Okay, okay, no more pizza jokes this week!
Transformers Armada #5
Dreamwave (December, 2002)
WRITER: Chris Sarracini PENCILER: James Raiz INKERS: Rob Armstrong, Erik Sander, & Ferd Poblete BACKGROUNDS: Edwin Garcia COLORISTS: Shaun Curtis, Alan Wang, Ramil Sunga, Rob Ruffolo, David Cheung, Chris Walker, & Elliot Krauchik GRAPHIC DESIGN: Paul Villafuerte & Kevin Lee LETTERING: Dreamer Design ASSISTANT EDITOR: Matt Moylan
A group of Mini-Cons learns through a newscast that Megatron is on Earth and after Sparkplug and the Street Action Team and decides to go to their rescue. In the battle things go back and forth until Megatron loads up on captured Mini-Cons. The other arrive and rescue Sparkplug, the kids, and the Street Action Team from Demolishor before deciding to see if they can power up Autobots as well. With the Decepticons now outnumbered and only Megatron powered by Mini-Cons. the villains make a retreat. Optimus and the Mini-Cons form an alliance and the Autobot go to find vehicle modes and create a base of operations to find the other Mini-Cons before the Decepticons.
What they got right: One of the things I like about Budiansky’s run is seeing the lighter moments of Transformers existing in the human world. We get that in the beginning in a fun little sequence as well as seeing how resourceful the Mini-Cons are. We also get one difference between the Autobots and Decepticons. The latter enslaved the Mini-Cons while the former agrees to an alliance to both save the Mini-Cons and rescue Cybertron from Decepticon rule.
What they got wrong: With how many artists are on board this thing you’d think the art would be amazing. However, something just really falls flat. The kids are a big exaggerated compared to the humans we see earlier. There’s a sequence where Scavenger is surrounded by Decepticons (Scavenger is the name of an Autobot this go around) and they use the same boring pose of him, with not a lot of expression on his face. It looks like they just copy/pasted the same image of Scavenger. It was really noticeable and really disappointing, and this is from a guy who needs to learn how to draw dramatic/lifelike poses.
Recommendation: A good end to the first story arc, setting up the series. Some of these elements, however, were tossed aside as Furman took over starting next issue. I’m just hoping we get War Within Simon Furman and not War Within 2 Simon Furman. Or worse: Generation 2/ReGeneration One Simon Furman.
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