Do Go 'Round TonightA Review of
Transformers: Lost Light #4As spoiler-free as I can make it. Probably. I tried.
The next mission begins! The latest chapter of the massive, sweeping Transformers ongoing comics arrive this week, with two very different stories gracing shelves. One is
Till All Are One #8, which judging from sales numbers is the best Transformers comic that Transformers fans don't read and you should feel bad about that. The other is the subject of this review,
Lost Light #4. We're in the middle of a story arc that's six issues deep, and now we're past the halfway point. How are things shaping up with our heroes scattered about and in various states of misadventure?
The light begins to shineSimultaneously, situations improve and decline across the three main plots of this issue. There's "Team Rodimus", stranded on Functionist Cybertron to take up one of these main plot lines, and with the agonizing cliffhanger of issue 3 get ready for, well, another cliffhanger. It's in the best of ways though if I'm honest about it. Anyone that watches
Game of Thrones knows that sometimes an ending that leaves you unsatisfied for now, where you want to know more and see more and figure out what might happen next, can be a good ending. It means that you're wrapped up in something compelling, and when the attention of the book turns to this plot my eyes are glued to the page in anticipation and wonderment.
Behold: Super close-cropping to avoid a spoilerBack on Necroworld, which may or may not be in the "main" universe of the Transformers and Hasbro Universe books, there are two plot threads running through this issue. One of them is action packed and oozing with plot progression and character moments, and that's the one featuring Cyclonus, Whirl, Tailgate, and a recently awakened nemesis in Killmaster. This also ends on a cliffhanger - a good, effective one that leaves me wanting to read more. While it's not certain, it definitely seems that things aren't going to end well here, but then again, Cyclonus told us so in February of 2012 in the pages of
More Than Meets The Eye #2, didn't he?
Why are dad and dad fighting?Then there's the argument in my head over whether or not the argument above really needed to happen here. After taking time and pursuing a more thoughtful analysis, it does. The visual storytelling in surrounding panels justifies the space, not to mention it makes sense for the characters involved. It progresses some long running plots in various ways, and is called back to effectively later in the issue.
Then there's the third small plot that's moved along in this issue, involving Anode and Lug. I've been a defender of these characters' inclusion and development for this arc, but their purpose is now fuzzy whereas it didn't feel that way earlier. The additional backstory is nice, and building up new characters is great, but something about the three pages given to these two newer arrivals missed the mark. The point is clear, the event that happened to end the scene is sure to be relevant later, and there is genuine purpose to all the words. None of that's really critical, of course, so what gives? It certainly wasn't the visuals, which were handled wonderfully by Jack Lawrence and Joana Lafuente's always sublime Necroworld color palette.
What it may be is a very purposeful usage of too many words. If you look at the roughly one-third of a page shown above, it doesn't have many words by the end, yet so much is said. The "new" Megatron, defined.
Were Lug's actions supposed to be ours?
The Last Action MasterAside from the already mentioned Lawrence and Lafuente, there's the return of Tom B. Long on letter work. As usual, Long's work is fantastic and I don't have enough superlatives to describe it. Nick Roche and Josh Burcham again provide an
outstanding cover fitting thematically with their other variant covers from the series so far, but a special mention needs to go to Alex Milne and Josh Perez's cover featuring Megatron and Terminus.
This right here is frame-worthy.As always, you can find
full credits and covers in our database entry for Lost Light #4, along with a list of characters that appear in the issue (sometimes pretty early on release day depending on my alarm clock) so do be aware of possible spoilers.
Verdict
Scores don't feel fair to big multi-part works. The more this goes on, the more it's clearly intended to be read all together as a six issue story. To be fair,
Mr. Roberts has more-or-less directly pointed this out, or that's at least how I took it. That element holds this issue back a bit, but
only a bit. Be sure to pick this one up and head back here to speculate about the future here on our forums by replying to this post.
Bonus! James Roberts' soundtrack suggestions for this issue:
- Nils Frahm - "You"
- The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart"
- Interpol - "Next Exit (Stay)"
Encore Bonus! Uniclock Update:
I'm going to be reviewing this series for the site for a while,
and some of you can guess why this is. I'm moving our
Lost Light/Hasbro Comics Universe Doomsday Clock, the Uniclock, ahead one minute. After reading the issue you may think this is a bit over-conservative, but at least for right now, well,
in John Barber I'll choose to trust and assume the slow burn will remain slow for awhile longer as stated in the linked Twincast interview with him. We'll see how long though. Another issue with
this many signs and it's going to start to look like we'll find out the answer to the question "Where do you go?"
