The Energon Pub

[Deadput]

That's... not how it works.

Of course it doesn't because everything today is a debt trap so one can never have a good "life".

Raising the prices of everything yet pay is still awful, and job finding sucks.

[Randomhero]

She knew Galvatron was her brother but the question is why didn't Galvatron? At first I thought John is retconning this but like I said there's hints of something between the two for the passed three years and it's John. He makes long term plans

Who says he didn't know? All of their interactions were pretty chummy, as though they already both knew each other, and Galvatron did have that line about "brotherhood" back in #42 of exRiD...

Because Galvatron is a nut ball. And it's very obviously he doesn't known arcee but feels something with her

[Randomhero]

Also IDW isn't cheap. They pay their people quiet well and also have to pay for the licenses they have. Hasbro isn't giving them all their IP, they have to pay for them.

Back in 2005 Dreamwave owed Hasbro $500,000 in licensing fees alone for less than year so you can imagine 12 years later what IDW has to pay. Cheap? Not even.

Maybe they should drop some licenses instead of raising the risks of becoming bankrupt.

Instead of having (simplify) 100 mediocre comics maybe have 20-30 really good ones, that way IDW gets to cheap out less and actually maybe pay off any debts.

That's... not how it works.

yeah they're not debts, they're fees. They have to pay to produce.

Just like the Masterpiece line. Theirs a reason only Prowl and Bumblebee have been brought over and it's because Hasbro also has to pay the licensing fees to the car companies that own those car models and it's obviously very expensive and legal paperwork and Hasbro doesn't want to do it.


And they don't need to "drop" and licenses because you and a vocal minority of the Internet don't like what they're producing. They're doing well with why they have and apparently the companies they they're working with are satisfied with what they're doing.

[Shot Put]

She knew Galvatron was her brother but the question is why didn't Galvatron? At first I thought John is retconning this but like I said there's hints of something between the two for the passed three years and it's John. He makes long term plans

Who says he didn't know? All of their interactions were pretty chummy, as though they already both knew each other, and Galvatron did have that line about "brotherhood" back in #42 of exRiD...

Because Galvatron is a nut ball. And it's very obviously he doesn't known arcee but feels something with her

I don't think that's obvious at all, with how their first interaction had him already knowing of Arcee and and--again--that little exchange about "brotherhood."

[Va'al]

That's... not how it works.

Of course it doesn't because everything today is a debt trap so one can never have a good "life".

Raising the prices of everything yet pay is still awful, and job finding sucks.

Still not the point here. See below.

yeah they're not debts, they're fees. They have to pay to produce.

Just like the Masterpiece line. Theirs a reason only Prowl and Bumblebee have been brought over and it's because Hasbro also has to pay the licensing fees to the car companies that own those car models and it's obviously very expensive and legal paperwork and Hasbro doesn't want to do it.


And they don't need to "drop" and licenses because you and a vocal minority of the Internet don't like what they're producing. They're doing well with why they have and apparently the companies they they're working with are satisfied with what they're doing.

[ScottyP]

Just like the Masterpiece line. Theirs a reason only Prowl and Bumblebee have been brought over and it's because Hasbro also has to pay the licensing fees to the car companies that own those car models and it's obviously very expensive and legal paperwork and Hasbro doesn't want to do it.

Little bit off topic, and your point isn't wrong, but we don't know the licensing is the only reason for this.

Back to OP 10 - looking through the art comments on the previous page and thought of a question for the folks that aren't into it. Seeing that Livio Ramondelli has been used to draw/color in a certain way for essentially all of the 'flashback' style stories in exRiD/TF/OP, would you want that discarded at this point? I think he makes purposeful choices at times to lend some abstraction to these stories in a way that says "this is an account of what's remembered of events but isn't a perfect recollection" and I think it fits very well, but I'm sure some of you probably dislike it enough that this doesn't matter - curious if so.

