Review: Transformers #10 (Image Comics)

Oh. Oh dear. It appears when new characters are introduced, current characters meet an unfortunate end. Spoiler alert. More death, and you feel it. 

In my previous review, I wrote a considerable amount to convey my fear and sense of sickening dread. After reading Transformers #10, I feel even Vincent Price would have turned away in horror. Fear has a face, or I should say, one eye, when referring to the sinister Decepticon scientist Shockwave.  The version most of us know is one of stoic, methodical plotting. The Energon Universe version retains these sinister skills, however these surface as twisted, maniacal, to a point where scientific curiosity overrides all, where life itself is no more than another experiment to play with. 

There is one such page where wonder and amazement are shown, and for a minute, just one frackin’ minute a reader might think this version of ol’ Shocky might become enthralled with life on Earth. 

Oh. No. Oh no. No, no. The next page I personally read in stunned, skin-crawling horror as an insane atrocity occurs. Holy Primus. I couldn’t believe it. Death on an unfathomable scale. 

Readers hated Starscream. Built as the heel of the first arc. Shockwave? He’s gone uber-heel. 

Now that I have you all thinking Transformers has become a horror story, let’s switch gears to regain our composure to how perfectly the newest addition to the Autobot roster, Beachcomber is presented.

Wait just a minute! Back in issue #2, we see in the background Beachcomber pelted more than once by blaster fire. Yet here he is!

Could this be the first clue, Transformers thought dead, may in fact, be alive? Oh boy, the gates are now cast wide open for who may not be as gone as we think. I personally hope Kup is one of them. If you recall the previous incarnations of Transformers from Marvel, DreamWave, and even IDW, not all the dead stayed that way. After all, these are comic books we are talking about. How many times has an Avenger come back from the dead (or got cloned, Skrulled)? How many times has a Justice Leaguer returned to the land of the living? Transformers are beings too. Hopefully some fan-favorites will return. 

Or perhaps the real punch to the gut is if, or when, we find out dead means dead.

In any case, alive and kicking right out of G1 cartoon continuity, the Autobot pacifist details to Spike how he survived and came to Earth. It involves hitching a ride with NASA after being forcibly ejected into space. Yep. We’re talking millions of years. The heart-to-heart is interrupted by a very angry Astrotrain. The reprieve from action is suddenly interrupted as a massive beam shoots skyward, immediately revealing the endgame. 

I’m starting to think DWJ might have a background in psychology as panel after panel, you either feel helplessness, despair, joy, sadness, and fear as events unfold. I recall during the More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light runs of IDW, I felt similar emotions as each chapter unfolded. But this is a new level of gut-twisting. I want more. Now. 

Transformers #10 is now available at your local comic shop.