“If you cannot save the Titans for me, can you at least bring them down?
Two months delayed but it’s finally here: keep reading for a review of Transformers #29.
(Some spoilers below.)
We’ve got two major events/revelations this issue. The first is that Optimus received Starscream’s suggestion to “ask Perceptor about Titansparks,” so he does.
Side note: Perceptor here isn’t the shy, tentative scientist he was in the G1 cartoon. He’s dismissive, arrogant, and blunt. I kinda like him.
But he knows exactly what Starscream was hinting at, and he knows everything about the Titansparks. I won’t give it away, but it surprised me. I didn’t know sparks could be manipulated the way they were here. And Optimus isn’t pleased.
I also liked the flashback image of a newly forged Titan. (According to TFwiki, it’s Lodestar! My current-favorite Titan!) It looks like all of Cybertron is having a party for it, and I love imagining what that would be like, to see this world-sized Cybertronian slowly getting to its feet for the first time.
The other event this issue is that the Data-Bomb that Bitstream and Sparkstalker created a few issues ago to wreak havoc….well, turns out they did too good a job with it, and now they can’t turn it off. It may mean the end of the Titans that are on a collision course for Cybertron. So Megatron’s obviously enraged, but he doesn’t have time to throw people against the walls, he has to assume that there’s a chance that the Autobots could overcome the Data-Bomb, and the Titans would be Autobot controlled, and the Decepticons would be wiped out.
It’s all or nothing, as far as Megatron’s concerned. Either the Decepticons have the Titans, or nobody does.
Meanwhile Ironhide’s coming the the realization that I arrived at several issues ago: the Autobots have got to wise up. They keep thinking the Decepticons are going to fight fair, they have to stop hoping for the best. The Autobots have been so clueless that they’ve lost the Senate, a Prime, and a good chunk of the planet to the Decepticons, so Ironhide gives a rousing speech to his team about not holding back. As far as I’m concerned it’s just more talk; I’ll believe it when I see it.
The rest of the issue is a lot of punchy punchy fight fight, etc etc. There’s a nice image of Optimus in his alt-mode mowing down a Decepticon, and a lot of impressive explosions from the arrival of the Titans.
But is it just me, or is anyone else tired of both sides being so bone-deep stupid? Ironhide says the one person they’ve got left to protect is Optimus, but he lets him waltz into the biggest target left on the Decepticons’ hit list. (Spoilers: it gets blown up.) Soundwave beats the living daylights out of Starscream but doesn’t do anything to keep him from spilling secrets to Optimus, Megatron’s cronies don’t know how to turn off the virus they created, Apeface shoots Blitzwing in the back out of spite, Optimus lets an enemy soldier go so they can warn the people who are bombing the building that said building is going to fall down (…WHAT??), Perceptor knows hot plasma is about flood the same building but doesn’t do anything to move the incredibly important assets out of it…honestly, I’m just tired.
We get speech after speech but we still end up with everyone being all stupid and wide-eyed when things go awry. Seriously, at one point Optimus literally has his hands to his face in horrified shock at how bad the situation is. Between you and me, I’m on Perceptor’s side when he talks about Orion Pax being the new Autobot leader:
Oh, yes. The Matrix. Which the Autobots arbitrarily claimed as their own because their founder happened to be carrying it. I don’t pretend to know its purpose, but I doubt it’s to be a boss-token for some factional leader.
Have I mentioned how much I like this version of Perceptor?
I think most of us know that this is all going to end up with four million years of war. Watching everybody just blunder their way into it is sheer torture.
As for the final image in the issue, I had to head to TFwiki to look that one up; I assumed this was someone from a previous Transformers franchise I’d forgotten about. Nope, it’s someone from this Transformers franchise that I’d forgotten about, someone who was probably mentioned as recently as last issue. I’ve gotta start paying attention.
