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THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

Marvel Comics
(1984-1994)
Japanese
Manga
Other Books
and Titles
Titan Books
(2001-2010)
Club/Con
(2001-2016)
Dreamwave
(2002-2004)
Devil's Due
(2003-2007)
IDW Publishing
(2005-now)

TRANSFORMERS TITLES FROM TITAN BOOKS / MAGAZINES

Revenge of the Fallen #5 [UK]: Reversal of Fortune
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

Issue Review

Pretty much the same as for the last issue really, though this gets slightly higher for Optimus being mindlessly violent. The character work is still excellent; especially Prime’s annoyance at the twins acting like pricks as the Autobots are trying to look useful to the humans, but the whole storyline is getting badly overplayed by this point. Just tell him already guys, shout in his face if you have to.

The art remains great, and lets give some props to the Hi-Fi Design person/s (I’m hoping it’s not someone’s actual name…) whose colouring manages not to feel photoshopped and has a very British comics feel to it.

All in all, great action and characters but zero plot movement. More next time please guys.

Notes
This is the first appearance of the “real” Optimus Prime in the comic since issue #7, nearly two years ago. Arcee also appears for the first time as her triple bike combo thingy (technical term). No explanation for the change, or even if it’s the same character as in previous issues or if this is a case of Bob Arcee rather than Fred Arcee [Though as the original Arcee only appeared in issues set in the Twilight’s Last Gleaming alternate timeline it could well be one of the differences between the two realities is Arcee’s nature]. Though the three toys all have individual name there’s no indication of that here. The bikes are also all the same colour; we’ll need a second appearance before we know if this is a goof or a stylistic choice.

This is the first appearance of the Diego Garcia base the Autobots are working out of in the film.

Way back in the review for the first Revenge of the Fallen issue I mentioned the outside chance that this could well be a third timeline, separate from both the first eight issues and the Twilight Universe. That was a little facetious, but this issue actually gives it some credence as Scorponok appears despite being killed in issue #8. [On the other hand, there’s no indication he’s an alive transformer and may just be a mass produced bit of kit. Either way Grindor likely brought him to the South Pacific].

Though unseen at the end of the issue the watching Decepticon is almost certainly Soundwave, it’s not clear if he’s in a room or the bunch of TV’s are what’s inside his satellite mode. Either way visually it’s a homage to the innards of Unicron in the ’86 film. Soundwave having the place wired [by Ravage?] is of course how he’s been able to infiltrate Autobot security rather than the twins.

Blah blah cover blah different blah from blah the next issue page blah blah blah ect.

Goofs

Alright, it’s a nice moment and the comic can never hope to get as violent as the films and they can’t kill him yet as he’s in Revenge of the Fallen, but Optimus is a lot less likely to blow up the road Sideways in on and a lot more to just blow the actual Decepticon up. And then shove a sword through his head…

The Devastator profile leaves off Overload and Scavenger.

They’re reprinting All Hail Megatron.

Fantastic Free Gift!

Notebook disguised as a PDA. With a German style keyboard no less.
Extras
Sideswipe’s Armoury, cover the USAF planes from the film;
Competitions for Transformers T-shirts and a Nintendo DS;
Double sided poster of covers from this issue and All Hail Megatron;
Heads Will Roll Out!, quiz to see how many Prime heads are in a mesh up. It’s got to be a case of thinking up the title first surely?;
Competitions for Merlin tat (dear God, why?) as well as BOOM! and Z.Rex books;
Devastator profile;
Competition for Ben 10: Alien Force toys;
Way Past Cool, more computer bits and bobs;
More Than Meets the Eye quiz page;
Law and Disorder, includes Starscream’s Stars as well as pictures of the winners of the ride in Bumblebee competition from issue #3 (they look gleeful despite it clearly not being Bumblebee, no stripes!) and a man in his mid 30’s dressed as Optimus Prime. In his kitchen.

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