Livio Ramondelli

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This volume is sort of a mixed bag-- there's clearly a lot of set-up going on here for the imminent Dark Cybetron crossover. While in More than Meets the Eye, that was seemingly all done in a bonus text story at the back (and one throwaway comment in the final issue), a lot of what's here are stories about the secret agenda that Shockwave's been running in the background for almost the entire duration of Robots in Disguise. show more We get a flashback tale that integrates some of the revelations about Shockwave from More than Meets the Eye with the backstory shown in Autocracy (appropriately drawn by Autocracy's artist, Livio Ramondelli), yet another tale of Orion Pax and company chasing Shockwave's mentor Jhiaxus but failing to accomplish anything, and a two-part story that parallels Shockwave and Soundwave fighting in the present with their relationship in the past.

This stuff is okay. Some of it feels belabored and stretched out: Shockwave and Soundwave's fight, for example, was never particularly interesting. I did really like the insight I got into Soundwave's relationship with his cassette servants; probably the best bit of the whole two issues is where we see their first meeting. Soundwave has the power to basically hear all things, which leaves him overwhelmed, but the Cybertronians who will become his cassettes reach out to him and teach him how to filter his perceptions to make them manageable. It adds a bit of pathos to a Decepticon character I hadn't really thought about before. (I still don't get why his cassettes are cassettes, though.) Other aspects of the flashbacks, though, were informative, but not entertaining, more like reading the Transformers wiki than a story-- as always, Barber seems to be sewing up a lot of continuity details for the faithful.

Orion Pax chasing but not getting Jhiaxus is becoming dull, but I suppose this formula will come to an end with Dark Cybetron. It was fun to see a Beast Wars character make a significant contribution to the story in the form of Waspinator. Those are the Transformers stories I'm nostalgic for!

The best two chapters of the collection are the ones showing the character impact of the events of volume 4. Arcee, who has been a mysterious background character for most of the series, briefly comes into the spotlight with a story that explores her attempts to become an Autobot, which aren't entirely successful-- the other Autobots seeing her as more akin to a Decepticon than an Autobot. It's a nice insight into a character we haven't really seen inside before, and I also like what Barber's doing with the Constructicons. (Despite being Decepticons, they want to serve Prowl because being a combiner with him was so awesome.)

The other strong story focuses on Starscream taking over as leader of Iacon. Now, I still contend that Starscream is a bit dim for the consummate politician he's supposed to be, but I like the idea that he is really trying in his own way, but the only people he can speak the truth to are those he's screwed over and incapacitated: dead Metalhawk, imprisoned Megatron, comatose Wheeljack. Also, it's fantastic to see Rattrap, my favorite Beast Wars/Beast Machines character (and thus my favorite Transformer, full stop). I'll be curious to see where this series continues to go with the new, legit Starscream.

So overall, two very good issues and four issues of perhaps necessary set-up. After the strengths of volume 4, it's a bit of a comedown, but I am looking forward to Dark Cybertron.

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Combiners, man... I dunno. I'm sure they're awesome if you're playing with the toys, but I think their very nature is intrinsically antithetical to telling good stories about groups of them. I mean, I liked what was done with Devastator back in Robots in Disguise okay, but Combiner Wars needs to feature multiple combiners warring. Thus five different combiners, each of whom consists of five Transformers. That's twenty-five show more different characters in a six-issue story! Plus all the usual regular characters like Optimus Prime and Windblade and Starscream and Rattrap and Prowl and so on, as Combiners Wars is actually a crossover between Windblade and the subtitle-less Transformers comic (formerly known as Robots in Disguise). There's even some minor interplay with More than Meets the Eye; a group of Lost Light crewmembers were shown shuttling back to Cybertron at the end of volume 8, and here they become a group (the "Protectobots") in two seconds, then stand around in the background a lot, then become a combiner who just shouts and fights a lot. Which is typical of the amount of focus any of these characters can receive in a story like this.

It could be an okay story, but like so many Transformers plots of late, it gets derailed by a character of whom I am growing increasingly sick: Prowl. How many times can he concoct a secret plan and charge into a situation and make it worse for everyone through his interference? It's repetitive, it's boring, and it makes the other characters look stupid for not being able to stop him from doing it. The more these comics focus on him, the less I like reading about him. C'mon dude, if no one can tell the difference between normal you and controlled-by-Decepticons you, maybe you should change up your approach. But no, we just get the same thing with him again and again and again. Optimus Prime, you are a bad leader.

Everyone else kind of gets lost in the shuffle, but there are some potentially interesting ideas about the lost Cybertronian colonies, and I do like Rattrap and Swindle. But, overall, meh.

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There was no volume 7 of this series, you know that? I guess Combiner Wars: First Strike is being retroactively counted as volume 7, but that wasn't on the title page or cover. (Maybe it was on the spine; I'm reading the eBooks.)

Anyway, volume 8 primarily serves to confirm that the post-Dark Cybertron, Earth-focused approach of the series formerly known as Robots in Disguise is doing nothing for me. There's more obnoxious show more stuff about Prowl, continually making Optimus Prime the galaxy's most ineffective faction leader. Plus Galvatron does his evil thing, in a way that's incredibly obvious yet somehow his ideologically motivated followers fail to notice. I do like the focus of the post-DC era on Soundwave, as he's an interesting fellow, but he's also a bit of a patsy, especially considering his ability to monitor electromagnetic radiations. He should know better!

All the stuff with G. B. Blackrock and Alpha Trion and ancient Cybetronian artifacts is the complete opposite of what got me into More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise: a serious exploration of the issues raised by a civilization that's undergone millions of years of war. This is just tedious cod-mythology, lots of mysteries where there's no reason to care about the resolutions.

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I have basically given up on John Barber's Transformers, but given I'd read the first two installments of the "Redemption of the Dinobots" trilogy, and given each is only forty pages long, it seemed worthwhile to finish it off.

Well, maybe it was or maybe it wasn't. I like the idea of the Dinobots, bred for war, trying to find their place in a postwar universe, and I like the idea of them finding that in defending show more Cybertron's first field of new sparks. But the actually story here is disjointed and confusing, and like too many Transformers tales from the late IDW period, revolves around an ancient evil coming back to haunt the present. Like, the emotional meat of the story is not that! Give me the Dinobots! Instead, they feel lost on the edges of a story that's got too much going on for its page length.

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