The AllSpark Almanac II Foreshadowing, Part the First...

How time sneaks up on us!  The AllSpark Almanac II (preorder it today!)  is a mere twelve days away, and betwix now and then there is the juggernaut that is BotCon! So, without further ado, let's start with some previews for the upcoming Almanac.

I figured I'd start in an unusual direction; last year, the first preview images were tiny little snippets and sketches, designed to tease without giving too much away.  This year, that'd be less effective; you all know approximately what the book will look like.  Instead, how about some images that WON'T be in the book? Ideas and characters that we considered using but rejected for whatever reason: time, space, a better idea, etc.

FIRST UP, some of the abstract notions we decided not to use. 

Upper left: As has been reported elsewhere, we'll be covering the Cyber Ninja Corps in some depth.  That seemed like a page that might be worth delving into with some interesting imagery, so one idea we had was to tell some fables in a traditional Japanese art style.  To the left, The Lion and the Mouse, as told with Victory Leo and Packrat. This image would have appeared VERY small in the book, had we decided to use it.

Upper right: A Cybertronian artistic rendering of Fanzone. Obviously they got some of the details wrong.  Note the strong Beauty and the Beast influence that bill allowed to creep in.

Lower left: An unused Kremzeek idea; Kremzeek as Poochie.  I liked the way it came out, Bill didn't. Since Bill is the visual boss, I deferred to his judgment.

Lower right: A political cartoon about Sentinel Prime. I don't remember exactly what the idea was here; I think we were going to label the stuff he was holding.

NEXT, some character ideas that didn't make it into the book.

Upper left:  Animated Wheelie as a GoBot.  Bill and I are both big GoBot fans, so we wanted to pay homage to the design style.  Bill says that, if you look closely, you can figure out which two GoBots are Wheelie's parents.

Upper right: An Animated Jetfire based on the G1 toy. Since there already is a Jetfire in the universe, it would have been hard to work him in.

Lower left: Animated Mirage.  Bill always thought Mirage looked vaguely froggish, and allowed that influence to show here.

Lower right:  Animated Kup, Spotlight: Kup style.  Bill and I are both huge Nick Roche fans, and Bill wanted to pay homage to Nick's design with his own version of Kup.  Note there IS a hint of AHM Kup in the cigar he's holding. I love that damn cigar; it's SO him.

There you have it! Eight drawings that won't be in the AllSpark Almanac II.  However, it'll give you some insight into our thought process.  Next up, rough sketches of ideas that WILL be in the book!

Post No Bills: Secrets of the Almanac (ONE) Revealed Part 2

Hello again. It’s me, Bill Forster. Plucky partner of one James M Sorenson. Bucky to Jim’s Captain America, Jason Todd to his Bruce Wayne, Comedian to his Ozymandias. ...wait a minute. Aren’t they all dead?! Let me try another analogy. Jim’s partner in crime. Heckle to his Jeckle, Han to his Luke, Kirk to his Spock. Yeah. That’s much better! Actually the last one is fairly accurate.

Once again I am here to talk about  The Allspark Almanac (order it today!) . I am simply going through the book and giving random trivia and stories about each page as I remember them.  The AllSpark Almanac II will be out this summer (preorder it today!) and promises to be even better than the first. So jumping right in...

Well left off with the Dinobots. That brings us to...

Page 44:
Arcee’s back was colored by Javier.

Page 48:
Here we didn’t use the standard character model, saving it for Shockwave’s page. Instead we used this real estate to put a similar image but one that demonstrated Longarm’s long arms.

Page 50-55:
We wanted Omega to look super big so we opted to not place any words on the page with him. Putting only the one picture of the ship mode on the facing page helped with making him larger than life.

Page 56 and 57:
Here we have MOST of the different lighting effects used in the show. BB was the character with the most color changes. Unfortunately there is no “Flashback” color effect for him, since he didn't exist back then. Here's one now!

MEGATRON!
This drove me nuts! Originally I wanted all the layouts to have a title block and then directly underneath have the bio’s text block. But between Megatron and Lugnut I evenually gave in and moved the title blocks away from the bio in order to have a more evenly balanced layout of images.

