The issue is open after the last events of the Transformers main plots, chaos, and to all intents and purposes, the Autobot/Decepticon war ended. Peace has finally come to Cybertron. Peace is real. Want to grab the glory era of the past, Rodimus plan take all volunteer expedition into deep space and find the missing Knights of Cybertron. Meanwhile, the leader of the Autobots Bumblebee (I know, right) urged his troops to stay home and work on rebuilding their war-ravaged world. Mixed in this story is the main protesters literally changed the unaligned themselves the death penalty,
I really hope the writers James Roberts has spent more time exploring this issue instead of jamming all the stories of various routes to the debut issue. I understand he needs to drop a lot of information to bring the story to full speed, but in doing so, we lost a lot of what is driving this character in the first place. Why Rodimus so intent on leaving Cybertron, and why Bumblebee at encouraged to keep them tied to the planet? The lack of the expected response is in recognition of the problem, even desirable, but I still need some indication of the reason and a bit of backstory. This character has through insane amounts of change in recent years, and unless You have been a regular reader of IDW series, You’d be hard pressed to understand what happened. One can argue this comic did not really find a transformer fan, but I’ll resist that fills some of the covers with a classic character transformer fan wont mean that’s what Roberts and IDW is going after. As one of their usual, though no less keen enthusiasts, I am so very lost. However, when Roberts focusing on a more personal aspect of the Autobots, the book works very well. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I love Ratchet questioned the ability to heal after so many thousands of years. I like Ultra Magnus as his faithful soldiers but tired. I hope that Roberts has spent more time giving us reason to treat this character beyond nostalgia.
Artist Nick Roche is real to me in Transformers: more than meets the eye. Talk to every artist and they will tell You that the drawing robot as being expressive is difficult. There is a good balance between maintaining what we all know like Transformers and give real personality on the page. Roche’s character is very expressive, without overtly cartoons in their presentation. He also has a firm grasp on the character, and that gives a real sense of weight and presence in their world. The action scenes are well planned and convey real energy. This is a big ol’ robot bashing and blasting the heck out of each other. When even a small cut loose, there are some serious collateral damage, and it shows on the page. Coloring by Josh Burcham is not as vibrant or defined as I want, which is a shame because it tends to mute and blur Roche rather clean and fresh lines. Overall, though, Roche has a firm grasp on visual appeal to Transformers and know how to utilize them to the reader’s pleasure.