Review: Transformers: Till All Are One, Volume 1 by Mairghread Scott and Sara Pitre-Durocher

Comic PDF eBook, 90 pages
Published 2016 (contents: 2016)
Acquired and read January 2018

Transformers: Till All Are One, Volume 1

Written by Mairghread Scott
Art by Sara Pitre-Durocher
Colors by Priscilla Tramontano and Joana Lafuente
Letters by Tom B. Long

Technically, Till All Are One is the continuation of Windblade, but it's as much a continuation of Robots in Disguise back in the days when it was still called Robots in Disguise: how will a postwar Cybertron stay united? (Hence the title.) Especially given that it's not just Autobots and Decepticons and NAILs coming together, but waves of immigration from the newly found Cybertronian colonies.

Maybe the only good use of a Combiner in IDW.
from Transformers: Till All Are One #4

So Windblade is a focal character, but so are Ironhide, Starscream, Rattrap, Chromia, and for this volume, the Combaticons, who I kept confusing with the Constructicons. Plus the two Tankors, of course. Starscream has a dirty secret the Combaticons are desperate to expose... but so does Windblade, and Starscream knows it. I have to say, the weak link of the series is Starscream himself: how does he hold onto power, since he seems pretty much universally reviled on Cybetron? I mean, I like the smarmy way Scott writes his interactions with Windblade and company, but he has to be nice to someone, right?

Also I've kind of never been into the hallucinatory Bumblebee thing, though that's on John Barber, not Mairghread Scott.
from Transformers: Till All Are One #2

As a comic, it's miles better than the book formerly known as Robots in Disguise, but not as good as More than Meets the Eye. I feel like this book assumes I love this cast of characters more than I do. I like Windblade, but what does she want these days? To help her people, but although she was introduced as a Cityspeaker, this is almost forgotten now in favor of her political role on the Council of Worlds. On the other hand, I'm warming up to Ironhide, and once I figured out who the Combaticons were, I started to warm up to them, guys trying to figure out how they fit into a new, complicated world.

I'm kind of fascinated by the two Tankors. "Fat Tankor" on the left is designed as a killing machine... but was apparently a NAIL during the war? While "Tall Tankor" on the right was introduced in All Hail Megatron attempting to dump a nuclear bomb on humanity, but in later books has been portrayed as a decent Decepticon. Hurray for peace? But how exactly did they become friends. And now roommates? And what kind of day job does a Tankor have anyway?
from Transformers: Till All Are One #2

A decent book that hasn't quite come to life for me yet... but then it's only been four issues so far...

Next Week: Meanwhile, on Earth... Titans Return!