Transformers Escalation 2

Transformers  Escalation 2

Summary :

9 month ago a senator and a general meet  to discuss reassurances,  unbeknownst to them  the senator is being targeted by Runamuck in car mode.

In the present,  Prime and the Autobots  are  on their way  to perform damage control,  by  retrieving  Sunstreaker's remains. 

While reviewing Ironhides report  again.  Prime orders Ironhide  to not engage  the Decepticons in any way shape or form,  because a knee jerk reaction might be just what they want. 

Instead, Ironhide is ordered to return  Jimmy and Verity  to  the ark 19. 

The Decepticons in the mean time  put their own machinations in motion  and they involve  facsimiles

  

Credits:

Writers : Simon Furman

Artist : EJ Su

Colors : Zac Atkinson

Letters : Neil Uyetake

Editor: Chris Ryall Dan Taylor

Notes :

The reporter on the news report on the last page, is named Archee Andrews. A  reference to Arcee from  G1. ( or possibly IDW Arcee, but this is debatable. )

Released 20 December  2006, Escalation 2 will be  one of the  last Transformers issues released in  2006 by IDW.

Nominally Transformers\New Avengers takes place during this issue and issue 1,

but the placement is rather sketchy.  

 Review  :

Escalation 2  has the  second major battle between  humans  and  Transformers 

and  humans, once again  come out victorious. 

But again, this is  not a problem. 

Jazz and  Wheeljack clearly underestimate  the  threat  of the humans.  ( and we as the readers do likewise.  ) 

Both sides  come out well  though, the humans as  well  prepared  and resourceful. 

While the Autobots manage  to get  away, mostly unscathed after being  hit by the unexpected. 

In other words, they come out alive.  

But the real big  scene  is small in it's depiction, but huge in its scope.

It's the  scene  where  Optimus Prime  stops  the  truck  with the  remains of  "Sunstreaker."

With his legs  !

Prime lets  the truck crash against his lower  legs. 

Possibly killing the  driver and if not killing him,  injuring him severely. 

And this is a huge, huge change in the  character of Optimus  Prime.  

The original  G1 Optimus Prime would never even contemplate doing  something  like this. 

Let alone actually doing it. If he would  do this, and possibly  kill  a  human being there would be no end of  angsting  and handwringing. 

And that  is fine for  G1 Optimus Prime.

This however, is not  G1 Optimus Prime, this is a  reinterpretation of  Optimus Prime, who, while he has the same core values as the original Optimus Prime, is a totally  different  being. 

A far more pragmatic  leader who is willing and able,  to resort to questionable  tactics and not above getting his hands dirty, or to  make morally  questionable decisions.

As demonstrated by Prime's  non reaction to letting the  truck crash against his shins. 

This scene is  nicely under played, but shows the  humongous difference between this Prime and  his  other  incarnations.

This Prime also  show cases an icy grip upon things, when he  absolutely  does not allow  Ironhide  to  retaliate against the Decepticons for the attack, in the face  of the uncertainties  they  encounter. 

The rest of the issue is mostly a holding pattern, with Jimmy and Verity reacting  to  Hunter's possible violent death.  

As well as Ironhide  going  in to  more details about the infiltration protocol,  explaining what exactly  the facsimilies are supposed to  do. 

Which boils down  to  destabilizing  geo political hotspots,  to the point of all out war  and letting humanity wipe themselves out.  

And the Decepticons  plotting  and  Megatron   keeping his house on order,

but  its still more of a holding pattern. 

Sadly, a  subplot involving  possible facsimiles  and  American senators,  which takes up the first and  last page,  goes nowhere.

Not just in this mini series, but in all up coming  issues of  Furman's storyline

the subplot is brought up and then unceremoniously dropped never to be addressed again. 

And after All Hail Megatron runs roughshod  over everything, the plot point is never even mentioned anymore.  

But I would be remiss  not to mention the  plot point that  sets this whole thing in  motion. 

Reclaiming Sunstreakers  remains  and  then coming to the conclusion that  the  remains are fake, they are in the end just a car.

The whole attack  from  issue 1 was staged. 

Which means that Sunstreaker and possibly Hunter are still alive. 

Which  is the note we end on. 

Escalation 2  is partially a holding pattern  ( the Decepticon  segments  )  but  other then that,  it's yet another high point.  

