The long-awaited first issue of Brian Ruckley’s biweekly ongoing has finally been released - but how much promise does it hold? Join me for a deep dive into the first part of “The World In Your Eyes”...
[Editor's Note: Some SPOILERS for the issue follow! While we feel the time we've left between publication of the issue and posting of this article is an acceptable gap, we realise it's still very likely you, dear reader have not yet read this issue. So track it down first! Yes, that means you Dorian!]
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| c. Angel Hernandez and Joana Lafuente |
I think all of us - writer, artists, audience - have found that treating this new continuity as an entirely clean break is a little harder than it looks.
Brian Ruckley is - much like in the image above - standing on the shoulders of giants. Already, he’s making huge steps of his own - and the prevailing sentiment seems to be that we should acknowledge those strides on their own terms - but it seems to me that drawing comparisons is the best way to show what exactly it is he’s achieved here. So before I delve into the contents of this issue, I think it’s important to take stock and make sure we’re all on the same page. Allow me take you back in time…
I. You Owe Nothing To Those Who Came Before You
The first attempt to revive the Transformers comics - left mostly abandoned since Generation 2 - comes in the form of Dreamwave Productions’ Generation 1 continuity, spearheaded by Chris Sarracini. It’s an instant hit.
Dreamwave Productions would later implode.
Smash cut to 2005. Veteran writer Simon Furman drags himself from the burning wreckage of Dreamwave. A shadowy figure offers him a hand. “Wh-who are you?” coughs Simon. The shadowy figure drags Simon to his feet. “IDW Publishing,” it says. “I suppose you want a job?” Simon nods emphatically. Just as they turn to leave, something moving in the wreckage catches IDW Publishing’s eye. “What’s that?” it asks, pointing. “Oh, that?” Simon replies. “It’s Megatron Origin.” IDW Publishing considers for a moment. “Eh, whatever, it can come too.”
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| c. Alex Milne and Joana Lafuente |
For perhaps the first time, Furman gets the opportunity to build a new continuity from the ground up. Audiences are as excited at this prospect as he is, and his rapidly-escalating espionage plot is generally a success. E. J. Su presents brand new twists on classic designs, and his style on the book proves hugely influential - not just for later artists working on IDW’s series, but for the franchise as a whole.
But just a few series later, IDW starts to get a little antsy. They give Furman nine issues to end his run, and pass the baton to Shane McCarthy - who draws inspiration more from the original 80's cartoon than from his predecessor. The discontinuities start to pile up.
G.I. Joe writer Mike Costa takes over with a new ongoing series, which features questionable art direction and yet more discontinuities. After a fairly strong opening arc, Costa finds himself burning out sooner than he’d expected - he struggles to work out what motivates these robots; if not food, God, or women. It's around this time that IDW starts bringing on more writers, on more miniseries than ever before. Eventually, after thirty-odd issues, they're looking for another new direction.
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| c. Alex Milne and Josh Perez |
The Death of Optimus Prime ushers in a golden age of Transformers storytelling, blowing almost everything that’s come before out of the water. Nick Roche, John Barber, James Roberts and Mairghread Scott draw fans to the franchise like none before - well, except maybe Michael Bay.
A hundred-odd issues later, the readership for these series is plateauing. With seemingly no end in sight for their plotlines, IDW decides to shake things up with their Revolution crossover. The gambit seems to pay off, and - with the myriad of new possibilities offered by the “Hasbro Universe” - we all start to feel like maybe, just maybe, this Transformers gig really can go on forever.
Before long though, we find ourselves meandering into a bewildering array of dead-end miniseries and annuals - seemingly held together solely by John Barber’s indomitable force of will. Lost Light - having garnered its own mainstream sub-following - manages to remain comparatively straightforward and standalone, mostly by pretending the rest of the universe doesn't exist.
When the sword finally falls, many writers are left scrambling to wrap things up. Unicron proves to be a very worthy end to the greatest Transformers story of all time - but an inevitable one.
It’s a tough act to follow.
Enter Brian Ruckley.
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| c. Gabriel Rodríguez and Nelson Dániel |
II. Those As Yet Unforged
I was sceptical, I’ll admit. And - just as a reminder, before I try to read this issue’s bones - it’s still early days.
