Review: My Little Pony/Transformers: The Magic of Cybertron by James Asmus et al.

I guess the first Transformers/My Little Pony crossover must have sold well, because just five months after it came to an end, another one began-- and the end has hints for a third! While the first featured Queen Chrysalis bringing the Transformers to Equestria, this one has Megatron bringing the ponies to Cybertron, inadvertently releasing King Sombra in the process. Sombra promptly mind controls a group of ponies, Decepticons, and Autobots, and its up to the remaining ponies and Transformers on both sides to figure out a way to stop him from conquering two worlds.

IDW does a lot of these weird mash-ups: Transformers/G.I. Joe, Star Trek/Transformers, Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes, and so on. Part of what can make them less effective, I think, is that in your head, you can imagine six million different fun things that can happen... but if it's a four-issue miniseries telling a single story, there probably isn't room for most of those, and the resulting story is a bit more plodding. (The sheer insanity of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe is of course an exception to this.) Thus, I like the format of these MLP/TF crossovers. Each of the four issues contains two ten-page stories; in between the opener and the finale, we get can get six quick stories against the broad framework of "what would ponies do on Cybertron?" This lets the writers indulge whatever weird team-ups they like, without having to worry about how it all goes together. (Indeed, in some cases, they clearly haven't worried about how it fits together at all!)

from My Little Pony/Transformers #1
(script by Sam Maggs, art by Casey W. Coller)

So, in the six middle stories we get:

• a team-up between two lesbian parent couples (MLP's Holiday and Loftie, aunts/guardians of Scootaloo, and TF's Arcie and Greenlight, guardians of Gauge)
• a team-up between flying teams (MLP's Wonderbolts and TF's Seekers)
• a showdown between "Western" characters (MLP's Applejack and TF's Wildwheel)
• a team-up between musical characters (MLP's Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Melody and TF's Soundwave)
• a team-up between characters who are into beauty (MLP's Rarity, a fashion designer, and TF's Knock Out, a cosmetic surgeon)
• a team-up between reptiles (MLP's Spike and Smolder, both dragons, and TF's Dinobots)

MLP continuity seem to be pretty firmly rooted in the tv show's season 9, but the TF continuity-- as is usually the case for a lot of these crossovers-- seems to be based on the 1980s cartoon in its general precepts, but freely pulls characters and concepts from other continuities. (Arcie and Greenlight are from IDW's 2019-present ongoing, Wildwheel is from the 2018-present Cyberverse cartoon, Knock Out is from IDW's old 2005-18 continuity.)

from My Little Pony/Transformers #2
(script by Ian Flynn, art by Priscilla Tramontano)

They're all by different creative teams, and I liked some better than others, but I think literally every story had one great moment. The opener had an excellent Unicron gag; I loved Scootaloo zooming in on a Transformer scooter with a bunch of "kid" Autobots; the bit where Starscream expects everyone to cheer for him but instead they cheer for Rainbow Dash was perfectly done; Knock Out insisting that Rarity needed to see the beauty of Cybertron was a surprisingly good grace note, and Knock Out's speech about his love for fellow Decepticon Breakdown was pretty cute; and who wouldn't love Vinyl Scratch using Soundwave as her own sound system? Last time the finale was pretty perfunctory, but this time it has some good gags, too: the Mane Six are given exo-suits that let them transform, and Pinkie Pie's wondering what she'll turn into is fun, as is her delight at what she does become (yielded by Megatron, no less!). Starscream's last line is perfect.

I had two particular favorites. One was "One-Trick Pony" (from issue #2, by Sam Maggs and Trish Forstner), the Western-styled showdown between Applejack and Wildwheel. I didn't know Wildwheel (I've never seen Cyberverse), but this was a perfect Western pastiche, and it read brilliantly.

from My Little Pony/Transformers #4
(script by Ian Flynn, art by Casey W. Coller)

The other was, like last time, the Spike/Dinobot team-up (from issue #4, by Ian Flynn and Casey W. Coller). This just had a lot of good jokes, as Grimlock and Spike struggle to explain to the other Dinobots what makes Spike so cool. "Friend-Spike can fly, too!" "I'm... still learning, to be honest." "Him learning to fly! Him dragon! Breath fire, too!" "M-mostly to send correspondence..." "Telecomm fire!" But of course Spike comes through with the magic of friendship when they have to battle a combiner.

Are these comics great art? Well, I don't know, but they're certainly great comics. Like, what else could you want from them? I will definitely be here for any third volume. (That said, I think Transformation Is Magic would have been a much better subtitle.)

