IDW Transformers: Windblade #7 (of 7) Review

Synopsis
WINDBLADE and STARSCREAM race to claim the lost colony lead by the mysterious ELITA ONE! But who will recruit the brutal army so long removed from CYBERTRON—and can ELITA’s forces bring anything home... but war?



Story

This is, for a number of reasons and alignments, the last issue in the second run of Windblade. And it attempts to tie up the colonies, literally and story-wise, preparing the ground for what will come next in the wider Transformers IDWverse - as the same cast will return in Spring 2016 with Till All Are One. But how does the conclusion shape up?



Mairghread Scott has a good sense of character, and the concepts she puts in place are really quite excellent at times. Windblade and Chromia, Starscream and Windblade, Ironhide and Chromia in previous issues, now Elita One and both Windblade and Starscream - the characters' voices and interactions are played out really well, in terms of dialogue and comebacks.



We do also have a small addressing of Chromia's dirty secret, though it still remains unclear to me how much longer it'll remain so - surely someone will exploit it down the line in the next series. Another mystery is Rattrap, who steps back in the shadows for the majority of the issue, but also without any leads as to who he is working for.



There is enough intrigue, and darkness, and general sense of unease - a lot of which just plays along on the edge of something bigger promising to happen. But even until the very end, the gun barrel is just being loaded, with the final pages bringing in a potentially additional threat that has been prepared for a while now, too. More thoughts below.

Art

The art by Corin Howell brings the last motherload of Animated references, with the addition of some more cameos from previous Transformers fiction too, from Beast Machines, in the shape of Strika and Obsidian. But there are so many more showing up (Animated Sentinel Prime's, Prime Dreadwing's silhouettes), and it's really quite enjoyable to spot them all. Plus, the ship looks fierce, unwelcoming, and definitely strained - even in its discipline.



Thomas Teyowisonte Deer is joined for the issue by John-Paul Bove on colouring duties, and they work really quite well together, ad there is very little transitiom between the two - and very good shading, light sources and choices of colour for the grittiness of Elita One's Carcer and its crew.



Tom B. Long is still here, doing his multi-fonted thing. The scenes with Metroplex are, unsurprisingly, some of the best fonting overall, with multiple colours, symbols and voices being assigned to the Titan - and the same is true elsewhere. Cover-wise, Priscilla Tramontano's main Elita is triumphantly glorious, as Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente's variant (thumbnailed) has some excellent shadow/light play, and Kei Zama and Josh Burcham bring MegaCity One to Cybertron, as seen previously.


Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

As a final issue, there is an overall sense of cohesion and tying up some preliminary loose ends, with more than enough seeded for the next series to pick up on, and hopefully expand, now that the Council is established as A Thing. The visual team, with Howell, Deer and Bove will be a felt absence, and I will miss the structured/Animated look and references of the art, but am equally looking forward to the new team. The back matter is really worth a read, too, as Scott wraps up her thoughts on Windblade as series and character.



What is unfortunate, on the other hand, is just the general sense that here, this is an ending, have it, read it, see you in a couple of months. As much as I thought the issue felt much less rushed than the previous one, even in the new page format, it still felt as though a little something was missing. And a shame too, as the underlying stories and references were pointing to so much more possible explorations. I suppose, however, we will see all of that develop next year!