Transformers Comic Book News

Retrospective Reviews - Transformers Spotlight: Orion Pax

Date: Sunday, April 28th 2013 3:36pm EDT
Categories: Comic Book News, Reviews
Posted by: Va'al | Credit(s): IDW Publishing, Va'al

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With this week's Spotlight: Hoist release, the Spotlight series seems to have concluded as far as we know. So we decided to go back and make sure all the issues have been reviewed! Read the Megatron and Trailcutter ones, and come back later this week for Thundercracker and Bumblebee.

And now, starting from the beginning – Spotlight: Orion Pax!

Synopsis

BEFORE OPTIMUS PRIME—there was Orion Pax! Four million years ago, the future leader of the AUTOBOTS disappeared into the Cybertronian wilderness to save a friend. What happened next would take him to the very brink—and have startling repercussions on the current comics!





Story

This story takes place before the events of Autocracy. This story is written by James Roberts. This story is about Orion Pax trying out a new body before being upgraded to the Matrix-holding one. This story starts with Orion Pax tied to a shuttle. This story is actually quite cool.



We are reintroduced to Zeta (sorry, Zeta Prime), Rung shows up for the first time before the war, and there a bunch of other interesting cameos scattered around the issue. Roberts writes in some interesting action, and fairly nice twist, and we get to look at



While Orion Pax definitely gets some character development, including some referential jokes to his ordinary look in the franchise, the other big element of this one-shot is undoubtedly Alpha Trion, with his know-it-all-been-there-done-that attitude. And there's the hint at Metroplex and the Metrotitan plot from the Annuals, almost shoehorned in.



The story sets up nicely the rest of this iteration of the Spotlight series, and is a nice one-off featuring Orion Pax and some of the major players later in the war. But it does feel as if something is missing. Roberts' Alpha Trion almost makes up for it though.

Art

Steve Kurth is on pencils, Juan Castro on inks, and they do a fairly decent job of portraying a younger Cybertronian environment and cast. Zeta has just upgraded to his Autocracy body, we're introduced to a couple of old friends, and Alpha Trion is the big name here, and boy does he look good.



J. Aburtov and Graphikslava provide the colours to the issue, and I have to say, I like them! They're quite lightly saturated, and give a somewhat dusty feel to the whole story – which works really well in the desert scenes and the arena, and also fits nicely in this pre-pre-prequel one-shot. Lighting is handled really well too, and Shawne Lee does some nice work in the soundword department, especially with aerial scenes.



There are a couple of issues with some of the action scenes, but they can be overlooked quite easily, as at least we can tell what is going on. The colours are nice, and Orion does look weird without the face-plate... but then, that's the whole point.


Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

It's a fairly decent issue, with some good Roberts humour, some nice characterisation for Orion Pax, and it helps set up the coming issues and the plotline running through them. The action scenes are nice, and the events are well tied in with pre-existing continuity.



The only problems this encounters is that the main plot is not the actual plot, but the conswequences of the twist feel a bit forced at times. All in all, though, a decent return to the Spotlight series, and a nice move to focus on Orion Pax after The Death of Optimus Prime. Next, please.

Retrospective Reviews - Transformers: Regeneration One #87

Date: Sunday, April 28th 2013 5:26am EDT
Categories: Comic Book News, Reviews
Posted by: Va'al | Credit(s): IDW Publishing, Va'al

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With volume two of ReGeneration One coming out this Wednesday, we decided to go back and make sure all the issues contained in the trade have been reviewed! Read all the already written ones: ReGeneration One #86, ReGeneration One #88, ReGeneration One #89 and ReGeneration One #90. And now, for the missing one: ReGeneration One #87.

Synopsis
WAR CRY! The conquest of IACON begins in earnest, as SCORPONOK’s game-changing strategy threatens the very nature of what it means to be AUTOBOT... Or DECEPTICON! And HOT ROD begins his own personal odyssey to the very heart of CYBERTRON—where ancient forces are stirring!




Story

So Grimlock has accepted Scorponok's offer, and is on his way to Cybertron. After a demonstration of what the Gene Key can do, at least. He's back in his old body, happy as larry, bashing and gnashing, and he has a plan to carry out.



