John Barber (11) (1976–)

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In this volume, recent events in the title formerly known as Robots in Disguise have repercussions for the whole Transformers galaxy, as an ancient Prime returns, reanimating Titans with him. This is more of the kind of Transformers stuff I haven't really cared for: ancient cosmic evils, big robot fights, blah blah blah.

The events of Titans Return connect to all three Transformers ongoings (the subtitle-less Transformers, show more More than Meets the Eye, and Till All Are One), but it is structured differently than previous Transformers crossovers. While Dark Cybertron and Combiner Wars had a unified story that alternated between the two titles involved in the crossover, Titans Return has a kick-off issue that involves all three series, then a two-issue Transformers story, and then a two-issue More than Meets the Eye one. This is good, because it lets each series maintain its own unique identity.

Sentinel Prime starts out on Cybertron, fighting Ironhide's new police force seen in Till All Are One, Volume 1, as well as Windblade and Starscream. There's some Windblade-Starscream banter, and both Tankors turn up-- it's not much of a role for TAAO, but it does allow for some reflection on how far Cybertron has already come, as Sentinel Prime views with disgust the achievements that Windblade and company have made in reintegrating postwar Cybertron. It does get a bit too technobabbly. (Relative spark temperatures are a significant plot point, and I would contend that this should never be the case.)

From there, Sentinel makes it to Earth, where the by-now normal John Barber tediousness happens. I enjoyed this guy's character driven writing at first, but since the move to Earth, it has almost disappeared. And geeze, if Garrison Blackrock and Marissa Faireborn never appeared in this comic again, I don't think I'd even notice. But now there are G.I. Joes for some reason?

I do like that Soundwave is now an ally to Optimus Prime, seeing in Optimus's leadership the best chance for the ideals that originally drew him to Decepticonism. But why has he started describing everything he does as an "Operation"?

The crossover contorts a little bit to get More than Meets the Eye involved, given that when we last saw the series, the main characters had been kicked off their own ship and the planet they were exiled to exploded. So we get a flashback to the Lost Light before the events of volume 10 that is just there to deliver some exposition (but in a funny way) and the main involvement of MtMtE is through some of its side characters no longer on the Lost Light, like Fortress Maximus and Red Alert-- Sentinel Prime runs from Earth to the planet where they're hanging out.

Prowl also turns up, but it turns out that my problem was never with Prowl, it was with John Barber writing Prowl, because in the context of MtMtE, Prowl is hilarious. Fortress Maximus kicks him as soon as he comes through the spacebridge; when Cerebros wants to know what Prowl did to make Fortress Maximus so made, it's very difficult for Prowl to remember, because, as he himself admits, "I've hacked off so many people it's hard to keep track. Whatever I did, I know for a fact it was necessary, proportionate, and staggeringly far-sighted, and I'm confident that history will prove me-- Oh! Garrus 9! There we go."

So I don't really care about Sentinel Prime and his plans, but it kind of feels like James Roberts doesn't either, because the story's best parts have nothing to do with that. Instead we get a meta-gag about how the weird conventions of comic book dialogue only make Red Alert paranoid, the story pays off contrivedly but hilariously a running gag about Prowl's propensity for flipping tables, and given that this is More than Meets the Eye's final issue, there's even a nice bit of reflection about endings themselves.

The series formerly known as Robots in Disguise also ends in this volume, and for me that makes it a nice jumping-off point-- I don't think I'll be picking up any volumes of its relaunch as Optimus Prime unless they turn up for dirt-cheap in Humble Bundles-- but I loved More than Meets the Eye more than any ongoing comic I can remember, and I can't wait to dive into its sequel series, Lost Light. Everything ends, nothing ends.

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I picked up Transformers vs. G.I. Joe #0 solely because it was free at Free Comic Book Day 2014, which I guess is the point of it all. As a dedicated un-fan of G.I. Joe, I expected nothing out of it... and it blew my mind. Tom Scioli's comic told an entire story on almost every page, doing more with the medium in one issue than many writers accomplish in entire careers. People should be teaching that zero issue in show more universities. I knew from that moment that once a collection of the entire series was released, I would have to buy it, and I read it to cap off my run-through of all IDW's Transformers comics.

I'm pleased to say the entire thing is mostly as good as that #0 issue. Any single issue here could be a premise for an entire miniseries of its own. Scioli and co-writer John Barber rocket through ideas: Decepticons making a fake peace mission to Earth, G.I. Joe as insurgents on Cybertron, Cobra teaming up with the Decepticons on Earth, Metroplex as inhuman prison, Scarlett in an experiment to convince her both G.I. Joe and the Transformers are just toy lines... everything here is awesome, from the big ideas, to the small details. The whole thing has the exact right tone, alternating between the sublimely ridiculous and the ridiculously sublime. Scioli knows you can't take this seriously (someone goes "Yub Nub!" at a victory party) and that you can only take this seriously (G.I. Joe guns down the entire UN because they're not handling the conflict seriously enough).

