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“Perhaps Titans were -are- the ultimate expression of Cybertron, of us. Wondrous, vast, infinitely, capable.”
Vigilem quoting Codexa,‘The Way We Were, By One Who Saw It.’

The Change in Your Nature - Part Five - A late review without too many spoilers, even though the issue came out last Wednesday.

Written by Brian Ruckley with Art by Anna Malkova and Bethany McGuire, colors by Joana LaFuente and John-Paul Bove, with letters by Jake M. Wood and Neil Uyetake. Edited by David Mariotte and Tom Waltz.

The Rise is pushing even more boundaries and their next step is in motion. Skystalker has awoken Vigilem… What is the next step for Cybertron’s many factions? Vigiliem’s awakening cannot mean good things can it? The fact that the rise want to awaken him, based on their prior motivations does not seem like a positive step for the planet. But, many readers will be relying on their previous experience with the very large, very powerful, and very dangerous Titan (see 'Til All Are One') to better inform their prediction for what the outcome most likely involves.

Vigilem is the focus this issue, which as you can imagine, is not a small thing.

The first few pages take us right back where the last issue left off and speaking of not small things, check out Astrotrain's size in the image below. Our glorious gaggle of Risers is itching for more trouble, especially the XXXL-sized train bot. History will mark their deeds and judge what they have done as being right, wrong…or possibly something even more defining.


I choo-choo choose...WAR!

Cyclonus is physically healed up, but is also still dealing with his mental illness which might be PTSD or something else entirely, and is now growing angry with a new inner fire being sparked because of the Rise's destruction of one of his favorite places. Is there a reason for us to care about Cyclonus’ backstory right now? What bigger role will he and his memories play?



The Winged Moon, a consistent hangout of Wheeljack and his mentee Gears, is our main setting though...and space. Gears follows through with his difficulties with 0 gravity mentioned by Cosmos in the Transformers Valentine’s Day Special. More importantly, we learn of Vigiliem’s target…



Cue the alarms and the 2nd part of the Rise’s plan. Big bad rockin’ communicator bot and his communication friends not named Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject, Rewind, Raindance, or Grand Slam, work very hard to try to undo the virus that has taken down the Titan network. This is a bad thing, of course, because apparently there is no response to be had to re-route Vigilem by communication or by force (apparently).



BUT WAIT! Old friend Lightbright is ready to intervene with Titan Lodestar, results to be determined (and not spoiled entirely)…


Artwork duties are once again shared by Anna Malkova and Bethany McGuire. Both are adept at showing action and expression in their work. This issue has plenty of both to go around. There are some really large almost splash pages (you can imagine with showing characters the scale of Titans with regular bots). I’m not particularly fond of Vigilem’s ship-mode design, but that’s a small gripe, right? I feel like being the large scale that he is, there could be more detail in trying to show that MONSTROUS scale. But the artwork certainly helps tell our story, and certainly has some amazing shining moments of expression; especially AWE and FEAR…


Coloring duties fall to the duo of LaFuente and Bove, two worthy and capable individuals with plenty of Transformers and other comic experience to bring. The color work with Lightbright in Lodestar is a nice bit of work using Lodestar’s palette as inspiration for other interiors on the Titan.



I was most impressed by the art team’s panel below. This immediately caught my eye and I smiled to myself as I thought, ‘Wow, they nailed that shot…I really love it.’ The potential for even more is there.


And there are a few cover options, Livio's standard, Brendan Cahill, and Marcelo Matere in the thumbnail.

The story moves along well, with a lot of action- broken up with some moments of levity and build up for another part of the plot to pay off later via Cyclonus. There's a lot of history that is being introduced and some somewhat assumed for the reader, but not much built on yet.


All-in-all, I thought this was a good issue, and I look forward to the follow up -that ending-. Lots of IDW Transformers version 2 Titan lore came out, as well as, more information as to how Titans function, and are supported, some we were mostly aware of from prior experience, some brand new. We have mentions of knights, and plenty of Titan names that we have no idea who or what they fully did. And we get much of this from the memories of a Titan who has read works by Codexa (or downloaded them) and uses her words to express his/the mood. I did miss the Titan voice ballon work that we have seen in the past (and even in this issue). I think it helps to set apart the Titan's from the 'regular' bot and I'd love to see it consistently used again.



I thought that there were some possible missed opportunities with some somewhat bland panels of spaceship flying in space at many different angles, it does allow for Vigilem's exposition to be broken up, but otherwise, a solid issue with some new Cybertronian faces showing up to the party and many panels of pretty amazing artwork.

“Titans built our colonies, they fought for us, they WERE us.”

out of

Team Gears is blasting off again!!!

Spotlight Arcee
A Review of Transformers #18

Spoiler free

Final Score
. and a half
out of