I remember when the news broke. A novel writer? Huh. How about that. I guess he does sci-fi or - medieval fantasy? Huh.
It seemed like an odd choice at the time - we’ve increasingly seen people hired straight out of the fandom - but this first issue has mostly alleviated any concerns I had.
Dialogue throughout the issue is very well-pitched - charming, concise, and with a certain dry humour that makes a welcome change from the quips that occasionally plague modern comic books. Fan-favourite Windblade returns with a little more self-seriousness than she exhibited in her continuity of origin, which hews a little more closely to her appearances in media since. Bumblebee, meanwhile, has a light air of good-natured exasperation, and it’s nice to see him acting as the experienced tour guide rather than an audience surrogate.
Taking Bumblebee’s place is new character Rubble, whose boundless enthusiasm ends up being surprisingly infectious. Ruckley has reimagined the very concept of transformation itself, putting an optimistic spin on the “functionism” of the previous continuity; each bot chooses their alt-mode once they find their place in society, and remains free to change their mind as they mature (although it’s unclear whether that applies to just their “job” or their alt-mode too). While the idea that a Transformer may choose their alt-mode is not new, this take on the concept has a real clarity of purpose.
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| c. Angel Hernandez and Joana Lafuente |
Ruckley’s happy to use Transformer-specific idioms here - “grit in his gears” is a highlight - but doesn’t overdo it. Perhaps the one piece of awkward dialogue comes in the form of Ironhide and Orion’s “Prowl under a pylon” conversation, wherein Orion finds himself explaining events that Ironhide is clearly well-acquainted with solely for the benefit of the audience.
Naturally for the first issue of a new series, we’re seeing the seeds of many future plot threads being sown here. Cybertron is - quite unusually - home to organic life, seen in the form of the wonderfully-alien “Voin scavengers”. Meanwhile, the Titans are one heck of a smoking gun - what exactly happened ten megacycles ago? Who is Termagax? What do the Ascenticons want? Why did Bumblebee leave security operations? Are any of these things connected? Ruckley presents this information with the practised ease of a seasoned storyteller - it’s exposition, technically, but it doesn’t feel like it.
As many have already noted, Ruckley’s novelist roots occasionally shine through in this issue. I think for many comic writers there would have been a certain temptation to present this first part in medias res, starting on the last page before jumping back in time to introduce Rubble. Maybe, in this hypothetical version of the comic, the Megatron/Optimus conversation would be moved to the end of the issue as a sort of coda.
I say this because the press material for this issue spoiled the fact that a murder would occur, leaving only the identity of the victim as a mystery - and upon reading the issue, I found myself clocking who it’d be the moment they were first mentioned. I suspect that Ruckley was happy to treat this issue as the first chapter - a part of the whole - and made the deliberate decision to let our first impression of this new continuity be the stunning vistas of Cybertron (as Rubble’s was), rather than the skeletons in its closet.
III. We’ll Never Get There If You Stop To Admire Every View
Enough about writing. There was another question on everyone’s minds when the reboot was announced - will any of the regular artists be returning?
The answer, as it turns out, is yes and no.
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| c. Angel Hernandez and Joana Lafuente |
Veteran colourist Joana Lafuente returns to lend these lightly-inked pages their depth and tone - and what a job she does of it! The first half of the issue takes place at sunset, and Lafuente uses orange and purple hues to create a landscape which is simultaneously warm and alien. As Rubble encounters the Voin, the sun sets further - turning the sky shades of blue and green. Throughout these sequences, Lafuente carefully uses texture to fade out the background - this effect is perhaps most noticeable on the title splash pages. All told, it’s a bold and consistent look - and I’m looking forward to seeing how Lafuente develops this style as we see more of Cybertron in future issues.
Letters for this issue are provided by Tom B. Long, a regular contributor to IDW’s previous Transformers comics - his careful placement of speech bubbles ensures that dialogue flows smoothly from one panel to the next, and emphasis is similarly well-chosen. Sound effects are fairly minimal throughout the issue, although I’ve already seen Windblade’s transformation sequence singled out as a highlight...
