THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CLUB AND CONVENTION TRANSFORMERS COMICS

Crossing Over, Part 2
Reviewed by Blackjack

Starscreams, at least, appear to be variations of a theme.
Landquake gets monologue, he’s basically a war-weary guy displaced from all that he’s known and finding that Skyfall’s his only link to sanity. May I add that how Landquake monologues, in terms of mathematics and stuff, is a pain to read? While he has basically still the same soul-searching motivations as Skyfall, at least Landquake doesn’t become a whiny bitch because of it. Basically he’s tired of the war and everything. Megatron and Starscream’s interactions are just repeatings of cartoon episodes, while Scrapper is just there to talk about stuff. Megatron is laughable, really, in just how cardboard cut-out he is. So’s Starscream… what’s the use of insisting that Landquake is lying, I ask you? I just can’t place the Constructicons with their G1 counterparts, I’m sorry, they just look too different. The story wavers between trying to stick to the supposed comic background and being closer to the cartoon. Honestly it’s not a bad installment per se, but it’s just so dull and predictable.


The Constructicons are in their Classics bodies, which are repaints of the Energon Constructicon team. This means that Hook and Mixmaster are inexplicably replaced by the newcomer Hightower. Soundwave, unlike his Marvel comics’ purple colour, is coloured like blue like the cartoon.

Again, Skywarp and Astrotrain, both destroyed during the Underbase saga, pop up here as well. So does Ramjet and the Constructicons, MIA sometime before that. Supplemental background information would reveal that Megatron has been building a separate Decepticon force on Earth separate from Bludgeon’s (in space) with what he could find, so it is entirely possible that Megatron resurrected these fellows from… wherever he dug them out.

According to Scrapper, the reason that an explosion could send Skyfall and Landquake to another dimension is the fact that Unicron is nearby and his presence creates all plot devices and plot holes and justifications to continuity problems.

Scavenger recalls Unicron’s destruction near the end of the Marvel comics’ run.

Dialogue implies that Megatron has incapacitated Shockwave prior to this, but is still keeping him alive somewhere. The Timelines comic ‘Games of Deception’ reveals that Shockwave is reduced as a talking head, ironic considering what Shockers did to Optimus Prime. He threatens to do the same to Scrapper.

Megatron uses the term ‘Seekers’ to refer to the, well, Seekers.

The RUNTs mention General Barnett. So it seems that Barnett is still active in the military after fifteen years.


On the third panel Megatron’s gotten himself some additional orange-golden bits.

There are some minor inconsistencies for the Constructicons’ colouring relative to the toys, although I can’t say for sure because I only have tfu pictures for guide.

When he says ‘yes, Lord Megatron’, Landquake has an abnormally long neck.

Astrotrain is used as a cargo ship like the cartoon, even though this is in the comic continuity. Also, while in the panning shot Astrotrain is only slightly larger than the Seekers, apparently his interior could fit Megatron, Landquake and all five Constructicons.