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  

Transformers Stormbringer 3

Transformers Stormbringer 3

Summary  :

Thunderwing is let loose upon Nebulos and demolishes everything in it's way. Not even the infiltration unit on Nebulos can stand in it's way, they are swept aside. 

The Wreckers arrive on cybertron and take out  bludgeon and his disciples  rescuing  Jetfire and the Technobots  in the nick of time.  

But they are not out of  the fire yet, Thunderwing has returned.  

Notes: Stormbringer  3 is  issue  9 in the underlying sub numbering. 

This issue was released in September  2006.

This issue ties directly in to, Infiltration 4.

Credits:

Writer : Simon Furman 

Artist : Don Figueroa

Colors: Josh Burcham

Letters : Robbie Robbins

Editor : Chris Ryall  And Dan Taylor 

Review :

Where Stormbringer 1 and 2 are all slow build up and ominous portents  and  building up tension.

Stormbringer 3 is all sound and fury and it's all the better for it.

Because this time around, we don't get vague hints  or flashbacks  as to what  Thunderwing is capable off. We actually get to see it in all its destructive glory  and it's a breath taking sight to behold. 

Thunderwing takes out Nebulos, like it isn't even there, reducing  the city we have glimpsed in Stormbringer 2, to such much  burning  ruins.  

The actual  reason  for  Thunderwing and by extension Bludgeon doing all this, although its  accompanied by the  now standard  purple prose, remains vague. 

Bludgeon exposits that  hey will send Thunderwing from Nebulos to another planet and then another and another, turning every planet Thunderwing encounters in to a funeral pyre, setting the heavens  alight and from this  pyre a new Cybertron will arise.

This wil apparently  appease the spirits of the planet.

How a new Cybertron will arise isn't exactly clear. 

Will  they rebuild it, will the planet respond to the destruction around it  and will it rise from the ashes ?

What's more, Bludgeon apparently doesn't wholly subscribe to this  idea, as it is.  Because he seems distinctly  irreverent  to  Thunderwing, referring to him  as  their  little weapon of mass destruction.

Not exactly a way you'd expect  a harbinger of  apocalypse to be referred to. 

We also get a look at Bludegon's pretender shell or grafting process as it's called here.

Off course, it  has shades of his original  G1  pretender shell, which is what Bludgeon is  best known for. Few people actually know that the  interior  robot is a bit  of a brick on  legs and not half as memorable as his  pretender shell.   

Bludgeon is set up to rival Thunderwing, unfortunately this whole subplot absolutely goes nowhere. It's even curtailed in this issue. 

When The Wreckers come crashing in Bludgeon, has already bonded with his  pretender shell and looking very imposing and about to  unleash hell on The Wreckers.

Before it all comes crashing down a few pages later.

the shell has not been aligned yet and the psychic shell destroyed Bludgeon's mind and that's the end of that. 

This is such a poor ending of that subplot. It just doesn't fizzle out, it limps and then slips and breaks it's neck. 

You wonder why Furman even bothered with it.

The shell might as wel stayed  in it's tube  and never even be activated. It would have saved us the bother of this anticlimax.

But to add further insult to injury, this whole  set up  was merely  there to get Bludgeon in his  pretender shell and use him as a glorified  guard later down the line. 

Why bother I wonder.  Why not use a different here to for unseen character. 

This subplot is just a waste of time for everybody involved and once again shows that Furman has problems with writing a satisfying conclusion, even in an ongoing narrative. 

Speaking of The Wreckers,  I might not have mentioned it the last time, but it was the  SOS send by Afterburner and Nosecone before the Calabi Yau went kablooey, that  actually set the  majority of the story in motion and got Prime and The Wreckers here  on Cybertron. 

Their introduction is suitably impressive, but you can't help but feel that against Thunderwing they are hopelessly  outclassed.

We  also  get to see Optimus Prime in action, for the first  time in the IDW series. Even though he doesn't get to do much, the action beats are satisfying and you get the feeling that The Wreckers are a well oiled  professional machine who knows what they are doing. 

However The Wreckers action pales in comparison, to the destruction Thunderwing brings to Nebulos. 

Back on Nebulos, the Decepticons  decide to try their luck, for all the good it does to them. 

It also brings a single moment of humor, that actually works. 

None of the Decepticons  are willing to  tell Megatron they actually  ran  from  Thunderwing. 

