Transformers: Robots in Disguise #31 – Review

By: John Barber (writer); Andrew Griffith, Guido Guidi, and Brendan Cahill (art); Josh Perez and Joana Lafuente (colors)

The Story: Welcome to the Second Terran-Cybertronian War, the conflict where everything’s made up and the sides don’t matter.

The Review: One thing that I believe was a big part of Transformers’ success and longevity was a side effect of their, quite literally, commercial origins: character. While all comics and television shows have to demonstrate some level of characterization, Transformers had a mandate to sell toys, not only Optimus Prime and Bumblebee but of all of the bots. As such there was a necessity to endear each of the characters to the children watching.

This month’s issue not only reaps the rewards of such a strategy but continues the trend. After a long period of silence, John Barber finally gives Jazz some time in the spotlight. This issue’s take on Jazz does a great job of combining the upbeat attitude and easygoing outlook that have traditionally defined the character with the angst he picked up during the Transformers ongoing series. Admittedly, Jazz’s inner monologue is much stronger towards the beginning of the book where attention is squarely on him, but his presence helps to focus the book and gives us someone to root for.

While Jazz, Prime’s free spirited lieutenant, brings a dose of character to the story, the plot still belongs to Prowl, Prime’s master planner. Even as Optimus begins to chafe against Prowl’s…shall we say hands on style, it’s becoming clear that the Autobot commander is not fully in control of his unit. There are some big surprises for those who love, or perhaps love to hate, Prowl this issue and what he’ll do with the revelation of Scavenger’s uncertain loyalties may be the least of them.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise #30 – Review

By: John Barber (writer); Andrew Griffith, Casey W. Coller, and Brendan Cahill (art); Josh Perez & Joana Lafuente (colors)

The Story: “Galvatron! What is best in life?” “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their Mini-Cons.”

The Review: Things are quickly heating up in this title. Transformers fans will no doubt be excited by the prospect of a Galvatron/Devastator throw-down and the issue delivers on that promise. Still, as exciting as a match between two of the most popular Decepticons sounds, John Barber is intent on moving things forward. The course that this story takes already moves the current status quo onto unsteady ground and, while I’m sure some readers would enjoy a little more time exploring the current state of things, it’s hard to deny that this lack of attachment creates an engaging maze of separate schemes and moving parts.

Somewhat unsurprisingly in light of the last few issues, Galvatron is a focus character. With this issue, Barber firmly nails down his version of Galvatron, a xenophobic old barbarian with his own code of honor. It still seems like a step down from the more stoic “Dark Cybertron” version, but it is interesting to see Galvs back up his claims that he’s not a Decepticon. Indeed, it appears that Galvatron has his own motives for aiding the Cons and no sympathy for, perhaps even some distain for, the Decepticon cause. The delicate balance between Soundwave’s reformationist optimism and his need for the clearly unstable Galvatron as a figurehead continues a long tradition of TF antagonists being among the most interesting elements of their series.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise #28 – Review

 

By: John Barber (writer), Andrew Griffith (art), Josh Perez and Joana Lafuente (colors)

The Story: Optimus Prime returns to Earth to find his insistence that “Autobots wage their battles to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons” is not a good enough excuse, not to mention an increasingly hard one to make.

The Review: While it’s not the way that all interpretations have gone, I’ve always seen the Transformers as being something of an inherently progressive premise. After all, the basic conceit of the franchise is that this race of technologically advanced aliens have destroyed their planet through overuse of its natural resources and now must protect humanity from about as literal a representation of a military-industrial complex as you can get and prevent him from killing our planet as well. It may not be accurate to link those values to any one political party, but I think it’s safe to say that Transformers has always valued the consideration of how your actions affect others. Though these themes have been downplayed a little as the story shifted to a newly revitalized Cybertron, a return to Earth brings them back to the fore. As Prowl puts it, “”Cleaning up our messes” has always been a defining Cybertronian trait.”

Flashing back and forth between the immediate aftermath of “Dark Cybertron” and six months later, John Barber sets about detailing the series’ new status quo. The cast is very much different, with one protagonist dead and the other back on Cybertron things have to change for this title, but Barber’s work with Prowl, Jazz, and Orion Pax keeps it feeling like the same book. It’s too early to tell which characters will rise to prominence but it seems clear that Barber has plans for these three, debatably three of the five most prominent 1984 Autobots – Ironhide and Bumblebee being the missing two.

The rest of the cast is made up of slightly smaller names, 86 movie characters like Kup and Arcee, and comfortably middle-tier G1 Transformers, like Sky Lynx, Cosmos, and Jetfire. Interestingly, about half of the crew of the Ark-7 seem to be a separate unit under Prowl’s command. You can believe that that tension will bear some interesting fruit.