I didn't wanna overtake your post about # 30 of Skybound cause well. I'm still catching up. I wasn't particularly interested in skybound til Optimus got his ass whopped by Elita cause I agree with you. I love when he gets hit with the consequences for putting Earth before his own ppl. It reminded me of how I brought up how Predacons rising ruined Optimus already flimsy character even more with the fact he was holding the planet hostage. (I remember ppl disagreeing with me despite that choice being weird like bro is speedrunning extinction) Like the TF fandom wants a mature story about war but can't handle deceptions of famine much less big ol power imbalances that effect the victims of that war. Humans are barely victims of the Cybertronian war. Yet other bots and cons have to starve and rust away for what? A couple humans got shot down? A singular city was hit? Okay. What about the thousands of years and lives lost for Cybertron? Like you have to explore both but most writers + fans don't want that. They want feel good stories of good alien, Optimus protecting their rights because that's the status quo. Sorry for yapping I just wanted you to know I agree with you!
Honestly, I understand we as human readers want to see the Earth to be saved, but the way this comic and the TF fans dismissed and disregarded the sufferings and loss of the Transformers while propping up Optimus into this Earth hero is why I don't find this comic dark or matured as all. By making Optimus seems to put all his efforts into saving Earth because of readers' bias while barely showing any concerns about Cybertron and his own people and hiding behind the excuse "We brought this war to them" is why I just began to drift away from his character. TF Skybound made Optimus look like he giving on his own planet, which can be a cool concept to highlight his flaws and misgivings, but that would make him look like truly neglectful asshole, which is definitely not allowed by the writers.
I'm sorry but just because Cybertronians and Cybertron are just fictional alien robotic race, it doesn't mean we should treat them as cannon fodders or blatant plot devices where no one cares about what they went through because they are not human characters.
I want to see Optimus to face the conflict of how to save both Earth and Cybertron without sacrificing one for other. I don't want to see him reduced to just Earth's hero that does cool fighting shits.