Bish's Review Space Above and Beyond Episode 13: Level Of Necessity

"You act without even thinking about it, because you have no other choice, because it matters, because you've reached your level of necessity" - Matt Burke

Level Of Necessity was written by Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer and directed by Thomas J. Wright. Genre fans might enjoy knowing that Kiene and Reinkemeyer were both story editors for the entire first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and had writing credits on the Buffy episodes, The Pack and Inca Mummy Girl.

While on a mission in the hellish tunnels of the planet Daedalus, Damphouse has a premonition that the 46th squadron are walking into a trap. When all but one are killed Matt Burke, a colonel from the Psi-Ops division, becomes interested in her and leads her through a series of tests, culminating in him observing her on a mission back to Daedalus and a fateful raid on a Chig ammunition dump. Vanessa's psychic visions happen again, predicting the death of one of the team. As tensions in the tunnels run high the Chigs attack and Burke is fatally wounded. The 58th escape but Vanessa is left wondering if her abilities are even real and if so, are they a gift, or a curse.

The Good
The basic idea of psionic soldiering is worth exploring in this kind of show. Damphouse could do with an arc beyond being "the nice one" in the squadron and this could have unfolded into something interesting.

Richard Kind, who plays Matt Burke, puts in an excellent performance as the slightly crazed colonel. He manages to go very naturally from annoying to sympathetic as some of the reasons behind his obsession with psychic visions come to the fore. He is a man who has been cast down from the position he used to enjoy and desperately needs something to believe in - there are definite shades of Wong and Morgan's other big show - The X-Files - in this character arc.

The tunnels of Daedalus are very well designed and atmospheric. I do not generally suffer from claustrophobia and certainly not while watching characters on TV but the sheer thought of having to crawl through those booby-trapped shafts for hours on end actually made me feel quite bad. Plus, it's another different sort of warfare for the 58th to showcase and put me in mind of the sappers in the First World War who used to tunnel under enemy trenches and blow them up.

The Bad
Unfortunately, while the premise had some promise, Level Of Necessity fails to deliver the essential ingredient - interest. The plot summary sounds like a decent idea and there are some genuinely well-done scenes but the whole thing is too slow and too vague. Damphouse is a likeable character and I can see why the writers felt the need to give her something to do but they dropped the ball here.

For all the fancy speeches about seeing time as a circle, all Damphouse's powers really boil down to is knowing for certain that someone in the vicinity will die soon. That is a maddening ability that, as is actually stated in the episode, isn't any use in a combat situation as it only serves to put everyone else on edge and for Damphouse to second-guess her every thought.

Irritatingly, Kiene and Reinkemeyer make her situation too unambiguous to believably dismiss as luck or "a trick of the light". It is clear, in this episode at least, that when Damphouse has a vision, it will come true, which really should pay off in subsequent episodes but will not. Of course, Space only ran one season and they could have revisited Psi-Ops in a hypothetical Season 2, but that's purely speculation. Damphouse's last speech in the episode is the traditional serenity (not that one) prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

which could serve as an explanation for why this ability doesn't really come up again, but only if you were really generous and accepted that Damphouse's will is iron enough to stop her trying to warn her friends when they are about to die, which, from everything we know about her, it definitely is not. It is much more likely that the writers found this idea unworkable and quietly dropped it, rendering this episode pointless as well as boring. A pointless episode that had something to say, or some exciting action might have been salvageable, and a less good episode that was a major turning point in the arc of the show might have had redeeming features but unfortunately Level Of Necessity is neither.

There is also a "token sceptic" character, Luben, who joins the 58th as the only survivor from the 46th and believes that Damphouse either got lucky in delaying the 58th from entering the tunnel or didn't act fast enough to warn the 46th. It is always annoying when shows feel the need to add an external character to bring up a valid point of view because, as happens here, it tends to be done with the subtlety of a sledge-hammer and, because he's not one of the gang, the audience is automatically predisposed to disagree with him. If you know your science ficiton you'll probably remember that Star Trek did this all the time, because the characters as written always had to be basically on the same page. Space isn't that kind of show, however, and better writing could have avoided this cliche.

Less important, but worthy of mention: the effects of the auras that Damphouse sees around doomed individuals are really quite ropey, which harms verisimilitude much more than a poor special effect usually does, because we're supposed to be in the mind of the character, and she wouldn't see in dodgy green-screen.

Future History
A very nice one here when Wang explains how an early attempt at gathering intelligence by psychic vision resulted in a disaster for the United States in the mountains of Karakoram in the 2050s. This is especially fun because it calls back to the fifth episode, Ray Butts where this engagement is briefly mentioned.

Past History
I don't think there was anything this week.

Ultimately, just not a very good episode, and a big disappointment after the triumphs of the previous two and for fans of Damphouse in general.

Bish's Review Space Above and Beyond Episode 12: Who Monitors The Birds?

"Who monitors the birds?" - Hawkes

The twelth episode of Space: Above and Beyond was written by series creators Glen Morgan and James Wong and directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Promised a discharge from his sentence to the marines,Hawkes is recruited for an assasination mission deep behind enemy lines. After his partner is killed he goes on the run. Alone in enemy territory he has to stay alive and evade capture, while having hallucinations and flashbacks to the In Vitro education program. When finally an extraction arrives, Hawkes destroys his discharge papers and prepares to rejoin his comrades.

The GoodWho Monitors The Birds? is structurally the most ambitious episode of Space: Above and Beyond to date. The dialogue is limited to only a few lines in only about three key flashback scenes, with the rest of the action following Hawkes as he struggles to stay one step ahead of the Chig patrols.

Rodney Rowland steps up to the challenge admirably. Just because he doesn't have much dialogue doesn't mean he doesn't have to carry the show and his physical performance is excellent. Hawkes' exhaustion, both physical and mental, is draining to watch and seeing a flashback to a younger version of Hawkes, stiff, emotionally stunted and naive, being brainwashed to fight for America, is deeply sinister.

Obviously, with dialogue scarcely a concern, it is the direction that must come to the fore, and Who Monitors The Birds? is a fascinating watch. My favourite bit of directorial craft is a moment where Hawkes, in desperation, leaps into a river to escape and the scene immediately cuts to a flashback of his birth, sliding out of the tube in a splash of fluid. It's an easy connection to make, maybe, but it's still a stylish choice.

Similar is a scene where Hawkes is distracted by a pteradactyl like creature in flight and flashes back to his similar amazement at seeing a bird in flight from the window of the education facility. The title is reflective of this, as he is amazed that the bird seems so free while his life is controlled by the sinister "monitors", so he, quite innocently, asks that question, and gets into trouble for it. A Chig walks close by and Hawkes is about to fire before he sees that the alien, too, is fascinated by the creature, and lets it go on its way. I always appreciate the way Space tries to add layers of ambiguity to Chig behaviour and show common ground between the two sides. By this point in the series it is very clear that the Chigs are not by any means pure evil.

On this theme, there is a lovely scene where Hawkes has the better of a Chig and it surrenders, throwing up its four-fingered hands in a very human gesture. It offers Hawkes its dog-tag thing that it keeps on its chest-plate and he gives it a ring in exchange. In the next scene he is jumped by Chigs, kills them, and discovers this individual among them. Heartbroken he takes his ring back, returns the chest-panel and sinks to the ground.

