“This is why I hate late night movies.”
Transformers Spotlight: Bumblebee
IDW Publishing (March, 2013)
WRITER: John Barber ARTIST: David Daza COLORIST: Zac Atkinson SELECTED COVER COLORIST: Esther Sanz LETTERER: Shawn Lee EDITOR: Carlos Guzman EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Thomas Boeing
In a story taking place just after Optimus Prime took the Autobots to Cybertron to battle D-Void, Bumblebee isn’t getting a lot of respect from his charges and his search for the remaining Decepticons on Earth isn’t going well, either. One lucky break does help him find the Decepticons, and the Space Bridge…and a beat-down by the Stunticons.
What they got right: While part of me wonders why they gave him a Spotlight in the same way I wonder about Drift and Megatron, but I admit bias interferes, and not just because he’s my favorite Transformer. This is more of what I wanted from this series, with Bumblebee even working with humans. (By the way, Sanjay returns. never saw that coming and it’s nice to see him.) This is how I wish more of the Earth stories had run and it gives Bumblebee a bit more focus as he overcomes his fears as leader…
What they got wrong: …even though all of those doubts return in the current stories so that was kind of pointless. Also, at a few points it flashes back to current events which is not only unnecessary after the first time (where it serves as a hook without returning to it) but makes poor use of the page, since it has one huge panel that isn’t even really a splash page thanks to a sidebar of caption boxes as Bumblebee narrates.
Recommendation: I wish the events of this story had made a larger impact on the stories we ended up having, but that’s kind of hard isn’t it? Give this one a look.
No one moment really stood out for Best Scene.
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