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| c. Angel Hernandez and Joana Lafuente |
Neither of the regular artists for this series - Angel Hernandez and Cachèt Whitman - have worked on Transformers titles in the past (excluding a single cover for Transformers vs. Visionaries from Hernandez). A biweekly schedule can be punishing for a single artist, so it’s only natural - if a little unfortunate - that each issue’s pages will be divided between several. Stories in the previous continuity have occasionally suffered from clashing art styles, but (mostly thanks once more to Lafuente’s colouring) the transition here is practically unnoticeable.
As explained by Ruckley in interview - and as was often the case in the last continuity - taking advantage of this restriction by assigning different artists to different scenes is a logical move. Roughly in the centre of the issue, Cachèt Whitman contributes four pages featuring Orion Pax, Ironhide, and Megatron - plus a surprise crowd-filling appearance from Ruckus, presumably chosen for the similarity between his name and Ruckley’s. Barber’s Robots in Disguise run included many an angry crowd, and Whitman’s first page here follows in that tradition. If you look closely at the balcony above the flag in the foreground, you’ll spot Orion Pax’s very first appearance - looking down on the Ascenticons below. Also spectating are a pair of floating robots - reminiscent of the eyebots from Fallout - which combine with the looming buildings to create a very claustrophobic and oppressive scene. This is Cybertron at the darkest we’ve seen it.
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| c. Cachèt Whitman and Joana Lafuente |
The action soon follows Orion inside. Here, the colours return to the bright oranges of Rubble’s first sunset - only now they appear as overpowering block gradients illuminated by harsh white light. The panel gutters too - previously almost imperceptible - are suddenly solid white. The corridor outside is pitch black, with piercing blue strip lighting drawing the eye into the darkness. Orion can cling to his vision of a peaceful Cybertron - but Megatron sees it as an impossibility.
Perhaps my favourite panel from this sequence is the one in which we first meet Megatron. When I first saw this panel, I was taken aback - it’s squeezed in at the very bottom of the page, presented almost at eye level. In previous series, we might’ve expected this moment to appear as a full-page low-angle shot of Megatron entering the room. This is an important moment for us.
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| c. Cachèt Whitman and Joana Lafuente |
But not for them.
This panel communicates everything we need to know about these two. Each takes up a roughly equal amount of space in the frame. The doorframe, however, divides them entirely. They each speak a single word - the other’s name. You can feel the tension between them. There’s history here - both from their perspective, as characters in this comic; and from ours, as readers. Even as Megatron enters the room, the converging lines of the lights behind him create the sense that the distance between these two is only growing.
Whitman seems to have a gift for the facial expressions of these robotic characters - a notoriously tricky problem for any Transformers artist to solve. He carefully chooses the angles of Orion’s head to communicate his emotions through the eyes and faceplate. There’s a wariness in Megatron’s earliest expressions here - wariness which soon shifts to anger as the scene progresses.
It’s a funny coincidence that Orion Pax appears here in a Cybertron/Galaxy Force-inspired body - that series was probably the last time we’ve seen characters rendered in such an absurdly toy-accurate manner. But more on that later.
The bulk of this issue - focusing on Rubble, Bumblebee and Windblade - is illustrated by Angel Hernandez. These sequences implement much looser panel layouts, which feel very well suited to Cybertron’s angular terrain. I particularly like the very first page, where the panels increase in height as Rubble scales the Titan.
As our audience surrogate, Rubble receives a distinctly generic character design that perfectly communicates his role in the story as our naïve audience surrogate. He lacks anything in the way of vehicle-mode kibble - reflecting his central character drive - but has some shapes on his back that maybe hint at wheels. It’s a charming look, and I can’t wait to see how Rubble develops over the course of this series.
This issue’s final cliffhanger is another powerful image from Hernandez. As our protagonists approach the station, it becomes increasingly clear something is wrong. We turn the page, and suddenly… a corpse fills the page, literally curled to surround Rubble in the frame. The rest of Cybertron is forgotten: this is his world now.
IV. Faults - Those Are Etched Onto His Memory For All Time
It’s a strong start - but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Let’s go all the way back to Infiltration for a moment. Simon Furman’s first issue of that series was positively sedate, and many readers criticised what followed for focusing too heavily on human characters - to the point where Stormbringer was infamously advertised with the tagline “NOTHING BUT ROBOTS ON CYBERTRON.” Hopefully now, we know better.