Brave and effective are the moments where Hawkes, exhausted and dehydrated, starts hallucinating a sort of personification of death. This is represented by Vansen, but in a skimpy dress, with pale skin, yellow eyes, and bloody lips.

Almost no dialogue is exchanged in these scenes either, but the chemistry between the two is very well done, and Hawkes' obvious attraction to Vansen is perverted effectively by his dire circumstances and mental state. She really does look nightmarish, and her appearances are heralded by eerie guitar licks that jar brilliantly with the rest of the orchestral soundtrack.

She saves Hawkes by pointing out Chig patrols a couple of times but ultimately he rejects her, casts her aside, and goes to the extraction point. "Until we meet again." she says, mockingly. This is a great illustration of the way death is a constant part of a soldier's life, either aiding him, by taking his enemies, or finally coming for him at the end. Hawkes kills a lot of Chigs, sometimes with Death by his side, but despite the near hopelessness of his situation he is able to ultimately reject her embrace and survive, for now.

The action is decent and we probably see more pyrotechnics here than in any other episode of Space thus far. There are extended sequences of Hawkes running from small arms fire, mortar fire, and fighting Chigs in hand to hand combat and all are tense and exciting.

The BadNot a lot to worry about here. The Chig costumes are a little stiff and clunky, and perhaps do not move as smoothly in hand to hand combat as might be desirable. In addition, the episode opens with a narration by Hawkes explaining what an In Vitro is and why he does what he does. It's written very clunkily and feels like a very late addition to the script, possibly in response to an executive, nervous about putting out a nearly wordless hour of television.

Other than that, with so little dialogue there are no cheesy lines to criticise, and no bad acting. The story is straightforward but well told and we get a good glimpse into the horror that is the In Vitro program.

Future HistoryA nice continuity nod: the Chig officer that Hawkes is tasked with assasinating was responsible for the attack on the Vesta colony.

Past HistoryThere wasn't enough dialogue for any historical or literary references this week.
Overall Who Monitors The Birds? was an excellent and daring piece of work. It is certainly in the top tier of the episodes I have reviewed so far and from what I recall is among the very best the series has to offer, not that it is entirely representative, breaking the usual ensemble format, as it does.
 Space Above and Beyond - The Complete Series is available in a very affordable boxset. And on the strength of my last two reviews you really should think about checking it out.

Bish's Review Space Above and Beyond Episode 11: The River Of Stars

"Iridanus: The River Of Stars - When I was kid, in the winter it'd get dark real early and on the way home from basketball practice I'd see Iridanus in the sky. It gave me comfort to see it return every year. To know some things never went away." - Wang

The River Of Stars was written by Marilyn Osborne and directed by Tucker Gates.

During a battle on Christmas Eve, the 58th's ISSCV transport is disabled and left helpless - drifting towards Chig territory. While McQueen mounts a search mission the squadron discuss the meaning of the Christmas, give presents and argue about faith. When all hope seems lost, Wang receives a burst of morse code on the radio warning the 58th of an incoming comet. A further transmission gives the 58th the data they need to enter a stable orbit around the comet and hitch a ride away from enemy territory. The only snag is that Wang has to make a dangerous space walk in order to point the thruster in the right direction. McQueen, picking up the same transmission, sends his search team to rendervous with the comet and find the 58th alive and well.

The Good
That's right, Space: Above and Beyond did a Christmas episode. I bet you expected it to suck, didn't you? Well it didn't. While many TV shows crap out a seasonal episode that lacks anything other than empty sentiment (although that trend seems to be dying) Space manages a tense, interesting forty-five minutes that lays on the Christmas theme without losing track of the usual themes of the show.

In fact, I will go one further than this, and say that a Christmas episode is actually more appropriate for Space than many other TV shows. After all, who needs the spirit of Christmas more than a group of marines fighting a bitter war against an inhuman enemy in the cold of space? It is no surprise that many of the Wildcards are looking forward to one of the only breaks they are likely to get for a long time to come.

The show's determination to give the war with the Chigs some texture gets a major boost here as it is revealed (although never explicitly stated) that the aliens are behind the mysterious transmissions in broken morse code. A cynic might point out that this humanitarian gesture comes at a rather convenient time when it is highly unlikely that the Chigs have any idea of the significance of this particular date but Space has never really been above that kind of convenience in order to service a theme. The show tends to be more about broad sweeps of passion than nuts and bolts verisimilitude and comparing the Chig's act of mercy with the famous Christmas truce of January 1914, as the prologue to the episode does, is powerful stuff, if a little further from reality than a more modern show might attempt.

That aside, there's a lot more going on here. The most insistent arc of the episode is Wang's regaining of his faith after all the trauma he has been through since the war started. He cannot quite bring himself to mention the Silicates, but it is clearly what he means when he talks about "the things I've done." Dramatically I think this basically works but is a little disappointing in a couple of ways. I can understand how risking his life to save his friends would pull Wang out of the mire but in this arc the script drops the ball a little (for this atheist). There is an exellent scene early in the episode, where Damphouse and Wang explain Christmas to a genuinely clueless Hawkes:

"I kind of... took off... from the In Vitro educational facility before they taught us stuff like this, so all I know about Christmas is there was one day out of the year in Philadelphia that everything was closed and it was a headache... and it was lonelier than usual."

What really works is that the rest of the 58th gives the religious side, son of God, magical stars, etc and Wang gives a more grounded, scientific version, but they aren't competing with one another. They take the topic back and forth and give both sides without arguing or worrying about who says what. At this moment I felt that the show was being very even-handed, and explaining that Christmas has different meanings for different people, but in fact, the script goes on to equate Wang's beliefs with a loss of faith in himself, which I feel is a misstep, although a minor one, as the episode really doesn't dwell too much on the Christian side of Christmas.

More successful is the passing around of West's picture of Kylen as a more general symbol of faith and hope for the 58th. West gives it to Wang before his space walk and Wang eventually gives it to McQueen as a symbol of his faith that the 58th would be found alive. West's insistence on finding Kylen was always a little awkward in this show about broader themes of life and death but this is a nice evolution of the arc. Yes, West is still looking for her, but he has friends now, and comrades and they have their own symbols, rituals and belief in each other.

Vansen plays the role of the mum of the group, secretly packing Christmas presents into the transport and giving them out at a time of dire need. Kristen Cloke plays this scene beautifully, as Vansen is all too aware that this is detracting from her usual air of badassery but cannot help but be excited so she tries to rush the moment as much as possible in quite an adorable way.

McQueen and Ross on the Saratoga get a few great scenes. Most memorable is the silent shot from behind McQueen as he watches the transports return from the battle, silently counting each one back with the fingers on one hand. A look of heartache and a clenched fist are all that's needed for James Morrison to convey the emotion in the moment. Once again Ross and McQueen spar over how big a search to conduct and whether the 58th are likely to be alive but Ross barely argues, even going as far as to play "I'll Be Home For Christmas" on his guitar over the radio in the hopes that the 58th will hear, but not before assuring them that he isn't drunk. McQueen's similar gesture is to play a recording of the Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the book of Genesis from when they orbited Earth for the first time. Perfectly in keeping with McQueen's character, his deep sense of history, and the themes of the episode. This is even better as it is contrasted with a funny moment earlier in the episode where the radio picks up an old transmission from Earth of the Batman theme and the Wildcards briefly wonder if McQueen has lost his mind.