Especially in show casing  how different IDW  Optimus Prime is.  ( For the time being, sadly he would slowly  be seen  to revert to his G1  incarnation. )

It's just a shame that  it opens and closes  with a subplot that's cast  drifting in the wind.

Because despite all the build up and ominous foreshadowing, the facsimiles subplots  really go nowhere.   

 

Transformers Escalation 1

Transformers  Escalation  1

Summary:

The Machination is running  a  VR simulation to  incapacitate  alien mechanoids, otherwise  known as Tranformers.

While in the ark  19, the humans  get to hear that they are evicted, after living  in the ark for  several weeks at  least. 

Where they gave the Autobots a crash course in Earth culture. 

Sunstreaker  and Ironhide are tasked with returning the humans. 

Ratchet surmises this is Prowl's way of punishing him. 

The order  to  evict the humans however, comes from Optimus Prime himself, for cold clinical and pragmatic reasons.  

Megatron in the mean time,  kickstarts phase two  and wants the facsimiles to be activated. 

The Machination makes their move  engineering an ambush  during a  traffic jam and seemingly  destroying Sunstreaker and killing Hunter. 

Credits :

Writer : Simon Furman

Artist: E J Su

Colors : John Rauch, Zac Atkinson and Aaron Myers

letters : Chris Mowry

Editor : Chris Ryall,  Dan Taylor

Notes:

Release date  29 November  2006.

Prime  reviews several reports. 

Ultra Magnus, bringing in Swindle as seen on the last page of Spotlight Ultra Magnus.

Jetfire reporting on a finding, most likely a call back to Stormbringer.

Springer  reporting on a  unknown battle, most likely a phase six battle. 

And Blades reporting a Decepticon  unit laying  low. 

The first two are fairly obvious, but the second two are never referred to again.  

Review  :

And we are back on Earth  again !  

After the disappointing  conclusion of Stormbringer and the uneven spotlights, I'm glad  to be on firmer ground again. 

Even  if its still a very slow burn. 

But we open with a bang and  see Wheeljack  getting blown up.

Only to find out its a VR  simulation of Mr Drake's team, running a simulation to see if they can take out  an alien  "mech" because even they are not so sure about that.

They  seem to be  training  in a  Winnebago  of some kind.

But how big is that thing exactly ? It sure looks bigger on the inside, then it does on the outside. 

Do they employ timelords  ?

Escalation  turns up the heat  for the Autobots, because the humans  are starting to push back. 

Normally I rather dislike humans taking down Transformers  because  its usually depicted as way too easy.

 (  The  Bay movies, where the Transformers in one scene appear to be indestructible and in the other  made from tin foil. While in yet another they can  take  unimaginable amounts of damage and  still survive.

 The least said about  Gi-joe \Transformers issues 6, where  The Baroness takes Starscream out with a handgun,  (  !!!)  the better.  )

Or  the humans keep  attacking the wrong mechanoids.  (  RAAT, Circuitbreaker, where do you think you two are going  ?!  ) 

But its not nearly as annoying  in Escalation as it is in other series.

There are two reasons for this. 

Human  against  Transformers battles are still fairly scarce up to this point. 

Escalation 1 has  one of two  skirmishes, where  normal humans take up arms against  Transformers.

The next  one is in Escalation 2

And most importantly, and the second reason, the  attack on Sustreaker  here is  executed in a well thought out, well choreographed manner.

Time, money, effort and tactics have been put in to this attack on Sunstreaker 

and it turns everything up on it's ear. 

Up until now, we thought the Transformers were relatively safe.  Humans couldn't  touch them,  The Machination threat wasn't really serious. 

Hunter, Verity and Jimmy were also  save. 

And then out of the blue, the story makes a  180 degree and its a whole new ball game.

The humans just  struck back, Sunstreaker exploded and  Hunter might be dead.  

Escalation 1 opened in a  slow  easy going manner at best and suddenly  two characters are dead including one of  the  three humans, who we thought would get  away  unscathed. 

There are also a few nice character beats, during the attack between Ironhide and  Verity and Jimmy. Despite being  on roughly the same side, Jimmy and Verity are most concerned about Hunter, while Ironhide's  concern is Sunstreaker. 

 It draws a clear  line in the sand that both species are  still most concerned  with themselves. 

