Using A Positive Skybound Transformers Review To Explain Why I’m Not Into It

There’s a misunderstanding these days when it comes to reviews. Most of those “misunderstandings” is on purpose, mind you. Directors and celebs will lash out at a negative review, as will some game developers upset that the review will ruin them. A false review will, but so will a false positive review. They see a review that was gimmicked to give a false description and they might get something thinking it was great only to find out it was terrible, and there are more of those out there thanks to “shills” in media, social activists, and brand loyalists who forgot why they became a fan in the first place than there are those who will gimmick a review to the negative just for hate clicks.

However, nobody says you have to agree with the reviewer’s opinion. In fact, I’ve had reviews that gave me the opposite opinion of what I ended up having. For example, watch Optibotimus’ review of the Mini-Con Assault Team, and then compare it to my written review of the same toy. As he reviewed the trio on his video and showcased what he didn’t like about it, I was actually getting MORE interested because I didn’t see things the way he did. So I managed to find it on clearance and it’s one of my favorite Combiner Mini-Con teams. And if you read my other site, you know I love me some Mini-Cons. They’re like Micromasters you can use to arm the larger Transformers. Too bad they aren’t compatible in any form with modern Transformers. But I can put translucent explosions all over them if I want. 😛

However, we aren’t here to talk about Transformers toys, but Transformers comics. Skybound has been killing it with their Transformers comic run, as part of a shared “Energon Universe” alongside G.I. Joe (of course) and an original series called Void Rivals for some reason. The Jetfire cover there is actually a variant cover from that series’ first issue. The adult Transformers fan community, or at least people I follow who are either all-in on Transformer discussion or as a side discussion for media and culture, love this series after a disappointing IDW run. At least the late run for some if not the rebooted universe to maintain the license after they couldn’t tell any more stories in their existing continuity. Other fans, like myself, weren’t happy with the direction the first continuity went, and I had issues throughout that I ignored for…I admit it…brand loyalty. I admitted them but like the first Bay film I wanted it to be better than it was. Dreamwave’s short-lived run remains my favorite, though the pre-Furman US comics will always hit my nostalgia.

However, what I’ve seen of the Skybound comics doesn’t interest me. Oh, the art is impressive and the writers seem to care about what they’re doing, but what I saw wasn’t clicking with me. And then I saw Linkara’s review of it on Atop The Fourth Wall and confirmed just why I’m not into it, while Lewis Lovhaug himself had mostly praise for it among his usual snarky comedy bits. Allow me to show you his review, which I remind you is positive, and explain why when it was done, it ends up being a reverse of the Mini-Con Assault Team. The video runs 30:01, so have a seat.

Boring covers. Certainly nothing new.

First off, I don’t recognize the human characters. I don’t mean Carly being a brunette instead of a blond, I mean Sparkplug is a hopeless drunk who can’t get over the death of not-Buster. In the Marvel comics Sparkplug was a mechanic living with his son, Buster. Buster was the studious type and his dad, a Vietnam vet, thought his kid studied too much and didn’t get a grip on the “real world”, but he still loved his kid and wanted the best for him. Spike would be introduced later because the cartoon, where both he and Sparkplug worked on an oil rig before being the first humans to ally with the Autobots, was more popular and the tech spec for Fortress Maximus had him binary bonding with Spike to become a Headmaster. There was no Buster in the cartoon, but the two boys would show up in other media either together or separately at the whims of the writer of that particular media, if any of the Witwickys showed up at all. Sam is nothing like either of Sparkplug’s son and his dad is not Sparkplug.

Plus humans default to attacking Autobots, insisting they’re as bad as Decepticons in a comic continuity. I am sick and tired of that!

I’m not saying they have to match up with their counterparts, since they didn’t even match from one continuity to the other (the last time we saw Buster he was in the military in the Dreamwave timeline and upset about his dad dying when the Autobots attempted to return home while Spike and Carly got married–Buster’s girlfriend Jessie has disappeared while his bestie “O” didn’t even finish the Budiansky run), but I don’t like this interpretation. It starts to set in what I don’t like about this Transformers. It’s not fun to me. It’s a bit hopeless. Granted I noped out when they killed Bumblebee before he could be reactivated, and as a Bumblebee fan that’s just wrong. That does lead to the main issue I have with this series.

Skybound’s run is very much a product of the 2020s. It’s brutal, violent, and kind of depressing. For all the praise given to the scene where Optimus accidentally steps on a deer, the idea that this is what sets off Optimus’ urge to protect the equally squishy humans that Starscream takes great delight in squishing (remember how try-hard that came off in Dreamwave’s first miniseries, which was thankfully not the direction the rest of the run took because fans hated it?) is odd to me. Sure, this isn’t Michael Bay’s Optimus “Faceplate Ripper” Prime, but that doesn’t mean I like how violent this comic is. As I’ve said a number of times, Transformers is not a franchise for 80s kids; it’s a franchise made in the 1980s for kids. Seeing this continue the trend of comics that used to be at least kid-friendly, if not kid-targeted, turned into yet another kid-unfriendly title bothers me.

Plus I’m not into the violent stories in general. I prefer action over violence. It’s why I enjoy Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack but never bothered watching Primal, a show that from trailers looked a bit more on the bloody gore side within TV limits for even adult programs. It’s why I don’t watch most R movies, never got into horror, and have never enjoyed most of the recent “nostalgia” comics that have come out. My friend is all excited that we’re finally getting a Thundarr The Barbarian comic, but given what I’ve seen done to everything from Space Ghost to Thundercats to this (even he doesn’t like what Dynamite has done to Thundercats and I wasn’t happy with their Voltron a few years ago after loving the Devil’s Due run despite the changes they made), I can’t get excited, and Skybound’s Transformers are a part of that.

I’m glad the comic is well written. I’m glad the Autobots are heroic and Decepticons evil. I’ve written that’s how they should be, or at least that’s my preference. I just don’t care for anything I’ve seen from this run. It’s a good comic, but it’s not what I’m looking for in a Transformer story. Feel free to enjoy it, but this positive review just made me more negative for it. A good review gives the reviewer’s opinion, and maybe it sways you one way or another. Despite our biases often connecting when it comes to comics, that didn’t happen for me. He didn’t tell me what to think, he told me what he thought after a proper going over and I still disagree with him. That’s a good review, telling me what he thinks, not what I should think. Reviews are a good way to learn whether or not you want to spend your limited free time and money on a story you may not like when they’re done right, and I’ve learned to find reviewers who I agree or disagree with who present their reviews honestly, though I tend to be more interested in reviewers who share enough of my biases.

So don’t chastise someone for listening to a review if they have learned to trust those reviewers. It’s why we listen to reviews in the first place, not to tell us what our opinion is, but letting us form our own based on their biases and tastes versus our own. It’s what I try to do here and enough people seem to be willing to at least hear me out for a reason, even if they disagree after.