#rereading!

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: The Transformers (2009): Police Action (#25, 27, and 29)

‘Nobody’s forgotten about the Decepticons… but with most of them badly injured and Megatron gone, they aren’t our first priority.’

This is Bumblebee’s line, but unfortunately it reflects the general approach that was taken for the majority of this comic’s run, so…

In earnest, the whole ‘Police Action’ storyline is very much centred on the Autobots and their internal issues, in particular the dynamic between Prowl and Spike Witwicky. I’m not a huge fan of the way Costa tends to characterise Prowl, with a lot of focus on him being a mild spoof of hard-boiled detective characters. However, the hard-boiled-lite writing actually worked better here, I believe, because Prowl is actually given something to investigate - Spike, and whatever shady stuff he is up to. This makes the characterisation feel a bit more appropriate and lends the narrative some much-needed momentum, especially with the way the comic jumps back and forth between this story-line and the ‘Chaos Theory’ story-line.

My chief complaint for the way the Prowl-Spike relationship is handled is that things seemed inconsistent to me. For example, in issues #25 and #27, Prowl seems very attached to Spike, when I could swear he was a bit skeptical about him in relatively recent issues. Meanwhile, from the opposite direction, Spike complains about Prowl’s plotting, but I’m not terribly conscious of him doing much other than standard investigations in this run - certainly not the kind of conspiratorial, underhanded sort of thing that Spike is implying. I could argue that Spike is misinterpreting or misrepresenting, but I also wonder whether this was driven by Costa’s awareness of Prowl’s characterisation in other series, like Last Stand of the Wreckers?

Costa opts to do something pretty interesting with Spike at this point in the series. Specifically, in Issue 27 the comic uses one of the female characters, Sandra, as a critical voice: she points out that Spike acts like an action movie hero and the ways that this generates problems for him and everyone around him. Now, I think this is actually an interesting gesture, pointing out the flaws in Spike’s character, as that’s something I’ve quibbled with in previous issues. However, this comes in Issue 27 out of a 31 issues series, and the series has to devote most of its time to more plot-relevant events than character development or exploration at this point. I don’t mind the idea of Spike as a protagonist who has a lot of selfish or self-destructive traits or who might represent a particular idea of toxic masculinity (mid-2000s, American action hero/bad-boy edition ™), however I do think that leaving it until this late into the series to start addressing makes it come across as a bit of a feeble gesture. I think virtually every reader realised that Spike was not being written as a very good person within a few panels of seeing him, but the comic seemed to ask readers to accept him at face value for, only to make a single gesture towards deconstructing the character at the last moment.

This frustration is a recurring feeling for me with these issues. As I was reading through, I was struck by how many new elements or ideas seemed to be appearing right as the story was wrapping up - the apparent attachment Prowl has for Spike, this attempt to add nuance to Spike’s character, Spike arguing that a millenia-old robot should be more open to moral compromise and being frustrated by the apparent naïveté of the Autobots... It increasingly started to feel as if Costa was addressing a lot of the criticism that his run had received and trying to develop some of these concepts, which is nice, but by this point it was Issue 29 of the comic, the last one with these characters in it. This really doesn’t help the feeling that these final issues are rushed, and that Costa’s run is decompressed to a fault, generally lacking in characterisation, and has large areas of wasted potential.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: The Transformers (2005): Chaos Theory (#21-23)

Costa chooses to frame Rodimus/Hot Rod’s recovery and return of the Matrix through pseudo-Biblical dialogue and, while I’m not one-hundred percent on board, I think it’s an interesting move and a very purposeful attempt to indicate the tone and historical/religious significance of the moment within the story. I will say I found it a bit jarring, as up until now I hadn’t considered Costa’s run to be particularly interested in expanding on the spiritual elements of the canon and there’s little context for what is an orthodox or heterodox perspective among the characters… But I can still respect the choice. However, I did start to feel that it was dragging a bit and I do question its placement in the issue, as I feel it might have benefitted form being an opening/closing moment in order to reinforce its significance. Helping it along its way were some significant improvements in the art and colours, with the ‘lighting’ in particular doing a lot of heavy-lifting and doing its level best to match the tone set by the narration. (Customary minor nitpick is that there’s a spelling error, ‘council’ should be ‘counsel’, but that’s more of a task for the editor.)

