Transformers: Lost Light Volume 4 & Optimus Prime Volume 4 Review

Hi, this is John Barber from IDW Publishing.

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Radio Network. So without any further ado, it's

time to talk about the comics we are reading

right now here inside the pull bag. Hello and

welcome to The Pull Bag. This is episode 368

.5 and it is the second week of September. Autobotly

August is kind of running over a little bit here.

To end it this time around, for now, not really

because we still have two more episodes after

this at the end of September and October. Continuing

on with our Transformers coverage, Ryan the Unevenflow

Merkley is with me. Hello, sir. Hello. And today

we talk about the Lost Light Volume 4, which

is the finale for that series, as well as Optimus

Prime Volume 4. After this we have Unicron and

then Optimus Prime Volume 5, and then the universe

is over. It's done. And then we can really start

complaining about the new universe. So, yes,

we're starting off with Lost Light Volume 4.

It is the end for Rodimus and Company. Boo slash

yay. Boo slash yay. Yeah, that about sums it

up. Man. Okay, so obviously James Roberts on

writing. The art for issue 19 is done by E .J.

Su. Which is awesome. K .C. Collier does issue

20. Jack Lawrence does 21, 23, and 25. And then

Brendan Cahill does 22 and 24. Colors by Gimeno

Luente. Letters by Tom B. Long, which it was

announced months ago that he has left IDW. Yep.

He's gone on his own, which is unfortunate, but...

He's gonna do fine cuz holy cow is he good. Oh,

yeah, very good series edits done by David Marriott

Yeah, so This is it this is it So we ended the

previous trade slash previous set of stories

with Rodimus and co being seemingly attacked

by terrible disfigured they turn out to be spark

eater of Versions of the crew that had mutinied.

Yep. Oh boy, so Yeah, this is so get this out

of the way first I liked this ending and Obviously,

I love the series but wow was it rushed because

pretty much is kind of balls to the wall one

sort of answer or thing after another. And I

think I talked about this before. I think this

was as good an ending as he could have done for

a series as complicated and complex with as many

moving parts as More Than Meets the Eye and Lost

Light had. But you see the effects of not necessarily

knowing that your end is coming up versus Optimus

Primes that we'll start getting into next time

although of course there's one more trade left

of it so yeah I remember when these got released

and I was like oh volume four so that means lost

lights gonna get a volume five just like Optimus

Prime oh wait no it's not damn bastard getaways

still on the lost light I'm gonna coals notes

this big time just because of all the stuff happening

on every single page Which is the only way to

do each issue. Yeah, and yeah, I'm gonna go back

to what I what we used to do Which is issue by

issue, but again try to shorten it because do

so Ronimus meets up with His former crew at least

the ones that aren't spark eaters which are the

crew that escaped with first aid Yeah, in other

words thunderclash Riptide. It turns out they're

with Grimlock who has also escaped as well. Yay

Grimlock, so we get answers for that. Yep, Grimmy

was okay. Yep. He makes quite the entrance too,

should be noted. Oh yes he does. We jump back,

we learn that the getaway is working for the

Grand Architect. It's revealed that T -Rest is

back and is one of... the people also working

for the Grand Architect and yeah, they stole

away a small crew on board the Lost Light and

we end with Ronimus and Cyclonus running smack

dab into Star Saber, Scorponok and Getaway. Yeah.

Wow. Which man, I've waited for a lot of the,

yeah, and there's a ton of stuff in between this

and a lot of good character moments. Some characters

reuniting we never we maybe thought wouldn't

see each other ever again Etc. Etc. There's a

lot to pack in and these Yeah, I'll say this

I was ecstatic with the end to just because I've

wanted to see the Star Saber V cyclonus rematch

badly and I think everybody one wanted to see

erotimus and getaway meet up again, although

unfortunately as we see The next issue, Scorponok's

there too, and Swell. Scorponok's in a completely

different weight class than poor Rodimus. Yeah,

sadly. I still love Rodimus's shattered glass

colors. What I find interesting after having

read this is when the Lost Light started in volume

one, I forget who was doing it, but they were

painting Rodimus these colors. They were... actually

painting them on his body. Okay, it was Drift.

