Transformers #11 // Review
Jazz and Cliffjumper have been captured by Shockwave. They’re trying to learn more about the new world that the Cybertronian war has spilled over to. The leader of the Autobots is determined to save the warriors, but not everyone is feeling totally optimal about the situation in Transformers #11. Writer Daniel Warren Johnson continues the central series in the young Energon Universe family of titles with artist Jorge Corona and colorist Mike Spicer. Daniel Warren Johnson is bringing a depth to the Transformers Universe that has rarely been attempted with the IP. It’s not terribly well-executed, but it’s a step in the right direction for a property that continues to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year.
Elita-1 is upset. Optimus Prime had brought the war on Cybertron to some distant planet. He’d abandoned a war back home that he helped to start. She’s understandably upset. He’s only trying to do what needs to be done. More important than anything else is saving the life of an innocent planet that had nothing to do with the conflict until after they’d arrived. It’s going to be a tricky situation for everyone involved. Jazz and Cliffjumper are captured in a facility that’s being guarded by some pretty heavy firepower.
Danile Warren Johnson is working with a very large extended ensemble. Granted--he IS working with characters who aren’t always necessarily the central focus of the Transformers universe, but it’s a big ensemble and it’s difficult to move everyone around in a way that does justice to personalities that have been around in one form or another for a very long time. It’s nice to see Johnson lending some flawed depth to Prime, but Arcee and Elia-1 and...well...there are quite a lot of characters who aren’t given the kind of depth they deserve.
Corona has nothing to prove. He’s a solid artist who has down some amazing work in the recent past. His work on Middlewest was phenomenal in places. Corona’s gorgeously textured, emotionally amplified sketchiness isn’t a good fit for the precise, clean-lined appeal of the Transformers universe. Corona DOES have a firm grasp of the drama that Johnson is trying to bring to the page, but the visual appeal of the Transformers universe is lost in the sketchiness of the rendering.
It’s nice to see a bit more of the darkness than normally might have been present in the cartoon or the comics 40 years ago, but stories either need to be given a bit more time to play out or Johnson is going to need to work with a slightly smaller ensemble in order to really do justice to the potential for complexity that all of the characters have. And it’s not like the IP has been treated all that well in the past. Johnson and Corona’s work is vastly preferable to the indecipherable, big budget visual, conceptual and aesthetic mess that was Michael Bay’s incompetent treatment of property. It’s just NOT where it needs to be in order to live-up to the potential of the property.