Speaking of the humans, a non disclosed amount of time has passed,  but  the three humans have  been  at the ark 19  for  several weeks at the very least. Been given living  quarters, even a video game where  Sunstreaker  trashes  the  battlechargers, among other amenities. 

Including  clothes.

So why exactly are they still wearing the same clothes from Infiltration  ?

This isn't a cartoon and we aren't so incapacitated that we cant  recognise  Verity,  Hunter and Jimmy, the  ONLY  humans fraternising  with  the Autobots. 

As it turns out they have been teaching the Autobots  to  better  acclimatise  their avatars for better  cover.  

Jimmy  and Hunter are ore argumentative of the decision  to cut the humans loose, but Verity just reacts with a sneer,  telling them that  this is nothing new. 

It also turns out that Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide are the ones that made the humans feel the most welcome. 

Ratchet and Jazz  are  understandable. Ratchet roped them in, while Jazz has always been  the one most  interested in different cultural influences. 

The odd one out  is Ironhide, who never seemed to be that  much  interested in humans.  You'd expect the kid friendly yellow kid appeal character to be in his stead, but Furman thankfully buckles that trend and Bumblebee is nowhere to be seen.  

Prowl in his infinite wisdom, has decided to  let Sunstreaker, the character least  affiliated with the humans and Ironhide  to bring them home. 

What home ? In regards to Jimmy and Verity.  

Verity is basically homeless and Jimmy's garage is trashed.  I'm sure insurance has a few questions for him. 

Instead of  Ratchet or Jazz. Ratchet surmises that this is Prowl's way of  punishing Ratchet for his various transgressions. 

Which seems rather petulant and petty  for Prowl, but as we will later  find out this is the least of  Prowl's transgressions. 

It sets him up as no  score is too small not to settle, nothing  should be overlooked, everything should be dealt with.  

And finally, we find out that despite believing that Prowl was behind it,  the order was given by Prime whose reasoning  for it are cold, detached, clear and utterly pragmatic. 

The Autobots should keep their distance from any indigent species, when they are not sure  if they can save  them or their world. 

and this simple line has  absolute chilling implications. 

Normally when the Autobots, or the good guys appear, the reader knows things wil be alright, they in the end wil save the day. 

But this simple line here, throws all of that in  question. All of a sudden we aren't so sure anymore if earth will come out of this unscathed or, judging from how  badly Cybertron was left behind in Stormbringer, at all. 

Prime also gets  parts of his  early  IDW characterisation, which is mostly divorced from his melodramatic  G1  interpretation also pioneered by Furman. 

Sadly this  G1  interpretation would  come back later again. 

Here Prime is cold and detached, much more befitting  a  commanding officer overseeing a millions year old war and having seen countless billions of  beings die and countless  worlds  burn. 

Even as Prowl  delivers his report that  the humans have left Prime still oversees  numerous  operations and  reports  of the ongoing struggle against the Decepticons.

Once again  making it clear that Earth is but one battleground of many, an very important battleground, but just one of many nontheless.

The rest of the issue concerns it self with  touching on subplots, such as Shockwave and Soundwave being on earth prior, as seen in Spotlight Shockwave and Soundwave. But  they have disappeared ever since, so where are they now  ?

And Megatron  putting his house in order, while ordering them to activate the facsimiles. What that exactly entails, we will find out soon enough for now it's just  a new plot thread that's introduced. 

The art is of Su's usual high standards, his humans still have great body languages from Verity's  whatever attitude  as she sneers at Ratchet. To Hunter, Verity and Jimmy sitting dejected  in  the Autobot's cockpits, to the shock and disbelief on Jimmy and Verity's faces at the end.

But the Transformers  get a wide range of emotions as well, including Optimus Prime who is nothing more then a pair of eyes.

There isn't much  left to be said about Su's art. It's one of the best aspects of this series 

and sadly we would lose him  after Revelations, but  for now his art  is of the highest calibre.

Escalation 1  is an excellent follow up  for Infiltration and maintains the  high quality  that Infiltration had.

Where as Stormbringer had a weak start and a very poor ending  and where the Spotlights can be wildly uneven, Escalation 1  is a strong  opener for the second major arc.    

Transformers spotlight 5 Ultra Magnus

Transformers spotlight  5

Ultra Magnus

Summary :

On Zull Ultra Magnus, apprehends  the  war criminal Swindle for selling Cybertronian technology to alien races.