This issue also starts to kick of a few other interesting things. For a start, the Autobots actually have a discussion about energon, which is an element of the story I’ve been wondering (complaining) about in recent issues. Optimus’ slightly lame claim to Bumblebee, ‘You’re not being usurped’ is also quite funny. Furthermore, Prowl is actively investigating Spike and that whole saga is about to kick off. The issue for me, however, is that I find the way that Costa writes Prowl rather jarring. His take is a noir-influenced Prowl, so there’s a lot of short, snappy dialogue. He also keeps referring to Bumblebee as ‘The Bee’. He does this to precisely zero other characters…

Issue 22 heralds the arrival of James Roberts, Alex Milne, and Joana Lafuente and immediately kicks into a very different gear to the Costa run. Essentially, I think Roberts was trying to speed-run the things he wished had been in Megatron: Origin. The comic is about as wordy as it is under Costa’s pen, but there’s a very different atmosphere - an immediate jump to more comedy and more character drama, with the key moments coming between Optimus and Megatron. The decision to have everyone try and eavesdrop or spy on the conversation between Optimus and Megatron is funny, and I appreciate the degree of specificity that Roberts puts into their dynamic. The comic puts together some interesting quotes during this scene, from Optimus’ ‘Hate is too simple a word’ to Megatron’s snide ‘how tiring it must be’ when discussing Optimus’ moral positioning. I think it’s nicely done how their conversation shifts into something convivial, even if the comic has to do it in a pretty speedy fashion.

I also like some of the gestures that are being made here, for example the increased sense of what the Matrix actually does, the idea that it can communicate and give advice, as up until now it’s essentially been treated as an inanimate object. Similarly, Megatron’s line about ‘the pace of our war is picking up speed. I remember when whole centuries would pass without a single shot… when both sides would spend millennia preparing for battles that would be over by nightfall’ has such interesting implications and can help with conceiving of the scale of the war. My one point of bemusement is Megatron’s casual mention of post-war repopulation, as… is this a sign of his lack of sincerity, as he’s claiming a future he has no idea of how to provide? Complacency, the idea that something so high-stakes can be worked out along the way? Or is it something else? Just something I’m interested in thinking over more, especially as I think later comics gesture in a specific direction. It’s striking how many aspects that will appear in Roberts’ later works are already being laid out here: Megatron’s new backstory, especially his work as a philosopher/poet/polemicist, Rung, an increased focus on sparks, the separation between constructed cold and forged characters, the level of imagination applied to technology, the Knights of Cybertron, Tyrest and the suggestion that something is up with him.

There are some other details I’m very fond of, too, for example making Wheelarch religious, as I feel this adds a really curious element to his dynamic with Optimus, especially if you think of the implications for how his demise might affect him: ‘When I feel disquieted, I try to channel the wisdom of the Matrix. It helps me find peace’. On a closely related note, Optimus’ troubled relationship with the Matrix, contrasted with Wheelarch’s view of it, and Rodimus’ description of bonding with it, ‘It felt wonderful! I don’t know if I can describe…’, gives that character in a really interesting perspective.

A small thing: I really like Milne and LaFuente’s art, specifically how vibrant and even gaudy some of the backgrounds are, I think it really adds to settings like the Senate.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: Transformers: Heart of Darkness, #1-4

Good to see Gorlam Prime again, it’s nice to see a civilisation that actually suffers more than the Cybertronians.

The art for Heart of Darkness is really not my favourite and, from what I can tell, there are quite a few other people who feel that way. I don’t think the artist had ever really worked on anything Transformers-related before and perhaps that’s what is showing through in a lot of his work. Essentially, I think there’s an inconsistent level of detail across different parts of each panel, with a lot of hyper-smooth gradients on buildings and landscape features and hyper-detailed sections of machinery done in quite heavy lines on characters. Combine that with some slightly bizarre colours and a lot of flame/smoke effects for backgrounds, and you end up with some very busy and very visually confusing panels. A lot of the faces are also quite inconsistent and generally just a bit… off.

It seems a bit of a shame, as this plot actually creates a bunch of opportunities for ambitious or imaginative artwork (Please, please do something else with the D-Void!). Other weird details, like energon suddenly being green, or Cyclonus’ colours swapping from purple to lilac to blue, really don’t help the impression that there wasn’t really a cohesive goal for a comic that ends up relying a lot on its visuals to carry the narrative weight of its story, or a lot of editorial oversight.