"One guy's like a bat and the other's like a bird... I liked that show." - West.

Hawke, being the token outsider, gets the traditional "what is the meaning of Christmas?" arc. There's nothing original here but the sentiment is earned and sincere when he accidently gives Vansen a Christmas present she doesn't want, and then learns that is perfectly ok, because it's the thought that counts. It could have been cheesy but it's remarkable how Space avoids the cliches in moments like that merely because you believe that these gestures really do mean this much to the characters.

Oh, and the space walk is really very convincing, especially for 90s special effects.

The Bad
For this episode, other than my slight criticisms of Wang's arc, any bad would really be reaching. I really think it's that good.

(Ok, fine - maybe the comet is moving improbably quickly. Either that or the boundaries between Chig and Human territory are REALLY precise)

Future History
I didn't catch any future history this episode but we did get a bumper helping of:

Past History
As mentioned, the episode opens with a prologue explaining the Christmas truce of 1914, in the First World War. It is narrated by Wang and features photographs and newsreel footage. It manages to be poetic, educational, and perfectly in keeping with the concerns of a science fiction show about people born in test tubes who fight aliens in interstellar space.

There is also a great deal of detail about the history of Christmas which is woven neatly into the narrative and, of course, McQueen's message from Apollo 8.

Wang's present from Wang is a copy of Romeo and Juliet and the following passage is read out:

And when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun
- Juliet

In a nice touch, the title of the book is never shown or read aloud, leaving the audience who know the speech feeling clever and the others intrigued enough to look it up.

A good forty-five minutes of Space: Above and Beyond and just a great episode of television in general. An exception to the rule that Christmas themed episodes are disposable and only work in the holidays. (See also Futurama, for equally triumphant yuletide stories, although in a completely different way).

Bish's Review Space: Above and Beyond Episode 10: Stay With The Dead

"Everytime I close my eyes I hear this voice, like, I don't know, familiar, over and over 'stay with the dead.'" - West

Stay With The Dead was written by Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer and directed by Thomas J. Wright.

West is found wounded and shipped back to the Saratoga to be treated. He is plagued by dreams and flashbacks that suggest the rest of the 58th are still alive despite being constantly told otherwise, including a tape of his own distress call. Just as he is about to have electro-shock therapy that will calm his delusions but destroy his long-term memory he remembers the truth: he made the distress call as a decoy for the Chigs to fall into a trap and the 58th had to retreat. He remembers the co-ordinates of the fallback position and the squadron are saved.

The Good
Stay With The Dead continues Space: Above and Beyond's excellent record with atmosphere. The hospital transport in the cold open is suitably horrifying and effective. We even get a sense that the medics, who we never really get to know that well are nervous as the wounded arrive. Very understandable, and a nice human touch to characters who later exist mostly to block West's attempts to get to the truth "for his own good."

The hospital equipment draws a good line between flashy and all too familiar. West's first day or so of treatment, lying in bed, unable to talk and filled with tubes is quite harrowing. Morgan Weisser really acts his socks off in this episode and portrays West's trauma very believably. James Morrison is also on fine form as McQueen, forced to confront his own demons about the loss of the Angry Angels as he sees West in the same state.

The flashback structure is fairly interesting, and shows us some more interesting facts about the Chigs. They booby-trap wounded enemy combatants and they show no compunction about killing red cross crews. Of course our heroes find this unconscienable, and anyone in that situation would, but it does serve to drive home the point that these are aliens we're fighting, not just humans with different hats.

In a similar vein, Space: Above and Beyond has always been quite good at using genuinely different concepts to portray convincingly alien planets that they don't have the budget or techniques in place to do with cgi or set dressing. In this case the planet the 58th fight over has a great deal of static electricity and we get told this makes your mouth very dry. It's a small thing, but it's clear that someone on the writing team cared enough to try to differentiate the various locations with actual science-fiction concepts, even if they are all just places in California.

I really liked that the reason West kept telling himself to "stay with the dead" was because the trap the 58th set up for the Chigs used some marine corpses as bait and it was a nice bit of symmetry to have him use the same phrase to convince the stranded Wildcards that a rescue was the real deal.

The Bad
The problem here is that the plot is fundamentally broken, and I see this without even thinking this is a particularly bad episode. There are a lot of strong performances and good writing on display, but in a series like this you simply cannot maintain suspense with this plot. We know that the 58th can't be dead - television doesn't, it can't, work like that. I feel like I've seen this plot several times on different shows and they all have the same problem. The viewer finds themselves just killing time until the inevitable turnaround. There is merit in bringing the lead character as low as possible and watching him cope with it: the distress call in his own voice was a good trick although there had to be an explanation.

As well as this, the deadline involving the threat of electro-shock treatment is just ridiculous. While it is controversial medicine, there is no evidence that it would definitely and without any doubt whatsoever strip West of his ability to remember what had really happened. I suppose this could have been some magic space electro-shock but it doesn't feel right. It would definitely have affected West's ability to be a marine, there's probably enough drama in that to work, but I could not believe that the treatment would be so severe that there was no hope of West keeping his memory after just one jolt. Why would that ever be a recommended treatment? The problem is that, fundamental plot problems aside, the episode was pretty watchable: there was some good acting from Weisser, some exciting action in the flashbacks to the planet and everything was hanging together, if not remarkably, then at least entertainingly but then the electro-shock subplot comes up and the episode takes a bit of a nosedive.

Overall though, Stay With The Dead is a fairly decent hour of television, a tired but serviceable plot kept alive by Space: Above and Beyond's general air of quality and seriousness, which is pretty ingrained by this point. I'm not sure I should give this episode a pass, but it entertained me, so I'm going to.

There weren't really any references to history, real or made up, which was a little disappointing.

 Space Above and Beyond - The Complete Series is available as a very affordable box set, and you should buy it and watch it, and then come on here and disagree with me about everything.

Review: The Marvel Comics Transformers continuity (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Comics)

On November 20th, 2008, I posted my very first review to this blog, the first issue of the US G1 Marvel Comics run of Transformers.  Now, more than two and a half years later, it's over, finished!  Yup, it's the END of the ROAD for this series of posts.  I've gone through every issue, all the mini-series and crossovers and even the collections, and looked at what made them good and what made them bad.  I've tried to be objective, to frame my comments in a historic perspective, and to share my own recollections and experiences with the books.  Hopefully you feel that I've succeeded to some degree.

So, now, looking back, the question becomes: what do I think of the series as a whole, and how did it touch me? Well, it started back around early 1985.  Eight years old, I was shopping at a Pathmark grocery store with my mother.  That Pathmark was a kind of low-end, dingy grocery store and I didn't particularly care for it.  By then I was already really into Transformers from the cartoon and from the toys, so when I saw the comic in the magazine section of this store I knew I had to have it.  It was #5, The New Order, and it was almost too intense for me.  Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but it was so dark!  I also had the sense that there was much backstory I was missing, and I didn't really like that.