[Kurona]

I think it fits well, it is a huge advantage of it and it is one of the things that immediately comes to mind with that art style these days - especially juxtaposed with Zama's art on the non-flashback portions - but I'm still not terribly fond of it. I'm a much bigger fan of, say, Durocher's TFP-style flashback style in TAAO or the Matvel-esque stuff in the MTMTE annual and Revolutionaries.

[WreckerJack]

If you are a fan of the IDW Optimus Prime series, you will enjoy seeing this clean cover art for Optimus Prime #11. This was posted by Andrew Griffith himself via his twitter page. If you have not already seen the preview for Optimus Prime #10 check out this article.

[Kurona]

Ooh, that looks very nice. That said, it looks more like the new Cyberverse busy book Optimus than how the IDW character currently looks. Then again, artistic liberties and one G1 Prime tends to look like another.

[WreckerJack]

I like the blue on his hands, looks like MMA gloves.

[Silverwing]

It's so beautiful! I want that framed on my wall this instant!

[dragons]

Looks very cartoon looking knee pads stick out alot

[Carnivius_Prime]

definitely looks like robot dressed with truck like designs rather than a robot who actually turns into a truck.

[Va'al]

Beast Friends Forever
(Spoiler free-ish)

Synopsis
THE RETURN OF GALVATRON THE BARBARIAN! Optimus Prime meets with Alpha Trion, the ancient sage, who reveals a tale of Cybertron's earliest days, when the original Thirteen Primes united the world. But even then, the warrior known as Galvatron was a wild card... shaping the future in unexpected ways.

That's a Prime Cameo

Story

It's been a while since Galvatron died, pretty much for good, in this IDW continuity - so it only makes sense that we'd be going into a flashback involving him to gather some more information about the shape of the universe as we currently know it, before stories became lore, and before lore became fully-fledged belief. So here we are.

Deep or Burn?

The Primes from the Aligned continuity have been making their way into this side of Transformers fiction, between Till All Are One and references to them in previous xRID and The Transformers series - but this issue brings them all back together for the first time - before they're even considered to be what we know them to be, and in a way that John Barber finds that is actually really delicious.

plus general slaughter

The framing of the story - told by Alpha Trion to the current three Prime or, let's face it, equivalents (Starscream and Pyra Magna) - also may look like nothing major in terms of plot, but we do get some follow-up to last issue's emotional resolve, and finally the lead-in to First Strike (see our review here and here!). And it also allows for some extra sassy Alpha Trion and Starscream.

so there's that

Galvatron, in fact, is not the most prominent of the characters in the book, thought clearly at the centre of most of the action here - if you take it as a way in to what is happening around both him and his brother seen in the preview - but trust me, there is a lot to be enjoyed in barbarian style if that's what you're going for in the issue.


Art

The art duties are split between current day setting - in which regular Kei Zama and Josh Burcham team take the lead, and doing some really nice work on characters we haven't seen in a while, but also giving us a very nice Starscream in the mix. The staging of the frame does everything it needs too, especially in tone.

And just more old(er) dude beardface

Whereas the olden days of pre-Thirteen Primes Cybertron are entirely in the hands of recurring artist Livio Ramondelli, whose grainier style of colouring on his own lineart is actually extremely fitting to the landscapes that surround the cast of the 'flashback'. His takes on the Primes are also very intriguing visually, though I'm still not utterly convinced on all the designs.

Alchemist drinks. A lot.

Tom B. Long is on letters for both the sections, though the most fun is had in the central part of the book, between battles and the now trademark wider scope for him to use lettering within Ramondelli's art almost as part of the art layer itself. As for the various covers for the issue, most of which we have already seen, they can be found here - and enjoy the Andrew Griffith / Josh Perez used in the thumbnail of this story, too.