Page 61:
Why is Blackarachnia the second Decepticon and not Lugnut or Blitzy? Page balance. We needed Megatron to be first and he ends on the left facing side of the book. Lugnut’s first two pages mirror each other so they needed to be across from one another and start on the left. Blitzwing starts on the right and would have fit, but he also ends on the left. Meaning we could not have Lugnut after him. Megatron, Blitzwing, Blackarach and then Lugnut seemed really odd. So Blackararachnia is second. When you make this stuff, so many little details are important. We spend hours on the craziest things.

We wanted to have just the spider mode on page one. The other pages were so well laid out that we had little room for it elsewhere. As I stated before we hate doing a design element only once, so we revisited the Bulkhead pages and made his first page a similar layout. That worked even better for him. He is huge and it is hard to fit all his designs and still have a nice over all flow to the page.


Page 76 -77:
Jim wrote this page. If you know Jim, then you know that he and Swindle share a lot in common. Originally Swindle was just one page. But Jim insisted that we have every single weapon we could displayed. Derrick is a big Swindle fan too. When we would go to his office at Cartoon Network he would have an army of Swindles in various colors lined up along his desk. Or course it’s actually really hard to see Derrick’s collection as it is so immense that it becomes like a Monet painting. You have to stand back and let your eyes soak it all in.

SCREAM FOR ME!!!
Jim and I share writing duties, but in reality Jim handles the “heavy” writing and edits what I write. Just as Jim handles some design and/or artwork, but I handle the “heavy” stuff. It works out pretty well for us. I often joke, “If there is something really plot heavy in the book, Jim wrote it. If a 6 year old girl talks, It’s probably me.” I am a big nut for the Seekers and I insisted I write them. Jim usually gets to write all the cool stuff, so he was nice and let me go crazy on the Seeker section.

Since the beginning I insisted that Starscream be the ONLY character that talks about himself. And it was from there that I had the bright idea to have all the Seekers talk about each other. And of course you all know the story behind the name Slipstream. If not, go look it up. I am not repeating myself! But heres some trivia, originally we thought about naming her as the third Rainmaker. We decided not to, but we the name is still in our heads waiting to find the right venue!

Jim went in a drew appropriate little expressions on the clones. We felt it got a little boring with the same model just in different colors. Thundercracker, however, uses the clone model's face. It just worked perfectly.

Page 88:
So Jim and I came up with the term “Space Poncho” for Lockdown’s invisible...space poncho. For weeks we couldn’t stop saying it. If there was a moment of silence one of us would whisper out in quickened almost Spanish accent... “Space Poncho.” If you ever meet us in person we will do the voice for you. ANYWAY, one day I get a box in the mail from IDW. I was surprised when I found that in was copies of a scholastic version of the Almanac. It was smaller and mostly just had the bio section in it. It was really cool, but one weird thing was in order to keep the pages facing the right way and edit out the episode guides they had to fill in a right facing page. At the end of Lockdown’s bio someone added a full page of just the Space Poncho. It’s awesome and started me and Jim up again. ...Space Poncho!!!

Page 89:
We didn’t have a Ratchet at the time so you got Optimus, BB, Bulk, Prowl and ...Starscream. Ratchet makes his way into the AAII.

Page 94:
I LOVE this bio. Jim wrote it. Again, Jim and Swindle were separated at birth. We had no back or glider models for Archer. So sad. See the Grenade Arrow? We cheated. Jim drew that. Once in art school Jim tagged along to a life drawing class with me. My teacher was amazed how awful he was. Now his artwork is being publish and I bet you guys didn’t even know it wasn’t a real model from the show. See kids? See what you can achieve when you buckle down?

Page 96:
When we got to writing the Humans, Jim was eager to get started on the episode guides and had no interest in writing Slo Mo’s voice. So he asked if that was something I could do. I did my best imitation of Jennifer Jason Leigh's character from the Hudsucker Proxy and that’s what ended up in the book. I think what you see there is the “first draft” verbatim what I said.

Slo Mo had two character models. One with and one without a ton of watches. The watches were a little hard to see. Jim had the great idea of removing the color from the rest of the model and then just sectioning off the arms and torso. Then place it next to the other character model and there you have it. A nice little detail of her accessories.

Page 103:
So we needed Grimlock to say something! I wrote, “Mutants Bad!” and Jim edited it to, “Bat-Monster Bad!” in order have Fanzone talk about the other mutant. They say you are your own worst critic. Mine’s Jim.