Meanwhile, Optimus decides that he'd rather stay on Earth and think things through, thank you very much. I suppose this could have been a worse decision, but it does seem to slow down things a lot. Every other character on the planet(s) keeps asking 'what would Optimus do?' - apparently, nothing. Just go for a stroll. Good to know.



And of course, Hot Rod tried keeping everything under control back at home. Even though Grimlock is a bit of a trouble-maker, Scorponok's vanguard has arrived, and there's definitely something going on in the basement.



The idea of Scorponok changing the moral compass of all Cybertronians is intriguing, but the execution is a bit puzzling. What exactly does the Gene Key do, and why does it even work? If morality is not a black-and-white thing, as they explicitly said in these issues, surely the result would not be this one? Or would it?


Art

Again, it's Wildman and Baskerville on pencils and inks, respectively, and there's quite a wide cast this time round. Some have complained about the three headmasters not looking like their usual selves, or at least previous incarnations, but they do resemble their toys in this form. The usual concerns about expressions do arise, but there's something particularly off with Perceptor.



Bove really shines in this issue though, especially when the skies are concerned. Something I didn't notice on the first read: the Cybertronian sky progresses through this story arc, from a very very dark night to something else for its conclusion, following the pacing of the events. A nice touch, JP.



The artwork seems to work a lot better in this issue! Yes it's Andrew 'Screaming Robots' Wildman, but the human facial expressions have more of a variety this time, and really help convey what is going on in the story. And I like screaming robots, anyway.


Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

The issue is enjoyable actually, and it does a lot more than the previous one. There are some concerns both in terms of plot devices and artwork, such as the exact functioning of the Gene Key and Perceptor. Poor poor Perceptor. But overall, the story works.



There are some extra bits I haven't mentioned in the review, about some other characters still on Earth, of whom Starscream is one and the others are ..well, I'll leave it to you to find out. Overall, not a bad issue, a good read, still fairly slow but appropriately so this time. Let's see what Scorponok has in mind for next month, shall we?

Transformers Spotlight: Hoist Preview

Date: Friday, April 26th 2013 2:07pm EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Va'al | Credit(s): IDW Publishing

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Thanks to our friends over at IDW Publishing, we have a seven-page preview for Transformers Spotlight: Hoist. Digital and print issues will be available next Wednesday, our review will be posted on Tuesday. Make sure to pick one up!

Transformers Spotlight: Hoist
James Roberts (w) • Agustin Padilla (a) • Padilla, Livio Ramondelli (c)
FACE OFF! HOIST has always managed to fade into the background: until now. Trapped on an alien planet with a narcissist, half a scientist and a creature that may or may not turn into a catapult, the Lost Light's mild-mannered maintenance engineer must confront the five most dangerous DECEPTICONS ever.

FC • 32 pages • $3.99


Variant Covers:
Clayton Crain variant cover!

Bullet points:
Straight out of the pages of MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!
The writer of MTMTE and the artist of TRANSFORMERS PRIME: RAGE OF THE DINOBOTS—together!

Sneak Peek - Transformers: Beast Hunters #1

Date: Friday, April 26th 2013 1:07pm EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Va'al | Credit(s): IDW Publishing, Mairghread Scott

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The IDW Publishing Tumblr and co-writer Mairghread Scott have posted another three teasers for the upcoming IDW Transformers: Beast Hunters mini-series, including one featuring a mystery character. Check them out below!

Transformers: Monstrosity #5 Now Available for Download

Date: Thursday, April 25th 2013 12:24am EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: El Duque | Credit(s): Comixology

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The next chapter in IDW's digital format comic series Transformers: Monstrosity is now available for download from Comixology. Click here to download issue #5 for $0.99.

TRANSFORMERS: MONSTROSITY #5—the digital-first comic book from IDW Publishing and Hasbro—is ready for download! In the early days of the Autobot/Decepticon war, fledgling leader Optimus Prime has just been handed his greatest defeat… and it’s the beginning of the end for Cybertron. Chris Metzen, Flint Dille, and Livio Ramondeli bring the pain in this 8-page, 99¢ comic—available now at https://transformers.comixology.com/ or via the Comixology and iBooks apps on your computer or mobile device!

