The story of Autobots and the rising Decepticons battling on Cybertron and Orion Pax becoming Optimus Prime should be huge in stakes and full of great action in a full out World War. Instead we spend way too much time in this super-sized issue focusing on the Decepticon coup, prison breaks and political discussions.
Wheeljack works with the other Autobots to free their captured leaders and friends including Sentinel Prime and Orion Pax. As the issue begins, Wheeljack is attacked by members of the newly named Decepticons before being rescued by Streetwise and Slapdash. The captured Autobots discuss their hopes of being rescued as Megaton talks philosophy with Sentinel Prime.
Megatron feels they should be exerting more power over the universe and restraint diminishes the Transformers cause. They discuss the Matrix before he turns on Orion Pax and chides him for spying on him. Wheeljack joins Ironhide and the other free Autobots and the team spends too much time discussing strategy and ethics before finally staging a prison break.
The artwork throughout these sequences by Anna Malkova is well executed with all of the characters clearly distinct, defined, accurate and expressive. But it really is allowed to fly once the action starts up about 25 pages into the book.
As the Autobots escape the action and destruction ramp up and the book becomes much more entertaining. The Rainmakers attack Sentinal Prime in a beautiful battle sequence. This eventually leads to his death and the historical passing of the Matrix to Orion Pax who learns the history of the Allspark and rises to become Optimus Prime.
Every panel of this book is well done but one wishes there was more action as the energy and excitement of those moments would have been great to intersperse between the political and strategic discussions in the first half of the book. A book featuring an event this momentous should not require wading through what feels like filler material rather than feeling like an ominous buildup.
That said it’s still absolutely a book worth owning simply to see the glory of Sentinel Prime in his final battle and the rise of Optimus. Hopefully at this point we can put politics behind us and the story can embrace the action and intrigue of war rather than political discussion and maneuvering.
Writing: 3.4 of 5 stars
Art: 4.4 of 5 stars
Colors: 4.0 of 5 stars
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Writer: Brian Ruckley
Art: Anna Malkova
Colors: Joana LaFuente
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Author Profile
- M.R. Jafri was born and raised in Niagara Falls New York and now lives with his family in Detroit Michigan. He's a talkative introvert and argumentative geek. His loves include Star Wars, Star Trek, Superheroes, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Films, Comics, TV Shows, Action Figures and Twizzlers.
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