Thoughts
may contain minor spoilers

As someone who works with stories and has taught writing and has had a fascination with myth-to-fact/fact-to-myth narratives, Barber's approach to this issue is really intriguing to see play out - and using the still not entirely trustworthy Alpha Trion as the vessel for it all is probably the best choice that could've been made - along with having specifically Optimus, Pyra Magna and Starscream as his audience.

probably the most important panel of the whole iss-- hey Talisman

For the readers, on the other hand, that may be more interested in the Galvatron style of stories we've seen in previous sections with the purple maniac so far, there is also plenty of that (visually and narratively): action, beheadings, struggle, precarious balances and long-reaching plans are not being shied away for the sake of story. A shame, perhaps, that it ends directly into First Strike.

But with an intriguing nod to a character that has pretty much always been present.

. out of

[Randomhero]

Great review Va'al! Really didn't like this issue! Lol

This is a first for me because I have always been more of a fan of John and RID/TF/OP than the other books but man I really didnt't like this one. It felt like it could have been a 2 parter or even an arc like Shadow Play and instead it felt like an recap of a story arc that was already told. Just wasn't a fan.i liked the Beast Wars Megatron and Optimus primal cameos though.

[Va'al]

It can definitely feel compressed, I'll agree with you on that - but I felt that having Trion being basically in the dark about everything Onyx was doing was a nice, different way of addressing his character in general (reversal of roles if you will).

But the compression also leans on Trion's characterisation so far, as well as perhaps being a bit too fast due to First Strike arriving. So all in all, they really did the best they could create for this story with this timeframe, I think!



(As a sidenote, I got some interesting Rat Queens: Braga echoes in the story too, with Arcee.)

[ScottyP]

If anything, I'm glad this cemented (sort-of) the lineage of some of these figures. Do I have this right? Going off the top of my head, may not.

1. Primus and Unicron at the beginning
2. Primus splits off parts of himself that become The Guiding Hand
3. The first Titans, being Meteoplex, Chela, and Metrotitan, serve TGH in Primus' fight against Unicron (departure from Aligned alert!) Knights of Cybertron may or may not be around at this point.
4. KoC leave with the Titans.
5. The Thirteen come later, with currently unknown origins. Eventually they have their War of the Primes.
6. Galvatron kills Nexus Prime, and the other surviving Primes flee (except for A3), eventually starting collonies somehow.
7. Galvatron and Nova usher in the Golden Age.
8. Ark 1 departs, Crystal City disappears,
   Nominus comes to power.
9. Clampdown and Sentinel and Towards Peace and Megatron stuff, Zeta Prime eventually,
   then Autobot/Decepticon war.

[Va'al]

If anything, I'm glad this cemented (sort-of) the lineage of some of these figures. Do I have this right? Going off the top of my head, may not.

1. Primus and Unicron at the beginning
2. Primus splits off parts of himself that become The Guiding Hand
3. The first Titans, being Meteoplex, Chela, and Metrotitan, serve TGH in Primus' fight against Unicron (departure from Aligned alert!) Knights of Cybertron may or may not be around at this point.
4. KoC leave with the Titans.
5. The Thirteen come later, with currently unknown origins. Eventually they have their War of the Primes.
6. Galvatron kills Nexus Prime, and the other surviving Primes flee (except for A3), eventually starting collonies somehow.
7. Galvatron and Nova usher in the Golden Age.
8. Ark 1 departs, Crystal City disappears,
   Nominus comes to power.
9. Clampdown and Sentinel and Towards Peace and Megatron stuff, Zeta Prime eventually,
   then Autobot/Decepticon war.

That does look fairly right, but I'm now wondering what A3 is up to at the end of the flashback in this issue, what he goes do with Metrotitan or Metroplex, or heck, even Chela, and if that's all that happens.

Vigilem should also appear at some point in there!

[Randomhero]

First thing I said while this when Onyx showed up was "yeah that looks nothing like the cover"

I said earlier I think Josh just colored him how he wanted or may have thought Onyx on the cover was Deathsaurus because that's happened before. Plenty of people started saying "what's the connection?!" Here's the connection. nothing.

