TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE #95

"DESTINY, PART 5"
Writer: Simon Furman | Penciler: Guido Guidi | Inker: Stephen Baskerville
Colorist: John-Paul Bove | Letterer: Shawn Lee | Editor: John Barber
Editor-in-Chief: Chris Ryall

Cover by Andrew Wildman

The Plot: The battle on Cybertron rages. Bludgeon's men depart the Warworld to join the Blitz Engines on the surface, leaving Bludgeon alone aboard ship. The Wreckers infiltrate the Warworld to get to Thunderwing's shell, but Bludgeon takes them out. He is about to kill Kup when Rodimus Prime appears and hurls him from the ship.

Meanwhile, Grimlock comes around and leads the Dinobots and proto-Transformers to the surface, where they help turn the tide against Bludgeon's forces. At the same time, Starscream and Shockwave attack the Warworld with the Ark, taking it out. Elsewhere, Omega Supreme defeats the Decepticon Monstructor, while Blaster beats Soundwave.

Cybertron is saved, but Rodimus Prime worries about new threats looming.

G1 Continuity: Grimlock orders the proto-Transformers to "munch metal," a line he also employed in TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE. Also, while not GENERATION ONE related, Rodimus Prime says "Well, that's just prime," the catchphrase of Optimus Primal from the BEAST WARS TV series, for which Simon Furman provided a few scripts.

Body Count: Sandstorm is run through by Bludgeon, but shows up alive and well on the last page. However it appears that Streetwise of the Protectobots is killed, and Omega Supreme quite clearly destroys Monstructor. Bludgeon is likely dead, especially since he saw a vision of his own demise a couple issues ago, but the kill is unconfirmed at this point.

Variant "retro" cover by Guido Guidi

My Thoughts: Overall this issue is not the bloodbath I had expected. Perhaps Furman is mellowing in his old age? In any case, I'm pleased to see most everyone survived. Soundwave lives, as do pretty much all of the Autobots. Compare this with the Unicron battle in issue 75, where the body count was catastrophically high.

I really don't like when Furman uses the Transformers as his own personal cannon fodder. It's possible to tell a compelling story of a grand battle without resorting to shock-value deaths by the truckload, and Furman does just that here. Maybe he's finally learned that when you don't kill everyone, it makes the occasional single death all the more tragic.

I also appreciated the brief skirmish between Rodimus and Bludgeon, which was most certainly an intentional nod to the Rodimus/Galvatron fight in TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE, right down to Rodimus flinging his foe out of a large thing orbiting Cybertron.

Final Opinion: Now we get to see where Furman will go with Rodimus Prime. He's finally arrived, and he knows that Primus was trying to warn him about Jhiaxus, the Underbase, and the Deathbringer. Optimus Prime is still on Earth trying to relocate the humans, and Shockwave and Starscream remain at large aboard the Ark. Plus, while ultra Magnus defeated Galvatron, he's presumably still alive. This seems like a heck of a lot to cram into one final five-issue story arc, but Furman has proved quite adept this far at juggling his various threads, so I trust that he'll pull off a finale worthy of this project.

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