Today’s Comic> Transformers Spotlight: Orion Pax

See, for covers the painted style works.

Transformers Spotlight: Orion Pax

IDW Publishing (December, 2012)

Orion is part of a prisoner exchange to bring back Ratchet. Due to the nature of the area for the exchange, Orion and Nightbeat are joined by Alpha Trion. But when Orion learns Bludgeon’s real plans…well, this is the bot who will one day be Optimus Prime.

What they got right: First let me say I really like the artwork, from the lineart down to the coloring. I’d like to see this team doing more Transformers comics in the future. The story is also good, as we see more of pre-Optimus Orion. He does get into some serious jams that Optimus might get past, but he’s still smart enough to get out of it. Also as Transformer toy collector I like the titles of the “self-help” books Rung shows Orion after getting his new body.

What they got wrong: I’m not sure why there’s this bit about Orion getting a new body. I know Barber loves fixing continuity errors, but was there one with different bodies I missed or is there some other reason why only Orion needed one and not Nightbeat or Alpha Trion. We also see Rack and Ruin as Decepticons and as two separate robots. I’ve never understood why Furman (who to my knowledge created the characters) thought having conjoined Transformers was a good idea and this just brings up even more questions about two robots I really don’t care about.

Recommendation: It’s not a pre-war Cybertron story but a good use of early war Cybertron. It’s worth picking up.

The caption reads “should have gone with Plan B”. Did they even have a plan b?