It’s OVER, finished!
With Robert Kirkman’s Void Rivals having launched Skybound’s Energon Universe, noted writer/artist rolled-into-one Daniel Warren Johnson takes the reins on the linchpin of this initiative, the flagship Transformers comic series, with Jorge Corona on pencils and Mike Spicer on colors! At least for now, because this is this creative team’s final issue!
Yes, Optimus Prime and Megatron face off for a climactic battle the likes of which has... been seen before countless times. However, this time something new will be thrown into the mix, won’t it? Yes, surely so as Daniel Warren Johnson wraps his Eisner award-winning run up once and for all!
So how climactic IS it?
Uh. Well, remember how I said last review that it felt a little like some punches were being pulled? That continues here, as DWJ needs to put the toys back in the box for Robert Kirkman to take over. There’s actually a shocking lack of consequence to the events that play out in this issue. The one thing that DWJ could have done to make this really lasting and indelible is almost immediately walked back by the end of the issue. That’s a real shame because it would have been a suitably dramatic moment centered on Starscream that was properly set up, if maybe not earned.
Similarly, the huge battle between the Autobots and Decepticons (that occurred mostly off-panel, apparently) ends with almost all of them lying around the wreckage of the city like they’re recovering from some all-night rager. Soundwave claims the Decepticons have won, but even Bruticus and Devastator are sitting in the debris moaning about how bad their hangovers are. There’s ZERO casualties, everyone’s just beaten up and prone and it feels more like a “tie” than a victory for either side. For a book that seemed to pride itself on having real consequences to the violence, this seems a bit limp, both figuratively and literally.
What about Prime and Megatron? That fight’s gotta have some bite to it, right?
Well, Jorge Corona’s art certainly adds the necessary grit and brutality to their boto-a-boto throwdown. Then Optimus suffers an anxiety attack in the middle of the fight, allowing Megatron to beat him down. Instead of putting a permanent end to it, Megatron decides to engage in some performative bad guy “lesson” he needs to teach Prime. I get that for the sake of the ongoing narrative and the nature of serialized fiction, certain stuff like Megatron double-tapping on Prime can’t happen, but sometimes this stuff is frustrating. Especially so since as I mentioned, DWJ never seemed shy about having real stakes and consequences to life and death situations.
Clearly Optimus is not going to learn the somewhat-nebulous “lesson” Megatron has been trying to teach him if he’s coming down with a case of the vapors every time an innocent human is threatened. It feels like a waste of time, and an overblown caricature of Optimus Prime’s often-lauded sense of compassion. Both classic Sunbow cartoon and Marvel comic Optimus Prime were guided by compassion and mercy, but they were never paralyzed by it, at least not for very long. What happens here just makes Optimus seem ineffectual, and if not for the intervention of fate, things could have gone very badly. I realize you can apply that notion to many other stories, but the plot here doesn’t feel like it supports or earns the triumphant turn at the eleventh hour.
Cube?
Look, if you’ve been reading my reviews, you know I have not been enjoying Daniel Warren Johnson’s writing on this book. I’ll never say anything bad about his or Jorge Corona’s artwork, but DWJ’s take on Transformers seems aimed at readers who have only two specific points of reference in regard to this franchise- the original Sunbow cartoon and the Michael Bay movies. The Autobots and Decepticons take inspiration from their cartoon selves, but the violence and focus on the human characters seems more like the Bay movies. There’s very little sampling from the vast gulf of Transformers fiction in-between those two reference points, especially in terms of tone and themes. That’s really a problem for me, because I’m a diehard fan and I have much of that context ingrained in me. I know what I like in a Transformers story and much of this comic run did not contain a lot of that.
I am looking forward to Robert Kirkman and Dan Mora’s run that begins next issue. While Kirkman is hot and cold with me as a writer, he HAS written things in the past that I’ve enjoyed a great deal, like Invincible and The Irredeemable Ant-Man (#1–12). I’m already enjoying his writing on Void Rivals and I think he’ll help create a Transformers comic I’m more likely to appreciate. Daniel Warren Johnson, well... I’d be happy to see him return to art duties on Transformers in the future, but he can leave the writing part to someone else.
Buy Transformers # 24 this week and maybe your day can be saved by Shredhead too!