NEWS FLASH! Jim just told me that Marty insisted that they not be called mutants but rather Fusion Creatures!!! (sigh) See? That’s why I need Jim editing my stuff. err...


Page 104:
We wanted Blurr to talk fast but frankly how do you write that? So his text is slightly smaller than the other characters. Anyone get that? I would like to think on a subconscious level that worked.

Page 105:
So Jim and I reference everything. So needless to say, sometimes we reference stuff in OUR lives not just in TF or SciFi. Jim wanted to name a character after his wife Ming Li. Well I’m not married, so I named a character after a friend of mine, Shana Storey. Shana is one of the most interesting people I know. Shana was a weird little punk rock girl that used to shop in the comic book store I used to work in many, many years ago. We became good friends over the years and she was even my date to Jim’s wedding. I mentioned she races boats because the real Shana repairs and sails boats with her boyfriend. When I asked her if I could use her name she said, “Only if you mention sailing.” She spends a great deal of her time at the South Street Sea Port in NYC. Here's a picture of her! Once she got hit by a UPS truck. That has nothing to do with Transformers. It was just funny.

Next up is the episode guides. Plenty to say about those! See you then! Oh, and don't forget to come and meet us in Burbank on Saturday, July 3rd at 1:00 PM! Marty and Derrick, Jim and I will all be signing autographs so be sure to come out and meet us.

Review: Marvel G1 #58: All the Familiar Faces!

The fifty-eight issue of the US G1 Marvel Comics run of Transformers is titled All the Familiar Faces!. (What, "Back from the Dead" doesn't warrant an exclamation mark, but "All the Familar Faces" does? I think Furman had his punctuation swapped on this one.) It was written by Simon Furman, drawn and inked by Delbo and Hunt, lettered by Massara and colored by Yomtov.  The cover is by José Delbo. 

It's a very strange cover. I can't decide if it's artistic or merely lazy.  We're treated to an extreme close-up of Optimus Prime's Powermaster face, with bold inking and an angry red color.  There is an abstract background of space or maybe just bubbles.  "Megatron(tm) alive! Ratchet(tm) a prisoner! Optimus(tm) out of control!"  That pretty much summarizes what we'd expect to be in this issue, based on what we've seen before. Well, except that Optimus has mastered his anger issues and is now talking again.  I think this cover might have worked a bit better last issue, when Optimus really did lose it. The red color certainly brings to mind rage, which doesn't quite fit the tone of the book.  Overall, it's an interesting cover but perhaps the effect should have been saved for a different issue.

The issue itself opens on a lovely splash of the Starscream pretender shell turning the mangled and shattered shell of Starscream back into some semblance of Cybertronian life. Ratchet momentarily loses himself in the excitement of the technology, but quickly reminds himself that he's being forced to work for the Autobots' greatest enemy. His thoughts and Megatron's gloating get the obligatory exposition out of the way. We're treated to a bit more unsubtle foreshadowing about the upcoming rebirth of Jazz, Goldbug and Grimlock, as well as a callback to the Mecannibals, who Dreadwind and Darkwing fear may still be on their trail. It's an opening sequence rich in characterization, with Ratchet and Megatron shining but even the Sports Car Patrol and the Decepticon Powermasters getting a brief moment in the sun.

On board the ark, Kup struggles to consciousness even as Blackjack gloats to himself about planning to destroy the Ark whether or not Ratchet helps Megatron. Though Kup takes the diminutive Decepticon prisoner, the timing device on the Ark's explosives is triggered, giving them five minutes to act.  From a narrative standpoint, Kup's revival is slightly clumsy. It seems late in the game to be introducing this kind of new element. Perhaps if there was some hint of Kup's status in the last issue... alas!

Back on Cybertron, Megatron's patience starts to wane, so Ratchet presents Starscream, his mind a blank slate awaiting programming.  With his triumph thus secured, Megatron sends the Sports Car Patrol to the lab to disassemble it and announces his intention to destroy the Ark. Ratchet, thinking quickly, sets some machinery to overload and ditches his Micromaster guards.  Unfortunately for him, Megatron has already prepared a program for Starscream to follow and sends his avenging angel to Earth without delay! Ratchet bemoans that his "little surprise won't kick in for--," but before he can continue he's interrupted by an angry looking Megatron. Things are certainly moving along briskly now. We get a bit of comic book panache and a strong sense that things are building to a crescendo.


