I’ve missed you.”
Keep reading for a quick review of Transformers #28.
(Some spoilers below.)
Before I get into the review, can I just say how much I love the main cover by Casey Coller and John-Paul Bove? Starscream, being all sneaky, whispering into Megatron’s ear, while Megatron looks annoyed but is still listening? It’s so nicely drawn, the shading is beautiful, and I love their faces, but it’s also really nicely composed. Everything’s balanced, your eye just flows down the page, and it’s not your traditional “GIANT ROBOTS BLASTING EACH OTHER” type of cover. It tells a little story, all in one image. Excellent work.
We open the issue with Cliffjumper dying an immediate, horrible death. I had no idea what was going on, and assumed I’d missed something, maybe a whole issue. (Seeing as how this issue was supposed to drop a month ago, an easy thing to assume.) I also thought “Wow, poor Cliffjumper, can’t catch a break. Slaughtered in every franchise…” But more on that later.
We see Cyclonus as he meanders his way to the Arena, mumbling to the guard about how he heard Sixshot was inside. The guard has no time for his nonsense. Cyclonus, as it turns out, has no time for the guard.
I’m very curious about Cyclonus’ greek chorus of dead bots. I’ve always assumed they were just Cyc’s way of dealing with unimaginable trauma, but I keep wondering if there’s something more substantial to them. They do seem to have his best interests in mind, including some thoughts on how taking on a target like Sixshot might not be strictly healthy.
Meanwhile this issue’s exposition/recap is being delivered in the form of a conversation between two people, and it takes us a little while to find out who they are. I assumed it was Andromeda, spilling some secrets in the hopes that she can land an exclusive.
Turns out (spoilers) it’s actually Starscream, who got the tar beaten out of him by Soundwave a few issues ago. He’s shrugging off all the cosmetic damage and telling Reflector (sorry, Refraktor according to TFwiki) that he, Starscream, is the only one who knows what’s going on. Sort of?
“I don’t know what’s coming, but I guarantee you there are surprises, things Megatron hasn’t anticipated. Things even I can’t see coming.”
So basically he’s saying he has no idea what’s going to happen, but he KNOWS he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, which puts him ahead of Megatron. Riiiight.
As for Andromeda, Soundwave’s given her an exclusive, it’s just another speech from Megatron. God, always with the speechifying, this Megatron. “The Autobots are useless, and they’re lying, and anything bad you’ve heard about us is more lies from the useless Autobots. Do everything we tell you to do and you’ll be safe.” I’m really tired of hearing a different version of this speech every issue. (I might also be tired because it is just a liiiittle too close to the entire US political discourse at the moment but I’m not going to get into that now.)
Meanwhile Cyclonus finds Sixshot and very politely tries to kill him. Why? Because Sixshot destroyed the memorial that Cyclonus had been protecting. That memorial was Cyclonus’ reason for living, so killing Sixshot is now his reason for living. That is, until Sixshot suggests that killing the recently released Pyra Magna (who killed someone very important to Cyc) is an even bigger reason to live.
It’s depressing how quickly Cyclonus switches gears. He’s a quiet, stoic, mess. On some level he knows that killing Sixshot wouldn’t have made him feel better, and he has to know that killing Pyra Magna won’t either, but he’ll jump at anything, anything, that might help.
Complicating the situation is the fact that Quickdiamond broke into the Autobots’ jail and released Swindle, who then released a few more people, including Bumblebee. Speaking of people who’ll jump at any questionable opportunity for a chance at revenge, it seems killing Quake wasn’t enough for Bumblebee, now he’ll switch teams for a chance at killing Barricade.
It does give us a chance to see the inside of Swindle’s operation though, and we find out exactly what happened to Cliffjumper. We didn’t miss anything, we weren’t supposed to know till now what was going on: just one more person doing anything they can to get revenge.
Between all the speechifying and nobody being able to think of anything beyond their own flavor of instant gratification, I’m a little annoyed with everybody right now. I hope a few people get their act together next issue, honestly.
(Also, over 50 different characters were seen this issue. It feels sometimes like IDW is under a deadline to show every single Transformer that’s ever appeared in any incarnation since the 1980s. Thank you again, TFwiki, for helping me keep them all straight.)
