“I told you to keep your maniacs under control.”
“…you’ll know it if I have to let the real maniacs out. Bots like Triggerhappy get noticed.“
Keep reading for a review of Transformers #15 (2019).
Minor spoilers below.
A lot of the story deals with the lies people tell each other and themselves. Sentinel Prime wants to reassure everyone that they have their best interests at heart, that violence will not bring peace. And then he deliberately gives secret orders (“sealed from public inspection,” what an official sounding euphemism for lying to your constituents) to arm a select group of Autobots (ones more likely than Chromia and Optimus to use force) to squash the Rise/Ascenticons. (I can’t keep track, do the Autobots still think those are different groups?)
Meanwhile a lot of the issue is Megatron being introspective about what brought him to this uprising. He definitely started out with Cybertron’s best interests in mind, but he keeps having to take further and further steps into the dark: from aligning with Shockwave, to creating the Rise as convenient bad guy to make the Ascenticons look better (which always seemed like a stupidly complicated plan to me) to today where he appropriates a ton of rationed energon to make himself powerful enough to give a certain someone the beatdown they’ve been asking for over the last three issues. (While I’m sure this will end up with Megatron wanting to always be that powerful, I did enjoy that beatdown.)
Optimus is justifying his questionable choices too, and not everybody’s on board: Bumblebee’s been uncover and face to face with Barricade for weeks (the Cybertronian equivalent anyway) and wants to know why Optimus didn’t tell him Barricade most likely got Rubble killed. Obviously, it’s because Bee’s been undercover and face to face with the person who got his protigee killed, and him going ballistic would be a great way to not be undercover anymore. Sometimes I think the dialogue lingers on things everyone already knows? But it could also be a way to show that where Rubble’s concerned, Bee will never be rational.
We also got our first look at Exarchon, and why he was called The Threefold Spark, and I really like the idea. It’s nicely disturbing once you think about it.
The story’s inching its way forward, but I think it’s actually moving along a little quicker than it did when the issues were coming out every other week.
The art was split between Anna Malkova (with Joana Lafuente’s colors) and Bethany McGuire-Smith (with Josh Bucham’s colors) with Anna on the present day timeline and Bethany on Megatron’s flashbacks. I liked both equally well (Josh’s darker and more muted color palette doing a good job of keeping the past timeline separate from the present.) The three panels that zoomed in on Megatron’s face as he was getting the energon were very effective, and every panel of that beatdown I mentioned was really, really satisfying.