Sunday, July 17, 2011

Comic Review...


(Cover "B" by Guido Guidi)


Transformers #21

Writer: Mike Costa
Artists: Guido Guidi and Brendan Cahill
(covers by Marcelo Matere and Guido Guidi)

Summary: TRANSFORMERS goes bi-weekly! Two stories for the price of one, kicking off the 'CHAOS' event!! In part one, Rodimus makes his triumphant return to Earth, and sets off the major events that will spin off into CHAOS. And in part two, Prowl begins his investigation... of Spike. This storyline will change TRANSFORMERS forever!


Comments: And so it begins... or the prologue to Chaos does anyway. Whatever. Part one takes the tact of setting this up like some legendary or prophetic story. Using captions to explain Hot Rod's legendary return to Earth and how after returning the Matrix to Optimus, he would forever be known as Rodiums, etc. The whole gimmick feels cheesy to me honestly. Part two is Prowl staying behind on Earth with some Autobots to apparently investigate Spike's actions behind their backs (i.e. killing Scrapper back in issue #8). I don't really understand the logic behind this--Spike can't kill a Decepticon in cold blood but it's okay for Jazz to incinerate a human a couple of issues ago seemingly without consequence (it seemed like a perfect "crap hits the fan" moment and they totally brushed it off and forgot about it!)  Anyway, this issue sets up the "final" storylines for Cybertron and Earth (after which, what happens? The comic ends? A reboot? I dunno). So far, I'm not that impressed by what I see and the thought of having to buy this bi-weekly seriously puts me off).

Verdict: Average.

***

Transformers: Heart of Darkness #4 (of 4) 

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Artist: Ulises Farinas
(covers by Ulises Farinas, Casey Coller and Livio Ramondelli)

Summary: THE ROAD TO 'CHAOS' ENDS HERE! With his army assembled, Galvatron is ready to take the Heart of Darkness back to Cybertron. But first, he must now face down the ultimate threat, a force of unimaginable power and overwhelming darkness. Will Galvatron stand strong or will he bend to the will of inescapable evil? HoD leads directly into 'CHAOS'-the first-ever TRANSFORMERS event book from IDW!

Comments: For the most part I liked this series (terrible art aside). However, like most all of IDW's mini-series, it doesn't really end conclusively but instead leads into the main title to be resolved. I prefer the old school, where mini-series actually told a story and had a point in existing in the first place (the Drift mini wasn't that great but at least it followed that formula properly).  I still wonder about the titular Heart of Darkness. It was introduced during Simon Furman's run and seemed at the time to be a anti-matrix/dark matrix. In this mini-series, it has become a force of good apparently and is leading Galvatron to try and stop D-Void from coming into our Universe. I was expecting some kind of story twist--that Galvatron was actually doing D-Void's bidding unknowingly but the mini at least doesn't end on any such note. So, we have this "evil" power source trying to stop the evil from coming here? Why? Is D-Void going to be beaten and then we find the HoD is Unicron's soul or something? Or is that twist I predicted still coming? It just seems strange that the HoD suddenly is good natured and wants to stop evil for no apparent reason. I wish that would be explained...

Verdict: Average.


(Cover "C" by Livio Ramondelli)

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