The second issue of Optimus Prime has some good, but some more of the bad. This kills me. I love what IDW has been doing with Transformers, but this series is hurting my soul.
Let’s get the bad out of the way. The artwork continues its atrocious streak. As I said in my review of Optimus Prime #1, I like gritty and I like a serious tone. But please, I cannot figure out which panels are in order and I felt as though some were missing. There was one scene, where the Junkion Wreck-Gar grabs a Joe chopper and then suddenly explodes. The next panel, he is halfway reassembled by some random Junkion.
I have no idea what happened. It is as though I blacked out and a page just went missing.
What I don’t like is the portrayal of the most famous Junkion, originally making his debut in the 1986 animated Transformers movie, voiced by none other than Weird Al-Yankovic. We get in the pages, a child, rambling on-and-on, but of course there is some deep deep deeper meaning, because we’ve never seen that shtick before. The head Junkion is named Rum-Maj (Rummage.. get it?) who is female.
This is the other gripe, and I am sure I will get smacked down for this. Suddenly, every new Transformer is female. It’s like what DC does, and suddenly racial and sexual orientation has to change with a snap. We get it. The original Transformers had a handful of them, but now each one has to be forcibly shoved in our faces. I don’t mind a female version of the Cybertronians, but ease off the blunt-force trauma here. For a while, Arcee was pulling a Wolverine and was on the cover to every title, even the ones she didn’t appear in!
Back to the comic, the story continues to unfold as Optimus Prime flashes back to a time where he had to make some tough choices, and guess what, it parallels to modern era where he has to… wait for it… Make some tough decisions.
I’m not sure what is happening here, but this new series is hurting my insides. I do like the supporting cast though.
Rating: 2-out-of-5 Matrix Bearers.