My next Transformers comic was a three-pack of comics, #13-15, sold at Toys R Us.  I liked these a little more.  They seemed more like the stuff I was watching on TV.  They weren't as engaging as number 5, but they were more familiar.

I don't remember exactly where I got my next comic, G.I. Joe and the Transformers #1.  It might have been Toys R Us, not positive on that.  Watching the shows, it was clear (to me) that they must take place in the same universe.  After all, they had similar voices, like Cobra Commander and Starscream, and the music was nigh-on identical.  One of my buddies who was into G.I. Joe also claimed that some Joe characters showed up in an episode, but I was skeptical.  (I shouldn't have been - he was probably referring to the Oktober Guard, guesting in the episode Prime Target.)  This issue left me flat, though.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it.  Bumblebee went down too easily, and there was too much of a Joe focus for my tastes.

I was off the Transformers comics for a good long while at this point.  Playing over at a buddies house, he mentioned that he had a Transformers comic.  It was issue #47, Club Con.  I asked to read it, and I was confronted with "I'm Starscream.  Fly me!"  What???  And then the whole story is about some chick?  No, thank you, not for me.  I remember liking that Starscream was in it, though.  The stars of the previous books I had read were more obscure than the guys I really liked.  Also, Starscream was pretty much dead (well, undead) by that point in the cartoon, so it was interesting for me to see that the comics and the cartoon were in two different universes.  I think I finally got that by this point.

The next one is the one that really did it for me, though.  July or so of 1990, Transformers were on life support.  By now I was 14, and wasn't really outgrowing Transformers though there were some hints from peers and family members that maybe I should.  Still, they'd kind of moved on without me.  There weren't any new shows on TV, and the toys had been shockingly bad for a while.  I remember looking at Monster Pretenders in some kind of small toy store while on vacation somewhere, perhaps Reno, and thinking to myself how chintzy they were.

So, there I was, just done with some kind of church activity and waiting for a ride from my parents to go home.  Standing around in front of a church, especially when you weren't really religious, isn't super fun, so I walked across the street to a drug store where I had once or twice absconded with a Playboy magazine.  (I wasn't a bad kid, I was just embarrassed.)  I was standing by a rack of comics, looking to see if the shopkeeper was distracted when I saw a Transformers comic, issue #69 to be precise.  (Haha, 69 and I was eying the girlie magazines!)  I guess I'd probably seen other Transformers comics occasionally, but the cover really caught my eye.  Optimus?  Galvatron?  UNICRON!?  Grimlock, Starscream, Shockwave, Ravage?  I know these guys!  They weren't weird Pretenders or tiny micromasters.  I flipped through a page or two and I was hooked.  I paid for it (See?  Not a bad kid.) and brought it home and read it two or three times.

In fact, I got so into it that I begged for a trip to the comic shop, which I'd mostly only used to rent bootleg anime videos.  Sure enough, issue #70 was on the stand and that was even better.  I bugged them, calling practically every day till issue #71 came out.  (At some point they took the time to explain that Wednesdays was when new books come in, so that's the day I should call.)  The quality was just so damn good that my obsessiveness started to kick in, and I began to look for back issues.  I bought some from my friend who had showed me Club Con, but he didn't have that many.  In the days before eBay, hunting a comic collection meant driving around to all the local comic shops.  Fortunately, this was 1990 and comic shops were everywhere.  Before the end of the run, I had tracked down every single issue and devoured them.  This included Universe, Headmasters, and the Joe crossover, but not the Movie adaptation.  I didn't see the point.

Speaking of Universe, I loved those books.  I absolutely loved them.  I'd make lists of which characters had profiles published since, and when I got a new backissue I'd eagerly flip to the back to see which new characters were examined this week.  It's safe to say that this is where my love of animation models got started.

But back to the main story!  The new comics revitalized the dying embers of my love for Transformers.  Suddenly they were all I could talk about again.  Oh, how crushed I was when I found out the comic was ending.  By now I was back in stores, buying new figures again, even trying to track down old figures.  Again, pre-eBay.  If I thought comics were tricky, they were nothing compared to toys.  I looked through penny saver magazines and did garage sales and would scour dealer rooms in conventions, because I had quickly exhausted what meager supplies the local comic shops had.  Yes, the figures were a LOT cheaper than they are now, though of course some of that is just that they were only 6 years old and not 26 years old.  But they were impossible to find!  I remember tearing my room apart looking for old catalogs just so I'd know who to search for, and being thrilled when some guy in a magazine posted that he had all the Predacons for sale. 

My interest sustained itself, mostly by my own force of will, and then in 1993 something wondrous happened.  My good buddy Bill, co-author of many of my books, was working in a comic shop and he told me that G.I. Joe that month had Megatron in it.  Guh?  Really?  It was hard for me to know if he was serious, though, since the issue was polybagged.  (Polybagging, something I do NOT miss from the early 90s.)  But then the next month, Megatron was right on the cover.  Transformers were back, baby!

I also remember, around this time, my parents being very disappointed when my friends burst into the house excited that Transformers were back in stores.  They were hoping to keep that a secret so that I could have an amazing Christmas.  That might be the last time that my folks knew something about Transformers before I did.

The second G.I. Joe crossover, which I absolutely loved, soon gave way to   Transformers, Generation Two. It was written by Furman, whom I'd come to love, but what was up with the art?  I was definitely a Wildman man at the time, not a Senior man, but this art seemed completely orthogonal to what had come before.  I wanted to love it, I really did, but at best I tolerated it hoping it would get better.  With time, I came to appreciate the art and enjoy the story, but when G2 ended a scant year later I was far from devastated.  Maybe wistful is a better word.  Mostly I had hoped it would recapture the magic that was #69-80, and it didn't quite do that.  By now, though, it was 1994.  I was at college, and naturally I'd brought some Transformers with me.  It wasn't long before I discovered alt.toys.transformers, and I could finally chat with like-minded individuals about my passion.  

So, what did Transformers comics do for me?  I think it's fair to say that they nurtured and eventually ignited the lingering flames of passion for these metal titans that began in childhood and stayed with me to this day.  The cartoon was fun, but the comic was EPIC.  For a long time, there were only two real visions of Transformers in the fandom, and I was definitely in the minority comic camp. 

(Since then, of course, I've come to embrace the multiverse.  To this day, though, I think it was incredibly shrewd of guys like Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio to ambiguously place Beast Wars in the future of BOTH continuities.  Alienated no one and definitely helped convince me that Beast Wars had some merit.)

Absent picking up #69 that fateful day, I'd probably not be writing this article today, and would instead be posting on a Battlestar Galactica or a Babylon 5 forum.  (Not that I never do those things, they just don't consume all that much of my time.)  Transformers comics helped me fine and develop both rich friendships in the community and an extremely satisfying second career as a writer.  They moved me so that I took a 10 hour bus ride up to Rochester, New York in 1997 to meet Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman, which was one of the highlights of my year.

