace that and run with it, rather than try to take it seriously.  Not unlike Reiber's initial run on Captain America, this book seems to take itself seriously, and does so to an extent altogether disproportionate to the weight of its contents.  What exactly is "complex" about this story?

Purely from the art perspective, it does have its moments.   Characters like Snake Eyes and Ravage fit Lee's sinewy art well.  Still, it can't quite get past the fundamental problem - this book wants to be taken seriously, but it's Transformers / GI Joe.  The concepts just don't want to play that way.

Rating: B+

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