All the IDW Transformers books have hit their last three issues. I was going to say something profound and meaningful, or maudlin, but ugh, let’s not do that for another couple issues at least. (If ever.) See below for reviews of Lost Light #23, Optimus Prime #23, and Unicron #4.
Heads up: I’m avoiding most of the biggest plot points but I’ll be spilling some details, and there’ll be massive spoilers for any issues that come before the current ones, so if you’re not caught up you may want to save this review for later.
Lost Light #23
I’ll start with Lost Light, because out of all three issues this one stands on its own the best: the time lines of all three books are going to merge in the next two issues, but right at this moment everything that’s happening on or near the Lost Light is still mostly separate from anything that’s going on with Unicron. Though, both of them have world-sized robots trashing everything in sight, so it’s easy to get confused.
Rather than sum up last issue myself, I’ll let James Roberts do it (he’s obviously way better at it.)
Rodimus is back in command of the Lost Light for all of five minutes before he’s captured by the Grand Architect—who promptly reveals himself to be Adaptus, an ancient Cybertronian god who has taken the form of the disgraced Autobot medic Pharma. But at least most of Rod’s crew is safe now that his old co-captain, Megatron, has turned up in the Last Light (i.e. the Lost Light with a fetching purple paint job).
Make that safe-ish… The thing is, the Cybertron of the Functionist Universe—now in the form of the god Primus—followed the Last Light through a dimensional portal. “Primus” began destroying five identical Cybertrons, and the Black Block Consortia, Adaptus’ fleet of worldsweepers, and the Infinites rushed to stop him.
But hey, at least the planet-monster isn’t really a god. As Adaptus is more than happy to point out, the Crusadercons have already met the Guiding Hand: himself, the Necrobot, the Magnificence, Chief Justice Tyrest, and… Rung?
There is….a lot to unpack there. But my first guess? The alternate-universe Primus (…the big one…) that’s about to squash the Lost Light is somehow in the next two issues going to made it back to Earth in time to square off against Unicron, and since this alternate-universe Primus is kind of evil I’ll be okay if either of them wins. Or neither. Whichever, I want to see the battle of the giant, GIANT robots!
In between images of the Functionist Primus annihilating planets, we see the Lost Light crew dealing with the fact that Rung is a god. They’re all appalled and in disbelief, except for Whirl, who thinks it’s hilarious.
There’s a lot of things that back it up (including a clever bit with a serial code) but I found myself accepting it when they pointed out how close Rung’s come to getting killed (like being shot in the head) and still survived. “That’s a convincing argument,” I thought. And then I remembered how Lug was resurrected from a flower and I thought “…or that could be James Roberts and his inability to kill people we like.”
(Note to James Roberts: please don’t take that as a challenge. Please?)
There’s some talk from Adaptus about how organic creatures evolve naturally but mechanical beings have to have a higher purpose (like taking over worlds) or they stop evolving and stagnate, and Rodimus points out how maybe a four million year war isn’t a great way to show how you evolved you are, and those are both good points.
Also, Adaptus (if I understand this correctly) (which is not a given) wiped out the memories of everyone on Cybertron so they’d forget their past and start moving to a new future, and then he jumped way into the future (now), so he knows that everything that’s happening now was always going to happen and there’s no stopping it. (He and Shockwave were separated at birth. No, that’s not canon, that’s a guess, but the similarity of time-traveling robot despots who end up as all-knowing gods or heroes is pretty solid.)
I’m not going to spoil who makes it out alive, but I will say when you hang out with back stabby people, back stabby things tend to happen. Not to everybody, but some.
I can’t tell how much of the proposed solution is using elements that have been set up for years (in long-ago books that I’ve forgotten or never read) or been set up in recent books (because there’s so much going on I’m forgetting plot points from three issues ago) and how much is being yanked out of nowhere because it kind of fits and we only have two issues left after this one.
Looking back at the Omega Guardians, I’m still not entirely sure how that leads into the Magnificence being, well, what it is (avoiding spoilers) but the Magnificence seems to have a lot more in common with Unicron than I thought, which can’t be a coincidence. Also, the cover reads “Unicron is HERE” and I know that’s the subhead of the Optimus Prime issue too, but (spoilers) he doesn’t show up in this book, but it could still be a really broad hint, which I didn’t completely pick up on but I would like credit for noticing it in case it turns out to be a thing.
