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She's back once more to please the Transformers crowds! IDW Publishing digital assistant Mariel Romero has uploaded to iTunes a sneak preview of the upcoming thirtieth issue of the Robots in Disguise ongoing series, featuring a look at Galvatron in his prime as warrior king - and which you can check out mirrored below. This usually means the comics itself will be out in two weeks' time, so stay tuned for more news as it comes.

GALVATRON THE BARBARIAN! From Cybertron’s ancient past came the warrior-king, GALVATRON. Once, he united CYBERTRON and ushered in a Golden Age. Now, he wants to do the same to Earth… but OPTIMUS PRIME has a problem with that plan.

Headmaster partners that become beasts? That's new...

It may be new in the comics but they were done before in Japan as exclusives:



http://mostlytransformersredux.blogspot.com/2013/06/japanese-headmaster-shuffler-elusive.html

I do like how the cat partner lounges an attacks after the primary partner is killed.

I like this. I always said that if IDW wants to tell stories on Cybertron it should be in the past. IMO it works and it's a very strange feeling not to be repulsed by an IDW Transformers story.

Can't say I'm a fan of all the white on Galvatron...

I remember those exclusive/incentive/whatever comics IDW were pumping out during the early "-tion" stories, in particular the ones that were printed entirely in black and white. Transformers characters are largely identifiable by their colour schemes so black-and-white printing was needlessly difficult to follow. E.g. how the heck would you tell the Seekers apart?

Sure, Galvatron is identifiable by other means, his unique head, etc. But I'd still argue that such an iconic purple character should retain his colours... After all, Optimus is always red, white and blue.

MegaDump wrote:Can't say I'm a fan of all the white on Galvatron...

I remember those exclusive/incentive/whatever comics IDW were pumping out during the early "-tion" stories, in particular the ones that were printed entirely in black and white. Transformers characters are largely identifiable by their colour schemes so black-and-white printing was needlessly difficult to follow. E.g. how the heck would you tell the Seekers apart?

Sure, Galvatron is identifiable by other means, his unique head, etc. But I'd still argue that such an iconic purple character should retain his colours... After all, Optimus is always red, white and blue.

I believe this is more meant to be an homage to his original G1 toy. Color scheme and design are near exactly the same as this flashback design. >:oP

Unicronobot wrote:

MegaDump wrote:Can't say I'm a fan of all the white on Galvatron...

I remember those exclusive/incentive/whatever comics IDW were pumping out during the early "-tion" stories, in particular the ones that were printed entirely in black and white. Transformers characters are largely identifiable by their colour schemes so black-and-white printing was needlessly difficult to follow. E.g. how the heck would you tell the Seekers apart?

Sure, Galvatron is identifiable by other means, his unique head, etc. But I'd still argue that such an iconic purple character should retain his colours... After all, Optimus is always red, white and blue.

I believe this is more meant to be an homage to his original G1 toy. Color scheme and design are near exactly the same as this flashback design. >:oP

Do you know how irritating it is when someone destroys your logic with a perfect response? That's what you just did for me, thanks so much.

Good stuff. I'm looking forward to learning more about Galvatron. All we know so far is that he was a warrior that worked for Nova Prime. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Maybe he'll finally become a real character.

barber doing his continuity stuff again i see.

"headmasters" were in heart of darkness making NO sense whats so ever (thinkbox IIRC and referenced as an "ancient race" ).

one of the things i like most about barber is he messes with stuff to make it work as opposed to just ignoring it.

galvys a great character so be intersted in seeing where he goes with this.

Tal El wrote:Good stuff. I'm looking forward to learning more about Galvatron. All we know so far is that he was a warrior that worked for Nova Prime. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Maybe he'll finally become a real character.

Agreed. Galvatron has always been cooler than Megatron IMO. He's more ruthless, crazy, and powerful. Having him as a full fledged real character and finally cutting the connection with Megs feels more interesting. His fusion cannon is the only one that tops Megatron's.

Comics and entertainment website Newsarama have posted their IDW Publishing preview of next week's issue of Transformers: Robots in Disguise, and we've mirrored the full works below for your viewing convenience! We've seen these Casey Coller pages before, but we also get a look at the various covers and the recap page - and head back here after the weekend for the Seibertron.com review.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise #30: Dawn of the Autobots
John Barber (w) • Andrew Griffith, Casey W. Coller (a & c) • Griffith (c)
GALVATRON THE BARBARIAN! From Cybertron’s ancient past came the warrior-king, GALVATRON. Once, he united CYBERTRON and ushered in a Golden Age. Now, he wants to do the same to Earth… but OPTIMUS PRIME has a problem with that plan.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Bullet points:
- DAWN OF THE AUTOBOTS continues!
- OPTIMUS PRIME commands the AUTOBOTS on Earth!
- Variant cover by Guido Guidi!

