“Targeted Intervention” they called it, not assassination.
But yes, she’s who you think she is.
Keep reading for a review of Transformers #18.
Warning, some spoilers below, for both this issue and #17.
This issue was almost a stand-alone story, focusing on a small group of people and how they react to what’s happening. I’m partial to those stories, it’s like in X-Files: the Mythology stories were big and all encompassing, but I preferred the Monster Of The Week episodes. It’s just in this issue, the Monster is the collapse of a LTW (Larger Than Worlds) structure, destroying a good part of the planet on the way down.
The tether is the cord that attaches the Winged Moon to Cybertron, funneling energy down to the planet, and the mad Titan Vigilem snapped it last issue. I think intellectually I knew the tether was big, it’d have to be to connect to a structure in orbit, but I loved how well the writer and artist really drove that point home when it fell.
“What’s that sound?”
“It’s the tether. It’s still falling, further and further away. You can feel it in the ground. It’ll wrap itself partway around Cybertron as the planet turns.”
Seeing the destruction from the point of view of Arcee and Greenlight and their young charge Gauge is a great way to ground the action, make the reader connect to the story. Certainly the damage to Cybertron is catastrophic, but we get to see how it affects one individual’s decisions. (Arcee is a lot like the reader that way: she connected with the chaos on Cybertron a lot more once it was brought down to her level, when it affected people she knew personally.)
Side note: seeing Arcee going to town on a looter was extremely satisfying, and those were some of my favorite panels in the issue.
Speaking of the art, Umi Miyao and Bethany McGuire-Smith split the art this issue (with Josh Burcham on colors) and there were a lot of fun images; I didn’t know how much I wanted to see what “empty energon cubes being thrown as weapons” looked like till I saw it, and the dynamic shot of Arcee catching Gauge in mid-transformation was nicely done. I also liked Red Alert’s crestfallen pose when Inferno was teasing him.
Warms my inners whenever I see yer authority so throughly respected, Red Alert. Really does. Warms them right up.
I think the only thing I didn’t care for in Umi Miyao’s art is the “drop of sweat to show great emotion” technique, it takes me out of the story a bit; I know it’s an accepted style in traditional manga, but here I can’t help but wonder “…robots sweat?” (It was my biggest complaint about Andrew Wildman’s art back in the day, except then it was spit. I’m better with drops of sweat than spit at any rate.) It’s not bad, there’s nothing wrong with it, I just didn’t think it was necessary; I thought the emotion in the faces was easy to interpret without using graphic shortcuts.
With the way the story went, for a second there I thought the writer was about to pare down Arcee’s connections, possibly with the idea that having a family complicated her story too much. I’m glad to see it went in a different direction. That “CLAANG” as the doors closed seemed pretty ominous, though, and we’ll have to wait for Galaxies #7 to learn more. (The last page said that’s coming “next month,” but since we got Galaxies #5 last week, unless they’ve really accelerated the schedule I don’t think we’ll see #7 till May? But they might be trying to make up for the 11-or-so week wait we had between #3 and #4, so nevermind, ignore me.)