Ricky Church reviews Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two – Volume 6…
While the Transformers film franchise has struggled in the way of audience and critical reception and treating its characters like actual characters, IDW has had plenty of success over the years with its handling of the franchise in the comic medium. For the last few years, the Transformers comics have been very consistent with strong storytelling and characterization from writers James Roberts and John Barber, each telling intertwining stories in Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye and Transformers: Robots in Disguise. In IDW’s newest collection of stories from both titles, Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two – Volume 6 collects the epic crossover between both series, Dark Cybertron, and the miniseries Windblade, introducing newest female transformer to the franchise.
Dark Cybertron is the culmination of a two-year story that Roberts and Barber cite as their ‘first season’ on the titles. It presents the logical and cold Shockwave as the main villain to both Autobots and Decepticons as he begins a plan millions of years in the making by attempting to place Cybertron and the entire universe into a state of nothingness. To him, all life is just constant chaos and the only logical thing to do is end it.
Shockwave has always been a secondary antagonist in whatever Transformers media he’s been in, largely being defined by his undying loyalty to Megatron as well as his cold, logical process. It’s very interesting to see him as a fully-fledged villain with his own agenda now, one that harkens back to his characterization at the very beginning of IDW’s hold on the franchise in 2005. Roberts and Barber write a compelling take on Shockwave and really present him as a true threat to both Optimus Prime and Megatron. Of course, other villains from IDW’s continuity pop up, like Nemesis Prime, Galvatron and Jhiaxus, but Shockwave stands atop them all.
There is a lot of action presented with Shockwave’s all-out attack on Cybertron, but the story is more than just a lot of explosions and robot fighting. Roberts and Barber work a great amount of character depth and development into this story, showing how bots like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Shockwave and Megatron have changed over the millions of years. Optimus, who goes by his old name Orion Pax for most of Dark Cybertron, feels unworthy of the Prime title and that he just feeds the constant cycle of violence for their race while Megatron slowly is confronted with the reality of what he’s wrought on Cybertron and all transformers.
Seeing these two long-standing enemies go on parallel journeys is one of the best aspects of the book. One of the underlying themes of Dark Cybertron is how similar the two leaders are, yet how different their paths have been due to their choices. It’s an arc that pays off incredibly well by the story’s end, ushering in a new status quo to the franchise that has continued to be one of the best decisions made in Transformers thanks to Roberts and Barber’s writing.
The supporting characters are all great too. Some old ones from the Simon Furman-era appear while there are plenty of reunions between characters from the two Transformers titles. Bumblebee and Rodimus get some good highlights, particularly Bumblebee as he has several memorable scenes with Megatron, while other reunions pay off in satisfying ways, such as with Prowl and Chromedome. There’s a real sense of history to Dark Cybertron between the characters and the universe itself. The callbacks not just to everything Roberts and Barber planted, but to Furman’s time on the title really flesh out the history of the Cybertronian civil war as well as tying up a whole lot of loose ends in meaningful ways.
The art in Dark Cybertron is pretty good, though a bit jarring at times. Rather than having one artist throughout the issues, the art was separated into pieces with three artists tackling three different settings of the story. Atilio Rogo, James Raiz and Livio Ramondelli worked on the main issues of the event while the legendary Phil Jimenez contributed to the event’s opening and closing chapters. Each artist has a fairly different style, particularly Ramondelli, and the switches aren’t always smooth transitions. The artwork though is still pretty solid with some great depictions of the action and characters.
The book also collects the miniseries Windblade, which formally introduces the newest transformer to the franchise. Taking place after Dark Cybertron, Windblade follows the title character as she adjust to life on Cybertron and learns of its many complexities. This story delves into the political turmoil the planet is in, especially with Starscream in charge, and how Windblade has to navigate through the politics and manipulations, breaking down her naivety on such matters.
It’s an intriguing look at this new character that makes you root for her while also reminding readers just how dangerously cunning and even petty Starscream can be. It also has the distinction of boasting the first all-female Transformers comic with Mairghread Scott writing and Sarah Stone doing artwork. Scott writes some exciting new characters and adds a level of depth to the story with its focus on the politics among Cybertron’s main warriors while Stone’s artwork is very pleasant and colourful to look at, showcasing some nice emotion from the various bots.
Any Transformers fan will deeply enjoy this collection. Dark Cybertron is the highlight of the book and one of the best Transformers stories told with a focus on the characters and their evolution and trauma rather than just mindless action. Windblade is a bit of a breather, telling a bit more of an introspective tale that’s a nice break from the seriousness of Dark Cybertron while still delivering a fair amount of action. The only thing lacking is some bonus content. Since Dark Cybertron was the first big crossover and event of IDW’s ‘Phase Two’, it would have been nice to get some sketches or a breakdown of how Roberts and Barber organized the story into separate sections for them to work on. Nevertheless, Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two – Volume 6 is definitely a book that reminds fans what the franchise can be.
Rating: 8/10
Ricky Church