And then as we go through this, he just steps

through fire and has them melt off. And he's

back to his traditional red, yellow, orange.

I thought that was hilarious how to, like, because,

you know, you think, oh, they're not going to

end this series with Rodimus being purple still,

are they? Wouldn't be bad if they did that, but

hey, classic Rodimus shows up back again. I'm

like, oh, that's a genius without having to,

you know, have like swerve or rung or somebody,

you know, just wash the color off. Well, you've

jumped to the next issue, so I'll sum that up

quick too. Rodimus gets the crap beat out of

him by Scorponok for a while while Cyclonus Runs

off with star saber in hot pursuit which who

doesn't turn out wealth star saber Who gets what

he deserved? Scorponok gets dragged away by the

grand architect leaving hot rod. Sorry Rodimus

jeez I screwed up there Wow anyway leaving Rodimus

alone with get away the inevitable sort of fight

ensues and things get real bad get away when

cyclonus also shows up because He's got no chance

of one -on -one with him, much less with Rodimus

there as well. One story short, so they have

their fight and there's a lot of talk. Getaway

is not wrong with a lot of the things he talks

about, that Rodimus at times is not a good person

and hasn't been a good captain to his crew, but

Rodimus proves that he's learned to be better.

and his desire to save Getaway instead of kill

him. Now Getaway mercifully dies anyway, which

is good, because he's a piece of shit and didn't

want him to live anyway. But Ronimus proves that

at least he's grown somewhat. And yes, he definitely

has times, and he's had times in Lost Light where

he's dipped back. But for the most part in Lost

Light, he's been better than he was in More Than

Meets the Eye. The thing that bugged me about

More Than Meets the Eye was in the final arc

where he literally used Chromedome again as pointed

out by a lot of the characters and just enabled

him. That was definitely a big step back for

him, but it got better since then. Yeah, I love

in the scene that Get away runs into the flames.

He I'll die my own way. I Love cyclonus erotimus

here cyclonus. He was terrified. He really thought

we were about to kill him Weren't you I? love

that I Just think that is so so interesting and

again the simple thing of change the colors back

of the fire burning them off It's a great page

spread, by the way, where he'd take Getaway out

of the flame and he's back to his original color

scheme. Yeah, it is amazing. It is so awesome.

And we get Getaway's dream, which, yeah, he definitely

did think of, thought highly of himself, that

he should be a Prime, et cetera, and yeah. Getaway

Prime just sounds so stupid anyway. Yes. Yes.

We also have the the scraplets in this Red scraplets

apparently Yeah, so that's something from a lost

light annual story that were all Housing a group

of scraplets on the lost light which are dangerous

to transformers So surprise surprise world keeps

them on board as pets essentially And then we're

into what is essentially the last arc, not essentially.

It really is the last arc for the Transformers.

And it deals specifically with the Grand Architect

and his plans. We get Scorponok. Oh, God. I don't

even know how to get into this. All right, this

is real rushed. So we'll go through warp speed

as well. Essentially, something's coming through

to destroy the universe through the crack that

we saw at the end of the previous issue I summed

up. It turns out that all of the Grand Architect

has organized all of this. The Grand Architect

is Pharma. However, he is being inhabited by

Adaptus, one of the original... Not primes. Essentially,

the Transformers gods, the guiding hand. Yeah,

the guiding hand, there you go. And each one

is a different Transformer we've seen, either

from the beginning or the start, or they've been

mentioned in different ways. Like, the Magnificent

is another one of the guiding hand. TRS is another

member of the guiding hand. Notably however Primus

the god of all transformers god of all gods is

revealed to be wrong Which to be fair explains

an awful lot about the series like this was well

done And I was pretty happy with that revelation

it made sense Yeah, it did it actually made sense

going all the way back to the very beginning

of more than meets the eye in this in issue 21

here when um tailgate's like we've stopped moving

uh at the very bottom of that page there's a

there's a panel where they they're i'm i'm half

tempted to say damn it james you missed an opportunity

here because we're being sucked into it holy

shit what do we do now Now I wouldn't have gone

through the comics code. Jeez. There's no comics

code anymore. They say damn it anywhere. Anyway.

