IDW Hasbro Comics - Review of Micronauts: Wrath of Karza #5 (Final Issue)

Synopsis
The final chapter! Baron Karza has conquered Earth! Only the Micronauts and the Transformers stand against him! Little do they know that a new enemy—a much more dangerous enemy—will rise to challenge friend and foe alike! And one hero makes the ultimate sacrifice!



Story

We reach the final issue of yet another series (miniseries in this case) which was meant to lead into the First Strike crossover - but as has unfortunately been the record with IDW Publishing in the past year or so, scheduling did not allow this (or Revolutionaries, or Optimus Prime) to reach their full conclusion before the event. Which kind of dampens the book, really.



That said, this fifth chapter is still solid in its story overall, and does well enough to give a conclusion to the miniseries that capped off the Micronauts reintroduction to the Hasbro universe, in the hands of Cullen Bunn and Jimmy Johnston - at least from a plot level. The Transformers cast is well used, and there are some very good uses of time messing tropes throughout.



See, the big issue with the book is not the story, but the script itself: specifically, the way in which the dialogue and narration suddenly decide that all the words written needed to sound like a drawn out movie style Optimus Prime that does not know how to properly use the contractions or any type of speech pattern that does not sound less robotic and droning on than the ones used by the humans in their speech patterns.*



However, even with the bizarre awkwardness of that part of the writing, there's enough to enjoy overall for readers who were following the humour of Oz Rael and the Micronauts in general, and the surprisingly good roundedness of dangerously by-the-numbers villains in Baron Karza, and the real protagonist of the issue: Shazraella.

*credit for this sentence goes to ScottyP


Art

Andrew Griffith, a veteran of Transformers since the complex movie designs, is great to see working on some robots that are not just the Acroyears - but the excellence of switching through an immense number of designs in one long sequence is something truly commendable. I am in awe.



Ron Joseph's interlude in time, much shorter here, looks pretty amazing on wider scale, but one particular close up is quite.. disturbing as an image, and I'm not sure what I make of it. But if the art is what provides the basis for the time shifts and ripples, the colours by David Garcia Cruz are what give it the extra shine that was needed to make the magic work - and boy does it work, with both artists.



Tom B. Long on letters has his hands full with a number of variations of the fonts in the various characters' mouths, along with the tricky balance of the time rips and disturbances, but he does an excellent positioning of it all, as usual. The cover used for the thumbnail is by Ray Dillon, but you can find all of the other variants in our Database entry for the issue, right here.

Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

This was confirmation that Micronauts has always been a series that definitely deserved a lot more attention in the run-up and aftermath to Revolution, and with the general regard of the editors and publishers to allow for it to fit within the scheduling of the various tie-ins and events surrounding it. Bunn and Johnston did good, and it's a shame we couldn't get them to work in sync with the rest of the books.



And when I say this, I do mean both the issue and the miniseries as a whole - it'll be interesting to see the continuation of the various characterisations in other books post First Strike, and the ways in which Shazraella will play her part in the event itself (as you will have seen in FS3 this week already, really) and even Baron Karza's return later on. Also, more light on what was stripped from his Enerchanged form and sent travelling through time. I'd like to know that for sure, given its oddly familiar design..