Similarly, the dialogue is very vague and awkwardly-worded. I think Arcee’s ‘You must do nothing except die’ and ‘What kind of monster have you become?’ might take the prizes for the most uncomfortable-sounding and confusing lines in context. I suspect the writers were trying to give Arcee a more archaic-sounding type of speech in order to make her more distinct, but if anything she sounds older than even Galvatron and Jhiaxus and just rather strange in general. 

Now, I don’t think that Heart of Darkness is entirely bereft of any good ideas. I think the idea of Gorlam Prime’s entire population simultaneously stopping what they’re doing and turning to walk into the portal to the D-Void is actually intriguing and potentially quite spooky, even if it’s not a purely original idea. Honestly? I think I might have focused on that, perhaps started with comic with Hardhead and Arcee trying to survive on Gorlam Prime, then realising that everyone around them is succumbing to mind control. Likewise, I’m not averse to seeing new species and settings, I just feel that the random alien ship that is the focus for the beginning of Issue 3 is not the wisest use of panel-space. I also don’t hate the idea of an existential threat potentially forcing the Autobots and Decepticons to work together, even if they already skipped over an example of that with Stormbringer. However, moments of decent execution are just so few and far between here that it’s difficult to present any of these ideas as strong-points.

I will also complain a little bit about Nova, because the way Nova/Nemesis gets plonked into the middle of this series leaves him feeling very vacant to me. I just don’t think they built up enough of a sense of the general timeline, who Nova is/was, what his relationship is to other characters in order for it to feel truly meaningful.

This cursed cover also haunts me. Why is it a pulp fantasy cover? Why is it vaguely Liefeld-esque? Why is Arcee clutching her brother’s leg like that?

So, yes, Heart of Darkness is really, really, really not good. That said, I don’t think it’s quite as mind-bendingly horrible as I’ve seen some things suggest. It’s absolutely riddled with problems, but compared to the comics being published alongside it, I’m not sure it’s even that severe a drop-off in terms of quality. That said, i think this would definitely be in the running for worst entry in IDW1 so far.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: The Transformers (2009), #19-20

The resurrection of older plot-lines continues, as Rodimus and the Matrix make a return! I feel that some of these things could have been spaced out a bit differently. So many issues were spent wandering around with Spike and Optimus, yet in only two issues Costa speeds through quite a lot of content - we have five main characters, plus a few extras, then two planets and build up for Heart of Darkness. On the one hand, the pace is significantly improved, but it just adds to my sense that there was a fair amount of time spent doing very little, only for some sort of continuity alarm to kick in.

I’m quite enjoying the art, which is a good deal more expressive with Guidi on pencils and Joana LaFuente on colours. Costa’s dialogue is still somewhat stilted to me, generally being quite heavy and perhaps over-written, with the tendency to have certain characters act as rather direct mouthpieces for exposition (Garnak…). 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed these issues more than most of the Costa run so far, which is similar to how I felt about the previous volume. The pacing is much faster, the situations have clearer stakes, and the character interactions feel far more integrated into the story. In particular, I think these issues have some good moments for Rodimus, Ironhide, and Sunstreaker, all of whom are quite refreshing.

Not a lot else to say, now onto Heart of Darkness.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: The Transformers, #14-18 (2009)

I think the Joe Gladki framing device, the perspective of a fairly ordinary American man whose paranoia is being manipulated by one of Megatron’s constituent parts, is actually really interesting to me. I’m slightly skeptical of how Joe’s able to afford it, even from a dodgy under-the-table seller, but it’s an actually compelling use of a human perspective, which is something I feel Costa has been struggling to find despite his obvious interest in bulking up the role of human characters. Yes, the reliance on ‘being a man’ is a bit tiring, but at least it’s a motivation rooted in a vulnerability that makes a certain amount of sense for the character. If anything, I think this framing device was underutilised and could have played a much larger role. Although Gladki returns (very briefly) later on, he is almost entirely confined to the first few pages. I wonder if this is the sort of thing that could have come earlier in Costa’s run, where it didn’t have to be shoved to the side to get to something more climactic? 

Continuing along these lines, I think this is the best of the Costa volumes I’ve read so far, in no small part due to the fact that things actually happen here. The pace picks up significantly, especially in the later issues, and far more characters are shown on panel, particularly Decepticons. We get some segments that are very much telling rather than showing, but they’re mostly exposition to fill in some of the gaps that had been left behind.

However, several of my old objections still remain. For a start, and again, especially in the earlier issues, all of the characters are just perpetually annoyed. It’s no secret that Costa struggled with writing Cybertronian characters or conceiving of them in a way that he found personally compelling, so I think he sometimes tries to get around that by having everyone argue for no reason - it’s tension… just tension that doesn’t really make any sense.