Swindle however  dangles  the location  of an  even bigger war criminal  in front of  Magnus` nose in  exchange  for his freedom. 

Despite going in against all of his principles and wondering if he breaks his principles, where exactly it will end, Magnus agrees and cuts Swindle  free.  

The information leads Magnus to Nebulos, where he find that Scorponok is  using the Zarak consortium as a front. 

Magnus infiltrates the consortium and finds among other things, a Nebulan who appears to be  able to transform. 

Shortly after that Magnus, his holomatter avatar is revealed and destroyed. 

Nagnus  forces  his way  in to the facility in his robot form, where he  encounters Scorponok. 

Though Scorponok normally flees when found out. This time around he  is on the breakthrough of something enormous in scope and  is willing to take Magnus on. 

In the  ensuing battle Scorponok's business partner, Mo Zarak is damaged and seemingly  killed.

Magnus  makes use of the  distraction to  shoot  Scorponok in the face. 

Damaged  and stymied in his  endeavour,  Scorponok  flees  via an  randomised artificial wormhole  generator.  

29  cycles later  Magnus finds  swindle on Burgas and  takes him in once more.

Swindle  once again tries to bargain and Magnus wonders once again how many compromises he is willing to make.  

Credits:  

Writer : Simon Furman

Artist : Robby Musso

Colorist : Kieran Oats

Letters : Neil Uyetake

Editor : Chris Ryall, Dan Taylor.

Notes  :

Released 17 Jan  2007, the first Transformers comic of  2007 along with Escalation 1.

The report Magnus gives at the end, is received by Prime during Escalation 1

This issue takes place  in 1988, except the last two panels which take place in  2006.

Review  :

Despite being an Autobot that has always been in the spotlight to a degree: 

From being  the temporary new leader in the 1986 animated movie. 

Rodimus' second in command in the cartoon. 

The pivot of Operation Volcano and a powerhouse in  TF UK.  ( That often got his tailpipe handed to him by Galvatron  ) 

And the leader of the Wreckers in Dreamwave. 

Ultra Magnus actually never had much of a personality, in  any of  the G1 incarnations beyond generic brave  noble Autobot. 

The only  personality he had, came from his bio where  it was said that he would rather be lead, then lead,  but was a born leader  and it was a shame that he didn't realise his himself.  

As such, Ultra Magnus is one of the first characters in the spotlight issues, that  actually gets completely reinvented. 

Future spotlights such as Kup, Wheelie, Blur and others  will do this as  well. 

While others are  all to happy to riff off the spotlighted characters original personality,  such  as Shockwave, Hot Rod, Grimlock etc.

And that is fine, because  their original characterisations were rock solid to begin with. 

Shockwave after all, has always been portrayed  as a being of utter logic.

While I am  all for moving on and reinvention in Transformers, some characters are iconic in their own right. 

So Magnus his complete reinvention then 

He is a complete and utter bureaucrat, who does everything by the  book and follows the rules to the letter. 

Straight laced and unwilling to bend him or his principles for anybody 

He works for the Tyrest Accord, a shadowy nebulous ill defined  greater burocracy, that  gives Magnus the authority  to  go as he pleases  and  take out  rouge Cybertronians.  

Magnus himself is  portrayed as  unflinching, incorruptible, willing and able to do anything and waltzes through  the defences of  several  alien species, as  per the opening pages of the comic  when he  takes Swindle in. 

Being a straight-laced  less fascist, certainly not as violent, version of  a robotic Judge Dredd. Magnus is unfortunately a bit bland and boring. 

While the idea of a lone  cop, making sure that an accord between Cybertron and the rest of the universe is  duly followed and enforced if necessary. So that  the  conflict doesn't spill over too much  is a very interesting idea  and  plays handily  in to the cloak and dagger cold war  backdrop, Furman has been setting up these past  20  issues  or so. 

Magnus himself however, is far too straight-laced to be interesting. 

He is borderline boring.  (  Revelations later on, in More Then Meets The Eye, that turn him in to a bit of a joke not withstanding.  ) 

Furman wisely and immediately breaks  Magnus straight-laced persona and  has him  question his  own principles, when Swindle tempts him with Scorponok.  A rouge Decepticon, which happily and all too willingly flaunts the codes of an interplanetary accord on sharing Cybertronian science.

