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Review: Transformers #30

By | November 18th, 2011
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Written by Mike Costa
Illustrated by Livio Ramondelli

CHAOS part 4 brings events to a devastating head: Megatron confronts his most formidable opponent yet… The Autobots scramble to keep out of the way of the Decepti-god’s unstoppable rampage… and Optimus Prime faces off against Galvatron, in a battle where the fate of the whole planet rests on the outcome! CHAOS concludes here and TRANSFORMERS will never be the same again!

“Chaos” in name, chaos in nature. Transformers wraps up its latest mega-event with what could be either a bang or a whimper, depending on which way you’re holding the picture. I could go on and on — and I do, after the jump. FACE.

Historically, Transformers comic books do one of two things: they either try to sell you toys, or they bend over backward to complicate themselves to the point that you’re too busy deciphering everything to realize you’re being sold toys. The key problem is not unlike one that plagued the DC Universe for years, and will plague it again whenever continuity hounds start back up — resolving different versions and histories of characters while excluding none of them. This alone doesn’t sink Transformers, but it definitely hobbles it out of the gate.

Case in point: in 1986, Hasbro wanted to sell some new toys. So they phased out the old ones, in order to focus kids on the new ones. Transformers: The Movie — beholden to the “cartoon” continuity, which ran parallel to the “comic” one — introduced to the cartoon continuity the idea of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, a macguffin of great destiny that would “light the Transformers’ darkest hour.” Optimus Prime was killed by his archenemy Megatron, and his Matrix of Leadership was passed on to his successor, Rodimus Prime (a new toy). Megatron, meanwhile, was transformed by Unicron (a planet-devouring Transformer who turned into, er, a planet) into Galvatron, a stronger, better version of himself, who was also a new toy. For what it’s worth, the Marvel Comics series also killed off Optimus Prime and Megatron, but in different ways and without replacements. It also had its own Matrix, predating the one in the movie/cartoon continuity, which was a totally different macguffin that gave its bearer the power to infuse life into Transformers. In the cartoon, that power came from the supercomputer Vector Sigma. In any event, the cartoon followed up on the movie by documenting new adventures in the year 2005 (then the far-flung future), focusing mostly on one set of new toys, while the comics dealt with the power vacuums following Optimus Prime and Megatron’s deaths, and introduced the other new toys in the line.

If all of that sounds needlessly complicated, it is. Bear in mind, too, that this isn’t even counting anything after 1987 or so. Other toys, other cartoons, other product lines, other histories, other macguffins (lots and lots of macguffins)… they all constantly whirl around, fading in and out of importance as writers alternately try to streamline the concept of “robots in disguise” or add back in previously-shorn pieces from the franchise’s history.

All of this is to say that Transformers #30, part six and the finale of “Chaos,” is confusing as hell.

I admit, swinging in at the ending of a story is not the ideal starting point. So I went back and read the other parts, and, well, I’m still confused. Galvatron — who is not Megatron, I think — invokes some horrible evil — which is not Unicron — to destroy Cybertron, the Transformers’ home planet, under the impression that he’s saving it. Rodimus and Optimus Prime team up, and other guys do other stuff, and some character named Drift stabs himself. All of this is resolved by Optimus Prime using the Matrix — which is hardly a spoiler in that that’s how seemingly every Transformer catastrophe must end — with an unexpected effect that… well, I’m still trying to puzzle it all out.

What makes Transformers #30 so difficult — to a large degree — is the art. Livio Ramondelli handles all of the art production, but his choices as a colorist give his work the quality of a sort of muzzier, hazier Ashley Wood. This is both good and bad. Good, in that there are individual images that are striking, gorgeous, and mysterious. Bad, in that as a 22-page sequential story, it is ridiculously hard to follow. Characters disappear into blinding purple light or wispy purple mist or murky purple darkness, and only become recognizable after someone drops a context clue like, say, “addressing them by name.” The sense of apocalypse is well and truly delivered, but for the story to succeed, there also needs to be a clear document of what’s happening in said apocalypse — not just flashes of, uh, chaos.

Mike Costa’s script, meanwhile, suffers largely from what I’m guessing is trusting the artist to carry things a bit too much. Characters speak in helpful infodumps here and there — including the opening scene, where one character calls out an infodump for what it is. But for a world-changing, possibly world-ending event, the direction and pacing of the story is a bit lumpy and given to jolting moments rather than an intricate machine playing out its process. Does it do its job? Yes, and there are moments that could have been genuinely thrilling if it hadn’t taken 2 or 3 reads of the scene to figure out what they were. Does it excel? No, not really. It’s yet another spin on the concepts we’ve seen a zillion times before, Optimus and Rodimus and Galvatron and Megatron and the Matrix and Cybertron and world destruction and ultimate evil and darkest hour…

Final Verdict: 4.0 – I think I saw Cliffjumper in one panel, and he’s the best Transformer by like a million miles, but I can’t be sure it was Cliffjumper


Patrick Tobin

Patrick Tobin (American) is likely shaming his journalism professors from the University of Glasgow by writing about comic books. Luckily, he's also written about film for The Drouth and The Directory of World Cinema: Great Britain. He can be reached via e-mail right here.

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