The Soundwave jailbreak cover by Nick Roche!
Ongoing issue 12 continues to be felt as issue 14 kicks off the end of the year this month. We get right into the mind of Bumblebee's shooter and how he came to be in possession of… Megatron? But is it really the Megatron? Last month we saw a new and functioning Decepticon leader in a new alt mode with Soundwave standing by his side. In this issue, Soundwave is back on Earth to break the Decepticons out of Skywatch.
Prime's secret obsession… the need for speed! He is top gun after all!
But that is not all… while Prime and the autobots under his command are returning from their mission on eastern boarders, they receive the wrath of an incoming attack. Bumblebee still functions, barely. However, without the aide of Ratchet who knows where his fate lies? And the humans…? Our shooter is apart of a growing movement of concerned citizens called "Earth's Children," who are arming themselves with pieces of Megatron?
This is the issue of questions. Good ones I might add. Ones that make me want to have the next issue in hand, today. It left the right parts of plot hanging as we aren't given the fate of Prime and the warriors with him. And the last page is not a splash of the big bad Megatron returned to earth as we've already seen him revealed. It has a twist and it's a lovely one. Where we go from here is either going to be chalk full of greatness or the worst continuity errors this side of Cybertron…
Does anybody else think that Jazz watches too much Star Wars?
I'm cautious as a reader/reviewer. I was really excited with the Ironhide miniseries we received this year too, also written by Costa. And when they introduced Alpha Trion I was sorely disappointed. So while I'm excited for this issue, even though it is setup and more of that lovely salad I've mentioned before, I am trying to keep in mind it is a really good bite of story that could still easily sour in the issues to come. But for now, I will enjoy the moment.
Costa has my attention with the introduction of this new building threat. Up until now I've been waffling on what I think about the story. There have been as many good moments as moments I'm not so happy with. This feels like a step toward something exciting. I don't know what yet and I couldn't possibly speculate because there are so many ways it could be taken at this point. But I like the potential this story has for becoming more than we've been getting month after month. I want to believe I will have the most intriguing outcome here, but we will all just have to wait and see.
Brawn giving us a very good "Gulp, gotta go change my pants now" look! Magnus is very intimidating you know...
Don Figueroa is back on illustration detail this month, but we have a new colorist with Andrew Dalhouse. (And a Nick Roche cover! YAY!) Don's humans are a bit more stylized than the humans he gave us in the first 6 issues of For All Mankind. (Great expressions I might add.) The designs of the robots are recognizably his. And the bots have tattooed themselves something fierce with autobot brands. Dalhouse is the king of blue. (At least I notice the color really being used when he colors. Not that I mind, I have a personal preference to the color.) We've seen Dalhouse on the movie verse comics this year. It's nice to know that there is more than one colorist working for IDW at the moment on their Transformers titles, it's just a shame that the fan favorites aren't being used.
The Ongoing theme this issue, well placed dialogue to build the tension. This is where the pay off over the next year starts readers… start buying your copies now...
There are still some errors in this comic but in all I enjoyed it and the lingering questions are making me chomp at the bit for next months issue. I want to know exactly what all those guns, yes the very same one that downed Bumblebee, are doing there and how this will all play out? Keep at it Costa, this could be the start of something…
If you would like to hear a more in depth, spoiler review of this comic. Check out
the Underbase comic review podcast posted every Wednesday.
| Reviewer | ladywreck |
| Date | December 14th 2010 |
| Score |  (7 out of 10) |
| Reads | 11830 |
Back to Reviews Index
|
