Spotlight: Kup was an early experiment for IDW in several ways. The most obvious is the break given to Nick Roche, handed an issue to write and draw as well as two characters to properly play with. It's actually surprisingly big of Furman to let a possible future competitor effectively determine the long term fate of a character who has always been a bit of a favourite from the Marvel days.
The big thing that hits you about the issue the most - especially on an in-context read through - is the remarkable density. Not just the lengthy internal dialogue of Kup but the sheer amount crammed into 22 pages. As well as the lengthy nightmarish scenes on Kup's planet there's a lot of good work for others on the recovery end - Prowl's scheming and politicking via communicator (moving him away from the jobsworth seen in Infiltration to a nuanced necessary bastard), Springer's bravado tempered by his doubts, an impassioned cry for sanity from Siren... If anyone suffers from a characterisation it's Kup himself as we only see him out of his metal skull. But then even that is handled well - we're shown what Kup means by even the straight-talking Springer being clearly passionate about his fate. It reminds me in a way of a particular issue of Captain America by Mark Waid, where the character was absent and his meaning was perfectly explained by his Avengers team-mates.
The actual situation Kup's stuck in is very inventive and brings with it a very interesting moral dilemma which is teased out perfectly by the script - the ethics of wasting Autobot lives in saving a half-dead Kup are debated but there's no pat resolution. While those killed in the story are sadly nameless and faceless (probably simply due to a lack of space), Outback - with form as a genial if minor character in past media - adds a little poignancy and black comedy as Kup alternates between joking with his remains and berating them. The added bonus here is that being very dead eliminates him from a possible future as a joke character, probably making him the best used of the '86 Minibots despite being half a corpse on a chair. There's a good resolution that makes fine use of Trailbreaker's special skill too.
Roche's art is also magnificent. He renders Kup's nightmares as sinewy viscera, an approach only even half-tried before on the series by Derek Yaniger. It makes for as welcome a change as the writing does, a nice break from the usual clean lines and bright colours of most 21st century Transformers books. The skeletal Kup design is especially brilliant, a perfect way of illustrating age, decay and a determination to survive. Not that the stuff set in the real world isn't great either, with the emotion of the art matching the tense discussion.
On the one hand it's perhaps harsh to compare this to Furman's concurrent work - the whole story is clearly a much-drafted labour of love from Roche, the work of someone not doing monthly franchise work as bread and butter, and it's just one issue anyway. However, Roche's love for the project shines through, and he takes the opportunity given to him with both hands. In short, up to this point this was the best thing IDW had put out - a state of affairs that would take a long time to change.
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