Other old nit-picks returns, like having characters call each other ‘brother’ rather abruptly and there still not really being an explanation for the near-total collapse of the Decepticon faction, but there you go. I mean, I’d assume energon ran out, but we have no idea how they produce energon or how much of it they need and how they distribute it. I don’t think we’ve ever seen the Autobots making or consuming energon either, yet they seem fine…

This is a more abstract point, but I do wonder whether they might have been better served by saving Ironhide’s death for this point in the storyline. Ironhide was killed off (in place of Bumblebee) very early in the run to establish Skywatch as a threat, teach Rodimus something, and cause Optimus’ defection. However, I really think that could have achieved that without killing off one of the more thoroughly established Autobots, especially considering that Skywatch very quickly become allies of the Autobots. Now, however, the comic is trying to emphasise Megatron’s power as much as it possibly can… It seems a death in the ranks could have been a more convenient and impactful way to up the stakes.

Speaking of high stakes, in the last issue we have the moments that probably have the longest-lasting impact on the continuity as a whole, which are Jazz shooting the policeman, Powell, and Optimus realising that Spike might have killed Scrapper even though he was unarmed and injured. I have some issues surrounding the scene with Powell, the first being that the lack of urgency or alarm from Bumblebee (and the other Autobots!)  really undersells the scene. Secondly, Jazz’s actions are… nowhere near as egregious as some later comics made them sound, in my opinion. I don’t hate the idea of how the highly televised killing of an authority figure, even one who was actively dangerous to his own allies, could become a PR nightmare. That, I can very much get onboard with as a narrative direction, but what I do struggle with is the idea that this would be such a shocking and impactful moment for Jazz and the others. I mean, surely they’ve killed people/seen people killed in far more dubious circumstances, right?

Along these same lines, I was actually very interested to see that Spike killing Scrapper came back around, and I do think that Costa was doing something neat by having these two situations serve as parallels to one another - Powell holds the surrendered and injured Autobots at gunpoint, intending to kill them, but hesitates when Bumblebee talks to him, whereas Spike had few to no reservations about killing the injured and surrendered Scrapper. However, it is a little jarring for Scrapper to be the death that causes Optimus’ crisis of faith in Spike and Skywatch, especially considering what happened to Ironhide, who was killed trying to help rescue Prowl. Admittedly, Ironhide was not killed by Spike himself, but he was certainly killed by Skywatch’s forces, who were Spike’s men.

The emotional core of these last few issues is quite dependent on you being invested in Spike and Optimus’ relationship. It does at least balance that out with lots of Megatron and Optimus moments, but overall I think Costa is still more focused on defining the  separation between humans and Cybertronians, this time around the idea that Cybertronians are incapable of change or real improvement, which is an idea he’s brought up before, most notably in the Thundercracker-centric issue. 

Optimus Prime: (to Megatron) It’s the first upgrade I’ve seen you make since we first tangled. Myself, I’ve used this same blaster for millennia… But these humans… They advance.

To be blunt, this is simply not an interpretation of the characters that I care for, especially as I feel it would be far easier to argue that Cybertronians are socially, politically, and philosophically entrenched than it would be to argue that their pace of technological development is too slow. The fact that this idea repeats itself, even appearing during the major confrontation between Optimus and Megatron, really does suggest to me that this was something that Costa considered a core theme of his work. However, it ultimately puts me off some of those scenes, because even as I am watching Megatron and Optimus argue, I’ve got this nagging feeling that the author actually wants to write about Cybertronian nature and human nature instead.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: Spotlight: Megatron (2013)

Alright, between pretty substantial chunks of Costa writing we have a Nick Roche Spotlight. I remember really liking this book the first time I read it, but now I think my feelings are actually a bit more complicated.

The ongoing has put most of the Decepticons on ice for the past ten or so issues in order to focus more on Autobot-human interactions, so this was presumably supposed to kick some life back into the faction? However, because it’s a Spotlight, and because Roche sticks very closely to Megatron’s perspective, the opportunities to see characters outside of Megatron and Starscream, or to get a broader survey of the situation, are really minimal. There are moments of Shockwave and Soundwave, then a brief few panels that feature Needlenose, but otherwise things focus almost exclusively on Megatron’s view and, given he has been in a coma for around three years, he isn’t exactly up-to-date, either.