Reading back over this, this isn't so much an overview of the comics as an overview of how the comics have impacted me.  I think that's appropriate, I suppose I've mostly said what there is to say about the books.  However, I feel compelled to give at least a cursory overview.  In a nutshell, you've got about five big eras.  #1-12 kick things off, establishing the universe and generally being quite good.  #13-55, while varied, tend to explore similar themes with varying degrees of success.  By the end, though, it was clear that Bob was getting pretty bored of the universe and was ready to move on.  #56-80 brings in the space opera and generally kicks up the quality, especially if you like that kind of story.  And then there's G2, which was closer to 56-80 in scope but tonally very different.  It comes to over a hundred issues when you add in the ancillary books.  I think each era has its charms, and on the whole the tend to work well together.  Even G2 isn't quite so jarring with the Joe book bridging the gap.  100 issues is a lot for comics, so having tone shifts isn't inappropriate.

Most comic runs can't tell a single huge story with that many books, and Transformers doesn't try to.  Instead, the action comes in waves, with big issues like #12 or #41 or #50, but also may smaller issues peppered in-between. Sometimes they are build-up, sometimes they are stand alone, but it gives the overall story a nice rhythm.  Both Budiansky and Furman are quite good at establishing pace, and it helps the book stand the test of time. To me, it's no accident that a book originally slated to be a four issue mini-series would go eighty whopping issues, plus multiple mini-series and a sequel.

Final verdict time!  Transformers is not the best book you'll ever read.  There are some amazing runs out there, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman or the Peter David run on The Incredible Hulk or Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men.  However, it's a surprisingly solid story about giant robots from outer space who can look like cars or planes or mechanical dinosaurs or 20 foot tall guys in space suits.  Having two disparate visions, which helped torpedo the War of the Worlds series, here makes the whole stronger.  Bob's vision of car washes and car-thief supervillains and even pro-wrestlers provided a solid foundation, grounding the universe in a way that allows Simon's space epic to have all the more emotional resonance.  It remains one of the strongest single Transformers continuities out there, and should be required reading for any fan of Transformers: Generation One.

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It's been an absolute pleasure reviewing these books with you.  I want to thank each and every person who took the time to post a comment or drop me an email about these reviews.  It was extremely gratifying to have a dialog going about my thoughts on these books.  I turn this space now over to my colleague Chuffer and look forward to his excellent Death's Head reviews.  

Review: Marvel Transformers trade paperbacks

I just can't give up on this series of posts.  Thursdays roll around I and feel compelled to talk about the Marvel Transformers comics!  I figured this week I'd tackle the trades collecting Transformers that have come out in recent years.  (I.E. I'm not going to go in-depth on the G.I. Joe and the Transformers trade from 1993, nor the Transformers Universe trade from 1987.)  Two companies have tackled this problem, Titan Books and IDW Publishing.  Since Titan Books did it first, I'll start with them.

Back in 2001, Geewun fans were having a ball.  Dreamwave Productions had the Transformers comics and were selling insane numbers of books, so the time seemed ripe to revisit some of the old Marvel material.   Titan Books deigned to do so.  However, they didn't start at issue number 1, no.  You see, most comics that have runs in the dozens don't have every story reprinted.  Instead, publishers opt for highlights.  Since Furman was involved, it's unsurprising that they started with what he considered to be his best work, The Unicron War.  And so, come summer of 2001, All Fall Down was published, containing issues #69-74.  Shortly thereafter, End of the Road came out and collected #75-80.

It's clear that titan was pleased with the sales on these books, because by the end of 2002, the rest of Furman's US run was collected.  Issue 56-68, and G2 #1-12 were collected over four volumes.  (Sadly, the Halloween Special from G2 was skipped, as was the G2 G.I. Joe crossover.  The latter I can understand, since it was probably a separate license, but the former chafes.)  Since these apparently sold well, Titan drew up plans to reprint the rest of the G1 Marvel run, issues #1-55.  The out-of-continuity stuff, Man of Iron and The Big Broadcast of 2006, was skipped.  The Headmasters mini-series was folded into the run, but the out-of continuity movie adaptation was skipped.  This wasn't too problematic, though G.I. Joe and the Transformers mini-series was likewise skipped, with slightly more serious continuity implications for the book.

Generally 5 to 7 issues were printed per book.  Each book came out in a softcover edition first, followed shortly thereafter by a Diamond edition.  An exception was the first (chronological) volume published, All Fall Down.  This first appeared as a Botcon exclusive hardcover with a Geoff Senior cover.  Actually, it's good that I've gotten to the covers.  The softcovers had some pretty nifty CGI / pen&ink designs by Andrew Wildman.  Each featured a few characters that were prominent in the story, along with some large background element.  Book were published in pairs, so All Fall Down's cover linked up strongly with that of End of the Road.  What was really fun, though, was that all the books linked weakly together, and the final book from G2 (Rage in Heaven) linked up with that from the first G1 book, Beginnings.  Slick.  The choice of background elements ranges from the likes of Unicron and Primus to the Space Bridge to the Mecannibals.  The Diamond hardcovers were by an impressively large number of artists, including familiar names like Don Figueroa and Pat Lee, and more well-known comic artists like Dave Gibbons and Howard Chaykin.

Titan didn't skimp on the extras either.  Given that the project started off as a few isolated stories, they took care to frame the stories in the proper context.  Many of the books had newly-commissioned forewords, from guys like Greg Berger and Bob Forward and of course Simon Furman and Bob Budiansky.  Also included were sketches, original treatments, and in two of the later, shorter books, galleries of the Titan covers.  Slightly meta, maybe, but since I had all the hardcovers I liked getting a gallery of the softcover covers.

All in all, it was an excellent collection.  Sixteen volumes, available at $19.95 each for softcover or $24.95 each for hardcover, came out to $320-$400 for the collection.  Pricey, yes, but far less than purchasing the 93 issues individually would have been.  The collection was not, however, without problems.  It was clear that some of the originals had degraded, leading to a few issues with washed-out colors or a VERY slight blurriness to the lines.  This mostly impacted the earlier volumes, later volumes tended to be of higher quality.  Also, the original covers were all present but they tended to be presented two to a page.  I'd have preferred a whole page each.  Finally, and this is a nitpick but it's always bothered me so I'll say it, it annoys me that every one of the 16 books uses the latter-half of G1 logo.  (There were three logos, the classic G1, the *Masters G1, and then the G2 logo.  All sixteen volumes use the *Masters G1 logo.)

The last of the Titan trades came out in early 2005.  By this point, Dreamwave had declared bankruptcy and the future of the Transformers comics was uncertain.  Enter IDW Publishing, a much more professional outfit who swooped in and started publishing some really excellent stories.  In early 2008, they published the first of six omnibus editions collecting the G1 Marvel Comics run on Transformers.  Each one covered thirteen to sixteen issues.  At a $20 price point, they are a much better value for your dollar than the Titan collection.