When it comes down to facing Thunderwing  or telling Megatron they disobeyed a direct order, they are more willing  to  face Thunderwing.

Which is quite telling  about Megatron's personality and paints him  as a nigh on unstoppable  avatar  of destruction on par with Thunderwing.

Later depictions of Megatron are at odds with this, but right now Megatron has rarely been more impressive, more sinister and more unstoppable. 

Darkwing and Dreadwind also get  some  personality strokes, which echo  their  G1  partnership. They make it look like they did their best and then bug out.  

Needless to say, Thunderwing waltzes through the Decepticons as if they aren't even there.

Speaking of Megatron, we get to see Megatron in these pages as it overlaps with Infiltration  4. 

This is  the conversation Megatron had, when Verity walked in on him  and when he proceeded to disregard her as not even worth his  time and effort.

Megatron instructs Razorclaw to  curtail Thunderwing, even if that means  burning entire worlds to the ground, especially Cybertron. 

Megatron does this with out emotion or relish or histronics. He coldly condemns his own world and possibly other worlds, to destruction if necessary. 

Painting his personality again as cold, detached and pragmatic, unlike Prime who seems to be more involved and handwringing. Which is business as usual for Prime.  

Stormbringer 3 is a great issue.

 The misstep with Bludgeon not withstanding. 

It selle us the threat of Thunderwing, his destructive capabilities. The feeling that The Wreckers are hopelessly outclassed and they know it.

It overlaps with Infiltration 4  without  beating us over the head with it, it allows us  to draw our own conclusions.

And as such doesn't beat it's own chest. with look at how clever I are. 

Issue 3 reinforces Megatron's cold personality.

 All in all after a weak start, Stormbringer hits its stride for a second time with issue 3 and is one of the very best single issues in  IDW's early run.

Pity, it couldn't last.  

Transformers Stormbringer 2

Transformers Stormbringer 2 

Summary:

Jetfire is interrogated by Bludgeon who is leading a team who found Thunderwing and intend to continue his work in more then one way. 

Jetfire appeals to Bludgeon, reminding him that  it was Thunderwing who brought Cybertron to the brink of destruction. 

Bludgeon reminds Jetfire that Thunderwing, who predicted  the  catastrophic event that hit Cybertron, warned Jetfire and other scientists regardless of allegiance and they did nothing.

Optimus Prime  receives a message in regards to the  destruction of the Calabi Yau,  send by Nosecone and Afterburner.  He calls in The Wreckers in case Thunderwing indeed is back.  

Thunderwing  is  restored to power by the pocket of  energon that brought the Calabi Yau to Cybertron in the first place and Bludgeon reveals that he plans to use Jetfire and the Technobots as raw materials  for the grafting process, that  turned Thunderwing in to what he is now. 

Bludgeon uses an  axis cradle, to briefly control Thunderwing and  turn him to the next  planet  to destroy. 

Nebulos. 

Where Bludgeon wil let Thunderwing  loose. 

Nosecone and Afterburner manage to get out of their escape pod  and barely functional, make their way across the surface of Cybertron. 

However, they don't get far. The radiation plays merry hell with their systems and they are easily rounded  up by a group of centurion drones.  

Pptimus Prime  travels to Cybertron, telling The Wreckers to rendezvous with him.

Springer tells Prime that  he may want to consider to just destroy the planet, if Thunderwing is indeed back. 

Prime reluctantly considers this an option. 

Prime reminisces  back to when thunderwing was apparently defeated, when Megatron advocated the same course of action. Prime vehemently disagreed. 

An infiltration unit on Nebulos witness Thunderwing  exiting foldspace, 

and ready to bring Armageddon to Nebulos. 

Notes : Stormbringer  2 is issue 8, in the short lived sub numbering. 

It's not said with so many words, but  one can  assume that Bludgeon uncovered  Thunderwing  while looking in to Shockwave's  research and whatever else he was busy with, before he disappeared in Spotlight Shockwave.

Credits :

Writer : Simon Furman

Artist : Don figueroa

Colors : Josh Burcham

Editor: Chris Ryall and Dan Taylor

Review:

Portents : ominous, prose : purple. 

That's how Stormbringer 2 opens, just as ominously as 1. 

We get to see our first  glimpse of yet another alien  planet, and this one is  rather  well known to any Transformers fan, especially G1. 

