Review: ‘Transformers’ #55: Showdown!

ALL HAIL OPTIMUS–CONCLUSION! GALVATRON vs. SOUNDWAVE vs. ARCEE vs. COSMOS vs. OPTIMUS PRIME vs. humanity!

Writing

As things come to a close in this issue, the biggest element is a battle between Optimus Prime, Soundwave, and Arcee against Galvatron. It’s nice to see Soundwave and Optimus on the same side, an element which hasn’t been explored before in the IDW publication of Transformers. Unfortunately a more popular Decepticon bites the dust in this issue as an afterthought. Can’t have anything going well at least.

The “All Hail Optimus” story started slow, but eventually gained momentum in the middle and ended with style with this issue. Though wrapping things up nicely, it also alluded to a lot of new elements which will be explored in the next arc. Writer John Barber really did plan everything out extensively and helped to expand the possibility of where the story can go from here.

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Artwork

The art team of Andrew Griffith and Josh Burcham really helped to make things look gritty and broken in this issue. This is actually to the issue’s benefit as the battle has been long and hard, meaning no one is going to be in their best condition. The detail work on new landscape of Earth is really impressive (still trying not to give way the BIG spoiler about what happened).

Conclusion

This arc started slow but the last two issues have really helped to cement the importance of it in the overall story. Things will be different from here on out for the Transformers and humanity. They will most likely be explored in the Optimus Prime series which will be out later this year. With any luck, he will hopefully have more going for him than just be a stalwart symbol and actually have a bit more fun. Even Megatron now gets entertaining moments with the crew of the Lost Light.

Anthony Wendel
Anthony Wendelhttp://www.thegiganticproject.com
Anthony is a geek through and through who still looks forward to new releases, sneak peeks, Giant Monsters, and robots of all shapes and sizes. He loves animation of all shapes and sizes. He has a distinct apprehension for trolling and clips shows. His books, The Handbook for Surviving A Giant Monster Attack and Santa Claus Conquers Manos: The Hands of Fate are available on Amazon.