“Me Grimlock hate the cheap seats.”
Transformers: The War Within #5
Dreamwave (February, 2003)
WRITER: Simon Furman PENCILER: Don Figueroa INKER: Elaine To COLORIST: Rob Ruffolo GRAPHIC DESIGN: Kevin Lee LETTERING: Dreamer Design ASSISTANT EDITOR: Matt Moylan
Grimlock sends his team to investigate the Decepticons underground while going after Optimus Prime. They find Starscream about to cause an upheaval by using the second layer to destroy the first one and wipe out the Autobots. At Iacon, the Autobots prepare their last stand against Shockwave’s assault force, while the other team fails to stop Starscream from activating the cyberforming process. Meanwhile, Optimus and Megatron see the future, their trip to Earth, which Megatron naturally misinterprets that he’s going to have all of the advantages. Convinced that Megatron can’t have this knowledge and finding himself teleported to Grimlock after the vision, Optimus (egged on by Grimlock of course) may have to bring the final solution to the Megatron problem.
What they got right: I usually complain about too many stories, Furman’s regular style. Somehow it works here because each part, even the Optimus/Megatron part, connects to the story as a whole. The events are interconnected and that makes it work, something Furman didn’t seem to get before or since.
What they got wrong: From what I recall, Dreamwave had originally planned to have each year of Transformers entered into the comic in each consecutive storyline. That kind of reflects in the vision, but they teased adventures we won’t see since Dreamwave changed direction early on and they also bypassed the original Transformers war on Earth by jumping a couple of decades. That’s kind of a shame.
Recommendation: The last issue could ruin everything. This IS Simon Furman after all. However, so far it shows that he CAN tell a good Transformers story. Still recommending this one.
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