However, as nice as they are, they too are sadly not perfect.  Circuit-Breaker, a fairly prominent character, was owned by Marvel Comics, a competitor to IDW.  Whereas Titan was able to reprint her stories, IDW was not.  (Issue #3, with the infamous Spider-Man guest appearance, was likewise stricken from this collection.)  A guy named Stuart Denyer wrote up some pretty decent summaries to fill the gap, but of course it's not the same.  (Thankfully, by volume 5, this issue appears to have been resolved, as Circuit-Breaker stories are included.)  Secondly, while the Headmasters mini is printed in this collection, it's not printed until Collection #6.   Thus, it's far out of place from the reading order.  Third, this collection ends at G1 #80, skipping the entire G2 saga.  Finally, the collections are pretty bare-bones.  No new forewords, no sketches, none of the sizzle.  They didn't even spring for new covers, instead making a collage from existing comic panels.  This is a shame, because IDW has a terrific stable of talented artists who could have done amazing things with it.  Remember that Nich Roche cover to Buster Witwicky and the Carwash of Doom?  (I'll admit that I don't have any of these books in front of me right now, and I don't quite remember how they handled the original covers.)

Comparing the two, it's apparent that neither one is perfect, but the Titan editions get a whole lot closer.  They just put a lot more effort into them.  The few Titan omissions that IDW fixes are hardly critical, and the extras are very nice.  However, even at retail the Titan Books books were more than twice the price of the IDW books, and the IDW books are considerably easier to find today.  For someone who is looking to just read the comics, IDW is the clear winner.  Plus, it's always possible that IDW will come out with a volume 7 covering G2 and, who knows, maybe even the Halloween Special or the G.I. Joe crossover that was skipped by Titan.  But if you're looking for a display collection, I think Titan edges it out.

By the way, as the lead photo indicates, I went with Titan hardcovers, including the Botcon exclusive version of All Fall Down.  Moreover, I've been fortunate enough to get each of them autographed by either Bob Budiansky or Simon Furman.  Normally I don't go for autographs, but this run of comics meant so much to me that I felt it appropriate.  It sits proudly in my living room, and I frequently pick one at random to peruse.

Next week is, I think, my very last formal post on the subject.  I'll try to gather up all my thoughts and recollection from the run and turn that into something coherent.  Hope you enjoy!

Review: Transformers Alignment

Well, I wasn't planning on doing this, but the feedback seemed pretty clear that it was desired.  This will be the review of Simon Furman's novella, Alignment, produced for two Transforce conventions unofficially.  It tells the story of the Liege Maximo, and also bridges the gap between the Marvel Comics continuity and the Beast Wars series.  After keeping it off-line for years, the convention organizers eventually decided to share an on-line version, which is available for download here making it by far the easiest of all my comic reviews for you to follow.  I'm going to be reviewing the 2002 printed edition, though, which features a different cover. 

Alignment was written by Simon Furman, with artwork interspersed between by Jeff Anderson, Kev Hopgood, Geoff Senior, Lew Stringer, Lee Sullivan, and Andrew Wildman.  The cover of the 2002 print edition is a piece by Sean Bastick.  (The cover of the on-line edition is by Lee Sullivan, and is reproduced in black & white in the back of the print edition.  It was originally used in the magazine edition that covered part one of the story.)

The print cover by Bastick is a CG piece, featuring an attack by Grimlock on the Liege Maximo.  It's just a bit flat, a bit too regular.  The web of planets that make up the Hub seem to be merely a large room.  Obviously scales such as expressed in the book are hard to convey visually, so I might be inclined to give that a pass.  However, there is a sort of regularity to the image that is unappealing.  The Liege Maximo's cannon, for instance, looks like a tool you'd buy at Sears rather than a weapon that seemed to be powered by a 'small sun.'  Note that I actually am a fan of Bastick's work, but in this particular piece he falls short of the mark.  (The other cover, Sullivan's Optimus versus Megatron, is much stronger as a visual, though thematically a bit odd to focus on a one-sentence line of backstory.)

The book itself is broken into two parts.  In part 1, a critical but horribly dull expedition by Grimlock, Swoop, Blaster, Springer, and Perceptor to hunt for energon accidentally uncovers a massive threat to the existence of Autobot and Decepticon alike, a mind-shatteringly gargantuan web of little Cybertrons linked together into a galaxy-spanning Hub.  At the center of this web sits the Liege Maximo, who is preparing for a once-in-the-lifetime-of-the-universe Alignment of certain stars that will allow him to become a god.  As this event is happening quite soon, he unleashes massive forces against Grimlock & co, then sends about a quarter of his forces each against the Autobot and Decepticon camps.  Their ship is destroyed, but they've managed to find some measure of safety by abandoning it and hiding in the Hub.

The Autobots are licking their wounds after their last massive battle with the Decepticons.  The Autobots emerged on top, but are critically low on energon and are considering severe options such as downsizing.  The Decepticons are holed up in their fortress, desperately attempting to formulate a new strategy.  The Autobots get a bit of warning about what is coming in the form of a log from Grimlock, but the Decepticons have nothing and are soon being razed to the ground of New Cybertron.  They have a slender strand of hope, though, in the form of Soundwave's machinations.  He and a cadre of misfits and loyalists have resurrected Megatron!

Thus ends book one.  I hate the idea of coincidence, and here we get two.  Not only does Grimlock just stumble upon the bad guys, but he does it practically on the eve of the Liege Maximo's ascendance.  I might forgive the first one.  Grimlock intentionally plots a search trajectory through realms of space rumored to harbor monsters and devils, and he finds them.  But the timing of it all seems lazy.

What is of more interest to me is the casual backstory hinted at in the book.  It's a technique that Roche and Roberts would later expand upon to great effect in the superb Last Stand of the Wreckers.  A list of epic threats not quite as big as Unicron includes Jhiaxus, the Swarm, Mogahn the Mass, Praetorian, the Ebon Knights, and Pinea Omicron, the site of the final confrontation between Optimus Prime and Galvatron II.  We also get a bunch of new Decepticon high-commanders name-checked, guys like Direwolf and Mantissa, Saberjaw and Mindgame.  I also like that Furman has given Cybertron's solar system a name, and that New Cybertron has a prior name (Pyrovar.)  These sort of universe-building details are very appealing to me.

The big ending of the book, the return of Megatron, felt a bit overdone.  How many times can Optimus and Megatron come back, I wonder? It's the sort of thing that, in theory, SHOULD make a good climax, but in practice it feels like we're retreading over well-worn ground.

Part II features three plot threads that converge.  Ultra Magnus lures the Liege Maximo's forces close to Cybertron with an energy field, then sets off an ambush from the asteroid belt that destroys them all.  Megatron, meanwhile, fakes a desperate last stand on New Cybertron and blows it up, annihilating most of the fleet set against him.  And Grimlock's band tries and fails to blow up a substantial portion of the Hub by messing with a critical energy juncture, J654.  It would destroy 0.5643 percent of the Hub, leaving a hole 'the size of a small galaxy.'  Guh, really?  Half a percent of the Hub is a small galaxy?  Maybe he meant 56% instead.  The scales are hard to imagine, and I think Furman had some difficulty with it himself.

