Review: Transformers: Combiner Wars by Maighread Scott, John Barber, Livio Ramondelli, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2015)
Acquired October 2016
Read September 2017

Transformers: Combiner Wars

Story by Maighread Scott & John Barber
Written by Maighread Scott and John Barber
Art by Sarah Stone, Livio Ramondelli, and Marcelo Ferreira & Corin Howell
Additional Inks by Corin Howell, Brian Shearer, & John Wycough
Colors by Yamaishi & Thomas Deer
Letters by Tom B. Long

Combiners, man... I dunno. I'm sure they're awesome if you're playing with the toys, but I think their very nature is intrinsically antithetical to telling good stories about groups of them. I mean, I liked what was done with Devastator back in Robots in Disguise okay, but Combiner Wars needs to feature multiple combiners warring. Thus five different combiners, each of whom consists of five Transformers. That's twenty-five different characters in a six-issue story! Plus all the usual regular characters like Optimus Prime and Windblade and Starscream and Rattrap and Prowl and so on, as Combiners Wars is actually a crossover between Windblade and the subtitle-less Transformers comic (formerly known as Robots in Disguise). There's even some minor interplay with More than Meets the Eye; a group of Lost Light crewmembers were shown shuttling back to Cybertron at the end of volume 8, and here they become a group (the "Protectobots") in two seconds, then stand around in the background a lot, then become a combiner who just shouts and fights a lot. Which is typical of the amount of focus any of these characters can receive in a story like this.

The hours must fly by with jokes like that.
from Transformers vol. 2 #40 (story by Maighread Scott & John Barber, script by John Barber, art by Livio Ramondelli)

It could be an okay story, but like so many Transformers plots of late, it gets derailed by a character of whom I am growing increasingly sick: Prowl. How many times can he concoct a secret plan and charge into a situation and make it worse for everyone through his interference? It's repetitive, it's boring, and it makes the other characters look stupid for not being able to stop him from doing it. The more these comics focus on him, the less I like reading about him. C'mon dude, if no one can tell the difference between normal you and controlled-by-Decepticons you, maybe you should change up your approach. But no, we just get the same thing with him again and again and again. Optimus Prime, you are a bad leader.

Just kill him!
from Transformers vol. 2 #41 (story by Maighread Scott & John Barber, script by John Barber, art by Livio Ramondelli)

Everyone else kind of gets lost in the shuffle, but there are some potentially interesting ideas about the lost Cybertronian colonies, and I do like Rattrap and Swindle. But, overall, meh.

Next Week: Meanwhile, on Earth... something something something Blackrock!