It falters a little bit in the third quarter. Scioli and Barber's commitment to never staying still means the whole thing escalates too quickly for its fourteen-issue length, and it seems to me that some of the flashback stories in that part of the series are designed to stall things to keep the pacing in place for issue #13. But the last couple issues are delights all over again, as things keep getting bigger and better.

Honestly, there are times where it's like something you might come up with as a kid. I loved the occasional inclusion of maps and diagrams, the stuff I used to obsess over (or try to make!) as a ten-year-old fan of Oz or Narnia or what have you. But it's the pleasure of childhood combined with the seriousness of adulthood in a way that diminishes neither. Some Transformers comics and even more G.I. Joe comics often seem to want you to forget that this is all ridiculous by making everything Proper and Serious. But Scioli never loses the sense of play that drew you into these series to begin with. This is everything you could ever want a comic book about giant transforming robots to be, and more, and better. show less

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Unlike its sister title, Robots in Disguise didn't lose its leading article... it just lost the whole rest of the title! Now plain old Transformers, but at least it's gained full subtitles in lieu of volume numbers, as this volume is called Combiner Wars: First Strike. To my surprise, it actually opens with a Windblade continuation of sorts, keeping up that series's development of events back on Cybertron, and even using show more Windblade's artist, Sarah Stone. Awakening after his apparent death (back in volume 5, I think? I lose track), Wheeljack is confronted with a strange new Cybertron, ruled by Starscream and inhabited by women! (like Windblade), and he has to decide where his loyalties lie. It's slight, but I like Wheeljack.

After that, though, it's just confirmation that the new direction of this comic book is not one that I am enjoying. Pompous journeys into Cybertronian history are becoming increasingly dull to me. They're just a cheap way of attempting to add weight to banal proceedings (so is Livio Ramondelli's artwork). And then we're off to four whole issues of Prowl being an asshole to everyone, another thing I have rapidly become tired of. It doesn't even make sense for Optimus to leave the mentally compromised Prowl in charge. (Something he seems to acknowledge... so why does he do it?)

Prowl dominates the book so much in its current form that there's not much enjoyment to seek elsewhere. I've never really cared for this version of Spike Witwicky since he was introduced in All Hail Megatron, and though I liked Jimmy Pink in Simon Furman's stories, he's not really the same without Hunter and Verity alongside. I like Arcee, but she's mostly a bystander here, and the rest of the Earth-based Autobots are barely interesting at best.

I just don't get why the series has gone in this direction, throwing aside its unique selling points in favor of generic, uninspired Earth infiltration while everyone chases after some kind of generic, uninspired maguffin. Why make Optimus the leader of the Autobots and then send him out in the field? Why isn't he leading his people? Why can't he delegate? It's a weird and not very organic development of the series post-Dark Cybertron.

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Though I gave up on John Barber's take on Transformers a couple years ago now, I still had some curiosity about how it would all end, and so I dutifully picked up Unicron, which ties up the IDW continuity that began all the way back in Infiltration-- three-and-a-half years of reading for me, and thirteen years of storytelling for them.

Anyway, it's about as bad as all post-Dark Cybertron John Barber Transformers comics have show more been. Too many characters I don't care about, too much ancient Transformer mythology, too many banal human beings, too many shoehorned-in other Hasbro properties, too much indecisive Optimus, too many characters reverting again and again. Why did Starscream undo his progress from Till All Are One? Why am I reading about yet another millennia-long Shockwave masterplan? Didn't the jokes about Thundercracker writing screenplays wear thin years ago?

I guess the biggest point of frustration for me is the title character itself. Say what you will about the 1980s Transformers film, but Unicron is awesome in the original sense of the word. Its coming feels ominous and significant and unstoppable; it is the doom of a universe. Where and why does it come from? Irrelevant. It hungers, and it will have you. Here, though, Unicron never dominates. Neither the writing nor the art give it the immensity it deserves, it always feels squeezed in, instead of dominating. I usually like Alex Milne, but his Unicron just feels really unimpressive. Ooh, it's sucking up some rocks. And then to give it an origin story that ties into one of the mediocre Hasbro properties! Visionaries, I think? I've already forgotten. This diminishes Unicron and thus the whole story.

The IDW Transformers universe had a strong start in Infiltration, and despite missteps such as All Hail Megatron, went some very interesting, unprecedented places once the war ended. But John Barber, the same architect of those innovations slowly dismantled them after Dark Cybertron and then piled on the mistakes with the Hasbro comics shared universe-- necessitating the destruction of the entire continuity, because there was no other way to reset things to the way they'd been. But that destruction turned out to be as banal and uninteresting as the writing that made it necessary to begin with.

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