And flaunts it quite happily and brazenly.  

Which brings us to  the most interesting  part of the  story. 

The infiltration of Scoponok's deep cover, the Zarak consortium. 

Which lies on Nebulos. 

And we get a second and so far, last glimpse  in on Nebulos. Where the Nebulans are once again  the bald aliens of the cartoon. 

Though thankfully they aren't  all green.  

We are also  introduced to Zarak here, better known as Mo Zarak,  ...no don't laugh.

Mo Zarak himself, is a direct copy of  the Rebirth 3 parter, Zarak.

And his apparent demise is more then enough to cause Scorponok to tuck tail and run. 

Swindle  here is also a  perfectly serviceable character, who is in his G1 old self and again that's fine. It's not just his most memorable characterisation, with a name like Swindle he can't be much else.  ( Oh, but later down the line he tried.  ) 

As a character  Ultra Magnus is rather cut and dry. 

Too simple and too focused to be  interesting, but when he is forced to break his principles, it gets more interesting. Because sooner or later he will break them again and again.  

Until he crosses the lines he is supposed to uphold. 

Where does it stop ?

This is a  problem Magnus himself  ponders and wisely, Furman doesn't offer any awnsers.

With the book ending  on a loop. 

Magnus has arrested Swindle again and Swindle wants to deal again.  

Spotlight Ultra Magnus is an  intriguing look in to  how  the  rest of the universe, deals with these  sentient robots and their cold war. 

With perfectly serviceable art, but  it still suffers from Dreamwave disease with  dubious anatomy, ballooning Transfromers and  dull surprises expressions.

 

Musso's art would improve later on, when he tackles Spotlight Cliffjumper. 

Other then  this interesting look at how other species deal with Transformers and how  rouge transformers wheel and deal  their way across the cosmos.  

Spotlight Ultra Magnus doesn't really  do much with the  reinvention of Magnus himself. 

He is too  dour and  dry to be a main character.

And Furman never does much with him and why is he  the only enforcer of the Tyrest accord  ?

Wouldn't it make sense to have more then one enforcer  ?

Spotlight Ultra Magnus is propped up by  interesting ideas and notions.

The reintroduction of  Scorponok  and the reinvention of Ultra Magnus as an enforcer, rather then by the actual execution. 

An interesting experiment that just  is a bit  lacking.

It's a light meditation on compromises, to  get  at a goal,  and how far one is willing to  go to achieve it. 

Spotlight Ultra Magnus is a solid entry  in  the Spotlight series and its not  a huge misfire, such as Sixshot.

But you wont miss much  by skipping it  all together either.  

Transformers Stormbringer 4

 Transformers Stormbringer 4

Summary 

Thunderwing  returns  to Cybertron and makes short work of The Wreckers,  who use hit and run strategies.

They barely slow him down. 

Razorclaw and his crew arrive and stay in orbit, ready to  burn Cybertron to ashes. If it comes to that, but they are ready  to give the Autobots  an chance to take Thunderwing down. 

But if  it comes down to it Thunderwing and Cybertron can burn and the Autobots along with it. 

Jetfire manages to  find a  rather dubious weak link in ultra energon after scouring Bludgeon's archives  with  the Technobots. 

Optimus Prime  goes top side with an army of  reactivated  centurion drones and more or less monologues Thunderwing to  death while shooting  at him.  

Notes :

Stormbringer 4 takes place most likely during Infiltration 5 and 6. 

Review  :

And this is sadly where it all comes apart. 

Issue 4  feels rushed, as if  Furman realised after wasting too much  time  with the slow build up in issue 1, he suddenly had to conclude Stormbringer.

But sadly this is not unusual for Furman, his conclusions tend to be weak. 

The stories themselves are brilliant, but the conclusions fairly weak.  

Stormbringer 4  has two huge problems however. 

First is the "weakness" of ultra energon. 

Now a weakness for a plot device is not  inherently bad.  It has to have a weakness  otherwise the users become unstoppable, but the weakness is  so  ..ridicilous,  it's hard to believe. 

Ultra energon's weakness boils down to the more you use it, the faster it is depleted. 

...Err  isn't that the way most fuels work ?

The faster you go in a car, the faster you empty the gas tank  for instance. 

So what's so unusual about that  ?

How is that a weakness  ? It's how fuels work. 