I was initially very sceptical of the decision to eschew the typical Earth-based debut with a wholly Cybertronian one - but Ruckley’s take on the Transformers mythos has won me over for the most part. I’ve enjoyed seeing the Titans, the Voin, and even the angle from which Ruckley approaches transformation itself.
However, some of my earliest fears remain.
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| c. Angel Hernandez and Joana Lafuente |
One way or another, this isn’t 2005. That was a time before the movies, before Animated, before Prime - when the only ground-up reimaginings of the Transformers were Robots in Disguise, Armada, and Dreamwave’s Generation 1 continuity. Furman had a lot of heavy lifting to do - but the landscape of Transformers is very different today. First, with the “aligned” continuity, and now with “evergreen” characters, there is a real sense that “Character A Is Character A.” Ruckley is taking the time to introduce us to the likes of Bumblebee, Windblade, Optimus Prime and Megatron - but we already know these characters inside and out, and after reading this issue I can’t help feeling like we're reinventing the wheel slightly. Sure, the details are different - we’re seeing hints of Bumblebee’s past, of Megatron’s ideology - but the broad strokes are very much the same. For an issue intended to introduce us to a new world, it seems that we learn oddly little.
I think perhaps a good example of what’s going on here is the crowd scene I’ve previously mentioned. Such scenes have traditionally been populated with generic transformers - but in recent years (particularly in John Barber’s work) we’ve increasingly seen crowds filled with cameos of minor recurring characters. Even if these C-listers have never played a significant role in the continuity, our passing familiarity with them helps cement them as “real” people.
It’s understandable that Ruckley (and IDW at large) want a clean break. Hopefully this new run attracts lots more people to the franchise; people for whom the name “Transformers” is synonymous only with Bay’s blockbusters. But I think it’s worth stressing that, in the hands of a careful writer, the franchise’s history is not baggage - it’s a tool. They can’t put the genie back in the bottle - but they can tell it to play nice.
Already, we’ve seen the past come back to bite the new creative team. The decision to use - spoiler alert - a More than Meets the Eye fan-favourite as the victim in this conflict’s inciting murder has been met with some controversy, casting rather a long shadow over discourse in this first week. Ruckley has stated - both in abstract, before the issue’s release, and after - that this decision was made simply as a nod to the fans, and that the “out with the old, in with the new” metatext (my words, not his) was a happy (or, as it turned out, unhappy) coincidence.
This effect has been compounded by the fact that the victim is specifically depicted in Alex Milne’s old design - had a more generic look been chosen, we’d be much less inclined to read the character as specifically their “IDW” incarnation as opposed to a more platonic “Generation 1” ideal. As things stand, I think some portions of the fanbase are reading far too much into the connections between these incarnations of this character and ascribing malice where none exists. Regardless, insofar as we can expect standard murder-mystery tropes to apply here, we’ll probably learn much more about the victim through flashbacks or exposition in upcoming issues.
The toy-based designs come with additional complications. While most continuities get the chance to craft their designs from the ground up, here characters are drawn to the specifications of their most recent Generations figure. The current War for Cybertron line seems to want to make a clean break from the Prime Wars trilogy which preceded it - revamping many 1984-1986 favourites - yet paradoxically includes Battle Masters and Weaponizers, which are effectively accessories to older figures.
The figures in Siege are - to varying degrees of success - inspired by the first episodes of the 80's cartoon, which saw the transformers change from alien vehicles into robots with elements clearly drawn from Earth-based vehicles. It’s a little odd to take that aesthetic and use it as the starting point for a brand new story set on Cybertron: why does Bumblebee still look like he turns into a Volkswagen? This was something which the previous War for Cybertron did very well - and indeed, those Cybertronian designs saw use again when the action in IDW’s last continuity left Earth behind.
Not only is it that War for Cybertron: Siege is suddenly the Transformers comic’s toyline... but Transformers is now kind of the War for Cybertron: Siege toyline’s comic.
I realise that this is a relatively minor sticking point, but it does feel like something of a step in the wrong direction. Hopefully we’ll soon get to see more in the way of original designs like those of Rubble and the newly-revealed Geomotus, along with more redesigns for established characters.
