We’re actually past the point where I started doing reviews of this series when it came out. Most of what you’ll see is copy & pasted from that original review, but I’ve updated it for additional thoughts on what’s now an old comic.
“Come on, none of you have watches?”
Transformers: All Hail Megatron #8
IDW Publishing (February 2009)
WRITER: Shane McCarthy
PENCILER: Guido Guidi
INKERS: Guidio Guidi with John Wycough
COLORIST: Josh Burcham with Kris Carter
LETTERER: Chris Mowry
EDITORS: Andy Schmidt & Denton J. Tipton
CHOSEN COVER: B by Trevor Hutchinson
Note that there’s a warning on this comic, “not suggested for children under 13”. I never did check the previous issues to see if this is new.
Kup tears into Ironhide for pounding into Mirage. He’s sure that Mirage is not the traitor, and Kup needs all available Autobots to survive the Swarm. Back on Earth, humanity is still being treated like playtoys by the Decepticons (irony, considering they are play toys for humans in our world), and they’re like that neighbor kid from Toy Story. On Cybertron, Perceptor is taken out by the Swarm, who now seem to be able to shoot toxic darts. The traitor is revealed in flashback to be Sunstreaker! More than a little ticked off as to what the Machination did to them, he decides to take it out on all humans, and agrees to help Starscream (who in the present day apologizes for his team’s actions to and seeks help from the Insecticons) lead Megatron into a trap so long as all humans are killed off. (Apparently something went wrong.) Now his conscience has gotten the better of him, and he sacrifices himself to save the other Autobots. Drift, however, tells Ironhide that he thinks the Cons had even more help, and they did, as the Insecticons hold Hunter O’Nion captive and hooked up to machines.
What they got right: The age warning, for one. From the way the Reflector robots treat the humans to Hunter’s status, it’s not going well for our side. The story’s getting a lot darker, which should tick me off. However, I really can’t see any other way, and the traitor reveal is well done. And at least they wrapped up all the old questions before giving us new ones. [UPDATED THOUGHTS: I’m also happy to see Ironhide does get yelled at for his beat-down on Mirage. I hope we see him at least try to apologize now that he knows Sunstreaker…who basically stood there and only tried to talk Ironhide down…was the real traitor.]
What they got wrong: I am, however, still not found of the darker, more violent stories, so there is that. [UPDATED THOUGHT: I’m more comfortable with it now but this is getting a bit over done. Reflector actually kills a bunch of humans in the most repulsive way they could get away with. It’s like the first miniseries of Dreamwave’s Generation One all over again.] However, that’s really it. I also don’t like Sunstreaker’s treatment thus far. It’s not something I like watching characters go through, although it’s still not as tasteless as Arcee’s being made into a forced transsexual by Furman. [UPDATED THOUGHT: That’s from the original review, when I hadn’t discussed the situation as much as I have these days.] I also feel for poor Hunter, but at least they make me care about his fate. IDW’s Sunstreaker was a jerk before being forced into being a Headmaster, and I find it difficult to feel sorry for him, considering what’s happened to Hunter and that I would think Scorponok holds more than enough blame to extend that hatred to the Decepticons.
Recommendation: It’s not like I hated The Empire Strikes Back, even though I’m the rare person who doesn’t think it was the best of the series. (My choice is Return of the Jedi, because I prefer happy endings.) I’m hoping that All Hail Megatron is the Empire of the new direction and the next series after the Coda story shows the Autobots taking the Earth back, or at least headed in that direction.
UPDATE: Spoiler–no it wasn’t. IDW took a different direction than I was happy with and it’s only because of my love of Transformers that I stayed with this interpretation as long as I did. As far as the Coda comics, of course those are already reviewed but I didn’t want to end this on the main story and say “if you want to know my thoughts on the rest of this twelve issue story track down the old reviews” because they’re part of the then weekly collected reviews. The Coda stories I won’t continue on with because I have so many comics to do and still have the Movieverse adaptations and spin-offs yet to go over. Someday I may return and complete giving the weekly reviews their own separate review slots to link to but I have too much to go through right now.
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