Okay, someone needs to fill me in. Why is Prowl filling in for Hook, when Scrapper was the one that got "scrapped"? Why is Prowl teaming up with the Contructicons in the first place? This does not compute for a Prowl role.

Stormrider wrote:Okay, someone needs to fill me in. Why is Prowl filling in for Hook, when Scrapper was the one that got "scrapped"? Why is Prowl teaming up with the Contructicons in the first place? This does not compute for a Prowl role.

Devastator (and presumably other successful combiners) is completely modular. Combiner components aren't just triple changers who have a 'limb' mode - the Decepticons tried that sort of approach and it didn't work. Former Decepticon medic Ambulon was rebuilt with a foot alternate mode as part of the Decepticon's attempts to reproduce Monstructor (the first combiner, created by Jhiaxus). Having Cybertronians combine like that, I think, is rather like having a bunch of cheerleaders form a human pyramid, and then expecting them to fight, or stitching a bunch of people together end on end and expecting them to live. Combination requires some other special thing that creates a psychic link between the constituent parts, and then it seems that the Cybertronian form is capable of adapting itself as necessary.

[Additional Note: It seems like combiner members, by the same virtue, can mass shift as necessary. Superion (created by Cybertron), Monstructor (created by Jhiaxus), and Devastator (created by Shockwave) all seem bigger than the sum of their parts, and their component parts seem to resize as necessary to make the combination work (Devastator seems to, anyway). Menasor, who was sort of kitbashed together by Swindle with research stolen from Shockwave, did not appear to mass-shift (he was big, but not titanic), and he was racked with indecision/arguing between his components. It seems like 'true' combiners become psychically linked after their first combination, and during the combination itself, they are merged into one mind.]

Prowl himself was mind controlled for a long time by Bombshell, and when he was forced to join the Decepticons, Shockwave made the necessary adaptations for him to replace Scrapper as Constructicon leader. The idea, of course, was that with Prowl being controlled by Bombshell, the Decepticons would have more control over Devastator II than they did over Devastator I. Instead, Bombshell got blasted by one of the Autobots, Devastator II went off his chain, and Superion (who'd gained combining powers from exposure to something in the wilderness of Cybertron) had to fight him. Eventually, Prowl was able to force Devastator II apart, but then it turned out Megatron had also been upgraded to be a combiner, and was about to form Devastator III when he was defeated.

The Decepticons and Autobots were subsequently kicked out of Iacon by Starscream and the NAILs, but the Constructicons defected to follow Prowl, whom they still shared a psychic link with (even when they aren't combined), and have recognized as the ruthless, badass alpha dog they wanted to be their leader. They've since followed him loyally, engaging not only thousands of Ammonites together, but also Monstructor, and now Galvatron. Prowl seemed to hate it at first, and is pretty abusive of his new team (he sort of acts like a cliche 80s villain sometimes), but he seems to have accepted the situation overall, I imagine because it gives him power, and five allies who can't betray him (because he can hear their thoughts).

It's a pretty neat idea, but I hate the colors clashing. I think it would have been neat if Prowl's groupies (because that's how they act) had repainted/reformatted to match Prowl's new paramilitary design.

Thanks for the in depth explanation. That sounds like pretty cool concepts.

Awesome preview!

Skipping through any previews to enjoy this all when it releases as part of a volume, but I am disinterested in Galvatron and his new look. Why fix what ain't broke? Barely any purple even left on him. I guess it's for his realistic tank mode. Galvatron doesn't seem like a con who would need to disguise himself, but I am not fully up to date on the story so maybe I missed a good reason.

That is a sick headmaster, turns into a ferocious catlike alt mode? f yea! Nice death too being ripped apart

MINDVVIPE wrote:Skipping through any previews to enjoy this all when it releases as part of a volume, but I am disinterested in Galvatron and his new look. Why fix what ain't broke? Barely any purple even left on him. I guess it's for his realistic tank mode. Galvatron doesn't seem like a con who would need to disguise himself, but I am not fully up to date on the story so maybe I missed a good reason.

He's been forced to assume a terrestrial alternate mode to work with the humans, as some sort of (not yet wholly explained) scheme.

