I don’t think that’s a good weight loss program, Optimus.
Transformers: Generation Two #12
FINAL ISSUE FINAL ISSUE FINAL ISSUE!!!!!!
Marvel (October, 1994)
“A Rage In Heaven” WRITER: Simon Furman PENCILERS: Geoff Senior & Manny Galan INKERS: Geoff Senior & Jim Amash COLORIST: Sarra Mossoff LETTERER: Richard Starkings & Comicraft EDITOR: Rob Tokar
One last issue. I can do this.
Am I wrong, people who have read this issue? Is Furman blaming the Decepticons not on a different world view but because they distilled Primus’ vision by cellular division replication? That’s just weak, man. So what do you do when a force somewhere between mass and energy, who has already shown the ability to destroy you, is just sitting there pondering it’s next action. Do you use the time to formulate a strategy or do you say slag it all and shoot the thing? If you’re an idiot you do the latter and watch your men get destroyed by the Swarm. Jhiaxus is an idiot.
Back on Warworld, Optimus convinces Starscream to give him the Matrix before it turns the Decepticon good. (Because apparently the Matrix can do that when it doesn’t want to be evil. The Creation Matrix was pretty consistent under Bob Budiansky, with some added powers if popped into a human brain. Under Furman it’s whatever he wants it to be.) And now that the void is filled with his god’s essence again (Furman can’t seem to decide if he’s pro-evolution or pro-God, can he?), Optimus has a plan and goes to Jhiaxus to convince him to join them against the Swarm Because Optimus is an idiot.
Not surprisingly, the neo-Decepticon who is willing to send his own soldiers to their deaths and even crushed one for daring to use common sense in suggesting a retreat isn’t up to listening, and smashed Optimus’ jaw off. As Optimus tries to avoid death while his auto-repair system works to fix his “vocal net” (while all the wires hanging from Op’s former mouth makes him look like a robot-Cthulhu) the Swarm breaks in and Jhiaxus challenges it. Guess who gets consumed by the Swarm. The ship explodes and Optimus is tossed into outer space and survives because…………..
Meanwhile, Megatron continues the next part of the plan, forcing Starscream to help. Rheanimum gas makes metal super dense through chemobabble (it’s like technobabble, but with chemistry) so the plan is to get it to the Transformers on Earth, hoping to protect them from the Swarm long enough to figure out how to stop it. On Earth, the alliance of Autobots and Decepticons tries to use a force dome and blow them up. It doesn’t work. There’s also a subplot in which Razorclaw is sure one of the new Transformers (and between the art and poor character development I really don’t care who is whom among the new guys) Megatron created is turning Autobot because he waits for a more reasonable Grimlock and I can’t believe I just wrote those words to order the bombs to go off. He tries to attack but another new guy who apparently HAS decided to turn Autobot saves him. Am I supposed to care? Because I really don’t. The new toys have had zero development beyond “hey, we’re the new toys”. Furman is only interested in his characters. At least Budiansky TRIED to do something with the new toys Hasbro demanded they show off.
Optimus is rescued by Starscream via tractor beam, but Op thinks he knows what the Swarm needs. As a by-product of cellular division it has no lifeforce and is seeking the purpose the Transformers have. Minus that it’s acting on instinct or something. Back on Earth, Furman breaks out his trademark slaughter (showing he learned ALL the wrong lessons from Transformers: The Movie) by having Transformers either consumed by the Swarm or committing various forms of suicide hoping to hurt it. Then Megatron arrives with the Rheanimum gas, a canister of which Starscream also offers to Optimus before departing. But Optimus refuses because heaven forbid there is one continuity that doesn’t involve the death and rebirth of Optimus Prime. Seriously, EVERY CONTINUITY I KNOW OF has him at least going comatose if not full-on dead. Kind of tired of it by now. I’m waiting on Rescue Bots to do it now.
Sure enough, when the Swarm hits the Creation Matrix it floods them with goodness and it finds purpose and disappears, reconstructing Optimus Prime on Earth (and oddly neither his “Hero” nor Laser Rod toy bodies but his usual one), who gives a speech that it’s time to unite the Transformer race, and everyone seems to agree. But while his speech says it’s all over with the Neo-Decepticons, he is thinking about Jhiaxus mentioning the Hub (not the TV network, obviously) and a commander. Why would you not tell everyone about that? Because the Leige Maximo, who is going on about evil never dying and claiming to have spawned all of the Decepticons, including Megatron, is coming. What is his plan? We’ll never know because the series ended and IDW decided to ignore G2 in favor of letting Furman further ruin G1.
I’m so glad this is over. Going through Furman’s run wasn’t fun for me, and there’s still more Furman Transformer stories to come, but Generation Two is easily the worst, tied with ReGeneration One. All of the slaughter, all of the disturbing images he thinks he can get away with because their robots (Prime has to feel himself being torn apart bit by bit by the Swarm for Primus’ sake!), all of the Earth destruction (mostly to US cities)–this isn’t fun for me to read. It’s disturbing. Luckily for me there is an opening to getting a Furman break because there’s one more series to go through before bidding Marvel goodbye. Come back this afternoon for the start of the first adaptation of Transformers: The Movie.
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