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.

Review: Transformers: Unicron by John Barber, Alex Milne, Sara Pitre-Durocher, Andrew Griffith, Kei Zama, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, n. pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2018)
Acquired and read April 2019

Transformers: Unicron

Written by John Barber, with Chris Ryall, David Rodriguez, Brandon Easton, Christos Gage, Magdalene Visaggio
Art by Alex Milne
Additional Art by Sara Pitre-Durocher, Andrew Griffith, Kei Zama, David Messina, Nelson Dániel, Juan Samu, Paolo Villanelli, Fico Ossio
Colors by Sebastian Cheng, David Garcia Cruz
Additional Colors by Joana Lafuente, Alessandra Alexakis, Mattia Iacono
Letters by Tom B. Long, with Curtis Fandango

Though I gave up on John Barber's take on Transformers a couple years ago now, I still had some curiosity about how it would all end, and so I dutifully picked up Unicron, which ties up the IDW continuity that began all the way back in Infiltration-- three-and-a-half years of reading for me, and thirteen years of storytelling for them.

I don't know why Rung of all people would be at the center of Optimus's memories of the fallen, but hey, I love Rung, so I'll take it.
from Transformers: Unicron #6 (script by John Barber, art by Alex Milne)

Anyway, it's about as bad as all post-Dark Cybertron John Barber Transformers comics have been. Too many characters I don't care about, too much ancient Transformer mythology, too many banal human beings, too many shoehorned-in other Hasbro properties, too much indecisive Optimus, too many characters reverting again and again. Why did Starscream undo his progress from Till All Are One? Why am I reading about yet another millennia-long Shockwave masterplan? Didn't the jokes about Thundercracker writing screenplays wear thin years ago?

Why yet another story where Prowl is a jerk and this backfires?
from Transformers: Unicron #5 (script by John Barber, art by Alex Milne)

I guess the biggest point of frustration for me is the title character itself. Say what you will about the 1980s Transformers film, but Unicron is awesome in the original sense of the word. Its coming feels ominous and significant and unstoppable; it is the doom of a universe. Where and why does it come from? Irrelevant. It hungers, and it will have you. Here, though, Unicron never dominates. Neither the writing nor the art give it the immensity it deserves, it always feels squeezed in, instead of dominating. And then to give it an origin story that ties into one of the mediocre Hasbro properties! Visionaries, I think? I've already forgotten. This diminishes Unicron and thus the whole story.

I usually like Alex Milne, but his Unicron just feels really unimpressive. Ooh, it's sucking up some rocks.
from Transformers: Unicron #0 (script by John Barber, art by Alex Milne)

The IDW Transformers universe had a strong start in Infiltration, and despite missteps such as All Hail Megatron, went some very interesting, unprecedented places once the war ended. But John Barber, the same architect of those innovations slowly dismantled them after Dark Cybertron and then piled on the mistakes with the Hasbro comics shared universe-- necessitating the destruction of the entire continuity, because there was no other way to reset things to the way they'd been. But that destruction turned out to be as banal and uninteresting as the writing that made it necessary to begin with.

Next Week: Meanwhile, in another universal stream... the Fall of Cybertron!

Review: Transformers: Lost Light: The Scavengers In: MacGuffin Quest! by James Roberts, Sara Pitre-Durocher, Brendan Cahill, et al.

Lost Light is back! Well, it never went away in the world, but it did go away from my reading habits; when I hit issue #12, I decided to save the remaining issues for the point where I could read one per day and end with #25, the final issue, on the day it came out. This didn't quite work out, though, because #25 was delayed repeatedly, but I came pretty close. Issues #13-18 make up the third trade paperback, but those six issues contain three stories, so I'll be doing the first half of that set this week, and the second half next week.

After The Plotters' Club showed us what was happening on the Lost Light, "Sardines" brings its attention back to "Team Rodimus." Rodimus and company are chasing down Getaway and the Lost Light, using the corpse of a Decepticon who transforms into a spaceship, which they've enlarged via mass displacement. Only, the effects of that are starting to wear off, and it's not a very big space considering it contains Velocity, Anode, Lug, Swerve, Chromedome, Rewind, Nautica, Brainstorm, Ratchet, Drift, Ten, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Nightbeat, Whirl, and Rung. Wow!

