“Revenge of the Decepticons Part 3: Woken Furies” continues what is, without a doubt, one of the best storylines in Transformers history. It’s one frantic page after another as the Autobots, under the temporary command of Ultra Magnus, race for survival with current commander Bumblebee down for the count and Optimus Prime and crew currently listed as MIA. Megatron shows up seemingly bent simply on revenge. Or is he? And Skywarp gets paid a visit by not one, but TWO guests who throw down in what is to me one of the most gratifying fight scenes in all of Transformers history!
What Costa has woven together here throws us into one of the most frantically paced issues in quite some time, and every step along the way we are reminded about the differences between the Transformers and the humans. Sometimes it’s the subtle reminder of the stark differences — that they are more or less a race of trained soldiers while we aren’t as a collective — but we also see the resemblances such as the psychological motivations like lust for power (and delusions of power in some cases) or even just simple fear. It is in this respect that Costa excels as a writer. Even though it occasionally smacks of similarities to Simon Furman’s writing back in Transformers‘ heyday, he does it with such a level of quality that is able to proudly stand on its own.
And what the art team does is absolutely no less stellar. I don’t think that the a lot of the pacing would work nearly as well without Milne’s work bringing the dynamic script to life, and because of this I have enjoyed his tenure thus far on the title with Costa and gang. I also have to give props to Dalhouse’s dynamic job on the colors and effects and Mowry’s textual emphasis to bring across the character’s attitudes and accentuate the sounds of battle, helping to make this one of the best parts of Transformers‘ time under IDW.
Transformers #16 is definitely worth the cover price because of the excellent way this issue ties the overall story together and is a beautiful work, but at the same time its a bit of a double-edged sword. It only really works as a part of the overall whole, but not so much on its own unless you’re looking for a straight-up action fluff piece. I do think it’s a good reason to pick up the title for a while, or at very least the rest of this arc!