THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CURRENT TRANSFORMERS COMICS FROM IDW PUBLISHING

The Revenge of the Fallen Movie Prequel: Alliance #4
Reviewed by Inflatable Dalek

Nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide...

This issue brings the title—Alliance—as the main focus. With Prime's wonderful narration and the quick, fast-paced action, this issue delivers a well done story. Swindle and Dead End's takedown were sweet. Regrettably, the takedown of the other Decepticons were too short, and looked too easy, but there's only so much you could deliver in this amount of pages. It does raise the question why bother bringing in so many Decepticons in the first place. The whole 'hunt for the Decepticons' thing should've been done across all four issues, instead of just the last two. Lennox is good material too, and the jerks in the Pentagon are hilarious. Best of all, Alliance #4 ties directly into the new movie, unlike the first Prequel. And unlike Reign of Starscream, Mowry pulled it off with a nice conclusion. Milne's artwork and Perez's colours go well together, and Milne did his artwork very nicely compared to the aforementioned conclusion to Reign of Starscream.

However, there is a niggling sense that everything we read in the four issues was just to introduce the existence of NEST to the readers, and makes me wonder what's the point of the whole arc other than to advertise the repaint toys. It could've been much better, but then again, it could've been much worse.


NEST flies from Diego Garcia to San Francisco in large jets. The Autobots were warned by the Pentagon people (for lack of a better term. Somehow 'Keller and friends' doesn't have that ring to it) not to use robot modes in fear of revealing themselves. The bridge was empty of civilians as far as the art goes, though, so the Pentagon people are just being jerks. Lennox is particularly frustrated with them. The Autobots ignores this after the San Francisco incident, though. Ironhide transforms after taking down Fracture (although they were in an obscure lane instead of, say, the heart of Italy). The Autobots were in robot modes both in the Middle East and in Florida, so I guess Optimus doesn't take the Pentagon's orders to heart.

'The Usual Story' that was used for cover-up is McClaren Robotics. Presumably this is a dummy organization of sorts that take the rap for the robot sightings. A bit silly, but better explained than AHM.

Bumblebee talks in music/radio for all his lines in the entire issue. The lines are namely:
"Nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide."
"Don't tell me twice."
"Guess I'll be hitting the road."
I have no idea which songs or TV shows they are from, so go figure.

Throughout Alliance, Ironhide acts as Bumblebee's big brother or mentor of sorts.

Swindle references his last meeting with Bumblebee waaaaay back in the first Movie Prequel, where he tortured 'Bee. He also gets to use his chest-cannon featured in the toy.

Gunbarrel and Reverb were not seen, but presumably NEST took them down during the Italy mission, as Ironhide says 'that's the third and last of the group' after he kills Fracture. Reportedly, the lack of those two are because of space constricts, and more probably because their toys are cancelled.

Overcast, who landed in Japan, had made his way to Europe (not an error... he's an alien robot, remember) in search for 'it'. Whatever the Decepticons were looking for was never revealed. Possibly the Allspark sliver or the Harvester unit seen in Defiance, but Prime suspects Megatron's body and Sam.

In Florida, Ironhide mentioned that Barricade got away, but the Decepticon was not seen in the artwork.

Incinerator features his card-art goggle-eyes head instead of being more toy accurate. He has proper hands under the slicing rotors.

The new arrivals are Sideswipe (the silver Chevy corvette), Skids and Mudflap (combined Micromaster-combiner style into an ice cream truck) and three bikes. The bikes are either Arcee or three separate fembots, it hasn't been made clear. The toyline does refer to the blue bike as Chromia and the red one as Arcee. The bikes all have unicycle configurations in robot mode.

Eight more protoforms arrive on Earth at the end of the issue, presumably the new Decepticons seen in ROTF




Last issue, Dead End's name was spelled correctly, with a space. This issue he's referred to as Deadend.

Block-colouring are used in some scenes, notably in the groupshot for the three fembots, where they are all semi-block-coloured.

Epps wears a bandana this issue, thus making differentiation between him and Salani impossible unless named.

Skids/Mudflap scans the ice cream truck in the junkyard from issue 2, and it's not hard to imagine motorcycles in the junkyard. But who junks a shiny new Chevy corvette?

Not so much of an error, but this is the second time someone's made fun of Ironhide's vehicle mode, the first being Bumblebee outracing him and mocking him in issue 2. This time, Ratchet comments on its over-stylishness. Is it a jab at GMC?

After four issues, the only time we see the name 'NEST' is in one speech bubble at the second last page. Otherwise it is constantly referred to as 'the team', 'us', or 'the alliance'.



Ironhide: "I hate flying."

Lennox: "Bumblebee, trail him over the bridge. It's closed off."
Bumblebee: (via radio) "Don't tell me twice..."

Ratchet: "You know, my appearance seems to be much more suited for this mission, Ironhide. It appears that both you and our humans counterparts are—what's the word I'm looking for?"
Ironhide: "Stylish? Stow it, Ratchet."

Swindle: "Bumblebee! Really? They sent you?"
Lennox: "No. They sent us."
Swindle: "How touching."

Ironhide: -kills Fracture- "Ciao, Bella."