It's a fun story. It's been a while since we've seen the whole Lost Light main cast, and this is a fun return to them, as everyone gets their little moments, funny or tragic or both. Velocity helps Swerve with a prank; Anode and Lug try to outprank the prankster; Ultra Magnus reveals that he thinks utopia will be full of paperwork; Cyclonus wonders if he made a mistake leaving Tailgate behind; Swerve is discovered to have a bomb that counts down with each word he says; Whirl shows some psychological insight; and Rung stays out of the way. There are some good jokes, and the whole thing builds to a climax of chaos and an amazing final panel. We're clearly moving into the endgame of Lost Light, and I look forward to seeing how it all wraps up.

MacGuffin Quest! returns us to the Scavengers, the team of Decepticons who have periodically been focal characters. I never can remember which is which, but I still delight in their adventures, a bunch of losers who just want to stay out of the way, but can't. Here, they get caught up in the plot of Scorponok and the Grand Architect to make use of an ancient Cybertronian artifact, the Magnificence.

Though I got a little lost (not sure why the Decepticon Justice Division backstory was needed), I enjoyed it. It's especially nice to see what happens between Grimlock, the deranged Autobot the Scavengers have been toting around, and the rest of the team. It's also nice to see the Scavengers affirm their own unity-- they were pretty dysfunctional when introduced. Here, though, Scorponok offers them a place in his new Decepticon order, and there's a great bit where they're not even tempted by it:

"Scorponok. Mate. It's like this..."
"If there's one thing we learned over the last few years, it's that--"
"We've glad the war's over."
"Yeah, the war sucked."
"Don't get us wrong, being a Decepticon's great... so long as you don't have to fight anyone."
"Hm. If I'm honest, I thought I'd crafted more of a dilemma. Oh well..."

They save the galaxy through their insistence on still being losers-- and are rewarded for their efforts with another great cliffhanger. If this was their final end, it would be a fitting one, but I already know it's not...

Next Week: Meanwhile, on Mederi... the Lost Light crew hear some Everlasting Voices!

"Sardines" originally appeared in issue #13 of Transformers: Lost Light (Dec. 2017). The story was written by James Roberts, illustrated by Alex Milne, colored by Joana Lafuente, lettered by Tom B. Long, and edited by David Mariotte with Carlos Guzman.

The Scavengers In: MacGuffin Quest! originally appeared in issues #14-15 of Transformers: Lost Light (Jan.-Feb. 2018). The story was written by James Roberts, illustrated by Sara Pitre-Durocher and Brendan Cahill, colored by Joana Lafuente, lettered by Tom B. Long, and edited by David Mariotte.

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

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2018 (contents: 2017)
Acquired and read August 2018

Transformers: Till All Are One, Volume Three

Written by Mairghread Scott
Art by Sara Pitre-Duroche
Colors by Joana Lafuente
Letters by Tom B. Long

With Windlbade seemingly dead, Till All Are One moves its focus to Starscream. Till All Are One has a large cast of characters, as I guess befits a series about the reunification of a planet and a society, but it does make it hard for everyone to get their due. Most of those characters put only in small appearances in this volume, leading to its best but unfortunately also its last installment.

This volume collects five issues. The first two focus exclusively on Starscream, who continues his machinations but also continues to feel kind of bad about it. It builds on Starscream's long history of development in IDW, from usurping Megatron in All Hail Megatron and Dark Prelude to becoming Cybertron's postwar civilian leader in Robots in Disguise and Windblade.

Previously I haven't really enjoyed the appearance of the hallucinatory Bumblebee in Starscream's head, but this volume intimates that Bumblebee's not a hallucination, but a manifestation of Bumblebee's actual spark, as Bumblebee was revealed to be alive trapped within a microsingularity in Transformers Annual 2017. (Which I didn't read, so thanks Transformers wiki!) Anyway, here he works more for me, not just because he's "real," but also because Starscream actually does develop thanks to his intervention... in his own way, at least. There's some nice stuff as Starscream does a good thing for selfish reasons (liberating Chromia), but also some outright awful stuff (playing the feelings of the Combaticons against each other, who turn out to be pretty cute even if I can't remember who they all are).

