Comic Review: Transformers: Infestation 2 #1 & #2

I loved Transformers: Hearts of Steel when it was released several years ago. The Transformers saga, set in a different time? Especially a Victorian/steampunk era? It was great!

Seven years later, in preparation for this new mini-series, I tried to remember what happened in HoS, and to my surprise, I couldn’t. I remember John Henry being there, I know that the Autobots won and went back to sleep… but the details were lacking. I knew the designs were great, but I couldn’t recall much else. Added to this was the fact that I couldn’t find my copies of the series, so I went into Infestation 2 with a bit of confusion.

Something tells me that even if I had reread or remembered HoS, I wouldn’t have had a much better time with this story.

The Synopsis

The Seacons are asleep in the ocean, a race of fish people find them, a year later, Ironhide finds out about the fish people, meets up with Bumblebee and then go to find Optimus. The fish people enslave some more Decepticons, then Ironhide, then the humans and Bumblebee and other Autobots have to revive Optimus using a Nicola Tesla invention and their own power and… you know what, forget it.

I love underwater stories, I love the Hearts of Steel look, but I just couldn’t get into this story. When I got done with issue #2, I thought, “Huh, that’s it? Two issues and it’s done?” It felt like so much potential was there, but because of the publishing aspect of the Infestation issues, it was crammed into two issues without much substance.

I didn’t outright hate it, but it left me very uncaring. I’d much rather go reread HoS.

The Good

Guido’s art is always good, and I love me some Steampunk Transformers. So from that standpoint, this is a peanut-butter-and-chocolate match. We can always use more Guido in our comic book lives. His art is always crisp and clean. And finally seeing Optimus in his 1880’s design is great.

The Bad

The story. Two issues of “Oh, hey here are some aliens and whoops they’re defeated by the end!” works in an ongoing series, and maybe this will all tie-in with the overall IDW Infestation story, but I’m not going to pick up any of the other mini-series, but I wanted more. Instead, I got ambivalence.

The Final Rewind

Buy it for the designs, but the story is lacking. I do want to return to this universe, but let’s get a deeper story, okay?

The Geek Bits
Title: Transformers: Infestation 2
Issue #: 1 and 2
Price: $3.99 US
Release Date: February 1 and 15, 2012
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Written by: Chuck Dixon
Art by: Guido Guidi
Inking by: John Wycough (issue 1, pages 15-22)
Color by: Joana Lafuente
Letters by: Chris Mowry
Editor: Bobby Curnow
Worth the price? Eh. If you like the designs from the Hearts of Steel universe, it’s worth it to read this. But the story’s not really there.