Reviewer: Iain Burnside
Story Title: What Lies Beneath part 4
Written by: Simon Furman
Penciled by: Joe Ng
Inked by: Elaine To
Colored by: Jong-Im Lee, Stuart No & Josh Perez
Lettered by: Ben Lee
Editor: Adam Patyk
Publisher: Dreamwave
This title has taken a definite turn for the worse since morphing into Energon from Armada. Previously, Furman had managed to capture the struggle of the Minicons finding their independence quite nicely and built up a cross-dimensional space battle of epic proportions that had the TransFans on tenterhooks for the inevitable battle with Unicron. Sadly, the resolution was over before it had even begun. Now we have zipped forward ten years with no real explanation of what has happened. The Minicons have vanished and been replaced with Omnicons, yet we have no idea if they are the same race or not, not to mention a complete lack of characterization on their behalf. The same can be said of the Autobots and Terrorcons in general. Where did Scorponok come from? What is Alpha Q meant to be? What happened to the rest of the Armada cast? How can the humans still be clueless as to the presence of the Transformers? Has NASA not looked at the moon in the past decade? If so, you would have thought the abandoned moonbase would be a dead giveaway for starters. Obviously not every plot point can be addressed in the first arc, but the sheer volume of unanswered questions and their importance to the plot serves only to distract the reader. If people have been watching the Energon animated series or reading interviews with Furman online they would have a better understanding of what is going on, but having to rely on outside sources to better enjoy a comic book can only mean one thing – it is a bad comic book. The same fate befell Furman’s The War Within – The Dark Ages due to interference from Dreamwave’s editors. It makes me wonder exactly who is to blame this time around.
For one thing, the plot in this arc has been all over the place. The introduction of Vector Sigma and the Spark of Combination was skipped over quite drastically. Megatron’s return, the selling point of last issue, is completely ignored here and not on the cards for next issue either. Likewise, we are still given no explanation for Kicker’s ability to detect Energon. Everything in this arc has been thrown out there with absolutely no cohesion. There has been no beginning, middle or end, just a series of random battles and introductions with nowhere near the depth Furman is capable of providing. This issue in particular suffers from a lack of any real point. Harking back to the first season of the original Transformers cartoon, the bad guys want the Energon and the good guys stop them. That’s pretty much it. Whereas that show could get by on barbed comments from Starscream or comedy from Grimlock, this book just reeks of utter blandness.
There is one saving grace though. The scene where Rad and Alexis are reunited with the Autobots is very well-written and the second best human/TF interaction I have ever seen. The cartoon version of Kicker still takes first place, but this is very well done. Everything falls into place, even little things like the dialogue and lettering from Carlos over the radio being distorted due to the “Energon saturation in the atmosphere.†Just as Hot Shot is impressed by how Rad’s body has grown, Rad is impressed with Prime’s make-over at the hands of Vector Sigma. There is even a cute background joke as Ironhide takes a close look at Alexis then quickly looks away when she turns around. He has never seen a human before and, given his relative inexperience, he has had limited experience with females in general. It works well on both levels. Then again, you would only know about his inexperience from watching the show so this will probably still just make me angry. Actually, given that it leads straight into the most hideous battle I have seen in a Dreamwave book to date, I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up too much…
Yes, it’s the return of the dread “what the hell is happening†syndrome. I call it the Legacy of Lee, as Pat Lee’s awkward rendering of the bots seems to have become standard no matter who is on penciling duties. What is supposed to happen is that Prime, Jetfire and Ironhide, in their Powerlinx modes, are trapped between Cruellock and Divebomb on one side and Battle Ravage, Insecticon and Scorponok on the other. Then, in the height of stupidity, both sets of Terrorcons blast one another as the Autobots simply jump out the way. Not only is it an insulting strategy, it requires serious studying of the artwork to figure out what is going on. All I could see initially was a lot of Lego bricks strewn about a desert landscape. Ng has not impressed me at all on his run, but this is his weakest effort to date. Thankfully James Raiz is back on art duties next month so things may pick up then.
You can probably figure out that the good guys eventually save the day and everyone goes home happy, but there is one interesting development that gives me hope for the future. Scorponok has officially entered Bad Ass territory, with all of the capital letters that entails. As the Omnicons join the fray to attack the Terrorcons with Energon weapons and overload their systems, he decides to take them out single-handedly by hand-to-hand combat. He crushes Inferno half to death with one hand complete with the chilling line “You. You’ll do. I just want to destroy something!†Only by noticing that Hot Shot is missing from the battle and therefore must be up to something with Tidal Wave back at the mining base does he throw Inferno aside. Noticing something like that in the heat of battle suggests Scorponok possesses some intelligence, a novelty for bad guys these days, and his alarming treatment of Inferno suggests he can truly live up to the name of the Terrorcons. Hopefully in future issues we will see more of this character, in particular the inevitable clash with Megatron.
In other developments, Tidal Wave proves he is a moron by transforming into his alt. mode for battle despite it not being able to move. A bit useless there, Tidy. Similarly, Hot Shot’s execution-style shot to Tidal Wave’s head does absolutely no damage. Given how crap that weapon he’s sporting is, why not get an Energon weapon made from either of the two Omnicons accompanying him? That seems like a bit of an oversight. Also, why does the battle suit that Strongarm gives Kicker have an Autobot symbol on it? They could at least give the lad the chance to decide if he wants to fight. Again, this is taking for granted that people know about Kicker’s character from what happened in the cartoon and it is dumb, dumb, dumb, much like this entire series has been since the revamp.
