TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE #100

"THE WAR TO END ALL WARS, PART 5"
Writer: Simon Furman
Pencilers: Andrew Wildman, Geoff Senior, & Guido Guidi
Inks: Stephen Baskerville & Geoff Senior | Colorist: John-Paul Bove
Letterer: Chris Mowry | Editor: John Barber
Editor-in-Chief: Chris Ryall

Cover by Andrew Wildman

The Plot: Rodimus's forces return to Cybertron to find it changed, corrupted and haunted by shadow creatures who can kill with a touch. The Dinobots still live, and explain that this happened near instantaneously. Rodimus realizes that Primus, who he now believes to be the dark Matrix energy, is behind everything. He goes to confront Primus while sending the rest of his team to track down Galvatron.

Ultra Magnus and company find Galvatron has taken the space bridge to Nebulos. They pursue him there, where Magnus finally kills him. Fortress Maximus, also now on Nebulos, attempts to kill Magnus, but is stopped by the arrival of a second Autobot team, led by Prowl, which had traveled to Earth looking for Galvatron, joined by human forces.

Meanwhile, Rodimus reaches the Primus chamber and is transported to Zero Space, where he confronts the dark Matrix creature and fights Optimus Prime, summoned and possessed to attack him. Rodimus uses the sword of Primus to finish the creature off, sealing it into Zero Space forever. Optimus dies, and Rodimus and Spike return to the real world.

We return to the far future, where Rodimus reflects on the fact that after the corrupted Matrix energy was destroyed, all violence seemed to leave the Transformer race. They then traveled the stars, spreading peace wherever they went -- even Starscream and Shockwave. And the human and Nebulan races joined forces as well, rebuilding together.

Finally Rodimus dies, and in his place a plant-robot organism springs into existence.

G1 Continuity: Not really anything from Generation One. Though in Zero Space, Rodimus manages to summon various versions of himself from across the multiverse (various Transformers toylines) to aid his fight.

BW Continuity: The plant which takes Rodimus's place bears some resemblance to Botanica, a character from BEAST MACHINES -- the sequel series to the BEAST WARS show from the nineties (on which Furman did some writing).

Body Count: Well, everyone left on Cybertron when Rodimus departed -- aside from the Dinobots, who were protected via Grimlock's brief time as host for the dark Matrix -- was changed into a shadow creature. The shadows then kill Hosehead, Slingshot, and Streetwise (who I thought was killed a few issues back but merely had his demise delayed). Galvatron kills Scattershot behind the scenes as he uses the space bridge to head for Nebulos. And of course, Galvatron, Fortress Maximus, and Optimus Prime all perish as well.

Variant "retro" cover by Guido Guidi

My Thoughts: So that was, uhh... something. I won't try to break down all the details, but suffice to say that everything Furman explains here adds up just fine and makes perfect logical sense. The corrupted Matrix creature was behind practically everything that's happened over the past twenty or so issues (except for the Underbase stuff, which was totally extraneous to the entire story... bizarre).

It's all just too metaphysical to me. TRANSFORMERS, for me at least, has always been a pretty simple premise: shape-shifting robots in a war between clearly defined good and bad guys. That's it. It's black-and-white, and that's what I like about it. You can certainly provide extra depth to the characters and their motivations. But I guess what bugs me here is that the final confrontation was simply between the Autobots and, like, a demon. Sure, the previous story arc was a big Decepticon war -- but wouldn't you expect that the advertised "definitive ending" to the original Transformers saga might conclude with that instead? Wouldn't you expect Optimus Prime, the end-all, be-all Autobot, to be the protagonist of that story, or at least to serve in some capacity other than mindless puppet?

And to be fair, Prime does regain his senses and convince Rodimus to do... whatever it is he does to finish off the Matrix creature, but still... this whole thing where the story's point is that he's outlived his usefulness, and is basically in a holding pattern until he dies, is just depressing and not the right way to go. We got twenty extra issues of G1 TRANSFORMERS and Optimus Prime stood on the sidelines for about fifteen of them! I can't be the only one finds this odd, can I? Kill him if you need to kill him, but don't prolong his existence as a shadow of his former self, simply to kill him in the final issue.

Anyway -- the journey was enjoyable enough, though I expected and hoped for more from these issues. They weren't bad, but they could've been so much better if they'd stuck to the basics rather than trying to get all metaphysical and mythological. The series started strong, but really petered out at the end.

Final Opinion: Now that REGENERATION ONE is over, I have a pitch for IDW which I'd enjoy a lot; certainly much more than this series: An ongoing, open-ended series set in the Transformers TV series continuity, telling stories from the twenty years between the cartoon's second season and TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE. Y'know, the definitive Generation One continuity; the version of the story we all actually care about.

Get someone well versed in the cartoon's mythology to write it; absolutely get Guido Guidi to draw it, and color it in a cel-shaded style. Don't make it a kiddie book, but aim it at all ages. I would read the living heck out of this series. And if IDW needs someone to write it, well there's a guy right here with zero professional experience but a profound love of that cartoon, willing to work for peanuts!

(Yes, my final REGENERATION ONE review turned into a creative pitch. Honestly, I didn't see that coming either.)

Available as part of Transformers: Regeneration One Volume 4 from Amazon.com.