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by: Ruel de Vera
After a mandated period of time off, the comic book reviews are back
(hopefully welcome such as it is). There's quite a clone army of material to
go through, so we'll get right down to it, beginning with the issues that
came out earlier and working our way back to the more recent stuff.
From the very cover of Transformers Energon # 29, you know that it's
basically the return of Megatron to the title (well, he is on the cover
ripping Terrorcons to shreds). This is, after all, "Multiplicity Pt. 4" from
Simon Furman and Alex Milne. He'd been a ghost for a while now, waiting for
a chance to inhabit his spanking new body hidden inside the husk of Unicron,
when a transplated Optimus Prime gave him just that chance. Now, with the
Autobots seemingly about to be decimated by the Terrorcon hordes on Earth,
Megatron comes screaming in and blasting every Terrorcon in sight. Anywhere.
In Los Angeles. In Tokyo. In Moscow. In Toronto. Everywhere. The Autobots,
running low on Energon, also get a boost from a nifty new invention by Rad,
which powers the TFs up with Energon vapors. Over in Turkey, a revitalized
Kicker jumpstarts the Omnicons and gives Mirage and Slugslinger an electric
sendoff. And finally, in the Yukon, Ironhide is supervising the attachment
of the Shield Tower when Scorponok, hidden from their sensors during
reentry, ambushes the Autobots and knocks them all out. But just when
Scorponok is feeling very good about himself, he turns around and discovers
that Megatron has arrived and isn't very pleased.
Furman is upping the destruction quotient with every issue, and with the
arrival of Megs, he's really putting all the stops out. Truth be told,
"Multiplicity Pt. 4" really is set up issue more than anything else, tying
up the "Multiplicity" storyarc and reintroducing the baddest Decepticon of
them all. So there isn't really a whole lot of drama or twists in this
issue, considering much of it was hinted at in Pt. 3 of the arc.
That said, this is a great issue for Milne. The action scenes in
"Multiplicity Pt. 4" are the best in the series so far and not just for the
scrap content. Milne goes widescreen this issue, like a cinematographer
wiping the camera around, taking in the action from different perspectives.
The interesting is that agbout 90% of those scenes involves Megatron but
readers won't grow tired (well, not too much) of seeing Megatron blast
things because of Milne's solid work. The coloring and inking remains quite
bright, almost animated, but by now, it's become a nice way to
differentiate the series.
Transformers Energon # 29 continues the series' trend of speeding up what
started out as being a highly-plodding, talky story. Though this issue
doesn't have the steeljaw-dropping revelations of the more recent issues, it
gives you the feeling that there is one coming in the next ones.
Reports from Vector Sigma:
1) Furman and Milne deployed almost every single Autobot on Earth to fight
off the Terrorcon horde and here we get a good look at some of the less-seen
ones in action: Hoist, Beachcomber, Tow-Line, Perceptor, Bulkhead,
Downshift, Landquake, and Prowl. There's also a sighting of Armada Blurr.
2) Consistent with his personality, the Decepticon Thrust tries to suck up
to Megatron the astrosecond he catches sight of his former commander.
3) It is consistent as well to see Hotshot's disbelieving expression when he
sees Megatron for the first considering he was part of the group (together
with Armada Red Alert and Scavenger) who ambushed Megatron at the end of
Armada.
4) Another regularly appreciated if somewhat hammy touch to Energon: the
humans are still playing a good part. Kicker kicks 'Con backsides and the
Armada kids fly to the rescue.
5) Finally, doesn't Milne just draw an amazing Megatron? Not just his basty
robot form, but that sleek, deadly gunship alt mode of him? While we've seen
really impressive scans of the upcoming Cybertron/Galaxy Force Megatron
(very impressive, love those Unicron shoulderpads), Energon Megatron, in my
mind, has been the best Megatrong iteration since the original Galvatron and
here, Mline does his justice--and then some. "Ten years!"
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