I had mixed feelings about the narratorial voice for Megatron. For example, the fairly frequent use of ‘one’ as an impersonal pronoun and its association with a rather middle/upper class turn of phrase rings a little hollow. Perhaps it’s supposed to make him come across as a bit pompous, but then how would that interfere with Megatron’s origin as a miner, presumably lacking in opportunities to mix with upper class bots or to pursue extensive formal education? The tone is a little quippy for me, too, at least on the first few pages.

I don’t want to make it seem as though I don’t appreciate this version of Megatron, though. There’s a lot of really, really strong elements to this issue, for example the use of the mostly blank black background for many panels, which isolates Roche’s character art and some fantastic colours. When you’re as good at drawing expressive faces as Roche is, you really can get away that sort of thing. Additionally, the degree to which Megatron focuses on winding up the suspense when he confronts Starscream, just prodding and poking until things can escalate, is genuinely menacing. This whole Spotlight really supercharges the relationship between Megatron and Starscream. That has been a pretty load-bearing one at points, for example in All Hail Megatron, but honestly it sort of surprised me to see just how much time this issue devotes to it. The way that Megatron interprets their dynamic as fulfilling a sort of mutual, constantly renewing emotional need is also interesting to me: ‘It was to be a healthy exercise - I could work off my resentment towards him, he could vent his rebellious urges upon me’. Even with ‘healthy’ taken as sarcastic, the idea that their relationship is mutual and that it’s going to be a permanent dynamic interacts really nicely with the IDW1 portrayal so far. For example, in AHM Megatron claims that one day - a day an undefined amount of time into the future - there will be no need for him and Starscream will take over the Decepticons… But his borderline gleeful reaction to Starscream’s pain and his belief that this is a perpetually-repeating pattern gives the lie to that. Megatron, at least in his mind, will never lose, will never leave, and will never let go of power.

However, and of course Nick Roche had no way of knowing this at the time, this comic must have made the semi-redemption arc for Megatron later on at least a little more difficult. In some ways this is a fantastic portrayal: it’s vivid and concentrated, Megatron is delightfully arrogant and sadistic, but it’s also a portrayal that has a  kind of grounded, personal nastiness that I think lodges in the minds of readers more than a hundred speeches about universal domination. This version of Megatron actually does make the likes of Getaway seem like a fluffy, fluffy bunny rabbit.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: The Transformers, #7-13 (2009)

The pacing of these issues is generally quite slow and there are a few scenes where it feels like time isn’t being used sensibly: “Why do you sit in here?” “It helps me… think.” “Well… that’s pretty weird, man.” is an interaction that takes up an entire page, for example. Then, there’s the scene in which Spike explains to the Autobots who the Combaticons are, for some reason. Scenes like this, combined with the fact that some of the major issues are solved off-panel, means there is a very inconsistent sense of action between issues 8-13.

Characterisation does progress, somewhat, but I think it’s hindered. For example, I think there’s a bit of a reluctance to characterise Decepticons, with some odd choices like having Onslaught, a character built around an interest in strategy, being unable to come up with a plan on his own. Similarly, a lot of other characters, Cybertronian or human, communicate a bit too often in extended speeches explaining their abstract ideological position rather than expressing their individual personality, to the extent that it sometimes seems like the story isn’t sure what it wants to do with some of the characters. The conversation between Spike and the female soldier with the blonde hair is very stilted.

There’s clearly effort being put into trying to make Spite Witwicky into less of a dick, lots of internal monologue and beats that are intended to give him a greater sense of interiority. However, I’m finding it a bit grating: ‘I’ve always hated machines’ is… a bizarre statement from someone who has grown up in a wealthy-ish American household in the late 20th-century, then gone into the military, and whose Dad is into cars. At no point has Spike Witwicky been portrayed as a neo-Luddite up until now, but there’s an urge to inject some sense that he has hated machines since childhood in order to give his hostility towards Transformers a greater sense of weight. To be blunt, I don’t find this terribly believable as a motivation, but that will vary from person to person. It’s sometimes difficult to tell where the balance lies in how much Costa is trying to position Spike as flawed and how much he is trying to position him as a sympathetic action hero-type character. Lines like: ‘Being the boss is the one thing that makes all the official stuff bearable. I can come and go as I please. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. And I get all the best equipment’ don’t help. On the one hand, having a selfishly motivated character is not a problem, having a rogue character in a position of authority is not a problem, but the way that the narrative switches between trying to present Spike as deeply flawed, gain a sense of catharsis from his victories (see: his killing of Scrapper), and also try and generate sympathy for him for non-specific reasons, childhood grudges, and implied feelings of inferiority and guilt… To me, it ultimately comes across as disingenuous.

