*Part 9*
*Part 8*
Void Rivals (#1–#28) Part 4: Agorria
I just read LSOTW (as well as the extra context surrounding that story), so Springer getting stranded alone for thousands of years doesn’t look and sound as sad anymore, when he’s once in the multiverse had to listen to his fellow suicide squad member confess that he’s happy that his older brother figure committed war crimes, while in a coma (due to having his faceplate ripped off) in order to be brought back from it.
Yeah.
Just chill in the shadows Spring Roddy’s gonna pull up in an astrosec, Darak just needs to meet up with his boss Elander again, and then have half a conversation with his…“father”, first. 😑
Ah, there’s that magic word again, “worthy”.
As if that’s any sort of excuse, given Darak’s thankfully (for you Dulin) easygoing personality (I mean it’s not like he’s impulsively power hungry like Proximus), to keep extremely important information from not only your son, but apparently the future heir of an entire civilization even tho you seemed perfectly fine with letting him die.
Which, hey—
In a “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few” sort of way, I can respect. You don’t play favorites despite basically being a hereditary monarch.
(And it’s totally not like there’s any other family, let’s say, an uncle, in the picture…
“Wait where the hell did this guy come from—?”)
It’s just…why not let everyone else in Agorria know? 🤨
Cuz now you’ve got these Unifiers—with Elander turning out to be one of them—who have no idea who Goliant is potentially endangering the entire Sacred Ring.
Oh. That’s right—
You still want to maintain some sort of advantage over Zertonia out of…ego?
Like Zaliliak’s situation makes sense since his people might’ve considered him blasphemous for trying to warn them, and thus potentially remove him from all his power + privileges—
(It’s corrupt, yeah, but it computes)
But hey, you’re an explicit monarchy (and maybe Zaliliak’s gov is too but I don’t think that was hinted at), and monarchies are stupid, but you gotta distract your citizens from that and electrocute your kids in order to continue conversations about world ending threats.
Meanwhile Springer also demonstrates how Megs has options other than genocide and conquest *coughs* diplomacy.
Makes you wonder how Elita will react to their arrival back to Cybertron. Will she be pissed? Will she consider anything they say worth listening to?
“Will they even really say anything to begin with?”
I mean…they just wanted to leave even after the Zertonians invaded (after Zerta sent Solila to Agorria to meet with Darak), and Goliant almost emerged due to the subsequent unity in progress—
“Such devastation” Woah is that a Kirkmanism—?
(Sorry I just finished reading Furman’s IDW run, and apparently repeating phrases is a thing with him so much that it gets referenced by James Roberts through Ironfirst and Skyfall)
And interestingly they don’t believe (or rather they don’t seem to want to believe) that Zerta would be someone capable of having any sort of ill intent.
“No, she’s our species’ hero!”
But that’s the thing tho. Your species.
And even then with Alpha Trion being 99% absent/unmentioned for whatever reason (is he considered a legend by this point too?), I’m starting to develop some doubts (not to downplay either of the Trions’ accomplishments, such as liberating Cybertron), although if there’s anything TF Issue #31 has made clear is that we seriously need to learn how exactly this war started, if there have been previous Decepticon leaders (or if war has always been a thing with there just being periods of ceasefire basically. We’re prob gonna have to rely on seeing how Jetfire reacts to being back on Cybertron for now in terms of providing clues).
I’d say they should’ve stuck around to at least process everything that happened…but then they’d have to deal with an army of Sharkticons so—
“Dang, you spend thousands of years following a legend just to dip out despite the signs everywhere of this legend being true. If only they got to speak with Solila”
I have a feeling Zerta didn’t want that.
“Then how the hell does that help her species—”
I don’t think she wanted them to go through hell reminiscent of LSOTW.
“Ngl, their departure, as well as Solila changing her mind about unity seemed to happen rather abruptly”
Yeah I think I would’ve preferred an extra page in Issue #23 to really emphasize the destruction and Solila’s reaction to that, to really sell the panic in her backing out of the idea of unity.
Some people might also not be happy that Roddy and Spring kinda just stand around talking for a few issues, but personally I don’t mind. Not at all.
That’s basically what people have been asking Robert Kirkman to do with the characters in his TF run so far. Not to say that you can’t tell story through action (obviously), but that’s prob a reason why I surprisingly really, really gravitated towards Flagg’s scenes.
All he did was talk, but goddammit does his dialogue and his role overall provide so much potential (in terms of angst/animosity/tension) in the wider narrative (particularly for Carly, Spike, Wheeljack and Optimus. I would’ve included Mags too but, well, uh—).
Then again he might be relocated over to M.A.S.K, which would mean the bitch hopping comics 3 times like dayum—
“Tbh, Spring and Roddy so far have seemed more like plot devices than characters”
So I’m curious to see where he’ll take Spring and Roddy’s characters going forward. I’m currently reading through IDW (it’s said that you don’t have to read Phase 1, and there have been inconsistencies, retcons and the occasional “Yikes” moment—*shrugs* but idk must be some completionist thing) by publishing order (most of the time)—they’ve def stood out. Wreck ‘n fraggin’ rule y’all.
It took until, what, 2012 for Roddy to gain enough rare candies to evolve into Rodimus? That’s 7 years in. Maybe that won’t even happen at all.
Maybe the Matrix will go on to choose Springer instead.
(You guys I’m tellin’ you he’s really underrated and badass and I can see why First Aid finds him hot—
(JAZZ NO— 😭)
*To be continued*
