Closing Metzen & Dille's early war trilogy Primacy is something of a return to form for the thread, a little more worn than Autocracy but a step up from Monstrosity. Part of this may be due to the storyline being restructured as four 22-page issues rather than a dozen 8-pagers.
There's not a lot for non-converts here but Primacy accepts its' status as knowing action-adventure and revels in it. Really in the present climate of IDW's output it's nice to have a series where Megatron basically fill Trypticon all the famous Decepticons he can find and simply sets out to kill Optimus Prime and all the famous Autobots he's hanging around with.
Again the series fumbles cute references by making them leaden retreads but there's some nice character interaction here, including one of the least irritating takes on Grimlock since the Generation 2 days. Things get a little pat at the end but overall it's an entertaining if somewhat predictable read.
3/5
The second of the Metzen/Dille trilogy, Monstrosity is something of a disappointment after the pleasant diversion of Autocracy. It loosely covers Optimus Prime's attempts to persuade the general population of Cybertron that he's not a tyrant like predecessor Zeta Prime while trying to deal with the insurgent Decepticons. The latter spend a portion of the story under the command of Scorponok while Megatron is in exile.
Overall Monstrosity's big problem is that it's about lots of things and it lacks the tight coherence of its' predecessor. The biggest fault is Megatron's exhile to the planet Junkion, here a nightmarish Hell filled with cannibalistic robots. It's not a bad story idea and the pock-marked cloak-clad Megatron wading in Junkion oil around the planet with his pet Quintesson chained up is actually a great visual. The problem is such an epic idea is dealt with in too short a period of time, especially considering the format forces such rapid pacing.
The final act revolves around the resurrection of Trypticon and the attempts to tame the savage Dynobots so they can integrate into the Autobot army. Really it feels quite tacked on and adds to the feeling of a desperate jumble of ideas. Most of the actual dialogue and action is passable, though old references - predominantly to the '86 movie - grow in number as the series goes on and become quite jarring. Livio Ramondelli continues to provide beautiful art, however, and the story's not bad, merely flawed and rough.
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Autocracy was IDW's first attempt at a digital series, being made up of a dozen 8-page chapters. To avoid queering the pitch of the main physical books the decision was taken to set the series in the early days of the war, a period which overall is getting some nice fleshing out from IDW.
This series starts its' storyline not long after the conclusion of Megatron Origin; the Decepticons are beginning to consolidate and the general populace of Cybertron is caught between these revolutionaries and the corrupt senate. Caught between are the Autobots, notably valiant, principled cop Orion Pax (i.e. Optimus Prime when he was Op Rod).
As ever the feeling of everything being a foregone conclusion does inevitably take a little drama out of proceedings but generally the writers - new-to-Transformers Chris Mentzen and prehistoric Sunbow hack Flint Dille - seem aware of this and side with telling the story straight rather than getting bogged down with cheap empty jeopardy.
There are some nice character interactions between some of the big names in the early days of both factions, even if some again play merry Hell with IDW's equivalent of continuity. Pax/Prime and Megatron both come out of it well and are largely the focus of the script; Zeta Prime is a bit of a non-event, making you wonder why he was slotted in after Sentinel Prime when the latter could quite believably have developed in this fashion. Most of the rest are given an odd line or two here or there but sound authentic enough, though it's perhaps a bit jarring that Hot Rod would a) make the mature choice to sacrifice Nyon while b) still being an immature hot-head many years in the future.
The script gets a bit repetitive towards the end, complete with a telegraphed and overlong Transformers the Movie homage that just sucks anyone reading right out of the thing, but the format actually works and it's one of the faster IDW efforts. However, it's more solid entertainment than a crucial installment.
2/5