In theory, looking at how geopolitics might be influenced by the appearance of Cybertronians and their technology could be an intriguing angle, but I’m not sure that Costa was the person to do it. Although it does allow the narrative to nudge human concerns to the forefront, I’d say there are a number of dubious choices being made here, perhaps a few too many for me to name - let’s just say that this story is very dependent on you automatically rooting for not only the American military, but the idea of rogue agents of said military acting as self-appointed arbiters of moral justice. Is it just me or is the South Korean military curiously absent? TFWiki also helpfully points out that it should be ‘People’s Republic of China’, not the ‘Republic of China’, which would more likely refer to Taiwan. Also, and this is a very minor detail, but the idea that there are multiple densely-populated places on Earth that haven’t restored any form of swift communications yet, given it’s been three years since the Decepticons invaded? Seriously, no one has a phone? An email? Social media? And we’re also supposed to believe that technology is surging because of reverse engineering alien equipment left behind?

Is Starscream the only character who interacts with the Matrix this way, this idea of it being harmful or somewhat addictive or compelling to the wearer? I remember points in the continuity where Optimus mentioned finding it painful and Rodimus said it felt pleasant, but Starscream’s not a Matrix bearer - he’s just wearing it externally. Is it supposed to be a self-defence function of the Matrix? We’ll see if any of this is addressed in future issues, I will be interested to find out.

[kryptonitecore]

Rereading: Transformers: Infestation (2011)

This is an odd creature.

It’s a true-blue crossover event, and is in fact more extreme than the ones I’d be used to from, say, Marvel or DC, as it involved IDW trying to pull together all the franchises they had the license for at the time. The result is a zombie-esque plot with a mish-mash of science fiction and fantasy tropes slapped together, presumably in order to justify how this story is supposed to unite everyone from TOS Star Trek characters to early IDW1 Transformers to the Ghostbusters. It would, I suspect, make (marginally) more sense if I went away and read all the other set-up and tie-in issues for the event, but I’d honestly prefer to stay in my lane on this one. There is a bit of a crash-course in what is supposed to be happening in Issue 1, though I doubt it managed to contain all the context.

It has Nick Roche on pencils and Joanna LaFuente on colours, so the art is generally not an issue for me. Admittedly, the art on Britt is sometimes a bit strange - think Verity Carlo’s expressions from Last Stand of the Wreckers but she’s thirty feet tall and coated in metal. Otherwise, we are all good, and are treated to the most preposterous headgear I have seen on Prowl yet:

Some of the dialogue is very quippy in tone, some pop culture references here, some catch-phrases there. The tonal whiplash from Costa’s run or LSotW is quite extreme. There also seems to be a bit of confusion about the status of certain characters, given several people (including Galvatron!) refer to him as a Decepticon throughout the two issues. However, the story is much faster paced than I’m started to become used to by this point in the continuity and I believe the writers were having a certain kind of fun with the story, even if they didn’t necessarily have the firmest grasp on these characters. This is probably the only time we’ll see Galvatron demonstrate concern for human life, for example.

The central villain, Britt, is… an undead techno-organic-entity-possessed vampire? From what I can tell? She’s magical in a very broad sense and is acting on behalf of an entity/force known as the Undermind, which is a sort of zombie hivemind playing the assimilation game. Britt herself is a bit generic, though she doesn’t exactly get long to establish herself here. The single best aspect of her role in the story in my opinion was the fact that she initially appeared as a female Decepticon called ‘Bayonet’ whom other characters seemed to accept unquestioningly, which turns out to be because she can use the Undermind’s abilities to alter the perceptions of those around her. Kup’s confusion over ‘Bayonet’ turning to distress and his questioning of ‘since when was there a Bayonet?!’ could have been an even better moment with more time and more ambiguity. Even though they had only two issues, I do wonder if that revelation could have been kept back and the strangeness of her presence been more unobtrusive for longer.

This story is canon, drawing fairly heavily on both Kup’s Spotlight issue, some of Galvatron’s backstory, and, from what I can tell, leading into Heart of Darkness. I find this slightly bizarre, as this is exactly the sort of story I would expect tot be outside of canon, but there we go.

Also, how many times are they going to ‘kill’ Kup? It’s diminishing returns each time, I swear.