Creator Commentary with James Roberts: Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye Ongoing #16

Date: Wednesday, April 24th 2013 7:39pm EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: El Duque | Credit(s): Transformers facebook page

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As always the official Transformers facebook page has posted their Creator Commentary for this week's new Transformers comic release, Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #16. Series writer James Roberts gives us his thoughts on the first five pages, which we've mirrored below for those without facebook access.

Click here to read the Seibertron.com review of this issue and join the ongoing discussion.

PAGE 1: Kicking off with a very large fight in the Battle for Hell’s Point. This is a battle that has been mentioned a few times during other issues of TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. Why start here for this issue?

JAMES ROBERTS: I’m a fan of Stephen Moffat’s Doctor Who (I’m a bigger fan of Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who, but that’s another story), and I remember being thrilled at the openings to two of his grand finale-type episodes, “The Pandorica Opens” and “When A Good Man Goes To War.” In both cases you get this frenetic pre-credit sequence that tears through about a dozen mini-scenes, all of them in different times and different places, all of them vaguely (but not obviously) connected, and it really felt EPIC.

“The Gloaming” (issue 16’s story) is essentially the prologue to “Remain In Light,” and with the four Magnus-centric mini-scenes, hopping across time and space, I wanted to emulate that vertiginous rush of those Doctor Who episodes. Also, Moffat has talked about “The Pandorica Opens” being a sequel to every episode in Series 5 of Doctor Who, and I’ve always intended for “Remain in Light” to have a similar feel–lots of threads from the last 16 issues finally being tied together.

Also, all of the battles that we witness in this “teaser” are already embedded in MTMTE/LAST STAND OF THE WRECKERS lore: Hell’s Point, Simanzi and the fight for the Nightmare Engine. To date, they’ve all been referenced in passing but we haven’t actually seen them. Until now.

Finally, issue #16 is quite a contemplative, emotional issue, so I wanted to kick things off with some action. Don’t get me wrong, there are some big, big character beats and plot developments in the rest of the issue, but for those who like proper TF battle scenes–and who doesn’t–then there they are up front.

PAGE 2: We learn that Hell’s Point is a ship, and Ultra Magnus wasn’t always the character that he’s been shown to be during MTMTE. Here, he’s just a warrior like his fellow Autobots. Is this a part of his history that you’ve been wanting to show for a while? Was writing the scenes more fun than a Magnus scene on the Lost Light?

JAMES ROBERTS: I’ve treated Magnus in a very particular way since issue #1, playing up the stiff, rules-obsessed, “can’t-have-fun” side of his character. As we saw in issue #4, in his conversation with Rodimus, he’s struggling to cope with postwar life. His peculiarities – purging ostensibly unimportant words from his vocabulary (like “fun” and “relax”), insisting that badges are straight, arresting people for minor infractions – are his response to conditions that he’s simply not capable of coping with.

What I’m saying is, he wasn’t always the “joke” (to borrow Overlord’s insult) that he seems to be now. There’s a reason why he’s regarded by some as the Autobots’ greatest warrior; there’s a reason why he’s such an effective enforcer of the Tyrest Accord. In these first few pages, we see Magnus the Warrior, unencumbered by the personality traits that have come to the fore since the war ended. It seemed appropriate to remember him as he was, given what’s going to happen over the next few issues…

PAGE 3: Magnus (note the crooked badge), the Duobots and the Powerdashers (yes, you heard me right!) are getting ready to battle when yet again Magnus is taken down. Powerdashers haven’t had much done with them in almost 30 years of the franchise. Had you always wanted to get them in somewhere and show them as more than toys?

JAMES ROBERTS: Truthfully? I saw that Simon Furman was playing the super-obscure character card well in TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE and I thought “I’ll have me some of that.” Also, we’d seen Zetar in issue #9 (in an advert for bodygloving), so – much like Rotorstorm’s appearance on Page 4 – it was another opportunity to mix in some callbacks and continuity nods. Shock and Ore are there for the same reason.

Of course, the biggest link to a previous issue – and a deliberate one – is the reappearance of Torque, the Decepticon k-class officer seen in the opening and closing scenes of #8. Although it’s literally just occurred to me that no-one will realize that the Decepticon bomb with “Ultra Magnus” written on it is Torque’s alt mode, because I edited out that part of his conversation with Fulcrum in issue #8. Oh well.

