Issue Title: 

And There Shall Come... A Leader!

Artist:

John Stokes

Synopsis:  

Emirate Xaaron convinced the Autobot High Council, headed by Traachon, to step down and give leadership of the Autobots to a soldier, instead of a politician. That soldier was Optimus Prime. Once made leader, Prime proceeded to whup some Decepticon butt.

Rant:  

This issue could easily be called 'The Origin of Optimus Prime'. The story isn't that spectacular, but it is relatively important to UK continuity.

There aren't that many stand-out individual generic Transformers in this strip, however there are a lot of large battle scenes, filled with generics of all kinds, which are presented here. The most interesting thing about this issue is the conscious choice by the artist to try and match the 'style' developed by Frank Springer for Transformers issue #1.

Take a look at this generic guy on this page, the madman who's just sorta shooting at the sky. Then take a look at the big red guy from this picture from Transformers US (and UK) issue #1. Notice any similarity? That's right, ignoring the colours, this is the exact same robot! There is a beautiful visual link between this story and issue 1, making it, without a  doubt, one of my favourite UK stories.

There are some great little 'generic finds' in this story, quite aside from the guys clearly copied directly from the US comics. There are faux Megatrons, Autobots 'dressed' as Decepticons, and even an Autobot who looks like Huffer but is coloured something like Pipes. This issue is probably the closet thing you're gunna get to a Frank Springer issue coloured in the UK style. Nice.

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