It seems a bit too sneaky for Galvatron, but to be fair, he's barely putting up with it - although Galvatron is nominally the leader, Soundwave has quit playing the silent background figure, and Galvatron seems to be following his lead at times. What that says about Galvatron's character, or how his relationship with Soundwave will unfold, I don't know yet. This version of Galvatron has previously exhibited much more positive leadership practices than his G1 incarnation, though, so this may simply be an extension of that - he defers to the expertise of his troops when they really do know what they're doing, rather than letting his ego get in the way of the mission.

On the other hand, showing that he used to be grey back in Cybertron's ancient history suggests another possibility - reverting from purple to grey may represent him renouncing his allegiance to Nova/Nemesis Prime.

Ah, I see... weird. Guess I will have to catch up on some older series like Chaos. I've only really caught up with MTMTE and a bit of RID. I've read a few of the Chaos issues but not enough to truly get a full understanding of Galvatron in that series as being the dead universe/nova prime puppet, and how he evolves past that into this Galvatron now.

Synopsis
GALVATRON THE BARBARIAN! From Cybertron’s ancient past came the warrior-king, GALVATRON. Once, he united CYBERTRON and ushered in a Golden Age. Now, he wants to do the same to Earth… but OPTIMUS PRIME has a problem with that plan.



Story

So we're still/back on Earth, as the Autobots and Decepticons seem to have switched places in the mind of humanity - or the humanity controlled by Marissa Faireborn and her EDC organisation, at least. Who still really want to keep the robots under wraps for as long as they can, and presumably the fact that they are now siding with the 'bad guys', too.



Flashback! In the distant past of Cybertron, a warrior did warrior things, killing people, slicing people, being snarky and other such barbaric nonsense. But a 'new' player comes into the arena, all that way back, and it really looks like it will have severe repercussions on the entire game, all the way up to the present.



In the second flashback, we get more about Arcee and her decision to join the Earth Autobot mission, but also her feelings about the three new female Camiens showing up - and I have to say, Barber really made it work, in the same subdued way we saw in Windblade and MTMTE. But then, Barber made Arcee work all through RID, including her excellent dry comments on the situation.



Overall, Barber delivers a significantly slower issue, with a lot of explaining and setting up: Soundwave and Galvatron setting up their 'plan', Marissa Faireborne setting up Earth's current state, Jetfire setting up the Constructicons, and them setting up Prowl's backstory, in a way - but the dialogue and chemistry with the latter two/seven is brilliant, as is Jetfire in fact, and Soundwave really shines.

Art

Three artists, Casey Coller, Brendan Cahill and main lineworker Andrew Griffith, return to their flashback and main narrative duties. Cahill actually redraws some of what we saw in previous issues, but from different angles, and has a great smirking Prowl; Coller takes us to Galvatron's past, and shows some guts and gore, with excellent facial expressions accompanying them. Both are coloured by the brilliant Joana Lafuente, who really makes the two look different, but still linked enough for some really nice transitions.



Griffith's robots are amazing, with Soundwave, Galvatron and Prowl/Devastator taking main stage, but the humans have some really good touches too, and some amazing scale perspectives with panelwork that are jawdropping. Josh Perez' colours really help in setting the tone for the fights and aftermaths, with darker tones glinting with scheming light.



Tom B. Long clearly had a lot of fun with lettering too, seeing the amount of sound-effects and personal voice/fonts throughout the issue. And the covers, all four of them, are great additions, with Coller and Lafuente on B, Griffith and Tramontano on A, and Guido Guidi on two versions of the iconic Megatron-Optimus fight, one sketch, one with John-Paul Bove's colours (see thumbnail)!

Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

I am conflicted about this issue, for a handful of reasons. I loved Prowl's continuous scheming, Galvatron's over-the-top zealotry and warrior nature, Soundwave's true colours. But it felt like a slow issue, which relied on those three points - and the reason everyone is on Earth - to move along in a big fight sequence that, don't get me wrong, looks great. But still felt a bit like stalling.



Prowl's plans keep unravelling, but something is definitely going on with him. The green buddies are as amusing as ever, and there's something more there too. Galvatron is taking a leaf out of Prowl's book, and starts flipping *everything* in his rage, Faireborn and the EDC have a much better take on 'disguise' than usual, too. But I really want the story to leap forward now - show us moar, Barber!

I certainly do love to see more Arcee. She is one kick-ass Transformer.

Of course, I'd also love to see this version of Arcee face off against Blackarachnea. Meow.

"Old Man... Nothing would make me happier."

So Transformers are calling themselves Men now? I guess next month Arcee and the female Autobots are gonna start calling themselves Women.

Meanwhile Skywarp swears up and down that he's not a Robot! I wonder how long it will take for the Transformers to flat out say that they're human beings.

Another great plot foiled by bad dialogue.