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| c. Angel Hernandez |
V. There Are A Great Many Things I Do Not Wish To See Again
The biggest of this issue’s lingering questions - at least as far as I’m concerned - is what exactly Megatron’s ideology is. Ruckley is a noted fan of More than Meets the Eye, and we’ve seen Roberts’ “revolutionary Megatron” interpretation reflected in several other continuities since. Will Ruckley follow in his footsteps?
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| c. Cachèt Whitman and Joana Lafuente |
As many people have pointed out, this aspect of Megatron’s character wasn’t present at the conception of IDW’s last continuity. Rather, it was an artifact - grandfathered in through Eric Holmes’ Megatron Origin, which was originally written for Dreamwave’s continuity. As far as we can tell from the outside, Furman had no such plans for the character - it was Roberts and Barber who later felt obliged to smooth over the discontinuities, and Holmes’ story ultimately proved to be a massive influence on the universe. Chris Metzen and Flint Dille’s Autocracy trilogy had been conceptualised as a prequel to the original 80s cartoon of all things, and more continuity massaging was required after that.
The idea that the Decepticons “had a point” is here to stay, but I think Ruckley has a major advantage over previous writers: here is a continuity crafted entirely with this in mind, from the beginning, that is not shackled to pre-existing stories about things that happen later on Earth - no retro-fitting required. Those stories will (probably) come, and they will (probably) be the logical consequence of the events we’re going to see unfolding in this series.
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| c. Casey Coller and Josh Burcham |
There’s another thing that this continuity is getting right - and it does pain me that this is something that’s only now becoming the norm - and that’s the inclusion of female Transformers from the very beginning, no comment, no disclaimers, no justifications. It’s still early days - so far, we’ve only got Windblade and the enigmatic Termagax, and we know that Chromia’s waiting in the wings - but hopefully we’ll see the return of more fan-favourites from Transformers history alongside brand new characters. Perhaps we’ll even see reinterpretations of traditionally-male characters - in a similar vein to Animated Red Alert, Nightbeat and Drag Strip, Cyberverse Acid Storm and Nova Storm, and countless Beast Wars: Uprising characters - although personally my gut feeling is that this is unlikely so long as the comic remains so closely tied to Hasbro’s toylines.
Even if this series isn’t “about” diversity in the same way one could maybe say the tail end of IDW’s last continuity was - and it probably won’t be - we’ll hopefully still see it continue to be diverse.
VI. It’s A World Of Possibilities
The last year has been an incredibly exciting time to be a Transformers fan. Cyberverse is the first brand-new mainstream cartoon continuity since 2010’s Transformers: Prime. The live-action movie franchise has been seemingly rebooted with Travis Knight’s Bumblebee, and its future remains uncertain. New toylines in the form of Studio Series, Siege and BotBots have made huge waves in the fandom. It’s a time of real turmoil - after years of the same old series, suddenly everything’s happening at once.
If you look at the history of Transformers comics solely from the perspective of its reboots - as I did at the beginning of this article - I think you get the impression of a series that was perpetually balanced on the edge of cancellation. But of course, that can’t be further from the truth - those are only the times when it came closest, and it took a little nudge to keep it from stepping over. The interesting thing to me is that - far more so than any other - this reboot feels like a shift from strength to strength.
As with any such transition, I suspect the reality is that many long-time readers will be taking this as an opportunity to bow out - but countless new readers will be jumping on, and hopefully this first issue gives them reason to stick around. We’re entering a bold new era, and I can’t wait to see what it holds.
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| c. Angel Hernandez and Joana Lafuente |
You can purchase a digital copy of Transformers #1 through Comixology, or directly from IDW Publishing. Physical copies can be purchased online or from your local comic store. The second issue will be released on 27/03/2019, and subsequent issues biweekly thereafter.
Many thanks to Fear or Courage for proofreading this article, and to the rest of those on the Allspark Discord server with whom I’ve been discussing this new series. As always, thanks to Ben Watson and the rest of the RRCo team for having me. The TransMissions interview with Brian Ruckley has proven to be an excellent insight into Ruckley’s writing process, and I highly recommend you give it a listen. And, of course, thanks to the team at IDW Publishing for creating these comics in the first place!
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