I liked the final page (always nice to have a reminder how some Decepticons tend to do what Megatron says without question) and it goes without saying that I love the art from beginning to end, but I’ll say it anyway: whatever Jack Lawrence and Joana Lafuente do after the next two issues are finished, I hope there’ll be giant robots involved. (But I’ll read it even if there won’t.)
Optimus Prime #23
Technically you may want to read Unicron before this one, because one particular character’s storyline seems to imply this issue comes after the events in Unicron, otherwise I think you might be okay reading them in either order. (And the one character is a human, so I’m not as invested in their story, but you might be.)
I think one of the main themes of this issue is “the Cybertronians were colonists and conquerors for millions of years, stomping out native life where they found it, justifying themselves by saying they improved the worlds they found, so maybe they deserve what’s coming to them. However, the humans are still big jerks for always treating them like the bad guys.” (Okay, that last sentence wasn’t part of the theme, or even implied anywhere in this issue, but it was my knee jerk reaction because I’m always going to be on the side of the giant robots, so there.)
The internal narrative jumps from person to person, everyone reacting to the current situation, whether it’s the death of a world or the loss of a partner. Related note: I knew Slide was unhinged by Oiler’s death, but before now I thought he was whiny and annoying. After this issue…well he’s still pretty whiny, but the depth of his loss is pretty staggering, so it’s a lot more understandable.
Things get chaotic fast, mostly because the humans think Optimus Prime’s forces are attacking, and it’s just the opposite: the attackers are tired of Optimus and blame him for everything that’s happened.
So half the people don’t even know who the attackers are or why they’re attacking, and there’s people on both sides who’d rather not kill everybody on the opposite side, but they don’t want to die either, so yes. Chaotic. (And the Junkions are definitely not helping, but they never do.)
It’s a trip seeing Josh Burcham’s warm colors paired with Priscilla Tramontano’s art; it’s familiar and it isn’t. I like her robots a little better than her humans, but come on, I’ll always like the robots better.
There’s not actually a lot going on in this issue, it’s really one big battle with a bunch of people trying to justify their actions to themselves. And then Unicron shows up.
Unicron #4
I’ll be honest, folks, I have very little idea what’s going on anymore.
I get the big picture: Unicron has destroyed all the colony worlds, and Cybertron is next. The Talisman of the Visionaries (see the Transformers vs. Visionaries graphic novel which I did read and unfortunately didn’t like) is deadly to Cybertronians, so if for some reason Unicron does eat Cybertron, the last resort is that the Talisman will kill him.
However, very few things work out the way they were expecting and I don’t know why. Why would they move the Tailsman somewhere else? Are Metroplex and the Visionaries teleporting everyone, or is there also another force at work? What’s the deal with the “they thought this would provide an eye but it provided a transformation cog instead” bit? And it’s not the writer’s fault that I only read a handful of the Revolution books, but is that where Stardrive turned out to be a wraith?
Side note: the Aileron/Arcee thing is freaking adorable, but does anyone else feel like it came out of nowhere? I know it’s been a thing for a few issues now, but it feels like a last-minute bit of fanservice. Not that I’d judge anybody if that’s what it is: if you’re an IDW creator and your deepest desire is to have Arcee to hook up with somebody, well, you’ve got three issues left, now’s the f*%#ing time.
I know a lot of these questions will be cleared up when I go back and reread the last few issues (I’m looking forward to the graphic novel collection where all the issues in all the series will be all together in the correct order.) For the moment I’m a little confused, but I understand the broad strokes. And Alex Milne’s delicious, delicious art is worth a second (and third, and fourth) look anyway.
A few weeks ago Alex Milne made a teaser of a comment on twitter about something happening in these final issues, and I’m pretty sure this is the issue he was talking about. (*incoherent yelling*) Beyond that I ain’t saying nothin’, except that he drew it very well. That, and the rest of the darn issue. Unicron has never looked so good.
I love the lines from the 1986 movie that crop up here and there (“Do you read me?” and “Why throw your life away?”) that are in a totally different context from the movie. If you’ve never seen it, I’m sure they’ll feel like naturally occurring lines. For the rest of us, it’s a nudge and a wink and a “heh, see what I did there?” It makes us smile even when something really sad happens a few seconds later.
Last note: I hope nothing bad is going to happen to Thundercracker’s dog, Buster. I mean, I get it, he’s going to lose the dog eventually (unless he dies first no please let’s not do that) because he’s got a lifespan of millions of years and she’ll be doing well if she gets sixteen, but please, please don’t kill the dog.