What's even worse is that this is treated by  all  involved as some sort of revelation of the highest magnitude. As if they never ever heard of  fuel depleting it self, faster the more you use it.

And that's just plain ridicilous. 

But what's  even worse is that  after all the sturm und drang of the series and building Thunderwing up as nigh unstoppable. Optimus Prime talks him to death while,  shooting him to deplete the  ultra energon. 

And while that's all fine and dandy, if it  was depicted  interesting and dynamically.  Figuroa chose to depict it on one page and in such a boring and bland manner as possible. 

Showing close ups of Thunderwing's feet walking forward, staggering and then coming  to a  halt. 

And..and, that's it. 

As if  artist and writer  both suddenly  realised they only had  3 pages left to wrap  this comic up.  (  And they do, the scene i described is on page  20  ) So let's get on with it, who cares if its unsatisfactionary  ?

And its a shame, because until then Stormbringer was firing on all cylinders.

 We have seen what Thunderwing is capable off in issue 3  and he shoved The Wreckers aside, as if they weren't even there.

Even an army of centurion drones barely held him at bay. 

And considering the last time Thunderwing broke loose, it took two complete armies and Cybertron itself  to stop him.  So the odds were stacked against Prime and The Wreckers to begin with. 

And how do they  deal with him ? Prime talks him to death till Thunderwing's tank is empty. 

...whoo

It's as disappointing as it sounds. 

And  there were inklings of a better ending in there.

The moment the Predacons  bugged out, the Autobots should have as well  and let the Predacons  nuke Thunderwing and Cybertron  in to oblivion. 

That would not just  have been an conclusion worthy of  Thunderwing, who was nigh on unstoppable  in this  mini series. 

But would also have increased the stakes and the animosity even more. 

Cybertron would have been truly gone now. The Transformers would have become truly nomadic  and  it would have caused even more bad blood between Autobot and Decepticon.

Because it were the Decepticons  that  destroyed Cybertron once and for all. 

It might even have  caused dissention within the Decepticon ranks, with Decepticons  disagreeing with Megatron's  decision to destroy their home planet. 

It would have been an immense shift in the dynamics of the story. 

But sadly, this didn't happen and what we got was the equivalent of an empty tank. 

The Predacons are there mostly to promise a deadline and a possibility that never comes. Because they pull out all too soon  and other then a possibility of blitzing Cybertron,  they add nothing to the story.  

It's possible that Furman was planning to blitz Cybertron, but the idea was  nixed by Hasbro in a late stadium or Furman changed his mind in a late stadium. But this is all conjecture. 

What it does do however, is remind  us again  that Megatron is not to be trifled with,  nor disobeyed. 

Optimus Prime on the other hand, so far is still depicted as his usual G1 self. Troubled  self doubting,  world weary and tired of this endless war. 

This soon will thankfully change.  

Stormbringer is wildly uneven. The first issue was boring and plodding.  

Issue 2  was a return to form  and brilliant as a result. Issue 3  raised the stakes and showed us what Thunderwing is capable of.

Issue 4  stacked the odds even more and then at the halfway point, disengaged and  crashed hard. 

And it could have been so  good.

The ending let's the side down and just fizzles out, which is as said at the start of this review, a problem with Furman. 

His endings  generally  are  rather  poor.

Off course, every freelancer wants to  keep themselves in to a  job and  keep the narrative going. But  stories to have to end some time  and a new story has to begin. 

But this has been a problem that  has plagued Furman for years, even  going way back  to the  original Transformers series. Target  2006's ending was equally terrible and fizzled out as well. 

Even worse, the Target  2006 ending left huge holes that were never addressed.

Stormbringer 4 can at least be bothered to tie in with the spotlights and Escalation, as it takes place during Infiltration. 

Jetfire and the Technobots are left behind on Cybertron, to dig further in to Bludgeon's research, Which in turn  he was ordered to do so by Megatron to find out what Shockwave was  up to. 

Project Regenesis, which talks about seeding countless planets with energon including earth. 

Remember this, it becomes important later on. 

Which prompts Prime to make a stop at earth.

All this is a clever weaving of spotlights and referring to what has  happened before.  With out making it overt and making this world feel that much more connected and  bigger.

It's only a single page  but ever so slightly redeems the  sloppy way of dealing with  Thunderwing.

 

Next : Escalation