Woof, we're about to see how Bumblebee survived getting blasted in two! Also, when was the last time Prowl was the one who tried to keep things from escalating? Because it'd be nice to see that Prowl again... Yeah, since it had Optimus finding Bee and all.
*Shudders* After reading this preview, why do I get the sense that IDW has a thing for wanting to see characters fall from the standards and characterizations they originally had?
Because character development. And because both Prime and Bumblebee are some of the most boring characters in the franchise despite their popularity, and really could stand to be made more deep and interesting.
Orion Pax being all police-brutality-y under Zeta Prime originates with the old Autocracy series. That book's narrative never actually treated it as a bad thing, so I'm honestly really glad that Barber is going back to it and explicitly saying "it was messed up that Orion acted like that".
OP#19 has some glorious moments of Shockers being a smug and utterly devious mastermind, so I’d say so, @YoungPrime. And, yeah, I’m loving the G2/Armada love, but when Judge Dredd Pax is even a bit much for Prowl and to poor baby gangster Swindle... who, yeah, has it coming, but, still, you have to try hard to commit a violent crime that embarrasses Prowl. Moreover, I think it’s a bit much that Arcee is strangling Bumblebee on the cover. Then again, it’s well possible that’s not related to an actual moment in the issue, so that bit of the cover is simply a figurative incapsulation of folks who are impatient with ‘Bee, or just don’t like him. I didn’t really expect ‘Bee to be a successful leader, but I did enjoy him as the Ghost of Governance Past in Starscream’s ear. I also didn’t quite expect Bumblebutt to be in purgatory, though, and, instead, to be surviving, somehow, inside the gravitational singularity.
It's good to see Barber address Pax's sort of out of character behavior from the -acy series. I doubt he'll shed more light on it than this, but it's good to see it's getting acknowledged (and shown that Pax/Prime, unlike other characters like Megatron, does not reach and fall over the tipping point but instead turns back and becomes more heroic again).
It's just Arcee chained up (and the chains disappear behind the combiners' fists) - the stuff inside the silhouette isn't "interacting" with the silhouette itself.
my favorite part is how you could read armada cyclonus' line as either him trying to fake idiocy or, because it's armada cyclonus, someone might've just told him they weren't guns and he believed them.
Loving this story arc. Can’t wait to see what’ll happen next. No one is safe from the pen of John Barber: Retcon Master!
I always enjoy a look into the mindset of IDW Bumblebee, as he's one of the most complex characters in IDW's continuity. He starts out the wide-eyed, idealistic Bumblebee we're all familiar with, but over the course of the war develops into a more seasoned, though still diplomatic and friendly character. Then he becomes leader of the Autobots, and thrust into a position he has no experience with, has no one truly helping him manage, and didn't really want in the first place, he struggles to make the same decisions as those he once idolized. As he struggles to cope with his new position, he becomes grimmer and more stern, and makes more drastic decisions, that ironically work against his strengths (specifically, his friendly, outgoing, generally diplomatic nature). Seeing him rediscover his better traits as he utilizes them to sort of befriend Megatron in the Dark Cybertron was some interesting development, but could have used more focus. (Though with the cluster-mess that story was, and how much was already being crammed in...) It is interesting seeing him, through the internal dialogue boxes, acknowledge where he went wrong, and I'd like to see him realize and overcome these faults as the story goes on. In Unicron #0, he seems to be closer to where he was as a character before leadership. After we got a Spotlight issue that went out of its way to explain the difference in character between the Ongoing and ex-RID, I'd expect the Master of Continuity to give some kind of acknowledgement to that development.
I like the way Bumblebee's flashback is more of a mirror opposite of Starscream's revisionist view. However, they both convey the flaws in Orion, the good cop gone angry in hard times.
