THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

63 "Kings of the Wild Frontier"
64 "Deadly Obsession"
65 "Dark Creation"
66 "All Fall Down"
67 "Rhythms of Darkness"
68 "The Human Factor"

Marvel US book 12 of 14: Matrix Quest

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Reprinting: The Transformers #63-68
Written by: Simon Furman
Pencils by: Jose Delbo [#63-64, #67], Geoff Senior [#65-66], Dwayne Turner [#68]
Inks by: Dave Hunt [#63], Al Williamson & Dan Reed [#64], Danny Bulandi [#67]
Colours by: Nel Yomtov

The remaining four parts of the Matrix Quest arc, plus the intros for Galvatron and The Neo-Knights.

The stories:

The first two parts of this book are probably the worst things Furman's written for an official Transformers series. As if to confirm that the Matrix Quest is the place for pastiches, we get "Kings of the Wild Frontier" and "Deadly Obsession", each following a Quest team investigating rumours on alien planets that may be Matrix related, pursued by Thunderwing and his army of four Decepticons. "Kings" is a diabolical sub-Star Trek plotline, with friendly aliens turning out to be evil, and spectacularly undetailed, clunky art from Delbo. It doesn't help that the leads are the Triggerbots, one of the few groups Furman failed to breathe any life into. All three are generic, determined-and-tough-but-basically-good Autobots, and Thunderwing and his gang don't do much better.

"Deadly Obsession" isn't much better, focusing the other notable group Furman tried, and failed, to make interesting - the smaller Autobot Pretenders Longtooth, Doubleheader and Pincher. Longtooth goes Captain Ahab on a squid which might have the Matrix inside it... and that's about it. Doubleheader and Pincher are totally devoid of character, and Longtooth's so out-of-his-tree for most of it that he's of no real interest. Thunderwing's a little more engaging, though, and at least his epiphany brings this part to a close. On the plus side, Delbo seems fairly comfortable drawing Pretenders, and even goes crazy, doing some backgrounds and making this look like it was drawn after 1968, while Yomtov's garish, toddler-esque colouring adds an alien tone for once.

Thankfully, over the next two chapters the Matrix Quest picks up some pace [i.e. goes somewhere], and fittingly Geoff Senior's back on board. The penultimate segment of the storyline is another homage [or rip-off, if you like], heavily borrowing from the Alien film cycle. There are some injokes too, if that's what floats your boat. Thankfully, for those of us with both hands on the comic, there's a decently-paced story as well. At last, in its fourth part, the Matrix Quest starts to move forward, with what's happened to it since Prime died revealed [including Deathbringer from the UK comics]. The leads are the Classic Pretenders, who carry the story very well - Grimlock is a stand-out. It's superbly written, with tight pacing and superb dialogue, and Thunderwing finally leaving the generic Decepticon leader persona behind - though mainly because he's off the rails. It also sets up the conclusion nicely.

"All Fall Down" [no, not the TPB that doesn't have All Fall Down in it - the Matrix Quest story from the Matrix Quest book which doesn't have all of Matrix Quest in it] starts on a slightly different note, catching up with Unicron as he creates his heralds Hook, Line and Sinker, before we get back to the Ark, where a Matrix-boosted Thunderwing takes on the Autobots. Optimus Prime's hesitation to destroy the Matrix is well portrayed, though the script does tend to descend into an "all pile on the all-powerful guy" sequence of fight scenes. Thankfully, Nightbeat turns up at the end, suitably witty and with an amusingly straight-forward way of ending it all. Senior gets the fight scenes just right, and it's a fitting conclusion, though to be honest the Matrix Quest storyline itself is overlong and badly focused - the first three parts could have been compacted into one.

Then, with the Matrix Quest over, Furman spents two issues introducing the last of his players for the magnum opus that would fill the next seven issues. The first of these, "Rhythms of Darkness", takes place on an alternate world where Galvatron has defeated most of the Autobots, including Rodimus Prime. It's very much a story of two halves, with a dark, brooding set-up, followed by a ridiculous second half. The narrative suffers from the same problem as many apocalyptic What If? style stories - we have a small band of heroes who have somehow survived some ultimate villain, who then go all stupid and largely die in a few pages, making the reader think "How the Hell did they survive this long?". It doesn't help that the Autobots' plan is the feeblest idea ever [in their defence, it does work - though whether their success was worth the lives of four comrades, I'll let you decide]. Still, Galvatron is plucked from this timeline by Unicron, allowing the character to participate in Unicron's assault on Cybertron. Jose Delbo actually does a decent job on the pencils too - it's not spectacular, but it really does the job, especially the splash page of the devastated New York. And in one of the most bizarre match-ups in comics, Jim Lee did the cover to the original issue. Though it's a bit rubbish.

The final part, "The Human Factor", is pretty weak too, concerning the race between three parties for a super-human named Dynamo. Starscream wants him to act as a Powermaster for himself, G. B. Blackrock wants him to join his super-team, and Circuit Breaker wants him with her. The story makes a good job of reintroducing Blackrock and Circuit Breaker, though the execution of the rest isn't brilliant. Thunderpunch is an instantly irritating character, and both Dynamo and Rhapsody are rather faceless. What really doesn't help, though, is Turner's art. His character model for Starscream changes every few pages, some frames are almost without detail, and it looks like he inked it with a black felt tip marker. Shockwave looks dreadful at the end, too. Like the preceding story, "The Human Factor" does set up some elements of All Fall Down [this time I'm talking about the collection that doesn't include All Fall Down...], but isn't engaging as a story itself.

The Presentation:

Again, nothing particularly new or exciting. There's a competent, unspectacular cover from Wildman, a badly-mounted cover gallery [though, once again, none of them are especially nice], the rest of the script for "Back from the Dead" [continued from Primal Scream, though I don't know why they bothered], forewords from Simon Furman [again...] and Bob Forward, and a brief character run-down. Oh, and the paper's all shiny.

The Verdict:

On the whole, only two of the six stories are really any good. Much like Primal Scream, this is more of interest if you want to see how everything for the Unicron arc came into place, but not an amazing read by itself. The art and scripting are both very mixed, and to be honest unless you can find it for about a third of RRP, you're going to be a little disappointed with this one.

 
Reviewed by Cliffjumper

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