Reviewer: Iain Burnside
Story Title: Original Sin
Written by: Brad Mick & Adam Patyk
Penciled by: Don Figueroa
Inked by: Elaine To
Colored by: Espen Grundetjern
Lettered by: Ben Lee
Editor: Adam Patyk
Publisher: Dreamwave
As opposed to this month’s installment of Energon, Generation One is continuing to use the widescreen scope of apocalyptic vagueness with a passion. Thankfully, things are beginning to become a little clearer at long last. After countless panels of exposition in many previous volumes, most of which also spread over to the prequel title, The War Within, editor Adam Patyk this month lends a helping hand to writer Brad Mick and starts to reign in some of these dangling plot threads. The manner with which they do this is rather clever, offering up a real dichotomy between scientific fact and religious belief. This offers a rather unique take on the new mythology Dreamwave has been steadily building for the Transformers over the past two to three years, blurring the line between blind faith and logical deduction. What’s more, the latest in a long line of deux ex machina plot devices, the unhinged clone Sunstorm, is beginning to feel more like an actual character in his own right than many of his kind have been, most notably the tiresome nonsense that was The Fallen in The Dark Ages.
On Earth we pick up with Jetfire, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper going to check up on the colossal Omega Supreme, who last issue made the rather rookie mistake of removing his protective faceplate before the job was done and paid for it with a KO shot from Sunstorm, who subsequently escaped. I, along with many others, thought it was rather strange that the all-powerful sentient sentinel would make such a cardinal error in judgement and then be taken out by a regular-sized Transformer. As it turns out, there is a reason for this. As Jetfire explains, the trials and tribulations of war have not been particularly easy for Omega to deal with. They were integral parts of one of the Autobot’s final space programs before the Great Shutdown and elected to separate themselves from the rest of the group in order to search for the Ark, which was at this time stranded on Earth. After successfully tracking down a Cybertronian signal, their ship brought Jetfire back online. Despite being on Earth after all, the signal belonged to a stray Decepticon believed to be one of Unicron’s Sweeps and, before Omega could be brought back online too, they were all buried under the ice in Alaska. After all of this, in addition to other events in the upcoming Micromasters mini-series, Omega managed to repress his emotions in a clever spin on the “more man than machine now†Darth Vader syndrome.
Now on one end of the spectrum we have the emotional void that is Omega Supreme, struggling to remember the reason for his being, and on the other we have Sunstorm, the religious zealot ruled by his primal instincts. Caught in the middle is Jetfire, trying his hardest to keep his cool and see things with a greater deal of clarity. He is joined by Bumblebee, the little ‘Bot that could, in trying to track down Sunstorm in the Alaskan wilderness before he can accomplish whatever strange goals he is after along with his prisoner/brother, Starscream. As a long-time fan it is wonderful to see Bumblebee get such recognition in this issue. He has always been portrayed as the underdog, the little rookie with more heart than sense. In this issue he finally starts asserting himself somewhat. Having been put in charge of the Earth-bound Autobots he over-rules Cliffjumper, forcing his comrade to stand guard over Omega Supreme while he goes off with Jetfire to explore further. After a brief little heart-to-heart with Jetfire in which he reveals just how scared he really is – and also just how brave he can truly be – he is plunged into the thick of it in battle with Sunstorm and Starscream. In fact, he even receives one of the biggest compliments a Transformer can receive – the ol’ thumbs-up from Starscream! As everybody’s favourite Decepticon says, “You know, I have to admit that I kind of liked you, kid. Sure, that wide-eyed optimism can be a bit annoying, but you’ve got gumption, and that goes a long way to earning my respect. Unfortunately – even that has its limits.â€
It’s nice to see some of these old favourites getting such characterization in the midst of an end-of-the-world struggle. It just goes to show that it is possible after all, as it was back in the days with classic tales such as Target: 2006, and begs the question of why we have had to sit through so much crap before getting to the real meaty goodness. Ah well, mustn’t grumble. The icing on the cake comes from the Autobots busy with their own investigations on Cybertron. Led by security officer Prowl and head scientist Perceptor, they are busy looking at the secret labs Shockwave was using back in War & Peace, the second volume of this series. They are busy offering up their own, scientific, explanations for Sunstorm and his behaviour just as Jetfire, Bumblebee, et al are beginning to believe that some deeply mystic mojo is happening right beneath their noses. As far as they can tell, Shockwave attempted to duplicate the secret information stored on Cybertron’s computer core, Vector Sigma, to a number of connected nodes in hidden laboratories all across the planet. Unfortunately, something went wrong in the process and far too much of the information became stored up in the clone lab housing Sunstorm. Loaded up on too much information that he could not properly decipher, Sunstorm’s spark has apparently been tainted by this power and driven him to insanity. Yet there is still some deep secret on Earth that Vector Sigma, and subsequently Shockwave, learned about. Now that Sunstorm knows too, he is going to restore whatever it is with no thought for the consequences due to his unhinged memory banks. And, whatever the secret may be, it is hidden in the same Alaskan stretch that kept Jetfire and Omega Supreme offline for so many years…
Now, this all smacks of Prowl, Perceptor and the rest of the team leading a conveniently-timed rescue operation to the Earth but I can forgive them for that when said team forms a splash page as gorgeous as the one on page eight of this comic. The “core†Cybertronian Autobot officials are sitting around a large table with some kind of holographic planetary display covering it, munching on Energon cubes and Kremzeek drinks supplied by oft-forgotten Power Master partner, Push-Button. It’s a gorgeous piece of work that really shows off the fine work Dreamwave studios are capable of when they put their minds to it. I have not been this impressed since the very first Transformers issue they released! Anyway, as I was saying, it does appear as though we will be in for a bit of a let-down next issue. All signs point towards the big secret being some kind of power resource for Unicron’s Sweeps. Now either we are going to have to take a whole lot on faith and assume that Unicron would choose to power his minions on the same planet that mortal enemy Primus’ Transformers just happened to land on several million years later, or this is just going to be another one of many bumps in the road on the way to the inevitable Unicron battle. Still, there is no point in complaining about something that may not actually come to pass! As it stands this series is continuing to impress with its loving nod to past stories and progressively tightening narrative and character development. What’s more, we even get numerous editorial captions referencing previous issues! It’s the little things like that which make it feel like a genuine rapport exists between the creators and the readers. Keep it up!
