It seems pointless to continue a series discussing my issues with Simon Furman’s run on Transformers comics when I’m reviewing those very comics. So this series has been in limbo, at least until I’m all done with his comics. However, we are at the point of War Within: The Age Of Wrath that was never published thanks to one foolish man. Pat Lee.
Lee was the founder of Dreamwave Comics, which was part of Image’s family until he went on his own. It was a one-shot image of the classic Transformers in action as part of a series for Wizard magazine that led to his company to get the license for the Transformers. They made both a G1 based series and one based on the current line of the time, Armada/Energon, two-thirds of the “Unicron Trilogy”. Dreamwave went down before they could get to Cybertron. What happened? Lee didn’t know what he was doing mostly. There were rumors of mismanagement of funds for personal use like expensive cars for his family and other indiscretions. Blaming the “shrinking comic market” Lee closed Dreamwave…and then formed another company. Meanwhile the creators of the Transformers and other titles (by then it was all licensed properties) saw nothing and I’m not sure they were ever fully compensated.
In 2011 Furman sold copies of the unpublished issues of the last miniseries, The Age Of Wrath. He would tell the Cybertron tales while others handled the “modern-day” Transformer tales, usually on Earth but later spread back to Cybertron. I do not have access to these comics but Sol Fury of TFW2005 posted summaries of the two issues that were fully scripted (4 & 5) and the unscripted sixth issue that only got as far as an outline. So let’s see where the series ended up.
Since I feel silly summarizing summaries I will link to them and my review of the first three issues that were published and let you check up on where the story was headed, and then write my analysis.
My Reviews
Sol Fury’s summaries
So I’ll start by tooting my own horn, because I called the Quintessons being behind the invasion and Megatron’s clones. They’re after the core (Primus?) because they believe it will give them the power to control the universe. Megatron is dragging his feet but when he finds out the Autobots are there he rushes out to stop them. Meanwhile, he’s building his own clones so he doesn’t need the Quintessons anymore. How much you want to bet the Quints were ready for that and the clones they built would have turned on Megatron?
Issue 5 also appears to coincide with Prime Month. Remember when I said that Dreamwave wanted all of the Transformers titles to put Megatron and Optimus out of action and then one-by-one bring them both back? Well, Optimus Month would have been Optimus’ return to the titles. Also back? Grimlock. You know, I could have bought that Grimlock was faking his death preparing to come back. With all the problems I have with Furman’s Grimlock he does at times show some good strategy. Instead, he’s revived by Primus to protect the core by putting his spark into Shockwave’s prototype of a Quintesson-free clone because he’s just that special. No really, his lineage goes back to the first 13 Transformers (I’m going to say the Fallen just to be snarky) and the “age of wrath”. Yes, the title of the series refers not to events we actually see happening but a vague reference to the battle with Unicron which, by the way, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS STORY! That’s bad titling, Simon.
Primus’s power goes from Grimlock to Optimus Prime (because of course Grimlock is tied to restoring Optimus…the only thing keeping Grimlock from being a Mary Sue at this point is that as far as I know it isn’t Furman living vicariously through Grimlock) and he saves the day. Meanwhile, you may recall that Flash (a UK exclusive toy from back in the day) got sent to an alien world. It was Quintessa, the same as Optimus, and he lets everyone know what’s going on, and even some of the Decepticons aren’t happy with Megatron’s actions. That was interesting to see. I’m curious who would have revolted and would Starscream have taken advantage? There is foreshadowing to either more stories Furman planned to write or events that was already happening or about to happen in the Generation One title that we’ll be looking at after the next miniseries. (Yes, there’s one more on ye old Cybertron to go over that Furman didn’t write.)
This new information that I found out about just before I got sick confirms my early opinions on this series. While better than The Dark Ages and not necessarily bad (by my opinion of Furman stories anyway) it’s one I wasn’t interested in. Grimlock is still Furman’s pet character, Megatron’s relationship with Starscream is still confusing, and there are some good ideas that I just don’t feel were done properly. I do like the addition of the Quintessons and Unicron being another threat (but the two not united) but it means more subplots for Simon’s addiction to numerous subplots. At what point did the war between Autobots and Decepticons not become enough? In the cartoons the Quintessons were a distraction after the major war was over. (Season 3 of the original cartoon was mostly skirmishes between the surviving Decepticons and the Autobots. The war was practically over by this point.) It makes for a good curiosity considering they had some good plans (and better than IDW’s) that were never seen to the end thanks to Pat Lee’s failings as a comic company owner. And we’ll see more of that as we go on with the Thursday Transformers comic reviews.
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