Four million years in the past Jetfire wonders if he’s on the right side, while in the present Marissa Faireborn and the President wonder the same darn thing. See below for preview pages and a review of Optimus Prime #7.
(As always, minor spoilers follow.)
I think my only complaint about this issue is that, in the modern day, we’ve got a lot of humans. (I like the human-free books better, but that’s just me.) Marissa Faireborn and her Dad are having a tough time with this whole reconciliation thing, and the President has a long talk with Optimus about doing what’s right versus doing what’s realistic.
You learn to try and make things less bad, if you can’t make them good.
There’s a section comparing the situation to the Civil Rights Movement that could have been a little more subtle, but the tone of the book is echoing the 1980s cartoon and comics, so I always expect a few “Knowing Is Half The Battle” moments. (I know, that was G.I. Joe. In my defense there’s a lot of humans running around in this issue.)
I did like the talk that Faireborn had with Pyra Magna, though I don’t think Optimus is going to be so happy with it.
I’m curious to see what happens to Sideswipe, and what happens to Arcee if/when something happens to him. I don’t really need an Arcee/Sideswipe pairing, but if it’s played as a strong bond instead of a romance I’m all for it, and we get to see a few of Arcee’s thoughts in that direction this issue.
Back in the past, Jetfire learns what the rest of us already knew from watching police procedurals and gang retrospectives: it doesn’t matter why you switched sides, your old friends will still hate you and your new allies won’t trust you.
I liked the conversation Jetfire had with Nosecone, which makes an interesting point about the alt-modes of Decepticons and how some people assume that makes them bad scientists. I always did think it was weird that Starscream and Jetfire were supposedly scientists back in the day, but I wasn’t sure why I thought that. Turns out I was being shapeist.
Pricilla Tramontano’s art works well with the 80s feel of the book. She didn’t go for the slightly yellowish tint that was used in the last few issues, but she does have the half-tone dots here and there, and the landscapes and scenery have that straightforward style you’d have seen in the 80s issues.
As for the faces, I’ve said before that I like my bots with noses (no offense to TF Prime folks) and Tramontano definitely provides them (very pointy in places, but not terribly so) with just enough of a G1 feel to make me happy. I was surprised that Optimus ditched the face plate for the first few pages. I’m not sure how I feel about that, I think it’s cool that they remind us there’s a face under there (the old 80s comic once implied it was just a microphone grid) but I think it should be used sparingly.