Starscream, why you gotta screw with the romantic fantasies of remorseless Decepticon killing machines?
from Transformers: Till All Are One #10

The next two issues reintroduce Windblade into the mix, as she battle some ancient Transformer evil in her mind (introduced in volume two, but I've already forgotten the details) and Starscream actually comes to her aid. Windblade ends up coming to his aid, however, and makes an important decision about how she's going to stop compromising herself all the time.

It actually gets genuinely touching, as Windblade realizes that Starscream has been continuously molded to meet the expectations of others ever since his creation. Starscream was constructed cold as one of many Seekers and has always been rebuilding his body in search of a true self he cannot find ever since. Windblade finds the traces of all those who have touched Starscream over the years on his spark, and forges him a model of his true self. It's a great, earned moment, that pays off four years of development for Windblade and at least eight for Starscream! It was here that I felt Till All Are One maximized its previously latent potential.

Go true Starscream!
from Transformers: Till All Are One #12

The final issue focuses on Windblade, as she competes with Starscream and Elita One for the position of civilian leader of Cybertron. It does a good job building on the previous issue to show Windblade's new perspective in action, and how it will help her help the people of Cybertron as they reunite and rebuild. I'm a little sad Till All Are One ended here, right as it hit its stride, but I'm also kind of glad it did, because it ends on a moment of hope and optimism for postwar Cybertron.

I'm down with any Transformers comic that makes a joke out of a remorseless Decepticon killing machine's preference for girly drinks.
from Transformers: Till All Are One Annual 2017

Since I'm not reading any IDW series other than Lost Light anymore, this is basically the last I'll see of the planet before the universe is rebooted/destroyed/whatevered in Unicron, and it's a tremendously fitting end for the beleaguered planet and its people in what surely must be the best version of the Transformers continuity there is.

Next Week: I'm actually all caught up on my Transformers comics (with the exception of the last span of issues of Lost Light, which I'll be reading as single issues, not books), so I'm going to go back and plug in some gaps. It was the beginning of the Great War, a time of... Monstrosity!

Review: Transformers: Till All Are One, Volume Two by Mairghread Scott, Sara Pitre-Durocher, et al.

I've got another review over at USF: Professor Bernice Summerfield experiences Absence! Daniel O'Mahony is a treasure.

Comic PDF eBook, 114 pages
Published 2017 (contents: 2016-17)
Acquired and read April 2018

Transformers: Till All Are One, Volume Two

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

Till All Are One, Volume Two picks up from the events of Titans Return-- at the end of that crossover, a massive army of undead Titans was summoned to Cybertron. In this story, Windblade and Starscream have to unite the disparate factions on Cybertron into a cohesive defense against the zombie Titans.

The art in this series has always been good, but I think Sara Pitre-Durocher really pushes herself to new levels in this volume.
from Transformers: Till All Are One #8 (art by Sara Pitre-Durocher)

It's heavier on the action and lighter on the character than Mairghread Scott's previous Transformers work; I was always surprised when an issue ended because I didn't feel like twenty pages of things had really happened. I like where this storyline pushed Windblade, though, as she increasingly is forced to compromise her own morality in face of the bigger picture of Cybetronian unity, and at this point, her and Starscream are almost always on the same page. (Starscream is still too obviously slimy-- like, who does like him?-- but in this volume he's better than most.) I look forward to seeing where this all goes in the series's final volume.

This Friday: Meanwhile, in space... trying to track down the Lost Light!

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!

Review: The Transformers, Volume 9 by John Barber, Sara Pitre-Durocher, and Andrew Griffith

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2016 (contents: 2015-16)
Acquired October 2016
Read January 2018

The Transformers, Volume 9

Written by John Barber
Art by Sara Pitre-Durocher and Andrew Griffith
Colors by Josh Perez
Additional Colors by Josh Burcham
Letters by Tom B. Long

I just cannot get into this series's post-Dark Cybertron change of direction. At least Prowl is gone now, thanks to the events of Sins of the Wreckers (though I'm not sure there's actually a continuity gap where Arcee and Kup could have gone off and done the things they did in that series, at least not yet), but the premise isn't very interesting (fighting over ancient Cybertronian mysteries), and it just doesn't go anywhere. I am pretty sure that Spike and Blackrock have a conversation in a jail cell that lasts for all four issues collected here. Meanwhile, there are too many Combiners, and too little focus on that characters and situations unique to this book.