Anyway. We get a lot of stuff happens. I mean,

Scorponok gets offed fairly unceremoniously,

which is kind of a downer because he's a fairly

strong character. Just kind of goes out. But

whatever. The biggest revelation comes, though,

that Megatron and the fleet are the first group

through the portal. The second group through

the portal, unfortunately for everybody, is the

version of Cybertron we saw as the functional

universe way back at the start of Lost Light

and way back in More Than Meets the Eye. Yep.

Long story short again, they've turned into Cybertron

into a giant version of Primus and they've come

to sort of take over all the universes slash

spread to their nut casiness everywhere. Yeah.

And in the end, Ronimus and crew, everybody sort

of comes together to try to stop them. Rung gives

his life to create more matrices slash matrixes,

whatever you want to call them. order to detonate

or not really detonate because they survive in

order to use the hotspots on the functionalist

Cybertron to shut it down yeah I mean wrong is

you know the ultimate sacrifice I think I think

you know I remember way back when I first started

reading He's just a psycho. He's just a psychiatrist

or whatever. He's just there to listen to their

problems There's always this joke of what he

transforms into and what he does I'm so happy

that they find people forgetting him and we know

why yeah People would forget they saw him. They

forgot about him, etc. Yeah, I'm so happy that

they gave him that James gave him this Ascension

or whatever you want to call it or This whole

backstory of how he was primus or he is primus

kind of I think that's really cool Like instead

of just having a big giant dumb robot out in

the middle of nowhere trying to destroy everything.

Oh wait, that's coming So the big sort of thing

here was the or at least the scenes I liked the

most was the stuff with the matrices matrices

matrices, whatever whatever those things and

You've got each of the Transformers trying to

open it to varying slash non -existent degrees

of success Yeah, and I like the fact that okay,

so ratchet didn't have any issues. Basically,

it's really good character moments in these.

Rodimus' speech, by the way, is excellent, but

it made sense that Ratchet has no trouble. Swerve

and Misfire are interesting pairing, but that

was okay. Tailgate, it's not surprising he didn't

have too much of a problem. Magnus sort of needs

the Speech and is unable to open it, but in the

end it ends up its world. That's able to open

it which Sort of makes sense in that apparently

you have to kind of accept yourself, which is

something world's Pretty good at yeah again Thunder

good. Oh good again another missed opportunity

I felt with Magnus Not everything has to be a

reference to transformers the movie days Hey,

it's open, damn it, open. It's one of his more

famous lines. Anyway. Right before he dies. In

the movie. Well, I guess put that together very

quickly, though. Apparently he just needed some

elbow grease. Thunder Clash, Roller, no problems

with them. First Age, Nautica, and Velocity.

That's fine, but what I really liked here is

after everything and after four million years

Is it four million or eleven million? I can't

remember. It's millions of years in the functionalist

universe trying to do good and being a pacifist

Megatron still hasn't forgiven himself at all

and is unable to open it. I just like that character

moment. It makes sense and You know after everything

you for obvious reasons but after everything

Megatron will never forgive himself yeah yeah

that's very cool and ever since he became an

Autobot I have loved Megatron in these comics

he's so much more interesting than any other

version of the character yep in terms of His

depth and everything else. There's so much more

to him You also I think I mentioned this before

but you also get the sense of why somebody would

follow the guy because that's always of me is

In a lot of the transformer series. He is abusive.

He's angry all the time And basically you ask

yourself why would anybody join with this guy

is kind of a jerk And I've always liked that

this series in particular has shown exactly why,

what it is about him that people would want to

follow. Yeah. Absolutely. And then we get the

final issue, and chronologically the final issue

of Transformers. Yes, so this takes place at

the end of Optimus Prime Volume 5. which we will

talk about next time, even though after we finish

talking about this, we'll talk about Optimus

Prime Volume 4 later in this podcast. It actually

takes place significantly after, apparently.

