“Yesterday’s” Comic> Transformers: The War Within – The Dark Ages #4

“I should be charging tickets to this.”

Transformers: The War Within – The Dark Ages #4

Dreamwave (January, 2004)

As Trypticon continues to attack the Autobots that still call themselves Autobots, Grimlock is thinking only about taking down Jetfire as a traitor. The other Dinobots (as they’ll one day be called) would rather fight the battlestation than bother with Jetfire, so they join where the battle is. As Jetfire compares notes with Shockwave they are attacked by The Fallen’s forces, who take down Shockwave and are prepared to take Jetfire prisoner when Grimlock, still on his revenge kick, takes them down…so HE can kill Jetfire. Lucky (depending on how you look at it) for Jetfire, the Fallen arrives because both of them are needed for the Unbinding.

The art is good and the Autobots fighting Trypticon was interesting, but it’s Grimlock that makes this issue fall apart, or rather Furman’s Grimlock. Yes, we know that Jetfire isn’t a traitor, so I’m going to give Grimmy a break here. It’s the rest of his actions I find questionable to stupid. Someone attacks both Shockwave and Jetfire and Grimlock in theory knows they’re not working with the two, but takes them down anyway (and even fakes a distress call from Shockwave to Trypticon, the only smart thing he does this issue) and is so obsessed with killing Jetfire that he doesn’t question anything? Apparently the two of them have some history we will never be told about when both were part of Megatron’s games and Jetfire was apparently a full-fledged Decepticon until he joined the Autobots. So Grimlock is just looking for an excuse to kill him because he hates anyone who actually uses their brain for something besides plotting new ways to kill Decepticons as it is. He practically states it when he’s yelling at the Dinobots about wanting to fight the real enemy.

So what is his motivation? Jetfire is meeting with Shockwave and without trying to find out why he immediately dubs him a traitor to the Autobots. You know, the group he left with others to form the Lightning Strike Coalition and was will willing to let die at the hands of Trypticon. Why does he care about Jetfire allegedly betraying the Autobots again? Just as an excuse to kill Jetfire. That’s it, and it makes Grimlock look even dumber than usual. I’m not supposed to cheer for the Fallen, right?

I don’t understand this. The first The War Within was pretty good. The Armada comic thus far has been good (maybe today changes things, I don’t know). So why is this so true to form? Were the other two ghost written? Just don’t bother with this miniseries.

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• “Yesterday’s” Comic> Transformers: The War Within – The Dark Ages #1
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