The first arc of Robo Machines dealt with Stron-Domez' creation of transforming robots, his flight to Earth and the Security Forces' pursuit. It also introduces Charlie Brampton. With the smallish cast, there is space for a little characterisation (both Hans-Cuff and Night Ranger come off pretty well), even if the ending feels a little sudden. Tom Tully scripts throughout, while Mario Capaldi starts off as penciller. While otherwise not bad, Capaldi struggles as the number of Robo Machines rises, and his renderings generally look like the toys - bad enough at the best of times, but worse when we're talking about the '83 Gobots range, and it's something of a relief when Kim Raymond takes over from the seventh episode on.

The pages of Eagle are in 2000AD 'magazine' format, which is slightly wider than A4. The actual artwork isn't, but it's a bitch to line them up in a scanner nicely, and impossible to get them absolutely flat. The edges of the pages are too dark as a result, and every now and then the odd letter is missing from the edge of pages, though nothing becomes incomprehensible because of this... After scanning some pages five or six times, I just decided to work from the best take and move on, I'm afraid.