As Optimus has realized the there is a mystery afoot, he orders his men back to the Ark while he remains behind to cover their retreat and convince Scorponok of their good intentions.  In the first bit of characterization he's had in the US run, Hot Rod impulsively decides that he'll stay behind and help out.  Scorponok is tempted to just blow these two lone Autobots away, but he can't help feeling that Prime's words echo his own inner doubts. He also remembers Prime saving his life during the Underbase saga, which conveniently sets up his fear and loathing for Starscream.  By the time he decides, though, it's too late. Starscream arrives, much to Zarak's consternation. Once again, we see some rather deft characterization springing from Furman's pen.  This time, it's Hot Rod (love the "whoever it is -- he sure knows how to make an entrance!" quip from him), Optimus and Scorponok.  Though we've known Scorponok for several years now, we really haven't seen much about what makes him tick since the rather excellent Headmasters mini-series.  Kudos to Furman for exploring this human (err... Nebulan) aspect to him.

Finally, we approach the end of the issue and move all pieces into position for the triumphant climax.  Dreadwind stops Megatron from blowing Ratchet away then and there, since there's something happening in the lab.  The other shells are activated, you see.  It only takes Megatron an instant to realize what has happened here. "Oh... no..." he moans, quickly countered by Ratchet's inevitable "Oh yes!" Ratchet pulls a lever and unleashes his three Autobot compatriots, Jazz, Grimlock and... umm.... Bumblebee? More on that next issue, though, as it's To Be Continued!  It's a great cliffhanger to end on; you've got the ticking clock on the Ark, Starscream versus Scorponok's Decepticons with Prime and Hot Rod, and the Autobot Classic Pretenders versus Megatron.  For his initial arc, Furman certainly pulled out all the stops.  And, hey, he's introducing new toys as well, four Pretenders and four Micromasters.  This issue lives up to all of the promise of the first two in the arc, and gives me every confidence that the final issue in the story will be as exciting as what went before.

"Next issue: Ratchet vs. Megatron! Grimlock's Pretenders vs. the Sports Car Patrol! Optimus Prime and Scorponok vs. Starscream! Don't miss the big battle issue as metal meets metal WHEN TITANS CLANG!" Sounds fantastic. Try to stop me from reviewing this book next week! Oh, wait, that's BotCon... well, maybe you'll have to wait two weeks then. Oh, wait, the second Almanac is out in two weeks... ummm.... well, it'll be soonish, anyway.  All the Familiar Faces! is available for purchase in IDW's Classic Transformers Volume 4.

The Ark Addendum - Blood's Transformation

Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Ark Addendum, the follow-up to  Transformers: The Complete Ark (order it today!)  book of G1 character models.  This week, in honor of Iván's portrayal of Blood yesterday, I figured I'd dip further into the Masterforce file and find something with him.  Wouldn't you know it, I haven't featured his extended Transformation yet.

It's a rather nice extended transformation at that.  I never tire of pointing out that these were internal reference documents, not designed for publication. Despite that, look how dynamic the drawings are, especially steps three and six.  The sense of motion in three, and especially the excitement of the jet taking off in six is pretty impressive.  Really, one could easily have ended the drawing at five, since the alt mode is fully realized.  Instead the artist gave us this lovely final drawing.

Iván's Gallery: Blood

Hullo, and welcome to another edition of Iván's Gallery. Don't let the title put you off too much, this is Blood, the Destron Pretender we're talking about here.  In his own words, here's what the artist has to say about this piece:

Tests tests tests, are only that, evidence.
G.1 design build and deconstruct, trying to guess what would be his best.

He is Blood, or Bomb-burst, as more you like.  It is an idea I have long ne head, and now I'm a bit lively and I have some free time I'm trying to accomplish.

Sincerely ... I do not see too many possibilities to the project, however, is more of a diversion than something feasible. And not because I think it's good, but ....

In any case, it is just that, a lot of sketches that I do on one of the characters, that I did last night in 20 minutes, maybe try something else today .... the truth is that I have enough ideas ..... we'll see what comes out.

Review: War of the Worlds, the series ep 26

The twenty-sixth episode of War of the Worlds, the series is titled Doomsday.  In the face of a massive heatwave and drought, the aliens have concocted a scheme to shut down the city's water system.  As an addendum to this plan, they try to hijack our worship system to get humans worshiping the Eternal.