Nebulos 

Unfortunately, it's the Nebulos of the cartoon, which means that  they are  bald green aliens. 

While this helps selling the  alien part of  the world, it  also makes everybody  look the same. 

We also get to see  another infiltration unit, consisting of Dreadwind, Darkwing, Ruckus,

Skullcruncher, Thrust, Crankcase and Roadgrabber. 

Not exactly a group of individuals  you'd expect to  infiltrate and  slowly destabilise the  political climate of  any given world. 

Ruckus and Skullcruncher were never much of the subtle sorts.  

Thunderwing himself  continues to be a hollow empty shell, what's worse  he  has been reduced to a drone. 

Something that can be pointed at a target and fired and forgotten about. Untill its done and ready to come home, which is exactly what Bludgeon is doing this issue. 

What is more interesting about Thunderwing, is what he has done to himself. 

And that Bludgeon, who looks like a self mutilator in this  universe, plans  to replicate 

the grafting process. 

The pretender process in other words. 

In G1  the pretenders were one of the  umpteenth gimmicks, Hasbro threw at an exasperated Bob Budiansky, who had to  work it all in his running narrative of the US Transformers with  ...varying degrees of success. Reducing the Autobots  to  20 foot tall humanoids because the Decepticons  would  never suspect  them being Autobots, oh no  just giant humans. 

Not one of Budiansky's better stories.

The conceit worked better off Earth, where it was established that  most of the universe are Transformers sized  and  humans are just very small.

an idea i  rather  liked after all why should the rest of the universe  conform to human standards  ?

The Japanese series, Masterforce handled the pretenders better still, by having the  pretender shells be actually human sized and the  internal Transformers  grow to  Transformer size, when they left the shell. 

The pretenders were  quickly pushed aside for the mostly human cast in that series though, but that's neither here nor there. 

Pretenders were mostly a disguise and one of the goofier, poorly handled gimmicks of  Generation One. 

In Stormbringer however pretender armor or the grafting process, was meant to become  armor and literally weather the storm of Cybertron's eventual  decay and possible demise. 

That didn't work out so well for Thunderwing. The process drove him insane, as well as  immeasurably powerfull, to the point that he brought Cybertron to the brink  and it took all the combined Autobot and Decepticon armies had and more. 

And here he is fuelled by ultra energon  ! 

Ore 13 by any other name. 

You think the stakes weren't high enough yet ?

Why Bludgeon found it necessary to send Thunderwing  to Nebulos and  raze the place to the ground isn't entirely made clear. What is clear is that he plans to replicate the grafting  process using  Jetfire and the Technobots as raw material ...nasty.  

What we also get, is the  introduction of the Wreckers in the IDW-verse.

The Wreckers were originally introduced in the Transformers Marvel UK comic, specifically in part 4 of Target 2006. 

They were a rat-tag bunch of  obscure toys and comic only characters and were, so I  gather wildly popular.

So popular that they have been resurrected briefly by Dreamwave and they are resurrected here, by the one who created them in the first place. 

The Wreckers on display here are pretty much The Wreckers of Time Wars, sans RacknRuin.

Springer, Roadbuster, Broadside, Sandstorm, Whirl,  Twintwist and Topspin.

Scoop seems to be a temporary member  and as we later learn  the line up of The Wreckers is  volatile and liable to change any given mission. 

The Wreckers here are presented as the last  line of defence. When phase six has hit the fan and when the whole contested planet has been turned  in to a disaster area, The Wreckers are brought in to deal with it. 

We also get to see what phase six  actually means for a planet  ..and well to  quote  Ratchet, it's not anything good. 

We only get  2 and half pages of  The Wreckers in action, but  that's already enough to  give Roadbuster and Springer quite a bit of personality. 

Though mostly they come over as hardnosed gruff,  take no slag from anybody soldiers  that live, eat, breath and sleep war. 

For some reason I always though the way Springer  talked on the communication device and then tosses it  back to Broadside over his shoulder, while Varas exploded around  him, to be darkly amusing. 

What exactly happened the fist time around with Thunderwing, isn't made exactly clear. We do get another flashback, just after the  apparent demise of  Thunderwing.

And Megatron  advocating to nuke the whole planet out of existence. 

A pragmatic if  extremely cold view of doing things, but which fits Megatron's current characterisation. 