The Magic of Cybertron was originally published in issues #1-4 of My Little Pony/Transformers (Apr.-July 2021). The story was written by James Asmus (#1, 3-4), Sam Maggs (#1-2), Ian Flynn (#2, 4), and Tony Fleecs (#3); illustrated by Jack Lawrence (#1, 4), Casey W. Coller (#1, 4), Priscilla Tramontano (#2-3), Trish Forstner (#2), and Tony Fleecs (#3); colored by Luis Antonio Delgado (#1-4),  Joana Lafuente (#1-2, 4), and Tony Fleecs (#3), with flats by Lauren Perry (#3); lettered by Jake M. Wood and Neil Uyetake; and edited by Megan Brown.

Review: Transformers/My Little Pony: Friendship in Disguise! by James Asmus, Ian Flynn, et al.

Even though I tell him I'm largely only interested in the comics of IDW's main Transformers continuity, my comic book guy is forever sticking whatever random crossovers IDW does in my pull box. I have no interest in the Transformers meeting the Terminator or Marty McFly, but the moment I heard of Transformers/My Little Pony, I knew I had to get it. My wife is a big My Little Pony fan, so I have had a lot of exposure to the world, and the concept is so ridiculous that it would have to be sublime.

At its best, that is true. This isn't really one big story, but a series of short stories (each of the four issues contains two ten-pagers) set against a common backdrop. There are bookends that explain the set-up and provide a wrap-up: Queen Chrysalis tries to magically summon allies to aid in her takeover of Equestria, which pulls the Autobots and Decepticons from Cybertron through a malfunctioning spacebridge. The Decepticons agree to aid Chrysalis, while the Autobots try to help the ponies of Equestria. The six middle story provide a variety of encounters: Arcee and Rarity team up against Starscream, Spike and Grimlock battle the Constructicons, Pinkie Pie and Gauge's cooking show is interrupted by Shockwave, Fluttershy and Discord's tea-time is interrupted by Soundwave and his cassettes, Rainbow Dash and Windblade race while they battle some Seekers, and Insecticons attack the Apple family farm.

The frame is perfunctory but necessary; I did like that it opens by highlighting the absurdity of it all and also downplaying the continuity issues. (From the Transformers side, it seems to take place in the 1980s G1 continuity, but later characters like Windblade and Gauge are present; the Transformers wiki informs me there's not really a place in the MLP chronology it can fit, either.) The weaker stories don't really do much other than have a pony team up with an Autobot and mouth some platitudes about friendship. The only one I didn't like was the Apple family one, which didn't do anything clever or interesting.

from Transformers/My Little Pony #2
(script by Ian Flynn, art by Sara Pitre-Durocher)

But when it hits, it really hits. The Spike/Grimlock story might make no sense (how did Spike and Grimlock get to Earth?) but makes up for it with some delightful inanity as Spike saves the day by reading Modern Cybertronian for Everyday Conversations well enough to understand Teletraan I for Dummies, which he then reads well enough to reprogram the Ark's engines to use them as weapons against the Constructicons-- all seemingly in the matter of moments! I always like some good Grimlock jokes, and this has some great ones. (On top of this, my toddler liked it. He often sees me reading comics, or pulls one of my wife's MLP comics off the shelf, and asks to be read them, but gets bored after just a couple pages. But when I read him this story, he sat all the way through it and then asked for it again multiple times over the next couple days. And then a month later, I was reading The Transformers Classics UK and told him Grimlock was in it, and he started talking about "Grimlock and neigh-neighs," so clearly it left an impression!)

The Pinkie Pie/Gauge one has its moments, but the best of them all was the one about Fluttershy and Discord coming up against Soundwave. Soundwave's cassette robots all transform into animals, so Fluttershy tries to befriend them... this leads to a delightful moment where one clarifies that Ravage doesn't have a "boo-boo," he has "battle damage"... but then Fluttershy wins him over by applying "boo-boo creme" to it. At the same time, Discord turns all the animals in Fluttershy's sanctuary into Transformers in order to battle Soundwave, and in the end, Soundwave goes AWOL to spend time basking in friendship in Equestria.

from Transformers/My Little Pony #3
(script by James Asmus, art by Jack Lawrence)

There are some crossovers you can take seriously, I suppose, but a crossover like this doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. Or, indeed, benefit from it. Thankfully, the writers here largely understand that and make the best of it. I didn't really care about the plot-- but I don't think anyone involved expected me to. The end promises a sequel with the ponies in the Transformers universe, and if they make it, I will tell my comic book guy to put it in my pull box!

Friendship in Disguise! was originally published in issues #1-4 of Transformers/My Little Pony (July-Nov. 2020). The story was written by James Asmus (#1, 3-4), Ian Flynn (#1-2, 4), and Sam Maggs (#2-3); illustrated by Tony Fleecs (#1, 4), Jack Lawrence (#1, 3), Sara Pitre-Durocher (#2, 4), Casey W. Coller (#2), and Priscilla Tramontano (#3); colored by Tony Fleecs (#1), Lauren Perry (#1, 4), Luis Antonio Delgado (#1, 3), and Joana Lafuente (#2, 4); lettered by Jake M. Wood and Neil Uyetake; and edited by Megan Brown.