“You called her “Green”?”
“What’s wrong with that? She is green.”
After three long months we finally have another issue of Transformers! My heartfelt thanks and admiration to everyone who made this happen in the middle of the clusterf*ck that 2020 has become. Keep reading for a review of Transformers #20.
Warning, some spoilers below.
Okay, a lot went on this issue, and between the three month break between issues and the fact that I’m a Transformers heathen who only knows the names of bots from the 80s cartoon and comic book, I had to read it front to back four times before I figured out everything that was going on. (I could’ve gone to TFwiki right off the bat, but I wanted to see how much I could suss out on my own.)
So: the Rise convinced the mad Titan Vigilem to attack the Winged Moon, snapping the Tether between the moon and Cybertron. So not only has Cybertron lost that energon source (and energon was heavily rationed to begin with) but, more pressing, when the tether fell it destroyed thousands of square miles of the planet.
Everyone’s angry and scared. The Rise and the Ascenticons are getting most of the blame (few people seem to believe anymore that those are two separate factions, I’m surprised anybody ever did) but Security Operations and the government’s getting flack for not protecting its citizens, and Sentinel Prime doesn’t take criticism well. At all.
(This was written months ago, so the timing of huge protests and a leader who’s happy to write off all the protesters as terrorists is really something here.)
Security Ops’ main issues seem to be inexperience with conflict, plus hotheads like Sideswipe who just want to jump in and do something.
But the Rise’s main issue is that the type of person who joins the Rise is also the type of person who doesn’t follow orders very well. Mindwipe’s more interested with getting energon than listening to Shockwave, so he grabbed Storm Cloud and Visper and dropped in on Swindle’s gambling den to get some contraband. Problem is, Prowl’s team is headed that way too.
(Speaking of timing, having Prowl throttle a suspect while Nightbeat stands off to the side telling everyone “hey it’s okay, maybe a little outside the rules but everything’s cool” is much less fortunate timing here, considering the murder of George Floyd. IDW didn’t do that on purpose, god no, and it’s nothing Prowl hasn’t done before, in every incarnation, and I do love our table-flipping security officer. But I’d feel irresponsible if I didn’t mention that, moving forward, we need to be careful with the “anything to keep the peace” trope. It’s done all the time, but just because it’s been done a lot doesn’t mean we need to keep doing it.)
There’s a brawl and some brainwashing and a really impressive double karate chop to the neck to stun the brainwashed Bumper, resulting in the security forces getting the jump on a few members of the Rise, members who might start singing if leaned on hard enough. The Rise is losing their hideouts one by one, which is making them more jumpy and dangerous. I understand all that, but I feel like in order to get to this point we had a ton of names thrown at us all at once. That may be just me, though. Like I said, outside of the 80s cartoon, comic book, or the More Than Meets The Eye series, if you throw any other characters or plot points at me I’ll usually blink and ask where Soundwave is.
Speaking of which, every time we hear that Frenzy is one of the bots the Rise is keeping in hiding because he was behind the murder that started this whole thing…does anyone else think that’s sort of hilarious? It’s Frenzy! Him and Rumble are the original mouthy Decepticon punks, it’s so interesting that he’s at the center of a huge conspiracy. I really want to know what Soundwave thinks about all this, is he still one of Soundwave’s minions?
Anna Malkova’s art was very fun as always, and so neat to see again after three months. The faces are all in that G1 style I love, the battle scenes are nicely done, the A’ovan diplomat Hound talks to is beautiful, and how cool is Prowl with his pet flyt on his shoulder? And how perfect is it that he named it Green?