TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE #89

"NATURAL SELECTION, PART 4"
Writer: Simon Furman | Penciler: Andrew Wildman | Inker: Stephen Baskerville
Colorist: John-Paul Bove | Letterer: Chris Mowry | Editor: John Barber
Editor-in-Chief: Chris Ryall

The Plot: The Dinobots, hunted by Scorponok's forces and realizing they can't win, resolve to kill Grimlock for his betrayal. They lure Grimlock to the "nursery", where all the Nucleon-infected Autobots are kept. But Scorponok's forces also converge on the area. Grimlock convinces the Dinobots he is still on their side by taking out the Decepticons. The last remaining non-Deceptified Autobots arrive, and Grimlock reveals he has a plan to stop Scorponok.

Beneath the planet, Hot Rod touches the Covenant of Primus and receives a vision, in which he learns the monsters chasing him were prototype Transformers judged a failure by Primus. Primus eliminated them to start over, but some survived. Hot Rod believes his job is to finish them off with Primus's sword.

On Earth, Optimus Prime drives through British Columbia toward the Ark's crash site, where he plans to destroy the starship to prevent it from unleashing any further horrors on the planet.

Meanwhile, Ultra Magnus and the Autobot attack team approach Cybertron. Under orders from Scorponok, they are given an "all-clear" signal, with the intention to shoot them down when they reach Cybertron.

G1 Continuity: The origin of the Transformers is briefly recapped in Hot Rod's vision. 

Body Count: Grimlock possibly kills a Decepticon named Treadshot when he leaves Decepticon headquarters to find the Dinobots. He also may have killed Dreadwind and Darkwing in the fight at the nursery. 

Variant "retro" cover by Guido Guidi

My Thoughts: So apparently that wasn't a sword and shield Hot Rod found at the end of the previous issue -- it was a sword and a data disc (bearing a suspicious resemblance to the "golden disks" from the BEAST WARS TV series) called the Covenant of Primus. With all due respect to Andrew Wildman, though, when you draw a sword and something disc-like next to it, most folks will assume it's a shield unless you make it really, really clear that it isn't.

And -- not to pick on poor Andrew, but -- Brainstorm's new/old head is really ugly. He doesn't look right without a faceplate.

On the writing front, I notice that Furman has suddenly started providing a little caption box with a character's name in it the first time they speak.  Not for everyone, but for some, at least. Good! He's reaching so deep into the well of the latter-year characters that I need some assistance!

Moving onto Shockwave, despite his cover spotlight, we don't get a whole lot from him in this issue, other than clarification that when the Ark crashed, he apparently survived his wounds by linking himself with the inboard computer. Turns out it was Shockwave masquerading as Auntie in the earlier issues of this series.

I've never understood Furman's fascination with the Dinobots. He developed them a lot in the old U.K. stories, and continued to do so when he took over TRANSFORMERS U.S. To me, thanks to the cartoon, they're just big dumb comic relief characters who come in to fight the current big bad for a while, but never really outshine the "real" Autobots. To Furman, they're kind of like Klingons or something -- noble, elite warriors with their own code of honor and everything. I just don't get it. They look cool and all, but they've never felt as important to me as he tries to make them. All the important Autobots turn into cars and trucks, as far as I'm concerned. The others are just supporting characters (except Perceptor and Blaster -- I love those guys).

But then again, I was never really into dinosaurs to begin with as a child. I knew kids who were ga-ga over any sort of dinosaur related toy, but that just didn't appeal to me.

Final Opinion: Other than the weird fascination with the Dinobots, this was another good issue. The stage would seem to be set for Grimlock to pull something out of his tailpipe and stop Scorponok. Looking forward to that.

Available as part of TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE, vol. 2 from Amazon.com.