Displacement and Enigmas
(Spoiler free-ish)
SynopsisTHE ONYX INTERFACE! The AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS face down human forces—and strange battlelines make for strange allies. Who will emerge with the ancient ENIGMA OF COMBINATION… and who will usher in the COMBINER WAR…?
PUNS!On a very different playing field from MTMTE, the 38th issue of The Transformers also brings a storyline more or less to its conclusion, and finishes setting the stage for the Combiner Wars event due to begin next month, alongside revisiting some of the characters and power plays we hadn't seen in a while. And it does it very well.
And Spike is still despicableThe most obvious, and personal highlight of the issue, is John Barber's writing of individual characters and interactions, rather than general team/theme work - with Thundercracker, Soundwave, Arcee and Galvatron in particular standing out among the rubble. The humans have some nice moments too, but the more ambiguous players really take the spotlight.
oooh ambiguuuuityOf course, that is not to forget Prowl, the Constructicons and the strange dynamics of Devastator as it currently stands, and as it will stand for the next three or four months. The development on gestalt technology, plotting and writing has been a great thread to follow since pre-Dark Cybertron, and there are very interesting developments in this issue that might affect the wider concept.
No hamfistedness hereThere were some misgiving about some of the more plot-device heavy moments, but overall, the issue serves really quite well to seed even further plotlines and potential, and we may see some of those potential lapses come back in Barber's continuity-magic at a later stage. That, and Thundercracker is still a wonderful piece of writing work.
ArtWhat really has to be said for this issue, is that artist Andrew Griffith undoubtedly kills it from an artistic perspective. The poses, settings, expressions (robot, dog and human alike) are spot on and fantastically execute everything at play in the script. Galvatron in particular is stupendously sinister, and the pain and confusion found in some Prowl/Devastator and Thundercraker scenes is actually quite moving.
FoofJosh Perez' colours, on top of that, allow for a wider range of emotional charge that blend fantastically well with the linework and script. The bigger scale moments do not dwarf the smaller, personal scenes; the Soundwave situations in particular which both show nothing of what is actually happening and the pure anger that the true Decepticon must be feeling, are stunning.
What elephant in the room?Tom B. Long is still as font-abulous as he can be, and Devastator's speechbubbles, any title or caption and the impressive amount lettering in the more explosive sequences is carefully controlled. Again, we have encountered the RI cover by Jeffrey Veregge
yesterday, though still beautiful; the thumbnail then is the B cover, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente helps with a sense of scale and stakes for this and the coming story.
ThoughtsSpoilerish aheadOnce again,
ScottyP was a good sounding board for some of the points I made in the review, and his thoughts also come through in this piece. Personal highlights, however, are the return to Soundwave's own schemes and plans, which may or may not be working with/alongside/for Galvatron and the Decepticons, and the wonderfully poignant conflict within the Constructicons - and of course, Thundercraker.
A Handsome JetHoping that Combiner Wars doesn't slow down the great pace and development in the post Dark Cybertron era of exRID too much, this issue shows just how much change Cybertronians and Earthlings have gone through, all the way since the -ations and All Hail Megatron, and with both positives and negatives considered, it is a lot. And definitely worth the read.
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