Flamin' Magnificent
(Spoiler free-ish)
(Spoiler free-ish)
Synopsis
All sides converge on Troja Major as the race to unlock the secrets of a unique Cybertronian reaches its desperate, violent conclusion. As old secrets are revealed, Nautica must pay the ultimate price—by resorting to the ultimate currency.
Not sure Ursula looks good as a robot
Story
The other comic released today by IDW Publishing - after the onslaught of news from the weekend, still brimming my newsing cup - is the second part to this interlude arc before we return to the ship proper, with Lost Light #9 ending the stay on Troja Major and opening some proverbial cans of cyberworms, by digging into old soil.
and also death
At the end of last issue, we had split the party in two, with Velocity and Nautica dealing on one side with a more emotional issue for practical gain - and that is pretty much still the case, with some severe manipulation of grief, friendship, and overall being an asshole dragged into looking for solutions, while also enabling bad, even (self)abusive behaviour.
SADISTS I TELL YOU
On the other, we return to new!Lug and Anode, as they face one of the Clans that might finally be driving the story forwards again from before we were stuck in the Functionist universe. That old soil I mentioned? We're going back to Garrus 9, among other things, and the connections you can draw are many, except perhaps where the story ends up leading.
How about The One Perfect Summer kind of old..?
My biggest gripe about the issue, though? The overall story gets shoved forward in the conclusion, with the almost entirety of everything else ending very abruptly for the constraints of the page or the book itself. Plot revolving around any of the four characters was teased, and nothing (allow me the hyperbole) happened. We got character beats, we got some development of relations, but no plot until the last pages. More on this below.
Art
With all that said about the story as writing, I cannot fault the return of Priscilla Tramontano on art to conclude this mini-arc with visual consistency. If there is a particularly heavy reliance of the plot on the emotional side of bargains and grief, Tramontano's art excels in conveying how those operate for the characters personally, and brings the full force of the feeling to the reader - while never losing sight of the composition of the page.
Look at that transformation composition line headed forwards!
Equally, Joana Lafuente helps push what might otherwise be slower action forward, by adding the right touches of accent to the expressions and body language - while keeping coherent and consistent lighting angles, too - for a more rounded and full effect for the readers.
Smashing!
As shown in the image above, the lettering of Tom B. Long is also still at its full dynamic force, working perfectly with the art and incorporating the script nicely into the panels, without ever reducing the space unnecessarily - and rightly so. All covers have been uploaded to our database page for the issue - including the originally TAAO-intended variant by Zero B - and we're re-using the Jack Lawrence / Lafuente main variant for the thumbnail.
Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead
Thinking back on my negative reading of Lost Light #9, I was conferring with other Seibertron.com readers, and we shared some points: the plot that deals with Nautica felt particularly exploitative, of character and reader alike; the conclusion of the issue is where the story picks up again, only to go into entirely unknown (but still anticipated, don't get me wrong) territory next month. It felt jarring, and as if we could've had more space for any of the threads seeded in the past two months.
...I mean..
The emotional tugging that was obviously present in the script is very well handled by Tramontano and Lafuente, of course, as I say above, but in this particular instance it was not enough for me to fully enjoy the book, overwhelmed by the frustration of a recurring writing device in Roberts' approach to 'overstory', if you will. Let's see how he'll Get Away with this one, next month.
. 
½ out of
½ out of
Now, where the hell is 