One of the issues is told from the perspective of a dog and a nonverbal diagnostic drone. It's kind of cute, but it's been done better elsewhere.

Panels with gray borders depict how the dog, Buster, hears things. I like the way the dialogue is done, with most of it jumbled, but occasional fragments a dog would understand in the clear. (And of course a dog's first question to someone he doesn't already know would be "Do you have food?")
from Transformers vol. 2 #48 (art by Andrew Griffith)

This is the last volume of the series formerly known as Robots in Disguise that was contained in the Humble Bundles that are my primary source of Transformers comics. I've already bought volume 10 in a comiXology sale so that I can wrap the series up, but it will have to be very good to convince me to carry on into the post-Titans Return/Revolution relaunch of this series as Optimus Prime.

Also this sequence is pretty good. Go Buster!
from Transformers vol. 2 #48 (art by Andrew Griffith)

Next Week: Meanwhile, throughout the galaxy... it's time for some Christmas cheer in the Transformers Holiday Special!

Review: Transformers: Windblade: Distant Stars by Mairghread Scott, Corin Howell, et al.

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

Transformers: Windblade: Distant Stars

Writer: Mairghread Scott
Art: Corin Howell and Sara Pitre-Durocher
Colors: Thomas Deer and Yamaishi
Additional Colors: John-Paul Bove
Letters: Tom B. Long

The events of Distant Stars spin out of Combiner Wars: having reestablished contact with a couple lost Cybertronian colonies, the new Council of Worlds begins reaching out to more. Only, Windblade and Starscream have very different agendas, and so who makes contact with which colony first becomes of the utmost importance. Windblade earnestly believes that each struggling Transformer civilization can help each other, whereas Starscream has visions of a Transformer empire with him wearing the crown.

Prepare to have your idealism crushed, Windblade.
from Transformers: Windblade vol. 2 #4 (art by Corin Howell)

I like that, given that the series formerly known as Robots in Disguise has shifted its focus to Earth, Windblade continues to emphasize the difficulty of rebuilding postwar Cybertron. This feels much more of a piece with the first five volumes of Robots in Disguise than volumes 6 through 8 of Robots in Disguise actually did. The best part of the book is probably the cast of characters that Mairghread Scott has built up: not just Windblade, but a whole group trying to move beyond the Autobot-Decepticon conflict. There's racer Blurr who wants to run a bar where anyone can relax, Windblade's bodyguard Chromia, Optimus's old friend Ironhide who's just tired of it all by this point, and Wheeljack who's too idealistic for his own good. Scott also has a good handle on Starscream and Rattrap. I also enjoyed the exploration of the distinct Transformer colonies, like the movement-focused inhabitants of Velocitron, and the Beast Wars-influenced animal transformers of Eukaris.

Robots who love movement so much even their cities move!
from Transformers: Windblade vol. 2 #4 (art by Corin Howell)

On the other hand, it didn't entirely click for me: the idea that Windblade speaks for Metroplex is only paid lip-service to. It feels like no one really knows what to do with that concept on an ongoing basis. Additionally, the politics here are pretty unsubtle; apparently each planet will agree to side with whomever they speak to first, and Veloctitron's whole racing thing is a little too "planet of the hats."

The book's final story is kind of neat, even though I think it takes place first, which is confusing; I liked seeing Windblade and other naturally female Camiens interact with the artificially female Arcee. On the other hand, the last thing the IDW mythos needs right now is another combiner.

I do like the ongoing arc about Windblade's continual moral compromises: I hope it comes to some kind of interesting head.
from Transformers: Combiner Hunters #1 (art by Sara Pitre-Durocher)

In both stories, the art is strong. Corin Howell's cartoony work suits the sensibilities of Windblade well; it's very expressive. Sara Pitre-Durocher's more painterly work is reminiscent of Sarah Stone's original Windblade run, but more effective at conveying action I think.

Overall, this is decent, but it shows potential. Distant Stars was the second and final volume of Windblade, but the characters and concepts will continue into a new ongoing, Till All Are One, and I look forward to reading it, and hopefully seeing Mairghread Scott and company hit their groove.

Next Week: Meanwhile, on Earth... Verity Carlo discovers that not even Prowl can escape the Sins of the Wreckers!