Yeah, years upon years after. And yeah, we open

with Ratchet's funeral. More Ratchet. Well, he

died of old age, though. Well, at least he died

of old age and, you know, not being cut in half

lengthways. Yeah, poor Ambulon. And then used

as a leg for Defensor. Yeah. And it's interesting

that they note finally that he and Drift became

Conjurks Endura, which made sense. They pretty

much have been inseparable. They had an adventure

in Empire of Stone, which maybe we'll get into.

someday but it was the logical conclusion to

everything with the two of them yeah and as for

the rest of the issue so we get prowl so prowl

mulling over what to do what they're going to

do with the new cybertron and this these are

all flashbacks this is all closer to the end

of Optimus Prime, and inevitably the discussion

turns to what's gonna happen with Megatron. Yeah.

There has to be a trial, there has to be a second

trial, there has to be this, there has to be

that. And in the end he's turned over to the

Black Box Consortium, and we get the final sort

of ride of... I'm just gonna do this in non -chronological

order, I guess. Actually, no, it'll be chronologic.

We get the last ride of the lost light. Herodimus

is granted the chance to take the crew out one

last time before the ship is disassembled to

help power the new Cybertron. Gee, what happens

to the old Cybertron? Well, I guess you'll have

to read Unicron. But in any case, there is a

new Cybertron. and it's the one that came from

the functionalist universe because it has a number

of hot spots and protoforms slash young transformers

being born continuing the race and again doing

this chronologically because this is the end

of the book the crew tries to copy the experiment

that led to this entire series it started off

more than meets the eye splitting off a second

Lost Light, which they are successful in doing,

which is kind of neat. And so there is a version

of these characters, including Megatron, that

get to go out and go on forever. Now, jumping

back to the chronological, Rodimus... and co

sort of go their separate ways at the end of

the funeral, but we get a lot of goodbyes. Tellingly,

Rodimus leaves the Rodimus star that Megatron

kept on him all those years in the functionalist

universe on Ratchet's grave. And we have no idea

if Megatron's fate or anything. I like that it's

open. The choices were he's either put in solitary

confined for all of eternity or he's killed by

the consortium so hey there you go those are

your two choices for floral megs my assumption

is he's killed I don't think there's any way

either gonna let him risk being broken out or

anything like that but who knows I like this

up to the reader Yeah. That's the good thing.

That it's up to us to figure out what happens

to him. And I think the guys led a nice good

long life. Or bad long life, good long life,

however you want to say it. But I'm saying, like,

I mean the fact that Megatron, of all people,

gets kind of... not necessarily a happy ending.

But, you know, that his character got... A really

good arc throughout this entire run. Yeah, I

wouldn't call it a happy ending. He does get

his kind of do -over, but they mention that Orion

Pax and a number of the other sort of characters

that would have been his friend in the functionalist

universe were killed. I don't know how. Yeah,

I don't know. I like that he did get the opportunity

to do things over again, even though he didn't

necessarily deserve it. He's a terrible person.

I wouldn't necessarily call it a redemption arc,

but he tried. Is to be better, which I think

is kind of the theme For a lot of these characters

every from one from world to run them if they're

all trying to be better than they were Yeah Yeah,

absolutely and Again, even though it was rushed

The fact that this got an ending Without just

you know without it being, oh, hey, we're going

to catch you. Here's one issue to wrap everything

up. Well, that or we're just not going to wrap

it up. We're just going to leave it the way it

is or we're just going to leave it off and you're

never going to get an end to this. Basically,

you know, we're going to firefly you or whatever

kind of a thing. And I'm glad that they didn't

do that. And after reading at least the end for

this, you know, Hey, like you said, they get

to go off and have even more adventures. I think

it's nice that there's sort of a happy ending,

and I'm okay if there's sort of a happy ending

for one of the Megatrons, at least in theory

because of the way quantum mechanics and X and

the like work. It's the Megatron that has...

dedicated to pacifism he now this Megatron didn't

necessarily do all of those things even though

he's a split of the one that did I don't know

this one's hard to figure out it's hard to figure

out it's one of those it works for me I guess

that's what I'm getting at there absolutely yeah

and again the art from everybody Jack Lawrence

EJ Sue on this Brendan Cahill everybody else

Absolutely gorgeous art. I love the the exchange

between Rodimus and Megatron. So what are we

gonna do now? Go out and save the universe. What

else? Or whatever that line is between Rodimus

and Megatron. I love that. It's just so well

known. And it's almost a shame because Jack Lawrence

just has completely hit his stride in the series

at this point for his art work. that he's very

much found his niche and his version of these

characters. And yeah, it's almost a shame, but

hey, you know, well, it's a good way to put it

on a hot zero to five. What would you give this?