The Blackwood Team, meanwhile, start to suspect something is amiss when they witness water flowing from the baptismal font of a church. Harrison and Suzanne track the water to the source, the city's blocked-off water supply. Kincaid, meanwhile, witnesses the priest getting abducted by aliens and tracks him to a cloning lab under the reservoir.  Together they blow the alien membrane holding back the water and get the Priest and his son out of the lab.  The priest confronts his doppelgänger and they both die of unclear causes even as it starts to rain.

The Good: There are some neat exchanges between Malzor and his minions. "What kind of life form bases itself on water when the water supply cannot be depended upon?" wonders Malzor after Ardix informs him that their clone templates were cooking in the heat.  Later, a distracted Mana calls the Bible a "blueprint for human control."

Unfortunately, however, there wasn't much else that I really enjoyed in this, the first truly 'typical' episode of season two.

The Bad: Suzanne freaks out while they're underground.  Why? We've seen her underground before in Goliath Is My Name with no issue.  It didn't add anything to the episode and just made her character seem weak.

Why did the priest die at the end? Heart attack? Not at all clear. And why did Ardix then stand up and blast the clone of the kid? And from now on, The team should know Ardix on sight. We'll see if they do.

When Harrison starts futzing with the membrane, the aliens discover this and send guards. Ummm... why didn't they have standing guards there?


The Morthren give the priest several miracles: water; he apparently 'heals' an alien; they replace his son with a clone, who appears dead and then comes back to life (after a way-too-apt reading about Lazarus.)  Only after all this do they replace him with a clone.  Ummm.... why not do it the other way?

And the whole team just happens to be in the church where the 'miracle' takes place? Major coincidence.

The Ugly: How about the membrane over the water supply? It's not much, but it's what we got.  Even the few dead aliens this episode didn't get the full corpse treatment.

After a strong start to the season, this episode seems like a huge step backwards.  We're starting to see the limitations of the new format; whereas before the heroes could get intel on the aliens from anywhere in the country, now they literally have to stumble into the building where the alien schemes are taking place.  We're starting to learn about the bleakness of the new environment, with water shortages and dirty desperate people huddled into churches, which should be a good thing but completely failed to hold my interest.  It's not interesting-bleak, it's dull-bleak.  This is especially troublesome, since this episode is the first 'standard' episode of the season.  This is the template upon which others should be created, and so far it's not looking promising.  We'll have to see if it gets back to the promise of the first couple of episodes.

Review: Marvel G1 #57: The Resurrection Gambit!

The Resurrection Gambit! is the fifty-seventh issue of the US G1 Marvel Comics run of Transformers.  Like the last issue, it was written by Furman, drawn by Delbo, inked by Hunt, lettered by Massara and colored by Yomtov.  The cover is by José Delbo.

 The cover is rather fanciful, though more than a bit awkward.  Megatron blasts Ratchet directly in his midsection, causing sparks and wires to flyeverywhere.  They seem to be standing on the some Cybertronian wreckage.  I don't really mind that this exact series of events doesn't happen in the book, it's sort of close enough.  Megatron DOES blast an Autobot in this environment, and while Ratchet isn't physically harmed, he certainly must feel like this.  Hoever, the poses and composition seem really stiff and awkward.  Megatron's leaning back too much, and his arm is at a funny angle.  Ratchet's legs and torso don't seem to go together, and not in a his-torso-was-blown-off way.  Taey're also way too close together.  "The Autobots' WORST NIGHTMARE comes true -- MEGATRON returns!" I actually like the cover, since it really does correctly set the tone, but technically it's all wrong. 

Now, the first page of the book, on the other hand, is just about perfect.  Megatron gloats, while Ratchet falls deeper into despair.  Great lettering work from Massara on Ratchet's escalating "no" bubbles. "It began with a dream--a nighmare in which the dead walked! And though the dreamer--Autobot surgeon Ratchet-- is now wide awake, the nightmare continues..."  Good stuff there, Furman! There's also a double play on the meaning of the title. One's first instinct is to take the resurrection gambit to mean Megatron's return, and in a way it is.  This is Furman's resurrection gambit.  However, it also applies quite literally to Megatron's dastardly scheme-but we'll get to that in a bit.

