IDW Transformers: Till All Are One #4 Full Preview

Air Hammer!

Synopsis

SWINDLE LIVES! And ONSLAUGHT knows the perfect way to unlock the secrets in his head. As the COMBATICONS rampage through Iacon, can IRONHIDE and his newly formed police force stop them before they annihilate STARSCREAM—and anyone else who gets in their way?

Story

As we come to the end of the first story arch for Till All Are One, all the cow patties hit the fan. We have a Bruticus, we have an Ironhide-led police force, and we have an Air Hammer. And overall, things mesh together pretty well. The highlight of the story has to be the war within Bruticus' mind though. Save for Combiner Wars issue 5 with Optimus Maximus, we really haven't got any sort of look inside the mind of the combiner where the individuals are concerned. This issue decides to take a look into that and make it the major story plot, as the minds are meshed and the combaticons share minds. It is very well executed too, with a legitimately justice-seeking Blastoff trying to quell the violence of Vortex and the vengeance of Onslaught.



The rest of the story outside of Bruticus though feels a bit clunky still. The one major complaint I would have about this first arch would be that it was a bit rushed. It felt like it would have worked better in a 5-issue arch instead of a 4-issue arch. Things felt a bit too rushed at points when they really could have been drawn out a bit to make it more meaningful, such as Ironhide's police force versus Bruticus. When Prowlastator was formed back in Season 1 of then Robots in Disguise, he was formed one issue, and then spend the next 2 issues formed and in battle. In this case, Bruticus was formed in the first panel and his part of the story, for now at least, is done by the end of the comic. I feel it could have been a bit more drawn out and better paced, but that's hardly a severe damper compared to Bruticus' mind-meld.



Art

Art work is once again done by Sara Pitre-Durocher, and it is a marvelous job of art indeed. It's one thing to actually manage to write about the internal brain struggles of 5 guys fused together; it's a whole other thing entirely to try to draw, and Sara does a marvelous job of drawing the scenes. She also does a great job with Bruticus' design, managing to mesh together his combiner wars toy while also maintaining the characters designs, especially with Swindle. The action and explosions are well done as well, and she manages to draw a combiner de-combining properly. A great job overall.



Colors fall once more to Joana Lafuente, and she compliments the neural landscape of Bruticus' mind with Pitre-Durocher's pencils very well. The orange and black coloring beautifully marks out the in-head scenes while making that plane of existence very dangerous and chaotic, as it is. Lafuente even managed to color the flashback panels a little more coarse and dark, showing not only the fuzziness of the memory in the brain-dead Swindle, but also flashing back to Livio Ramondelli, who originally drew said art. The colors to pencils is strong this issue.



And the visuals would not be complete were it not for Tom B Long and his lettering. Long does a great job this issue of showing the combiner struggles using letters, as Bruticus phases between control and chaos, all the while Blastoff crying out from inside trying to maintain his control over himself.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this issue was great. What I had really wanted was a look into the individuals in the combiner, and we got that and we got it in spades. The combiner struggle was real and it was fantastic, both in writing and in artwork. Blastoff made this issue for me, and he has gone from being a shuttle on a team of combat vehicles random guy to a legitimately lovable character. Again, my main issue with this book is the pacing and how this could have lasted another full issue, but compared to the quality of combiner story we got, I can forgive it.



This is definitely an issue worth picking up, and as this series continues to get its feet under it, it will progress and be a great ongoing. Keep an eye on this series: there is some serious potential.

Better Combiner shit in one issue than all of Combiner Wars or AHO. Fantasticly done. I agree it felt like a five parter would've been a little better, but what a terrific arc.

Thanks to Previews World we have a look at the Subscription Variant cover for Transformers: Till All Are One Revolution! Normally, Windblade is the voice of the massive Transformers known as the Titans, such as Metroplex. But what Till All Are One: Revolution is showing us is that Windblade may meet up with some of the smallest beings ever to live: the Micronauts! You can check out the cover below, and stay tuned to Seibertron.com for all your latest Transformers News and Galleries!

We return to your regularly scheduled Transformers comics from IDW, now that the end of the crossover Revolution is in sight, with a quick iTunes preview of Transformers: Till All Are One #5! The regular team in back on board, with Scott, Pitre Durocher, Deer and (probably) Long at their posts. Check it out, and head back for a full preview in the next week or so!

REVOLUTION is over but the danger isn’t over! A wave of undead TITANS threatens CYBERTRON! STARSCREAM will need more than secret police to stop the oncoming horde, but our Fearless Leader finds himself short on friends and firepower. Who can be called upon—and why aren’t they stepping up to the plate?

Brain-damaged Combaticons.

Obsidion is looking to be a good character.

Windblade is disillusioned by Prime.

Titans.

Good start, and welcome change to the Revolution stuff

Oh, I am SO with sensible, pragmatic Ironhide. I've absolutely loved him under Barber and Scott's pens.

And I'm really loving TAAO. I hope the Combaticons aren't gone too long. There was some tremendous material in the first four issues and i want to revisit them, especially Blast-off's complicated ideas. Plus, Brawl and Vortex being entertaining twits.

Swindle got shot through the chest, was on ER for months (maybe a year) on end, got combined and is now dealing with the stress of having been combined and now de-combined in ER.
If he survives this... goddamn. Who needs point one percenters when Swindle can make deals with death

D-Maximus_Prime wrote:Actually, that may be part of the reason why the combaticons are comatose/brain damaged. They combined with a bot who was basically dead since his brain was declared dead by Wheeljack, and then were shot through the head, causing them to decombine. So far in IDW, being forcefully decombined has been a bad situation, with the torchbearers being weakened as a result along with Galvatronus and Sky Reign, not to mention Menasor stayed combined after a head shot but was still knocked unconscious. The only one who really didn't show many problems was Devastator being forcefully decombined, but he's been around long enough he may be more resilient to things like that.

And even then, in the original ex-RiD run where Devastator showed up (pre-dark cybertron), Prowl and the Constructicons were shown really worn out when decombined. When Megatron was starting to combine with the Constructicons they still looked really tired and fatigued.
De-combining's not fun. I can only imagine how the Aerialbots are right now.

D-Maximus_Prime wrote:

Kurona wrote:

D-Maximus_Prime wrote:Actually, that may be part of the reason why the combaticons are comatose/brain damaged. They combined with a bot who was basically dead since his brain was declared dead by Wheeljack, and then were shot through the head, causing them to decombine. So far in IDW, being forcefully decombined has been a bad situation, with the torchbearers being weakened as a result along with Galvatronus and Sky Reign, not to mention Menasor stayed combined after a head shot but was still knocked unconscious. The only one who really didn't show many problems was Devastator being forcefully decombined, but he's been around long enough he may be more resilient to things like that.

And even then, in the original ex-RiD run where Devastator showed up (pre-dark cybertron), Prowl and the Constructicons were shown really worn out when decombined. When Megatron was starting to combine with the Constructicons they still looked really tired and fatigued.
De-combining's not fun. I can only imagine how the Aerialbots are right now.

At least the aerialbots chose to decombine. They weren't forced apart.

True, but it was right after they pretty much cancelled their combined form's existence. That's gotta hurt.