Hazzbro Hate Wazzzpinator Too
(Spoiler free-ish)
SynopsisThe clock is ticking! Leoric finds himself exiled from New Prysmos by Virulina, who Merklynn has named the new leader of all the Visionaries. Can Leoric and his loyalists save Cybertron from being totally changed into a new homeworld for his people? Should they?
For broad definitions of 'saving'I'm going to do something different with this issue's review, as we're behind schedule, the series has a very thin connection to Transformers, but I still believe it warrants coverage (the database entry is
here, in case) and review was due a couple of weeks ago as it stands, anyway! Namely, I'll let some of the commenting readers speak their thoughts on what is and isn't working, and coming in to cover aspects that haven't been addressed.
Like the blue tusked tigerlion in the roomAnd we start with the major points:
Daniel Adkins wrote:Honestly, this series biggest problem is that the Transformers are in it. All the book's biggest problems (the discontinuity with First Strike, Kup’s death, etc.) wouldn’t be here if the series was just a straight up Visionaries book.
Burn wrote:Another way to look at it, it's Transformers vs Visionaries.
Unfortunately it's more Visionaries vs Visionaries with Transformers taking a back seat even though it's THEIR planet.
This is a comment that has often circulated in our previous reviews, and one that still applies, constantly, and viciously, to this third issue. The only saving moment, in this regard, is the appearance of a Transformers specific character which cannot exactly be called mainstream (to non TF fans, anyway) and some development of plot from the side of the Cybertronians.
ccBut we also have a good point about Virulina and Visaggio's writing in general, that echoes some wider sentiments about the miniseries:
Sunstar wrote:Ultimately I am not entirely sure if the root of my anger is because it's ultimately good writing that makes me feel something (like how TAAO annual made me cry) or because I feel they are not doing any justice to the story, or anything that will further the story of the Transformers on Cybertron. I get the feeling I won't get my answer until after the last book.
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Art wise, something that users haven't really touched other than once more to talk about Virulina, we still have Fico Ossio and David Garcia Cruz do some really, and I mean, really good work on pretty much the entire organic cast, including the more spectral or hologrammic (not a word) of it.
The issue, once more - though less so I thought compared to previous issues too - is with Cybertronians, and specifically with their faces. Ossio is working hard, and he's working into a style that makes the angular robotic physiognomy fit to his own.. but we're not quite there just yet, and it mostly shows in background shots, rather than close-ups.
On the other hand, Sassy IronhideAnd that last point circles back to the main ones made about the series above: arriving to the Transformers is always on the background, or backburner, be it with the fittingness of the artist's style to the characters or the writing that is still relying on not-exactly IDW characterisation of the cast (see previous reviews for more on this point).
see review titleOverall, the issue is an improvement on the previous two, though for the Transformers side of things that doesn't really amount to much, but it does build to more of the characters having more or less of an agency than initially seen - up to the final act of the book, at least. It's still unfortunate, but there may be a lot in this particular book that Visionaries fans will appreciate I feel, even more than previously in the series; it just comes at the (literal) expense of Transformers.
Thumbnail: Variant cover by Jeffrey Veregge
½ out of
. I'm just not used to actually having my comics before they are reviewed here.