People even asked Josh and he said he colored it like how Livio did in the book. Umm...no? onyx is colored dead greenish grey with bronz highlights. Where is he colored like that that cover anywhere? That being said Onyx's body is comepey wrong in the book. Lol

[Randomhero]

There's gotta be more to Galvatron right? I know it's Alpha trion is telling the story but in the actual flashbacks in RID when Galvatron kills the headmasters he threatens to kill Alpha Trion for not knowing him and they were in the first war and were in the same room by the end in this issue! There's gotta be a story about how Galvatron lost some memories or something because he didn't know Alpha Trion when they met up later on and I'm saying now he didn't know Arcee was his sibling. He felt something of a kinship with her but they never obviously had a "oh my god this is my other half from birth!"

Galvatron is a continuity freak's nightmare. His personality has changed with every writer. Furman wrote him as this noble warrior who felt he was destined for bigger greater things and felt bad about killing. He regretted killing leadfoot when he stole thunderwing and left sideswipe and his team alive. Abbot Lanning and Costa wrote him as this very proud character that knew it was up to him to save the universe and even tried to ally with Optimus to do it. Even cared about humans when zombies attacked in infestation. Then Barber turned him into this blood thirsty barbarian who would kill you for just looking at him. He's nuts! He gives sunbow Galvatron a run for his money in the nut job department.

Galvatron is literally a bipolar schizophrenic

[Randomhero]

If anything, I'm glad this cemented (sort-of) the lineage of some of these figures. Do I have this right? Going off the top of my head, may not.

1. Primus and Unicron at the beginning
2. Primus splits off parts of himself that become The Guiding Hand
3. The first Titans, being Meteoplex, Chela, and Metrotitan, serve TGH in Primus' fight against Unicron (departure from Aligned alert!) Knights of Cybertron may or may not be around at this point.
4. KoC leave with the Titans.
5. The Thirteen come later, with currently unknown origins. Eventually they have their War of the Primes.
6. Galvatron kills Nexus Prime, and the other surviving Primes flee (except for A3), eventually starting collonies somehow.
7. Galvatron and Nova usher in the Golden Age.
8. Ark 1 departs, Crystal City disappears,
   Nominus comes to power.
9. Clampdown and Sentinel and Towards Peace and Megatron stuff, Zeta Prime eventually,
   then Autobot/Decepticon war.

There's nothing in IDW that says the Guiding Hand fought against Unicron. The guiding hand fought Mortilous and that's how they all became what they were. Primus into Vector sigma, solomus the matrix and so on. They never battled unicron so don't count that.

Honestly i wouldn't even include some of the primus stuff in your timeline. There's different versions and religions in IDW.


That's like making our own timeline and putting

Dinosaurs roamed the earth
dinosaurs then died
Apes started using tools and evolved into man
Man creates wheel
Jesus died for our sins
Columbus finds America

One of those raises an eyebrow lol

[Kurona]

Really liked this issue and enjoyed the idea that while the Thirteen are confirmed as real in this verse, the reality about them seemingly doesn't match the myth -- they're almost as clueless about Primus, Guiding Hand, Titans etc. as your average Cybertronian and if they do have anything particularly mythical or special about them, it's not apparent to them themselves.

[ScottyP]

I enjoyed the Seasaur and Skysaur cameos too. Onyx is the Beast Wars champion collector in us all.

There's nothing in IDW that says the Guiding Hand fought against Unicron.

You're right, my bad. Page 14 of Optimus Prime #10 only notes the Titans serving Primus in that war, not The Guiding Hand.

[Va'al]

Via the official IDW Publishing website, we have an art reveal for the main Kei Zama / Josh Burcham cover for the next issue of ongoing Transformers series Optimus Prime - featuring the cast of Cybertronians not involved in the current First Strike even, led by Aileron! Check it out below, and keep an eye on our feed for more comics news shortly.

With Optimus Prime embroiled in the FIRST STRIKE event, the Autobots on Earth set off on a mission to find one of their own—before anti-Cybertronian humans get to him first!

[Kurona]

I want a toy of Aileron so bad. She's great