TRANSFORMERS: ENERGON #30

Cover Date: December 2004
Story: Simon Furman
Pencils: Marcelo Matere
Inks: Elaine To, Ferd Poblete, Erik Sander, Rob Armstrong
Lettering: Ben Lee

Plot Summary

Our story begins on Cybertron, where Scorponok leads a massive attack on an Autobot bunker, as Megatron and his soldiers watch from above. Starscream points out the differences in their styles of leadership, and tells Megatron to watch his back whenever Scorponok is around.

Flash forward to the present day, in which Megatron and Scorponok stare each other down in an attempt to gain an advantage over the other. After trading words for several minutes, the battle between the two Decepticons begins in earnest. As it does, Ironhide awakens and tries to figure out how to deal with the situation.

The battle between the two Decepticon leaders rages on for quite some time, with each gaining a momentary advantage over the other, but neither of them manages to gain the upper hand against the other until Scorponok collapses a mountain on top of Megatron. As Scorponok gloats over his victory, he is stabbed from behind by Megatron, who expresses little emotion in killing off his rival. He then tells Ironhide to let the entire universe that he has returned.

On Cybertron, Jetfire briefs the Autobot Council on Megatron’s return, with Avalon asking whether or not Prime has been found, with Jetfire offering a negative response. Avalon then severs contact to discuss the situation with Alpha Quintesson. They both now realize that Optimus is deep within the bowels of Unicron, but realize that with the Chaos Bringer almost online, there is very little he can do to remain hidden.

But Optimus doesn’t want to hide. He’s loaded for bear. And ready to bring the fight straight to Unicron!

Review

I’ve been dreading this issue ever since I read the solicitation for it. I had seen the similar situation play out in the cartoon, and was highly unimpressed. Of course, I knew that it wouldn’t happen in quite that way in the comic, but that didn’t stop me from worrying.

That being said, however, I want to say that this issue, without a shadow of a doubt, is one of the better ones that Dreamwave has done. There was a large amount of tension in the Megs/Scorponok battle, and a lot of history behind it. I also particularly liked the fact that it focused on that single thing throughout the issue and didn’t cut between other events happening at the same time. (Something that had been plaguing the last four issues.)

As great as it is, though, there are still some faults with the issue, the biggest being that the winner of the Big Fight was never in doubt. Was anyone really expecting Scorponok to pull a rabbit out of his hat and somehow manage to beat Megs? Was anyone really expecting Megatron to kick the bucket so quickly after his resurrection? So despite the best efforts of the narrative to conceal this fact, the fact that who the winner would be was very much apparent from the start was a let down.

Artwise, Matere manages to channel Guido Guidi, as most of the action looks clear and fluid, as opposed to Milne's more "gritty" look that, while appropriate, started to falter in #28. I honestly hope they stick with this style for the rest of the series.

Finally, and I know most people will agree with me, the fact that Energon is wrapping up in six issues means that a lot of work has gone into this series with very little of it actually paying off. I’ll probably end up writing an essay about this later on, but the fact remains that this issue, more than any other thing, show how much of a bad thing only having eighteen issues to tell your story in can be.

Review by Bombshell