Transformers #30 // Review
There’s a great deal of frustration. Optimus Prime and his group are needed for the conflict on Cybertron. Elita-1 feels that he is wasting time and resources on Earth. They need to go and deal with the conflict elsewhere. Optimus has a different feeling about it. Before anything can be resolved, the two of them are going to need to have some sort of a resolution in Transformers #30. Writer Robert Kirkman continues his Energon Universe incarnation of the popular franchise with artist Dan Mora and colorist Mike Spicer. It’s a powerful moment that continues to take the franchise in a distinctly new direction.
Trailbreaker is dead. So it’s understandable that Elita-! would be upset. She feels as though Optimus is not fit to lead the Autobots anymore. It’s not a feeling to be taken lightly and she wouldn’t be bringing it up were it not for the fact that she really feels as though the Autobots need to go in a different direction with their leadership. Cybertron is in serious trouble and they really need everyone that they can get. Optimus doesn’t feel that way. And so there’s going to need to be a resolution of some sort.
The statement could be made that Kirkman is taking the heart of the Transformers in a direction that doesn’t exactly match the way the Autobots had been brought to page and screen over the decades. Kirkman isn’t doing what he’s doing lightly. There’s a real need to progress beyond the elements that had made the franchise so successful in its early years. It’s a bold new direction for the series that could hold some interesting potential depending on where Kirkman decides to take it next. It could really backfire, but the important thing is that he’s trying something new with an old property.
Mora and Spicer have a hell of a lot of work to do with Kirkman’s script. It’s got to be dramatic without seeming TOO over-the-top. It’s got to have a very deft fluidity between drama and action. There has to be nuance in the interactions between a a group of very large robots. It’s not an easy balance to strike, but Mora and Spicer do an admirable job of finding the heart of the drama and moving with its pulse. It’s very sharp stuff that works remarkably well. The Autobots really feel like they’re reaching an admirable depth through the visuals on the page.
The saga of the Transformers has a chance to move in a few different directions in response to the way that Kirkman is moving things as the series continues into the second half of its third year. The Energon Universe clearly has some momentum as it moves forward with its central titles. With any luck, it’s going to be able to keep moving with that momentum. Kirkman is taking some real chances with the series. If he can pull it off, he might just have something special here.
