New World Era!
With Robert Kirkman’s Void Rivals having launched Skybound’s Energon Universe, he now takes the writing reins of the flagship Transformers comic series as well, with Dan Mora now on pencils and Mike Spicer still on colors. Previous artist Jorge Corona also contributes to this inaugural issue as Kirkman begins to reshape the Energon Universe!
In this extra-sized twenty-fifth issue, it’s a new day as the Autobots and Decepticons recover from their last epic clash. Megatron stews in the failures of his troops, while Optimus prepares to make new human allies. And on Cybertron, Elita One comes to a momentous decision!
So what’s up with this “Kirk Man” fellow? He any good?
If you’ve been reading these reviews, you know I haven’t been a fan of Daniel Warren Johnson’s writing on this series, so I was looking forward to someone, ANY-one taking over. Robert Kirkman has never been my favorite comic book writer, but he HAS a track record of producing stuff I’ve enjoyed. I’m happy to say he seems on his way to continuing that here, as this is the first issue of Skybound Transformers I’ve actually not felt “off” about.
I think a big part of that is Kirkman clearly having much more defined memories of “classic” Transformers stories than DWJ did. His Autobots and Decepticons sound more like characters you’d hear on the Sunbow cartoon, instead of those weird faux-alien pseudo-formal speech patterns that Warren Johnson would apply. Kirkman even adds a dash of Marvel comics in at the beginning as Megatron addresses each and every one of his troops by name and formally “intro-dumps” for them. It’s quite charming and doesn’t leave me with the “cringe” that I felt reading DWJ’s dialogue sometimes.
Ooh, what else, what else?
Jorge Corona pencils the opening scene of the issue, with Megatron addressing the remaining Decepticons and formalizing their mission statement. Corona’s art is hot or cold with some, but I enjoy its gritty expressiveness. It reminds me a bit of Derek Yaniger’s work on the Marvel Generation 2 comic and I do love me some G2. Then we’ve got new ongoing artist Dan Mora making his debut, and he doesn’t disappoint. His work is clear, on-model and expressive throughout and he nails the major debuts and storytelling beats in this issue.
As for the new story stuff that Kirkman brings to the table, well… most of it will be familiar to longtime Transformers fans. He introduces some classic characters, including one that didn’t originate in Generation 1, and hints at more to come. Kirkman also makes sure to expand the Energon Universe’s borders with links to Void Rivals, G.I. Joe, and ANOTHER 80s toy property that has also been shown to exist inside this continuity. It’s nothing new or shocking really, as IDW did this as well, but perhaps Kirkman and Skybound will be able to handle it a bit better than IDW did. The cliffhanger is also something that won’t be “new” or “shocking” to longtime Transformers fans, but it can still be an interesting direction to go forward in.
Cube?
Kirkman and Mora manage to set the meter back to zero, which considering that it was at negative-fifty for me is pretty good. Again, there’s nothing here that feels “bold” or “new” but there’s a lot to be said for “familiar” sometimes too. I’ve been enjoying Kirkman’s work on Void Rivals and he clearly has a lot of affection for this property, so I’m happy to look for things to enjoy in this book. Mora’s art certainly makes it go down smooth and I’m actually interested to see where things proceed from here.
Buy Transformers # 25 this week and see the mighty power that will save the day.