The Autobots and Decepticons, victorious, launch what fleets they have at the Hub and manage to do some damage.  Meanwhile, Grimlock engages the Liege Maximo head-on and actually distracts him for a moment before being blown away.  This points to the other guerrilla fighters a strategy, cause any distraction they can.  With all Autobot and Decepticon ships coordinating for a moment, Megatron manages to engage the Liege Maximo's physical body and win.  Swoop, meanwhile, completes the original mission and blows up J654, destroying the Alignment and all that remains of their foe. 

Another happy ending!

This latest burst of cooperation heralds the rise of the Predacons, downsizing, and hope for enduring peace.  "With hindsight, they really should have known better."  Cute.  Oh, and three pages later, "It never ends..." 

Chapter two is definitely the stronger of the two chapters.  The desperate cunning of Ultra Magnus and Megatron seem to be about right.  Grimlock's long trek to J654 is described as boring and desolate, which brought to mind to me the journey of Samwise and Frodo.  Perhaps he was going for that, though he didn't really have the space to summon those kinds of emotions.  Swoop gets to be the hero, which was a bit surprising.  I suppose Furman was setting him up as The Veteran, who he would eventually evolve into. There is a sort of weird symmetry to Swoop's future name change, since as Bish covered yesterday he used to be called Divebomb.  How odd that Swoop would become a lens through which Furman would view the entirety of his run on the Marvel US / Marvel UK / Beast Wars / Transforce / 3H BotCon continuity. 

The artwork was decidedly mixed, though that final image of Swoop by Jeff Anderson is absolutely lovely.  The Wildman piece I posted above is decent, and Senior does a lovely Liege Maximo that is indeed the stuff of nightmares and legends.  Many of the other pieces, though, fail to elicit much of an emotional response.  The prose, though, is consistently fresh and easy to read.  Furman invokes some nice imagery from time to time, especially when he gets more technologically inclined. 

How does the book work, as a story on its own?  Not wonderfully, I'm forced to admit.  It's not nearly as strong a conclusion as the final issue of G2 is, or even the last issue of G1.  It seems large for the sake of being large, but doesn't go deep enough into any one character to make you really care.  It's more like the outline of a six-issue comic series than like a novella.  What it does do very well, thanks to things like Sparks and downsizing, is to be an effective bridge between the G2 comics and the Beast Wars. As such, it isn't so necessary for it to be a massive climax itself.  Furman had already written that, and Bob Skir had added a new finale on top of that for Beast Machines. 

So, final verdict: worth reading, if only for the expanded universe building, but you'll be better off picking an earlier or later climax for the continuity depending on where you want to draw the line.  Interesting to see the ideas, but not emotionally satisfying.

Next week (or so), I'll review some of the ways that this continuity has been reprinted.  Then, one more big-picture post, and I'll turn the comic review space over to a new feature.  I won't say what it is, but I think you'll enjoy it, yes?

Review: Marvel G2 #12 - A Rage in Heaven!

This is it!  The final issue of the US Marvel Comics continuity.  This is issue #12 of the US G2 Marvel Comics run of Transformers.  Abandoned is the primary / back-up story, in favor of a four chapter epic structure.  Simon Furman pens this tale, naturally.  Manny Galan draws and Jim Amash inks chapters 1 and 3, with Geoff Senior as artist on chapters 2 and 4.  Richard Starkings (w/ Comicraft) letters, and Sarra Mossoff colors.  They played with their titles, though, so it's listed as Furman, Automatic; Galan: Autocad; Amash, Autolysis; Comicraft, Autograph; Mossoff, Autochrome; Tokar, Autoknowbetter; DeFalco, Autopsy.  Cute.  Yaniger drew this cover, confirming that in fact he'd draw every cover of this tragically short-lived series.

It's the END of the ROAD for: Transformers Generation 2, or so the cover proclaims.  This is itself a cute little meta-gag, as the last issue of the US series was also titled End of the Road!.  In point of fact, so was the final original issue of the UK G1 title.  It's quite a good title for a book about car robots.  But what of the cover itself?  It's some decent Yaniger work, not his best, but servicable.  Optimus Prime is literally... CONSUMED by the SWARM!  The inking is quite good, with black closing in ominously on the white background and Optimus Prime being broken down into his component atoms.  The emotion is nice, both in his face and in his body language, but the rendering seems to lack the sort of overly detailed mechagore that mark Yaniger at his best.  This image kind of reminds me of mid 90's CG models in how it breaks apart, like the robots are empty polygons.  Details like the underside of Prime's arm are nice, but there aren't enough of them.

The story kicks off with a prelude, a one page overview of the Transformers mythology to bring the reader up to speed.  Perfunctory, but gets the job done.  Perhaps shrewd to get it out of the way so quickly and leave 47 pages for the real story.  The most interesting bit is this line: 'shorn of its mystical trappings, it is a tale of evolution.'  That seems like a loaded statement to me, pulling back from the fantasy elements that characterized the end of the G1 run in favor of a more secular book.  This is a slightly odd choice, given the resolution... but I get ahead of myself.

Book One: Judgement, opens in space, with the Swarm about to menace the Warworld and the Twilight alike.  Four faces adorn the page, representing each faction involved.  Jhiaxus is there, as is Starscream, Megatron, and... Grimlock?  Odd choice, him, but then Prime's face was on the previous page and maybe Furman was avoiding redundancy avoidance.

It's all Starscream can do to keep from engaging the thing, and he begs Optimus for help.  Jhiaxus, though, has no such compunctions and opens fire, initiating hostility.  Prime is mortified, he saw a chance to reach the Swarm slip through his fingers.  Jhiaxus's underlings realize the futility of the situation, but when they point it out to him Jhiaxus crushes the life from one.  The Cybertronian has come full circle; he is back to being the vicious tyrant he was originally, um, budded as. 

Optimus, meanwhile, convinces Starscream to return what was stolen, and Optimus is once again one with the Matrix.  Off he heads, via skysled, to the Twilight, for a detente with Jhiaxus.  Jhiaxus seems more than happy to allow the Autobot aboard.  It's a good opening chapter to the book, shifting a few pieces around for the big finales.  Starscream has now played his part in the book, and won't be doing a whole lot more.  Jhiaxus and Optimus are set for their confrontation... and what of the Swarm?

Book Two: Twilight opens with Megatron and Starscream making their way through the bowels of the Warworld.  Megatron seeks to combat (Note: he's very clear on this - 'combat,' not 'defeat') the Swarm, and he gathers up the Rheanium gas taken back in issue #7.  Nice continuity, but I wish there was a bit more set-up for this.  Maybe one more mention of Rheanium in issue 10 or 11.  BTW, I liked the idea of Rheanium so much that I namechecked it in The AllSpark Almanac when talking about Omega Supreme.  Also, lovely Senior art in this, both in the depth of the Warworld and in the hangar bay.  Isn't that shuttle awesome?  Lovely and alien, no doubt stolen by Bludgeon from some hapless alien race.

This isn't even the real meat of the chapter, though, no.  That would be Optimus, arriving on the Twilight.  (Oh, Furman, double meaning on that word.  It does feel like we're about to fall into night, and here we are on that ship.  That's solid writing, that is!)  The ship is being obliterated by the Swarm and the crew is in a panicked flight.  If only he could find Jhiaxus, he thinks, this could all be resolved.

