WRITER: MIKE COSTA
ARTISTS: E J SU, JAVIER SALTARES, GUIDO GUIDI
All comic writers have bad ideas. The trick is to realise them as such. The second batch of issues from Mike Costa's unsubtitled ongoing series are an odd bunch. The man has no quality control; not since Bob Budiasnky's second year on the old Marvel title (after which he was obviously trying to get fired) has a writer on Transformers had so many good ideas and so many bad ideas blended with a total inability to realise which is which. The result is bordering on schizophrenia and results in a wildly uneven ride.
The six issues in the trade consist of two one-shot storylines and the four-part title arc. The first touches on the bulk of the Decepticon army, marooned in space with Megatron on life support reflecting with uncanny detail on the situation the faction's in. That he's so well informed while being nearly dead is a contrivance but then he is being nursed by Soundwave and makes for a persuasive narrator so it can be given a pass; his survival might jive a little bit with the ethos laid out in Costa's first storyline but to be honest it was always coming and it's not like he's magically back on his feet. What's left of the Decepticon army is low on energon and morale; while Starscream (possessing the Autobot Matrix of Leadership for whatever it's worth) schemes in apparent total denial of Megatron's survival and plots with Bombshell, Shockwave schemes by himself unchecked and Razorclaw has turned the asteroid into a survivalist camp, letting the Decepticons fight each other to find the fittest. It's actually a little masterpiece of an issue that gets much of what it took six issues to get across from the Autobot point of view - no-one's really sure of their purpose anymore. It helps that both Megatron and Starscream are more sympathetic - or at least well-rounded and persuasive - than the likes of Bumblebee, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus have been and even with the gravity of the Decepticons' situation they're pleasingly less whiny. Like McCarthy, Costa's strength is that he's not a fan of Transformers which leads to a couple of striking deaths of very minor characters. Dreadwind being cannibalised simply never would have happened in a Furman comic; he liked the guy in the eighties naturally and even if he had no plans for him would never have killed him off. Here he's binned with no mention of CR chambers or anything and it gives some level of danger and desperation to proceedings. The other is the return of E J Su; few were sad when Don Figueroa was put on the backburner after his dreadful work on the opening arc but Su wasn't necessarily a step in the right direction. However, here he's drastically improved since the Devastation days, putting less effort into making sure there are the correct number of pistons in everyone's joints and more into actual signs that people are moving around without having to do cartoony motion lines all over the shop.
After such a fine start the second standalone fires off into insanity. It centres on Spike, who waxes every bit as his creator. It's really not clear what we're meant to think about him; is he a bit of an idiot promoted above his level of competence thanks to his PR-friendly involvement in the defeat of Megatron and the surrender of Optimus Prime (which is really looking more and more like a dick move that's caused everyone but Prime endless trouble) and is now doing strange, stupid things due to stress or is he meant to be some hard-arsed hero fighting the front line soldier's battle against dumb superiors, like something out of a Rob Liefield comic? Either reading is possible, just not always in the same issue. Here he sneaks out of the Skywatch base at night, tracks down Scrapper, beats him (the actual battle between them is actually well done) and then executes him, motivated by revenge for the damage Devastator did in "All Hail Megatron". I have no idea whether you're meant to agree with his actions or what here, I really don't. It badly goes against the grain of his gradual chilling out and being less of a jock prick in the opening arc and I'm not even sure if it's on purpose. I don't think this is meant to be a grey area for debate like Impactor executing Squadron X; Costa wants us to think one thing about this and it's difficult to tell which. His main human protagonist defeats a big evil alien robot in a one-on-one fight and the writing's so muddy and so out of kilter with previous issues that it's difficult to tell whether it's a good thing or not, that's how badly this issue is written.
Spike snaps back into his previous shape smartly for the four-part "International Incident" storyline, which actually has a decent action movie storyline. Three of the Combaticons left on Earth - Onslaught, Brawl and Vortex - have teamed up with the North Korean government to act as mercenaries, leading an assault on South Korea in return for energon with Skywatch and their team of Autobots assigned to stop them. It's a decent idea of the sort that might feature in the films and a solid premise. The Combaticons themselves are well characterised as combat-hardened and barely tolerant of their human allies (there's a superb bit where they're caught slacking off with a few cans) but the other end is a lot more wobbly, once again proving that Costa seems a lot happier with the Decepticons. At Skywatch's end there are a fair few contrivances to counter the Autobots' weight in numbers, notably meaning the Autobots initially have to attack in vehicle mode due to pesky politicians saying dumb things. Because the various satellites they have to hide the involvement from the Autobots are manned by people who will think it's perfectly normal for a racing car with three giant guns strapped to it to charge a marauding Decepticon. The assault is lead by Optimus Prime with Bumblebee back at home and, like the Spike/Scrapper thing, it's difficult to tell how much of this is intentionally showing that Prime's simple presence is undermining Bumblebee's newfound leadership or whether Costa has just forgotten what's happened before. It has the effect of making Bumblebee less credible in the eyes of the reader either way. And then on the other hand there's another of those great alien moments only fresh writers can bring to Transformers when Jetfire is taken out in the air by Vortex, the story pointing out that while the Autobot might be big news in other continuities here he's a scientist put into an unfamiliar fight against a soldier; again, it's the sort of blunt, logical thing a writer more familiar with the lore would never dream of doing.
Then another contrivance comes in when Cosmos shows up to sort out the satellites, having not been mentioned before. It's a bit harsh to pick Costa up in particular on this as it's something every single IDW writer has been guilty of - the sudden reveal of someone who can solve a certain problem who hasn't necessarily been shown to be around before. I mean, Cosmos hasn't been stated to be elsewhere and one of the strengths of the ongoing is just drip-feeding these characters in which adds to the feeling of two factions scattered and disorganised but narratively it's insulting to suddenly pull him out of nowhere when he could have been lobbed into the background or mentioned a couple of times before now - Hell, even in the first issue of this arc would have done. It at least leads to some better fight scenes, especially when the Predacons (minus Razorclaw) turn up having established a similar deal to Onslaught's but with the Chinese government. They don't get much in the way of characterisation but keep things interesting while there's a great role for Thundercracker thrown in as well, once more begging the question of how Costa can pick up one character and work them so well while unintentionally making another so awful.
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