Review: Transformers – Sins of the Wreckers

The Wreckers Return! Somebody’s kidnapped Prowl… but does anybody want him back? A lifetime of messing with everyone’s lives comes around to haunt him. Fortunately, he’s always got a plan and in this case… the one team of brutal, broken heroes… the Wreckers!

Everyone on Cybertron is handling the end of the war differently. Wait, that’s not it, what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh yes: badly. Everyone’s handling it very badly.

There are Decepticons who can’t accept that the grand dream of universal domination is over, and there are Autobots who’ll never believe that any Decepticon is worth trusting.

And then there’s Prowl.

Prowl’s always been one to arrange things behind the scenes, and he doesn’t shy away from making hard decisions that get people hurt. But lately he’s gotten worse. In a recent story it was revealed that he’d been under telepathic control by a Decepticon for the last six months. And nobody had noticed. His story line ever since the end of the war has been a string of very shady deals. His attempt to use Combiner technology finally landed him in prison, and a brawl with Optimus (who is just done with all of Prowl’s schemes) ends with Prowl unconscious and missing an eye.

And then he disappears.

The first issue sets the scene, with Arcee and Kup breaking into Prowl’s office to try to find out what happened to him. Kup has some inside information that he’s not sharing with anyone, and Arcee…well, who can tell with Arcee? They soon find out that Prowl’s being blackmailed with something from his past, something that could shatter the fragile Cybertronian peace if it’s ever revealed.

Meanwhile several members of Kup’s old team, the Wreckers, are having to deal with the fact that peace has made them pretty much obsolete, a team of fighters with no one left to fight but each other.

Nick Roche does his usual amazing job with art and writing. He’s been one of my favorite artists ever since the first issue of More Than Meets The Eye, and the muted color scheme he uses here goes very well with all the lies and manipulations going on.

Roche has been asked to write a new story about the Wreckers ever since their first series ended five years ago (pro-writing tip from Roche: When writing your first comic-book series, try to avoid using the title “Last Stand”) and this time around he’s going to take a look at what happens when a legendary fighting team has to face all of the dark, terrible things from their past.