Have you had the moment or realization where you are reading a comic, but at the same time feels like you’re watching or playing out an animated episode in your mind simultaneously?
This issue did exactly this for me. Wow. Thrilling. From the get-go it’s an all-out assault. This issue my imagination immediately took over. Playing out a G1-styled cartoon in mind, envisioning a modern take, involving explosions, expressive dialogue, with such unbridled raw emotion evoked by the stellar art work from Mike Spicer and Jorge Corona. This completely takes me back to the art and coloring of the likes of Andrew Wildman, Geoff Senior, Nel Yomtov, and Stephen Baskerville. One can’t help but feel the thrill, the rush, and the feelings of your own heart sinking as one Transformer after another falls.
(Cue the Mega Man X stage boss alarm)
WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
Spoilers will be ahead, but I will not get too deep because I want YOU to go to your local comic shop and read it. If you recall, the Autobot Jetfire was salvaged as transportation. This does not go well. Optimus Prime leads his Autobots right into battle with renewed purpose and conviction. However, the Decepticons seem to be ready and waiting for the inevitable assault. While the battle rages on, Soundwave successfully brings his “brother” Shockwave to Earth (as was the plan from last issue), and upon seeing Prime in action, flies into a frenzy of epic proportions.
Prime royally rumbles towards his foe, and based on some pretty intense dialogue between Prime and Shockwave, it seems there is a lot of bad Energon between them.
What struck me as, well, shocking, is how vengeful Shockwave is written. I have always been used to the cold, calculating, methodical-yet-sinister mannerisms and persona of the Decepticon Strategist and Scientist. Shockwave is presented with such hate and anger, loud, vocal violence, almost to a degree of sheer blind rage towards the Autobot leader, I felt fear. If Shockwave abandoned his cold, stoic demeanor to allow vengeance to consume him, we should be very afraid of what is to come.
It occurred to me Daniel Warren Johnson may have intentionally wrote him this way to add an unknown flavor of backstory in which we have yet to be privy too.
A sudden collision of events on Cybertron immediately have an impact on the conclusion of the battle, where the parallel story taking place in the past few issues involving Elita-1 and an unnamed Autobot come crashing into play. It results in a surprising turn taking place, leaving readers to question whether Prime’s self-doubt and emotions have cost lives. The conclusion of their battle involves yet another wrestling finisher, one in which a certain wrestler would remark his opponent may or may not “Rest… In… Peace.”
The second story follows our human friend Spike, whom the Decepticons have taken interest in. His encounter with an angry, yet with honorable conviction in Astrotrain is curious. Very well-written dialogue between them. However their journey is interrupted by the timely rescue by a certain nature-appreciating Autobot.
What an issue. DWJ knocked the writing out of the park with this one. Mike Spicer and Jorge Corona, along with letterer Rus Wooton, crushes another chapter in the long-standing story of the Transformers.