Prime naturally  disagrees, but Megatron's cold pragmatism is echoed by Springer in the present, who advices Prime that if its indeed Thunderwing. Both Thunderwing and  Cybertron should  be burned out of existence, underlining the seriousness of the situation. Whole planets could and will burn  if Thunderwing is let loose and all it will costs is your homeplanet Prime. 

What a choice to make. 

Stormbringer 2  is a great  issue. It's all  that issue 1 was and wanted to be and much more. 

The story, while still fairly slow moving, still is packed.

So packed that I haven't even touched Dogfight's youthfull eagerness to get in to a mission, along side Optimus Prime no less. 

Or Afterburner and Nosecone's plight on the surface of Cybertron where they  encounter that other old Marvel UK mainstay, guardian drones named centurions here. 

These ones are not yellow however, nor ridiculously unreliable. 

Everything that was wrong with Stormbringer 1, is fixed  here. The story slowly ratchets up the tension, while we gradually get to understand the seriousness of the situation and what exactly Thunderwing, or rather the shell that is Thunderwing has become, is capable off.

Even worse, is that Bludgeon is sending it out randomly and plans to duplicate the process for himself. 

Throw in the fact  that Thunderwing is fuelled by Ultra Energon and the stakes have  become immeasurably high. 

But issue 2 isn't even done with that. It introduces Nebulos, The Wreckers and several other concepts  as well as Prime's moral dilemma in how far he is willing to go to  destroy Thunderwing. 

Is his homeplanet, even in ruins as it is, worth more then  the countless other planets  Thunderwing can destroy ?

Cracking stuff and the promise of  Stormbringer 1 is fulfilled here and in issue 3  we will see just exactly what Thunderwing is capable of. 

It wont be pretty. 

  

Transformers Stormbringer 1

Transformers

Stormbringer  issue  1

Summary :

We open  to a flashback with ominous narration, narrating ominously. 

In orbit around Cybertron the crew of the Calabi Yau  pick up a  energy signal. The problem is, that the planet is dead and has been dead for years.

The captain, Jetfire  drops down with  three of the  technobot crew to the surface of  Cybertron, to conduct more conclusive  investigations. 

They find out that they have landed near Thunderhead  pass, where it all came apart.  

On Cybertron in the past Megatron shakes Optimus Prime awake.  The adversary has breached  the siege wall.  Megatron commands Prime to get up and fight, because he isn't getting off that easily. 

On the Autobot command hub, Optimus Prime receives a message from Prowls unit  on earth, informing him that the Decepticon  infiltration unit has broken protocol. 

Prime orders Searchlight to keep him informed, while his thoughts linger back to what happened on Cybertron.

The Technobots, Nosecone and Afterburner are the ones left behind on the Calabi Yau,  as Jetfire and the others traverse the incredibly unstable surface of the planet. 

Discussing the disaster that befell the planet, Jetfire thinks back to how he and the others ignored all the warnings. In particular the warnings from Decepticon scientist Thunderwing. Who tried to convince fellow scientists, regardless of allegiance, of Cybertrons impending doom and the toll  the war has taken on the planet.

Cybertron is decaying in response to the stress placed upon it.    

Suddenly the Calabi Yau  is attacked and destroyed by a missile volley, as the  groundbound Autobots are attacked by invisible assailants. 

During the Cybertronian apocalypse, a winged  figured clad in flame, continues to march  forward.  Unstoppable, untill the  planet itself swallowed the figure. 

The combined might of the Transformers in the end proving  unable to  stop the avatar of the apocalypse. 

Jetfire wakes up  below in the catacombs of Cybertron  to the rhythm chanting  of a group of  Cybertronians  worshipping a massive figure. 

Thunderwing. 

Notes  : This was released  in july 2006 after Infiltration ended the month before.

Originally this was supposed to be issue 7  in the sub numbering, but this idea was  quickly dropped. As it proved to be too distracting  and confusing with all the spotlights,  which do not make it  each to keep  track off. 

Credits:

Writer : Simon Furman

Artist : Don Figuroa

Colorist : Josh Burcham

Editor : Chris Ryall and Dan Taylor

Review :

Back in  2006  this  was a highly anticipated  four part series. 

The return of Don Figuroa, released of the constraints of  the Dreamwave house style, back to team up with Simon Furman, hot on the heels of  his groundwork in Infiltration. 

