THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CLUB AND CONVENTION TRANSFORMERS COMICS

Schism
Reviewed by Blackjack

”No, you’re trying to possess me, and I will not allow that. I choose death.”
Quite frankly, a mess. Windrazor’s origin is uninteresting and convoluted, and telling a story in a far-flung future with hardly any background given is pretty banal. It’s been done twice in the Marvel UK comics, and without visual aids it’s pretty hard to follow if you haven’t read all four stories. Also, battle scenes without dialogue are painful to read, especially the lengthy battle between the Cub and the Veteran… and why do they use names like that anyway? It’s very unimaginative. Sandstorm and Cataclysm are both faceless, the threat of Shokaract falls flat on its face unlike Unicron and all these crap about J’nwan and stuff… nah, not one of the better stories.


This story takes place in a far-flung alternate future of Beast Wars where Shokaract has taken over Cybertron with the Maximals and Predacons driven into guerilla warfare.

First proper appearances of both Windrazor and Sandstorm. Windrazor is a repaint of the Silverbolt toy, and is powered by the two sparks of the Cub and the Veteran. Sandstorm is a repaint of the Beast Wars Scorponok toy.

The Cub is fission-brother to the other herald Cataclysm. A thing of note is that despite Cataclysm’s semi-major role in the stories, he apparently was a red herring for fans to think that there will be a toy for him in one of the BotCons. Instead we get Vice Grip.

The Veteran, who transforms into a winged beast, is the last remaining active Autobot, who had been battling on Earth at one point with Optimus Prime. Apparently the Veteran has changed his appearance and name so many times, that his former identity has become lost. He wields an Energon Sword. Fans have thought that this was supposed to represent the Dinobot Swoop, who is the only candidate for the description of the Veteran. In addition, the Veteran referred to himself as a ‘dinosaur’ and is amused at the irony.

For those uninitiated, the Predacon Sandstorm is in reality the Covenant member Scorpius.

Apparently Antagony went into the past to recover something called the ‘Dark Essence’.

J’nwan, the dimension where all past Autobots and Decepticons go to after they die, is very obviously a pun on Gen-One, or Generation One, what the fans refer to as the original Transformers series.

Megatron, Straxus and the Liege Maximo are referred to by the Veteran.


As we go into the new paragraph detailing Sandstorm preparing to go to J’nwan, there is a stray ‘v’ at the beginning.

Why didn’t Cataclysm have any guards elsewhere in the stronghold? Because all Windrazor did was barge in.