The Sports Car Patrol openly mocks Ratchet for falling for their ruse. They should, it was shady from the start.  Megatron, though, just oozes smarmy charisma, telling Ratchet that all he wanted to do was help the physician heal the sick.  His creepy smile says otherwise, making it easy to imagine Welker delivering these words with his customary irony.  Ratchet, in a very self-aware moment, asks Megatron for his "how I survived" story, but is instead treated to the "my insane scheme" story first.  The insane scheme, it would seem, involves Pretender armor.  I love how Furman pokes fun at the very conventions he is using, which serves to make them fresher than they might otherwise be.  He makes it seem almost effortless, though I imagine that he really was concerned about giving us too many superhero cliches.  He needn't have worried; despite being a comic, Transformers had managed to stay away from most of the more flamboyant comic book tropes.

Furman then transitions to Earth rather slickly, by having Ratchet wonder why Prime failed to answer his radio call last issue.  We get to see that first hand, as Storm Cloud shoots out the radio once the call goes through.  First, though, Prime arrives and orders the Cons to surrender. Despite being outnumbered two to one, the Air Strike Patrol refuses. After all, can the Autobots really risk a battle with all these humans around? Prime goes along with this, at least until Storm Cloud makes his move.  This causes Prime to go berserk, and a rattled Storm Cloud rattles off a bible verse; "physician, heal thyself."  Prime correctly interprets this to mean that Ratchet is in danger, but before he can act on this knowledge, Scorponok and a Decepticon strike force arrives.  Of interest is that real moral of the proverb is to fix one's own shortcomings before criticizing others; it's synonymous with "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Optimus Prime has abandoned his principles of safeguarding all life first, and this mistake will cost him.  Storm Cloud didn't intend to use the proverb to highlight this, but it's entirely possible that Furman did.

Back on Cybertron, Ratchet refuses to help... at least until Megatron reveals that the Ark is rigged to explode should Ratchet not help him.  Perhaps to give Ratchet a few moments to dwell on this, Megatron favors him with the story of his resurrection. We learn that Megatron was blasted through the bridge and landed, deactivated, in the Dead End, where Cybertronian neutrals eek out a meager existence. Eventually, he recovered his body, and then his wits and began to prepare for his return, and revenge.  When Dreadwind and Darkwing return with the "patient" for the Pretender armor, Ratchet muses about what a waste it is to have three prototype shells just going to waste. In the background, the bodies of Goldbug, Jazz and Grimlock lay, deactivated and useless.  Nice foreshadowing... and, actually, nice shadowing too. 

On Earth, Scorponok and Weirdwolf attempt to bring down Optimus Prime.  He savagly strikes back, even as the Air Strike Patrol flees.  After all, they have no desire to be there when Megatron's surprise arrives.  Meanwhile, the General who was giving the demonstration in the first place manages to get all personnel out of the area... seconds before Optimus Prime punches Bomb-Burst into the bleachers. Both the Decepticon and the General call Prime on it, prompting him to attempt to stop the battle before it's too late. But he'd better act quickly, for Ratchet is shocked and awed to find out the nature of the patient... Starscream! Hence, his gambit really is a resurrection gambit. Nifty, there, Furman, quite nifty.

This issue is terrific, somehow quite a bit better than the last one.  Issue 56 is all set-up, slowly establishing the mood.  While this issue really is mostly exposition, with a bit of action down on Earth, it's very clever and exciting exposition.  Megatron, Ratchet and Prime all get great characterization here. It was very shrewd of Furman to go with Ratchet for Megatron's pawn, rather than, say, First Aid or Fixit.  Ratchet's past history with Megatron makes him ideal.  I love how deliciously evil Megatron is, Furman just nails his voice perfectly. Megatron was never really THAT menacing the first time around; the first four issues were jumbled, and then he mostly seemed to be a rival for Shockwave rather than a threat to the Autobots for the rest of his appearances.  It's nice to see just how bad he can actually be when allowed to cut loose. Even Prime, who can be boring, manages not to be this time out. His tension was evident as of last issue; this issue, he loses it and it works great.  General Campbell, though, could have done with a mite more characterization. When reading this story, I couldn't help but feel that under Budiansky he'd have been a person, rather than just a cipher playing a role in the story.  Still, different writes, different strengths.

Next issue,   "RATCHET might be able to save his patients -- but can he save himself?!?" I'm definitely along for this ride, anyway.  The Resurrection Gambit! is available for purchase in IDW's Classic Transformers Volume 4.