No earth. 

No humans.

We get to see what Cybertron is like, in this newfangled universe.

What's not to like.  

Issue 1 opens with  heavy handed portentous, purple prose, which isn't exactly a  good sign. 

The story it self is rather simple  and divided in  2 contemporary strands. One with  the  Technobots and Jetfire and the other with Optimus Prime narrating and brooding  on board the Autobot command hub. 

We also see  that he receives the message Ironhide send in Infiltration 3. Which makes  this one of the best scenes in the entire comic, because it just shows the breadth and scope of the entire conflict. 

Prime  even needs to be reminded of  the detachment and the planet there. 

Thunderwing in  yet another call back to  G1, was another heavy  and whatever he did  it turned him in to a mindless monster  and the cataclysm that followed in the effort to stop him made Cybertron uninhabitable. 

And that is pretty much the whole storyline so far. 

The narration is at times  heavy and ponderous, but it gets the point across  and the flash backs  convey the  feelings of dread and doom  quite well.

Reusing Thunderwing  as a harbinger of doom, is a bit  been there done that, but it works well because he has been unstoppable before.   

The art is perfectly fine, if a bit squat.

Figuroa  has been relieved of the constraints of the Dreamwave house style and refined his art.   

The biggest  difference is  the  story telling, which is a lot  cleaner and easier to follow  then his Dreamwave efforts. 

And his figures are less balloony and bloated, then they were in Dreamwave. 

Stormbringer 1 also bring the Technobots to the table, who are a virtual blank slate. 

Other then  a single cartoon episode and their toy bios they never had much  characterisation, and usually showed up as cannon fodder or in their combined form.

Their character beats here are pretty much their toy bios.

Nosecone is dedicated and thorough. Scattershot trigger happy, strafe antsy and so on.  But it's still more characterisation they have had for years. 

And they do get to shine briefly, before taken down  hard. 

Jetfire is ...Jetfire.  He takes a leaf  from his Dreamwave self, complete with  removable armor  and detachable helmet.

This is the Jetfire that walked out of the pages of The War Within, The Dark Ages. 

And thats perfectly fine, because the character was perfectly fine there. 

And he is once again an agnostic, thrown in to more spiritual themes. 

Apocalypse this time, instead of a overpowered zealot.

And there is a  flash back  to Megatron digging Prime out of the rubble and  forcing him  to fight. 

It's a small character moment  and  loses a bit of its  power because we have seen  Megatron and Optimus Prime fight side by side before. 

But it does sell  how much of a  threat Thunderwing must have been, for these two  adversaries to put aside their differences, even if temporary. 

Especially, considering what we know so far of Megatron and the situation of the war. 

Cybertron looks a lot like Coruscant from Star Wars. 

First seen in episode 3, which  at the time of this issue's release date was about a year

old. 

But, it also looks a lot like the Cybertron from Beast Machines. 

While the conceit that the Transformers unite together against an unstoppable foe is not new.

What is new, is that they weren't able to stop him. That the planet made a final sacrifice for theTransformers and has since then become an uninhabitable shell of it's former self.

Cybertron is dead and the Cybertronians are scattered to the  four corners of the universe.

And this is a huge, huge shake up of the status quo, especially this early in the run. 

Previously Cybertron has been  in bad shape or over run  by the Decepticons, but until now it has never ever been uninhabitable. Which is a huge paradigm shift and the  Cybertronian cold war has been cast in a new light. 

Prime still has his War Within design, which is a design he will keep in the Cybetron stories set in the past and in fact he won't change his body untill  his appearance in Infiltration 6. 

And again in Spotlight Orion Pax later down the line.

Prime is also portrayed  more as his G1 self.  A brooding loner, carrying the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders and he may blame himself for the state of Cybertron.

Though this might just  be  another attempt by IDW to show the  fans that this will not be  like Dreamwave  and that  this is more akin to The Transformers, they  knew  even with a new status quo.

Stormbringer purportedly has been  called to life, because the fans objected to the icky humans and the slow burn of  Infiltration.

Whether that's true or not I cant say, but  I cant shake the feeling that  Stormbringer 1  was a single issue story, divided over  2  issues.

The plot is a bit threadbare and slow moving, but that's  unfortunately par de course for modern comics  and Stormbringer 1 can't be faulted for it.