This issue surprised me a lot, especially the final page. Spoiler Slug, Wheelie, Garnak, and Stardrive are back!
I just found this issue frustrating tbh. Barber does his best to keep the reader informed but too much of this issue relies on the reader having read other IDW books(First Strike, Salvation, spotlight metroplex, Rom VS TF) you could argue that's the case for the other books but this issue in particular takes the biscuit. Grumbling aside, I can't help but be impressed. There is so much lore in this issue and Barber weaves it all together perfectly. Barber will always be the loremaster of IDW XD. As for the art... Apart from the usual problems, my main issue is Optimus discovering he killed Arcee's brother should warrant more of a reaction than a copy/paste of the previous panel. There's some improvement, it's still not my cup of tea but fair play to Livio. But hey, bright side, at least we know Stardrive survives her miniseries
Spoiler The Throttlebots barely get any focus since the issue’s about finding the Dinobots and Sandstorm, so we can’t say for sure. Never saw Wideload and Freeway, and we don’t know what happened to Searchlight after he was shot. All that happens at the end is Prowl and friends show up to save at least Goldbug, Rollbar, and Chase from the not-BW Predacons. Maybe they’ll be all fine and dandy next issue? Obviously, Slug is somehow not deader than dead, which is cool, I guess.
Spoiler Prowl, Max, Red Alert? Interesting. Sounds like Barber is tying a ton of stuff back together. I think in the preview they said that Sixshot did successfully kill Wideload and Freeway, but I could be mistaken. And then Prime and co search for the Dinobots and Sandstorm? Huh.
Spoiler I couldn’t recognize her at first! I’ve grown used to her Knight coloring. And Wheelie and Garnak, we haven’t seen them since Dark Cybertron! That was a Vampiric Ribbon weapon Prowl was using, the same weapon used by Zeta Prime back in Autocracy! Barber’s addressing so much, I love it.
This put the porn into continuity porn, and still presented some devilishly complicated setup and gave everyone important some nice character moments. If I have a complaint it's that OP's voice is...weird in a couple places. I'm usually an advocate for somewhat looser writing of Optimus "Lay It On Me, Bro" Prime, but the character is at least somewhat articulate even when he's having a bad day!
To be so continuity-heavy, with surprising re-appearances and different mini-series/events being pulled from, while also being an entertaining read takes some doing. I don't know why I'd considered dropping this book, especially since there's no TAAO.
Yup, one of Zeta Prime's vamparc ribbons from Autocracy. Prowl was asked to get rid of them at the end of the story, but it was hinted he might keep them for himself. And now we know he did!
I haven't read the issue yet, but I did notice that it is numbered as 13 -- a prime number. This is a clear reference to the titular character, Optimus Prime. I think TFWiki should make note of every time prime numbers are used in or by the Transformers franchise.
I have to say that for me continuity in a long running series is important. It does my head in on series were events are conveniently forgotten or glossed over in order to improve the story. So its one of the reasons I'm a fan of john barber in so far as he's the master of continuity and tying loose threads going back years together. Having prowl have zetas gun is a case in point here. I knew from autocracy that prowl hadn't destroyed the weapons when he was asked to. Barber doesn't always deliver top issues or satisfactory conclusions but he is capable of writing some great issues
Number of people surprised that Prowl did not destroy any weapons worth keeping "just in case of" even if he was ordered to do so: 0
we don't need spoilers in issue discussion threads. everybody in here should have read the issue or just don't care about spoilers. Too bad the crappy art ruined a good issue. ABSOLUTELY RUINED IT.
I really dug this issue, it hit a *lot* of points while clearly setting up stuff fairly big. It referred to a lot, but also in a way that filled us in if you skipped it.
