An interesting opening for this story arc: Spoiler Cyclonus sees Provoke in a coma, and Flatline (a Decepticon) promise to try to salvage her spark. Ultra Magnus meets Optimus Prime, who informs him the current situation. Shockwave has Sunstorm in a tube, and wants to study him. Preceptor gets Jumpstream to try a teleporting device. She teleports everywhere on Cybertron, but eventually arrives at another reality, and is held captive by Exarchon. Highlights: Looks like we’re about to learn more about Cybertron's past….can’t wait!
Apart from the return of artist Angel Hernandez, not really. Most of the characters in this issue have appeared before. Also, this issue has a summary of the first thirty issues, so it should easy to catch up.
Spoiler So after losing the war in one universe Exarchon just goes to another and wins it there? I guess that makes him a multiversal threat.
I must admit I didn't expect the Spoiler dimension jumping part at all. Makes it interesting though. Spoiler I am glad they made Sunstorm creepy in this continuity. I loved the scene in which he's slowly forming/emerging from radioactive flames or whatever it is. It would be cool if Hernandez would draw everything taking place in that other reality now to emphasize its otherness. Although I do wonder if Jumpstream is now stuck or if the teleportation ability is still out of control. I also want to know how they will connect this reality with the mainstory, or if it's just there for Jumpstream to learn the truth and tell the others about Exarchon when she's back. Anyway one of the biggest mysteries of this series was always the past war and that alien entity, so I hope that end means they will slowly move into that direction and tell us what has happened in the past. Regarding Straxxus the first few pages mentioned that he has absented himself, I guess it was originally meant to come out around the same time as Escape #5, since I have no idea what he did yet. Maybe he just boarded one of the arcs.
I was half-expecting them to reveal that Jumpstream had wound up in another past Transformers continuity, because of the references to alternate realities and unspace. Like I honestly thought for a second that maybe she had ended up in the old IDW universe or smth like that. Had to check the wiki to refresh my memory or who Exarchon is, another plot point I'd completely forgotten about.
Spoiler Jumpstream clearly uh... jumps ... past the real Skywarp on the way to Exarchon's "kingdom." And it's like he's startled awake by it. Maybe he ends up rescuing her and returning her to the main reality.
I kind of have mixed feelings about a certain reveal... Spoiler Finding out that Shockwave is Exarchon in both the present and in this alternate reality is skin-crawling unsettling considering what he can do with his powers and the reveal of his identity is a little disappointing? I mean up until now, we have been getting glimpses of how much damage Exarchon has dealt to Cybertron, how he somehow managed to force a Titan to fight on his side, the duplicated clones he made for the war, etc..I still theorize that Exachon still made some type of contact with the Hate Plague and that might have changed his abilities in some way. Nonetheless, I find the fact that this reveal adds a serious, nightmare fuel presence to Shockwave more then just an emotionless amoral scientist. Give me more of that, please? On another note, anyone charmed by this new iteration of Perceptor? He has this very proud of himself attitude about him and make light jokes about someone/something from time to time.
I speculated for a long time who the next three "Exarchon" bodies might me if Exarchon came back again, since he seems to be alive. The flashback in one of the earlier issues as well as the whole role and development of Spoiler Megatron made it clear to me that he would be a possible victim to get.. unicronized? (wonder if that entity is some sort of Unicron, since the MO seems to be similar). Shockwave was always an Exarchon lackey and he was still hanging out in his bases, the suprise is Onslaught. Might be cool, because I want the Combaticons to get more focus. Might also be interesting regarding Cosmos's and Blast-Off's subplot. Spoiler Another interesting tidbit is Strika's detached head. She seems very straightforward and, to a degree, even honorable, so I wonder if there will be infights between her and Megatron later. That is, IF this universe is a possible future of the current universe. It might as well just be a completely different universe, but it feels more like the future to me. Otherwise we would see Nominus's head, or Sentinel's, not that of Optimus. Feels like that whatever reality this is is either the future or a timelime that branched off of our timeline just after the coup and got way worse from there and way faster. PS: Can anybody recognize that Seeker Jumpstream flew past? The "Wait.. who?"-guy. I assume it's Skywarp but I am not sure. Wonder how that guy will join the party later. And where he is even is right now. Seems like he is warping around between the dimensions.