Sadly, Jhiaxus finds him first and crushes his vocal circuits.  Denied a voice, Optimus becomes a vessel into which Jhiaxus can vent his frustration.  Optimus never even gets in a good punch!  The beating that ensues is brutal and savage, and is a fitting climax to the Optimux/Jhiaxus rivalry that has been brewing since issue #1.  Our hero is saved only by the arrival of the Swarm, breaking through the mighty vessel.  Jhiaxus, Leige Centuro of the the Decepticon Elite, High Commander of its forces, challenges this force of nature in an epic but futile gesture.  The swarm even mimics his appearance, before consuming all that he is.

The artwork, needless to say, is terrific, and Jhiaxus' end seems almost tragic.  He has set himself up against the universe, and the universe has smacked him down.  In some ways, perhaps, Jhiaxus represents the futility of battling entropy.  No matter how hard you try to impose on the universe, eventually time grinds you down.  Jhiaxus wanted nothing more than an orderly cosmos.  Yes, he was a heartless bastard who though nothing of those in his way, but his goals on some level were sympathetic.  Here he is, reduced to the primitive version of himself before ultimately destroyed by the antithesis of all he strove to be. 

The chapter ends with Megatron, witnessing all of this from afar.  He's preparing to make planetfall with his precioius cargo, but between him and Earth is the all-consuming Swarm.  Can he make it?  We'll just have to see.

Book Three: Siege opens on Earth.  Here at last is Grimlock and the rest of the Autobot/Decepticon alliance, desperately attempting to turn an emergency rendezvous site into a fortified position in which they might hold out against the Swarm.  Megatron's shuttle is late, and they can't raise him, so they'll need to hold out on their own.  Despite the lack of prep time, though, the battle is upon them.

We get some payoff on Megatron's new Decepticons, when one of them ignores an order from Razorclaw and looks to Grimlock for leadership.  Razorclaw attempts to dispatch Manta Ray, but is saved by Leadfoot.  After all... Autobots have to stick together.  It's not a bad little plotline, though it doesn't seem to fit in in this book, which is really about Autobots and Decepticons coming together. 

And come together they do.  Robot after robot is destroyed, or sacrifices himself to take out a bit more of the Swarm.  Ramjet buys it, Frenzy sacrifices himself as a sonic weapon, Slag refuses to abandon Slingshot, Nightbeat (NOOOO!) and Dirge self destruct rather than allow themselves to die as a meal. It's all rather touching, though I think Frenzy's death gets me the most.  I love Nightbeat, but he's been a non-character since late G1.  In just a few panels here, though I come to really appreciate Frenzy and what he's capable of.  Nice way for him to go out, too, as an instrument of one of Wheeljack's inventions.

It seems like it's all for naught, until Megatron walks through the swarm.  With Rheanium, he survived the Swarm's onslaught.  His shuttle did not.  Hardcore.  He distributes the Rheanium among the troops: it's payback time.

We get an interlude in space, when Optimus is saved by Starscream, who has himself taken some Rheanium and is about to flee this sector of space.  Optimus declines his offer of Rheanium, though.  He's come to some insight about what the Swarm is and how to deal with it. For his plan to work, though.. he must die!  Of course, a cynic might point out that Optimus Prime dies a lot - twice already in this continuity alone.  I'm not too cynical, though, it's a rollicking good story.

By Book Four: Creation, we've caught up to the cover, and indeed the nightmares that Optimus has been having since about issue #4.  I rather like that. Bit by bit, he's disassembled, though he's in this position by choice.  He seeks an inner peace and tranquility, belying the 'horror of this protracted death.'  I still love Furman's turn of phrase.  To pieces he crumbles, till he's just the shredded remains of a robotic torso, and then, he explodes, releasing the light and purity of the Matrix.  To nothing he is reduced, nothing and everything!  He sees that which is, and that which was.  He flashes to Ratchet, to Fortress Maximus' sacrifice, to the victory over Unicron!

And on Earth, Grimlock and Megatron notice the swarm getting brighter, as a light dispels... no, changes the swarm!  They feel it, witness a miracle as empty voracious hunger is replaced with nobility and purpose.   And from this new beginning strides... life!  Optimus Prime is reborn, and in a new body.  (Combat Hero Optimus, to be precise.  Yes, three pages from the end of this run, we get our final new toy.  I find that hilariously apropos.  It's not even bad thematically, I kind of appreciate that tearing down Optimus to his atoms and rebuilding him wouldn't give him his exact same old body.  Of course, we've seen this before...  ) 

Optimus explains what he did, how he gave the Swarm purpose by giving up the life essense of Primus.  He takes the opportunity to give his last speech of the series, to the assembled Autobots and Decepticons.  They have an opportunity for peace, for creation.   He rallies them, and makes them believe, though maybe only for a moment, that peace between Autobot and Decepticon is truly possible.  And who knows, perhaps with Optimus and Megatron helming things, instead of the more pragmatic and less idealistic Grimlock and Bludgeon, peace truly might be possible.  One can't help but hope that maybe, JUST maybe, peace can win out in the end with enough hard work and sacrifice, that maybe the Autobots and Decepticons have earned their happy ending.

The End.

Except, of course, it's not. There's that Liege Maximo fellow that we've heard teased a bit.  In The Hub, he sits, brooding, listening to Rook tell the tale of Jhiaxus' descent.  He isn't concerned, though.  Evil cannot be destroyed, for there must always be balance.  Evil is infinite.  "This ridiculous, fragile Autobot-Decepticon alliance has destroyed but a fraction of my empire's total forces, irritated rather than wounded."  Indeed, "The day of reckoning will come!"

And that's the real end!  A teaser.  Senior pulls out all the stops, making this guy look huge and ancient and terrifying.  He's more monster than mech.  The idea, though, that his empire is so vast that all we've seen of the G2 Cybertronians are merely a 'fraction' doesn't sit that well with me.  Really, there are whole galaxies out there of this guys minions?  Seems a bit much.  How did no one notice?  I'm quibbling, though.  Emotionally, this ending is perfect.  We get a semi-happy ending, and yet with ominous overtones.  It never ends, after all!

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And there you have it.  The final issue in this wonderful continuity.  Furman knew that he might have to end at issue 12, and structured the plot accordingly.  I'm glad he did - this series ending seems much more measured than the one we got in issue #80.  (Which I've already hyperlinked to twice and won't be hyperlinking to a third time.)  Plot threads gathered together over the series pretty much all pay off.  We get some huge battles, some pain, some joy, and have unleashed a new wonderous creation upon the galaxy.   Intellectually, emotionally, structurally, it's a great climax to a strong story.  The universe has been expanded to one that is indeed grittier, darker, less mythic.  These seem a bit more like real people and a bit less like titans, perhaps because those they fight are so much larger than themselves.  

I think I've got about one more post in me, reviewing the entirety of this continuity.  I won't rush through it today, though, so my thoughts are mostly limited to this issue and, to a lesser extent G2.  A Rage in Heaven! is the title story in Transformers Rage in Heaven. Given the very strong finish that this book, and indeed the entire latter half of the G2 run, it's a must-have in the collection of all Trans-fans, so order it if you haven't already.