THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CLUB AND CONVENTION TRANSFORMERS COMICS

Revelations, Part 5
Reviewed by Blackjack

These Mini-Cons have served their purpose, Soundwave.
A terrible, terrible mess. The Mini-Cons’ various models and whatnot are vague, and the sub-par colouring isn’t helping either. Although, considering the sheer amount of Mini-Cons nobody cares about, I can’t really blame the colorist. The civil war is mercifully cut short by the Unicron plot. Really, the Civil War is a piss-poor excuse to lob a good two dozen faceless Mini-Cons at us. None of the guys we were introduced to last issue made any impression... basically Anti-Blaze takes the place of Armada’s Sparkplug and Thrust of Leader-1 or Dualor. Condense Furman’s Mini-Con unrest plot into two pages, add our motley cast, and this mess results. The Autobots don't get to do much other than blowing stuff up. Again, most of the dialogue is between Skyfall and Landquake, both of whom haven’t even gotten any personalities yet. A mess. Clearly the writers are trying to balance between toy promotion and plot, but fall down the crevice between the two. Really I now hope Unicron just eats Skyfall and Landquake, they’re just that irritating with the mumbo jumbo backstory.


Since Cybertron-Primus is transforming into robot mode, this episode takes place around the Cybertron cartoon episode ‘Cybertron’.

Leader-1 appears again in a one-panel cameo. Guy must be camera-shy.

Omega Prime still calls out his attacks, just like the cartoon. Different attacks from the ones seen in the cartoon, though.

Landquake can manipulate raw Energon, similar to how Skyfall can create Energon shields.

At least two Skyblast-model generics are seen on the Mini-Con rebels’ side, although they appear only to be blown up by Downshift or devoured by Unicron.

During the face-off, Thrust says ‘more than meets the eye’, the classic Transformer credo.

This issue, we see almost every Decepticon-allied Mini-Cons in the Cybertron toyline. Here’s a complete list, although prior knowledge of Armada molds may be required to understand it. (There are quite a lot of generics too, making identification a nightmare. But I did it, bitches!)
-Sky Terror Team (Ramjet, Thrust and Sunstorm), repaints of the Armada Air Defense Team. The instigators of the rebellion. Ramjet and Thrust are killed by Unicron.
-Lunar Assault Team (Kobushi, Payload and Scattorbrain), repaints of the Adventure Team.
-Deep Space Team (Scrap Iron, Backblast and Blastcharge). Combines into the Umbral Blaster.
-Razorclaw and Sky Lynx, part of the Sky Attack Team, repaints of Armada’s Air Assault Team.
-Landslide and Monocle, repaints of Armada’s Destruction Team, are supposedly part of the Autobot-allied Exploration Team but are seen here among the rebels jumping Perceptor in the first page.


As always, Over-Run is spelt Overrun.

Monocle and Landslide are in the rebel camp instead of being allied with the Autobots for no good reason.

Why is Skyfall so surprised that Landquake can manipulate raw Energon? The Omnicons and Terrorcons can do it to, what?

Didn’t the good guys’ plan hinge on blowing up the Energon tanks? Whatever happened to blowing them up? Now Skyfall wants to stop it?

Many of the Mini-Cons are miscoloured. Owing to the fact that they’re not that important, have no personality and frankly it’s a pain to open their tfu pages one by one, I won’t bother to include specifics.

There are two Kobushi (the Ransack repaints) in the spread page.