Transformers Generation One Dreamwave Comics

Fandom
Name:	Generation One Dreamwave comics
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Dreamwave Productions
Date(s):	April 3, 2002 - January 4, 2005
Medium:	Comic books
Country of Origin:	United States, Canada
External Links:	Dreamwave Productions on TFWiki
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The Generation One Dreamwave comics were part of the Transformers franchise, within the Generation One sub-franchise. While many fans enjoyed them, all of them ended unexpectedly when Dreamwave collapsed.

Fandom

When the series came out, many fans enjoyed the art, which was described as "manga-like" despite not bearing much resemblance to actual manga. It was drawn by Pat Lee, the president of the company, or other artists intentionally imitating him so as to give the impression that he was drawing everything. Other fans, however, didn't like the decompressed storytelling, which meant it took a long time for the plot to go anywhere, and felt that the art, while pretty, was bad at telling a story. Despite this, the first miniseries, Prime Directive, managed to beat Marvel and DC's comics on the sales charts for most of its run. Prime Directive #4 produced one of the most famous examples of "dull surprise", an unfortunate flaw of Pat Lee's art style, where most emotional reactions are drastically toned down and virtually indistinguishable from each other. The sequel miniseries, War and Peace, addressed many of Prime Directive's flaws, and did almost as well in sales. The ongoing series that followed both of them, The Transformers: Generation One, began many ongoing plot threads but unfortunately was unable to finish any of them due to Dreamwave's bankruptcy. While many fans enjoyed the Dreamwave series, many others did not. Unfortunately, fairly little information is available about the fan reactions to it when it came out, because it came out before many of today's fan forums and websites were started.

Very few fanworks exist for the series now - AO3 has 38 fics, and fanfiction.net lumps all Generation One stories into the same world filter. Fanart of it is largely indistinguishable from any other Generation One fanart, and any fics that were written back when it first came out are likely posted on fandom-specific archives or lost in the depths of fanfiction.net. Based on the AO3 fics, the most popular pairing by a long shot is Jetfire/Starscream, making this one of very few universes where Jetfire is commonly referred to by that name in fanworks.

Continuity

The Dreamwave continuity pulled from many sources, including obscure bits of the original cartoon. It is irreconcilable with any other Generation One series, as with most other continuities, but is meant to fit the loose mythology of the Generation One franchise. It is generally ignored by modern writers, as there's very little to take from it that couldn't be borrowed from a different series.