Ready? FIGHT!
(Spoiler free-ish)
SynopsisCYBERTRON AT WAR! The giant city-sized Titans, METROPLEX and TRYPTICON, battle on a scale the universe has never seen—and the destruction they leave in their wake leaves CYBERTRON ready for the DECEPTICONS to strike!
It beginsLast time we delved in Cybertron's past in Transformers: Primacy, the battle between Trypticon and the Titan Metroplex had only just begun. Issue three of this four-issue mini-series takes us deep into the conflict raging on, above and around the city of Iacon and the entirety of the planet, in a 22-page long series of action sequences.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHTThe book shows off Megatron's attack as the first proper act of full-out war, involving the big beast, the Junkions and Sharkticons he recruited, his Seekers, Combaticons and appearances from the expanded cast of the Decepticon ranks we're all used to, plus Blackwall (very briefly) - and it's a very Megatron centric plot, too, despite the main action taken over by the titans fighting.
Chin up, huh?While the action is entertaining, Flint Dille and Chris Metzen's plot itself does not really result in much, and can feel a little cramped in some places and too distended in others, yet oddly still have a nice pacing in the single issue. I was, however, pleased to see the Omega/Nova Prime conundrum solved, if a little heavy-handedly.
*GLARE*The dialogue is still very much a Dille/Metzen product, and there's not a lot to expect from characterisation for the different characters other than what we've seen so far. On the other handm though, the ending has an interesting direction to it, and one that I'll be interested to see played out in the final issue of the series and trilogy.
ArtThis is the second helping of Livio Ramondelli this week and month, and it's quite hard not to compare his work here to the one in
RID #34. The biggest difference? Primacy is a lot darker, and sometimes the contrast doesn't help with the dynamism of the action scenes. The lighting, given by gunfire, acid rain, optics and explosions, though, does wonders on some otherwise fairly dim pages.
PEW PEWOne of the visual highlights of this issue, to me, is the fun that Chris Mowry clearly had with the sound effects pervading the battle scenes. All the punches, crunches, booms, kicks, shooms, and especially the TWERGs, look amazing, and really stand out on the background of Ramondelli's colours, adding extra action hues to the mix.
TWERG TWERG TWERGAnd if you hadn't had enough of big page spreads on battles between Metroplex and Trypticon, the variant cover in the thumbnail, by Sarah Stone, gives you a little more of that. Because why not. The third part of the interlocking Ramondelli covers shows off the beginning of the Decepticon faction, and Ken Christiansen gives us another stunning 30th Anniversary collage from the Autobot side. Make sure to check them all out.
ThoughtsSpoilerish aheadAs I said above, do not expect too much from the plot of this issue of Primacy, despite some interesting developments towards the end. However, if you're into big blown full-on fighting with virtually all the cast of all the old Transformers characters, with curb-stomping, impaling, slicing, limb-ripping and one-liners - this is the book for you.
Bravimus PrimeAs the Autobot resistance takes a bit of a paler shade in their lack of preparation against the Decepticon uprising, I'm hoping we'll see more of an escalation next issue, with the conclusion veering the path of Primacy back onto the main IDW track, tying up some of the sub-plots ran so far, and some extra TWERG TWERG TWERG.
