“THAT THING MUST BE MASSIVE!”

The IDW line of Transformers books have got to be the best-written comic books that nobody is talking about. There’s a lot of attention being given to Secret Invasion, Final Crisis and monkey comics, but Transformers isn’t on the top of anybody’s list even though it should be. On the one hand, Transformers Spotlight has been absolutely riveting; All Hail Megatron is positively scary.

We have a Planet Earth abandoned by the Autobots where Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave and Devastator get to run roughshot through the streets of New York City and destroy whatever they like. There’s a palpable sense of dread as you see the human air and ground forces struggle to put up any defense against such powerful beings. Some classic characters besides the Constructicons are introduced here, and we get an impressive re-imagining of the diminutive Frenzy that left me in awe as I turned the page.

We’ve never seen the Decepticons without their sparring partners to mix in old rivalries and power struggles, so this time we get to see just how the Decepticons got a reputation for being “evil” when left to their own devices. The Autobots are dealing with a crisis on more of a cosmic scale presently, but once that is over I’m interested to see just what will be left of Earth for them to find waiting. The story is very engaging, even if the dialouge is somewhat listless. We have very good action sequences in the artwork, but the scenes of conversation and emotion that require a lot of facial expression don’t feel genuine and seem a bit off. All in all, this book is a lot of fun, kinda hokey like a B-list sci-fi movie, and is gonna make a great trade!

Story: Shane McCarthy – 4 (Exceptional)
Art: Guido Guidi – 3 (Very Good)