Sketches of Getaway and First Aid by IDW Lost Light artist Jack Lawrence

Hmmm. So that is what First Aid would look like as a titan master.

Oh golly am I glad to have First Aid back in town, I sure have missed my boy. I do share apprehensions about the amount of LEG but then again, he also won't have a giant disembodied head nor will Getaway have an invisible elbow (...probably), it could just be Lawrence getting some practice of the detail by blowing it up a bit. Equally, could be a slight redesign, will have to wait till we see it on page.
Thinking about it, aren't all the protectobots en route to the LL? I don't think they ended up losing the ability to combine, so there just might be hope for a truly righteous beatdown on Getaway.

As we first reported here, current IDW Publishing artist on Transformers: Lost Light Jack Lawrence has created his own series 'bible' to aid in references, designs and the such on the comics ongoing series. And now, you can own that same 40-page compendium too! According to Lawrence, the first batch should be available at TFNation next month, but stay tuned for more updates.

ScottyP wrote: Outside of a very short arc with Sentinel and a one-shot with Trypticon, what impact did the Titans Return toy line have on IDW? Some token Mindwipe appearances in AHO?

A fun little arc with Fort Max and a fantastic new take on Cerebros that we probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise (Part of the Sentinel arc granted, but my point is that it did more good than harm)

Quint wrote:So, then. Rodimus Prime is pretty much front and centre of the next Transformers toy range later this year; in fact there appears to be several versions of him planned for release across 3 waves.

Despite Roberts' frustrations with his players being dragged into enforced cross overs, the Protectobots still contrived to join the Combiner Wars (from which they're still to return).

With all this in mind - is it nailed-on certain that IDW Rodders will be getting an upgrade? And if so, will he be leaving the Lost Light (comic) in order to effect this?

My fear is that this version of Hot Rod will actually become a prime. I really can't stand him, and I think the best possible thing would be for someone to give him a blow to his ego, preferably by someone else becoming a prime instead of him. Heck, by this point Drift probably deserves the distinction more than Hot Rod.

Nautica: I'd like everyone to meet my friend, The Collecto- I mean The Curator! Yes! The Curator! Absolutely not the collector!

ricemazter wrote:Wait, does that imply that Cyclonus is rich? How does anyone in this series make money when all they do is hang around a ship? Are they getting paid for being crew members? How much is Hot Rod making as captain compared to everyone else? I'll bet it's a lot.

Issue 13 MTMTE, tailgate said cyclonus is a billionaire because he owned real-estate before leaving on the Ark 6 million years ago.

Synopsis
THE HUNT IS ON! Ever lost something and spent forever looking for it? Try visiting Troja Major, the lost property capital of the universe. Just bear in mind that it's better known by another name: the Howling Town. And the Autobots are about to find out why.



Story

I was reminded by other comics staff that we've had a number of voices already on reviews this far, for the new iteration of Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, but mine was not the one that has appeared yet for Lost Light. It's probably time then, right? Back to the story?



One of the issues I've had with the series, much like its predecessor, is the use of the medium of comics as a serialised narrative - they read really well as a collected trade (read volume 1 in one sitting, believe me), but sometimes take odd steps as single issues. This book, however, does not do that, and in fact plays the field extremely well as a morsel of a wider story yet to happen, and previous ones being closed or at least addressed.



As we know, James Roberts takes his time on the series to get to know the characters, and characters here are a very important part of the plot: what we discover about Nautica and Velocity, their interactions prior to the Lost Light, wouldn't have made sense while Megatron was still in the picture - but what he does well here is to not sacrifice plot for character development, at all.



And in terms of highlights, this book has fallen into the category of what Transformers comics can do now, from a socio-political perspective, in terms of identity, representation, and delving further into human issues while using sad gay (can we finally change this to queer?) robots in space. And yes, I'm talking about Anode and Lug, and what we learn about both of them.


Art

After a full arc and a breather, we see a different artist taking charge of a very important issue, plot wise among the rest, and Priscilla Tramontano has some excellent leads in terms of visual continuity with Lawrence's art, while still keeping very much to her own style and approach to the characters.



With a change from the usual, Joana Lafuente joins Tramontano on colours, perhaps also aiding in the continuity, but also providing an extremely vibrant and diverse cast of organic presences on Troja Major, taking the best pages out of Lucas' books and making the marketplace as cantina-esque (but well lit) as she can.



In a universe where several characters are identifiable by their speech patters, and those speech patterns are to be made visible, a letterer like Tom B. Long makes sure that we can glean more from the page that you might read at first glance, while also enjoying the sounds of the new setting! Meanwhile, the cover for this review's thumbnail is the variant art by Alex Milne and Josh Perez, very much about the grief aspect of it all, but also more pertaining to the plot of the issue than you might think... All other covers can be found in our database entry right here, including Roche/Burcham, Tom Whalen, and the main Lawrence/Lafuente

Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

What do you know? We're back looking for the Knights of Cybertron! For real! As I said above, the overarching plot is not sidelined for the characters or subplots, but rather the two work well together in the issue, and we get to find out more about The Quest that started all those 50+ issues ago under another title altogether - but what we find may not be what we were looking for, especially if it was answers.



That said, my allusions towards the scene featuring Anode and Lug warrants a couple extra words here, while still wanting to leave it to readers to appreciate: it has some nice callbacks to the last Optimus Prime issue, and Sideswipe's understanding of the new reality; it has a well-developed approach to the issue at hand, sign of good research on the team's behalf; it helps sediment

Bounti76 wrote:I love the new/old character that Lug and Anode meet! Even if Anode still does rub me the wrong way. And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this issue feature more fembots than male 'bots? At least until the last few pages?

It did! It was a nice little slice of life in the TF verse.

Randomhero wrote:I really wish I could say I was surprised by the ending but I'm so fed up with fake deaths and resurrections it's just become the norm with roberts anymore. Kill a character and a year or two down the road and they're back. Sometimes it's the very next issue. It's just another tiresome thing.

If I can ask, what happened? I don't plan on picking this one up.