Some light is shown into the past and present of Cybertron: Spoiler During the Threefold Spark, Cyclonus and his crew are on duty, firing their targets. As time progresses, he sees his crew members getting killed, and is eventually the only suviour; he starts to hallucinate them following his rescuing. Codexa reveals that in the past, Highbrow debriefs Nominus Prime, regarding the basics on Exarchon. His spark basically acts as a virus, but he can only infect three bots at a time. Back at the present, Cyclonus heads to a Decepticon bar, and finds out Ruckus has joined the Decepticons. Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus are returning back from their visit to Codexa, only to encounter the Decepticons. Ultra Magnus is defeated, captured and sent to Megatron. Highlight: It is interesting to see a bit more information regarding Cybertron’s past, and have Ultra Magnus show up.
Spoiler I really didn't dig Guido Guidi art in this issue as not only did it leave some characters looking a bit cartoony near the end but it also left an underwhelming feeling for me when Ultra Magnus was making his last stand in order to buy Prime and his allies some time. Poor Cyclonus. We can somewhat really see that the war was not holding back any punches and Cyclonus's team was no exception. At least Cyclonus is going to start putting the pieces together and once he does it's not going to be pretty.
Same. I've really liked the art so far, but this issue felt unpolished. Spoiler Good to get extra background on the history. I'm looking forward to the further adventures of Cyclonus.Feels like he's going to be the first to discover Exarchon.
Finally Paragon and Exarchon! - In Ruckley's commentary about the upcoming War's End series he revealed Exarchon to be one of his favorite characters and I'm digging the design, so I am looking forward seeing that guy in action. As a fan of Magnus, Dai Atlas and Nominus Prime I was pleased having them back as well. Again, hope we will get more of them in War's End. My only slight complaint about that issue would be that Cyclonus' scenes felt rushed, but maybe they were supposed to be a sequence of bad things happening near the end of the war, like some traumatic flashbacks that miss the context. I assume they will fill the narrative holes here later/in the mini. As others mentioned though I didn't like some of the art. It made the fight at the end hard to interpret and felt too cartoony for the gravity of the situation of Magnus becoming a war prisoner. Contentwise it was all good. My favorite scene of #37 is the dialogue about Exarchon. Seems like this part also confirms that Nominus cared about others, including the few bots they lost thanks to Exarchon's indoctrination or however you prefer to call this (will we get Reapers later?). Guidi's parts were fine I think. The early Cyclonus' scenes and Nominus looked good. He didn't do the majority of the pages. PS.: Grudge has a cool design and seems to be fun, I hope his real self will get another speaking role.
Oh good. I didnt' catch it all during my first reading. Yeah, I hope to see more of them in War's End too. Speaking of Exarchon, the prevailing theory that he was reformatted and armed by the Quintessons or possibly another organic race to stop the Expansion seems plausible. Do we know what Exarchon was before he turned funky? Maybe he was an Expansionist or Explorer. Like I said, I hope Uncle Magnus comes out better in this iteration. Poor Cyc has some deep PTSD and Survivor's guilt. Exxy-Ruckus getting a Decepticon logo right away tells me Exxy is on the move. Things are getting dicey
My money is on some organic species doing the tinkering. In this series so far we've seen a few organics being less than enthused by the Transformers, with 1 guy making it clear he carries weapons specifically designed to kill nigh immortal mechanical beings. In the future we saw some organics working for/with Exarchon. The Nominus Edict was made to curb the expansion. So it feels like a lot of hints towards that being the theme. Quintessons aren't considered organic right? I always found them a little confusing in that regard.
I often wonder how much he knew. If the radical peace treaty is simply an altruistic and maybe preventive action (in the sense of avoiding intergalactic war that would hurt Cybertron) or a direct reaction to what they have learned about Exarchon's role. Though if it was the latter I assume they woud have told that to the people? I assume that (almost) nobody wants the Threefold-Spark back. On the other hand Nominus feels a bit secretive and maybe there is a reason for him acting this way. Guess we might learn about it soon, I doubt the two pages in #37 will be the only ones in which the higher ups are analysing this subject.
It's kind of a shame we kind of just got a story about Ultra Magnus being captured in another form of Transformers media. Much of this issue was technically about fleshing out some of the background, but much of it we already kind of know about, and I'm not sure if much of it was necessary. I feel this issue would have been serviceable if it was just about Cyclonus in the past or the codexa story in the present. I like Cyclonus' reaction to his hallucinations arriving and his immediate embrace of them. You get the sense that though he is shocked to realize his mind is leaving him, he ultimately accepts them as a reminder and motivator. I like Cyclonus, and I kind of wish more time was spent on these flashbacks. It would ultimately act as a side story, but the comic has done plenty of that already like with Nautica and Wheeljack. Just kind of sucks we only got a taste of Cyclonus' relationship with his friends before their deaths.
Yeah, but that last time was in Siege and we're all trying to forget that the Netflix series ever happened.
Same. It definitely feels like Nominus knew a lot more about what was going on. Maybe he even made contact with the people who changed Exarchon and the Nominus Edict was part of the agreement to get them to back off. I don't think he would tell the people. Leaders often don't tell their people everything. Either for fear of less savoury types looking to procure the technology that made Exarchon or for fear of people with good intentions maybe trying to get in a preemptive strike. That explains a lot. It seemed like different quality, the style being fairly close. I just assumed they ran out of time for the last pages for some reason, like illness or something.
