Comic Review – Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #21 (or An Open Letter to James Roberts)

In the past, I’ve only given this comic a “Quick Look” so to avoid people getting spoiled.  But I can’t talk about this comic without spoilers.  I tried, I really tried, but nope, can’t do it.  So:

SPOILERS AFTER THE IMAGES!

SPOILER WARNING!

Oh, James Roberts.  You magnificent bastard.

How dare you give us such hope, such joy to see the bad guys get their comeuppance… only to rip it away from us with Autobot deaths, and then to give us hope again… and then take part of it away again?

The conclusion to the epic “Remain in Light” storyline — and in fact, the season-finale of this More than Meets the Eye storyline finds us immediately in the thick of things on page 1, where Tyrest is walking to Cybertopia… and is stopped by Tailgate, who’s impending cybercrosis death actually prevents him from hearing the signal telling his spark to shutdown.

That’s just page 1, and you, Alex Milne and Josh Burcham (with Joana LaFuente)  don’t let up from there.

An epic showdown between Cyclonus and Star Saber, the return of Minimus Ambus (again), the incapacitation of Tyrest, the “death” of Whirl, and hell, Rodimus owning up to his faults and saving the entire damn Transformers race would more than be enough for a double-sized comic, but you get it all in a regular sized one.

But, no, James, you had to rip out our hearts.  We saw Pharma get his comeuppance from First Aid — the pacifist! — and we cheered.  We saw Cyclonus only dream of pushing Whirl to his death — and we cheered when he instead walked away.  Rodimus destroyed the Matrix so that the Transformers could live — and we cheered.

And then Cyclonus stabbed Tailgate in the spark to save him the pain of the final, agonizing moments of cybercrosis.

You utter jerk, James Roberts.

You utter jerk for killing Tailgate, making us hope he would survive his inevitable death clock countdown.

You utter jerk for doing all that — and having Cyclonus be his savior instead, shunting some of his spark energy into Tailgate.

Bravo, good sir.  I’ll even let the text story, where Tyrest gets away, stand, because I know that just means more good stories in the future.

Hell of a season.  Can’t wait to see what’s next.