Kind of surprised people forgot who Exarchon was in this continuity. Like I don't blame you guys because of the release schedule, but he is like the whole reason why any of this is happening. Like the aftermath of his war is the whole reason why Megatron started this one. Spoiler That said, the fact that Shockwave's been established as a previous follower of him and the way Sunstorm is speaking makes me think he's (Sunstorm's) posessed by Exarchon. Shockwave is considering it a matter of Sunstorm being kind of messed up from his encounter on the moon, but there is obviously more going on with him. Spoiler Hard to say whether it could be a future timeline within this one or not. I don't think there's much of a reason to consider it anything aside from face-value just because the heads are people we more readily recognize. I also didn't see Optimus' head in the crowd, just people who happened to fight the war against Exarchon, like the generals and Kup. We don't see any of the post-war forgings like Sideswipe or the sec-ops people so it may turn out that this is in fact an alternate universe where Exarchon won the war. He seemed to show an interest in Megatron during that flashback so him becoming Exarchon's latest iteration has some reason for it. I hadn't considered that being Skywarp, but looking back it seems obvious. My first thought was maybe Sunstorm has developed some kind of connection with the multiverse, but that being Skywarp seems to be more likely the case. Which is pretty cool imo. That's not the case. It's always been evident that Spoiler Exarchon possesses at least three bodies at a time called "iterations". We have seen him in other bodies on two other occasions. Shockwave is not Exarchon, rather Exarchon's iteration in this universe is Onslaught, Megatron, and Shockwave. He is all three of them at once.
This was a fun issue with a lot of cool things happening. I quite like Jumpstream, she's definitely a more memorable character than she was in IDW1. I barely even remembered the other Torchbearers besides Pyra Magna in IDW1. Nice to see Magnus finally get back to Cybertron, we'll see if he's any better in the main comic's writing than he was in Galaxies. Sunstorm is creepy. Wonder what he's going on about?
Anyway, does it feel like there is no flavor in dialogue? Everybody has the same standardised dialogue and vocabulary be they good or evil, smart or dumb, important or unimportant. I feel like there is no individuality in characters. No personal quirks or way of speaking. Now in MTMTE, every main character had their own personality in the way they talked. You can tell if it was Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Whirl, Rung, Cyclonus, Rewind, Swerve or Tailgate speaking without looking at who the speech bubble was pointing to. I just don't feel that with Ruckley's books.
Maybe at first, but by Lost Light everyone in the crew more or less spoke in the exact same "quirky pop culture ref" voice. Which isnt even a bad thing individually, but when its the entire crew? Well, it got bad.
Interesting little detail, in our main universe, Shockwave is in his G1/Siege body, but at this other place, he's spotting his WFC design
I have to say I like this new preceptor, he like a mix of brainstorm and himself. The old preceptors were either to cold and calculated or kinda rambling geniuses that seem to not get out much. I do gone he still gets his badass sniper eyes and sniper persona later on.
I would gladly take Roberts' quirky pop culture references over Ruckley's dull and tedious seriousness.
I originally stopped reading after issue 12, precisely because of the tedious seriousness, but I've since reread the series and gotten up to date, reading up to TF #31, the Annual, Galaxies, Escape and Beast Wars. I'm enjoying it more than I did the first time around, though I think it's still overly serious--it's Transformers, it needs some levity from time to time! I don't think it's as grimdark as some of the old continuity's stuff (anything illustrated by Ramondelli, like Autocracy or Monstrosity etc, was a joyless slog), but it does dip from "tedious" into "miserable" from time to time. A Transformers series that isn't funny is like a Transformers toy that doesn't transform. It's missing a vital piece. I also don't particularly care about Exarchon. The worldbuilding has been top-notch, it's the one thing I really enjoy about this series, but I don't care about Exarchon. I'm not looking forward to this upcoming arc. It detracts from what is already a slow-paced series, by adding in another threat to pad out the runtime (we're thirty issues in, and they haven't even left Cybertron yet! This issue began with a time-skip, and we're still no closer to getting off this damn planet)