PAGE 4: Another flashback where Ultra Magus suffers at the end. What’s your thinking with these flashbacks? Is it to demonstrate that we might not know the character quite as well as what we thought?

JAMES ROBERTS: The Autobots and Decepticons have been fighting for millions of years, which means there’s scope for change in how they approach the world. But the purpose of the flashbacks, aside from what I said earlier, was to show that Magnus has been through the wars and usually finds a way to make a comeback. Is that going to happen this time round…?

PAGE 5: The badly injured Magnus is being looked after by Ratchet, Swerve and Tailgate. We’re dealing with the fallout from issue #15. Having done so much with Ultra Magnus so far during the series, was it hard for you to mortally wound the character as you did?

JAMES ROBERTS: Not as hard as it was to kill Rewind in issue #15! What I find interesting about Magnus being on his deathbed, out of commission, is what it does to Rodimus. How does Rodimus cope without the voice of reason by his side? The rest of the issue, and much of “Remain in Light,” focuses on that. Yeah, that and a billion other things…

Cover Revealed for Transformers: Robots In Disguise Volume 4

Date: Wednesday, April 24th 2013 7:26pm EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: El Duque | Credit(s): Amazon

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Amazon has now revealed the cover art for their second Transformers volume set for release in October, Transformers: Robots In Disguise Volume 4. As you can see in the image mirrored below, this volume reuses Andrew Griffith's retail incentive cover from issue #14 featuring Megatron and Prowl. This volume is scheduled for release on October 8th.

Transformers: Robots In Disguise Volume 4 [Paperback]

Book Description
Publication Date: October 8, 2013
THE RETURN! He's back... and Cybertron will never be the same! Everything Bumblebee and his Autobots have built teeters on the edge of collapse - and Starscream has to make the choice his whole life has been leading to. And meet the new Prowl - deadlier than ever, colder then any other Autobot, and ready to end the Decepticon threat! This volume collects issues #12-16 of the regular ongoing series.

Product Details
Paperback: 124 pages
Publisher: IDW Publishing (October 8, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613777655
ISBN-13: 978-1613777657

Transformers Classics Volume 6 Cover Revealed

Date: Wednesday, April 24th 2013 1:01am EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: El Duque | Credit(s): Amazon

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Amazon has posted the cover art for Transformers Classics Volume 6, which features the Decepticon Triplechanger Blitzwing. This volume is priced at $22.04 and scheduled to release on October 1st, 2013. See the cover and details below.

Book Description
Publication Date: October 1, 2013
The historic comic book roots of THE TRANSFORMERS are re-presented for maximum Cybertronian enjoyment. Collecting issues #63-74, rejoin The AUTOBOTS and The DECEPTICONS as their war stretches across the cosmos. Freshly re-mastered and re-colored, these stories are accompanied by an in-depth introduction as well as select issue notes by Mark W. Bellomo.

Product Details
Paperback: 284 pages
Publisher: IDW Publishing (October 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613777647
ISBN-13: 978-1613777640

BotCon '13 Comic Preview Page

Date: Tuesday, April 23rd 2013 6:56pm EDT
Categories: Comic Book News, Event News
Posted by: Blurrz | Credit(s): Josh Burcham

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Thanks to IDW colorist Josh Burcham, we have a preview page for FunPub's upcoming BotCon 2013 in San Diego, from June 27 till June 30. This comic page features characters from our five-figure box set, Hoist, Strika, Obsidian, and Skywarp. As the lore in Beast Machines would suggest, our two characters from the Beast era are notably Autobots in this rendition of Machine Wars Transformers lore. As Josh writes, these are not the final colors in particular for this page. Enjoy!

Sneak Peek - Transformers: Beast Hunters #1

Date: Tuesday, April 23rd 2013 6:17pm EDT
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Va'al | Credit(s): Mairghread Scott

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Mairghread Scott, co-writer for the upcoming IDW Transformers: Beast Hunters comic mini-series, has tweeted a sneak preview of the first issue. The image is mirrored below.

Beast Hunters takes place after the Rage of the Dinobots mini-series. Remember to pre-order the issues with your local comic shop to get the exclusive covers!