It has issues, but it is the culmination of the

entire series. It's a culmination of the best

transformer series that. That has ever been Period

comics movies, whatever. I cannot give it anything

less than a five And just the series as a whole

is absolutely a five out of five as well, it's

It's weird to be finally reviewing sort of the

end of it, but yeah the end of it Yeah, I am

also going to give it a five. I love all of the

answers that were given. I love that everything

was wrapped up. I love that everybody, most everybody

got some sort of ending or got some sort of happy

ending at some point or another. Even Rung, like

I liked and I like a lot of the character touches.

But Rung is a good example of one of them in

that just before he gives his life. He has sort

of a flashback which is essentially to signify

skids Welcoming welcoming him into the afterlife.

Yeah, you know stuff like that and it's a flashback

to the first time they I Believe I'm pretty sure

anyway, it's the first time they met in the series

Yeah, that they're shown together where he says

come with me eyebrows like I mean, X number of

years working on this, crafting this story, coming

up with these stories, like you said, this is

by far the best Transformers run in any medium.

And I think it's telling for me too that when

I think of Megatron now, I think of the version

of him both good and bad. Presented in this series.

Yeah, you know the upstart revolutionary a to

Autobot story that's presented in this is It's

good. It's so very good. Go read it folks, please

No, we're not done yet. Yeah. Yeah, I know just

because we finished lost light doesn't mean the

entire series is done. Yes And I'll say this,

it's a little weird to be going into... So Lost

Light is done, period, and it's a little weird

to be going into another volume of Optimus Prime

and then having one more volume after that. It's

interesting. Yeah, it's very, very strange. So

we will be back after this with Optimus Prime

Volume 4. Rodimus, what happened to him? Alright,

we are continuing on inside the pull bag of episode...

I don't even remember now. Oh lord, 368 .5, I'd

like to say. Yes, Optimus Prime volume 4. We

just finished Lost Light, I'm of course, GeoTron

Mike. Ryan is here as well. Those that don't

remember. It's been like three weeks between

recording these two parts of this podcast. Oh

I was wondering if you're gonna admit it. Oh

Hey, I don't care. Nobody listens to this anyway

That's usually my line. Yeah, it usually is but

you know And so yes, we are continuing on Optimus

Prime volume floor The creative on this is John

Barber on writing kzama on art Issues 15 and

17 along with 20 and 21. Sarah Peter Durocher

is on issue 18, 19 and 21. As well as Livio Remendelli

on issue 18 and 21. Colors done by Josh Burcham

and Livio Remendelli. Letters by Tom B. Long.

Series edits by David Mariette. Okay, so. Some

stuff happens. Yeah You mentioned to this this

to me off air you're like have you gotten to

the point where it's revealed who onyx I'm like

no not yet You're like, okay. Well just wait

for it Surprise so long story short just to summer

up sum up everything Yeah, so this is gonna be

a short summary because This is what Barber probably

does best in terms of It feels like so when I

do this summary, it's pretty easy to summarize

essentially what all that happens is Optimus

Prime is reintroducing the Council of Worlds

and things seem to be going okay when Onyx Prime

shows up who has been often mentioned and never

seen before and Things sort of spiral out of

control. There are bombings. There are the Metro

Titan going nuts. There's a bunch of things.

Onyx Prime is revealed to be another character.

I mean, this has been out. The universe is gone.

Like, we're onto the new universe. I don't feel

like we don't... We shouldn't feel like we shouldn't

be able to spoil it. No, plus there's no way

not to. So anyway... Onyx Prime is Shockwave,

who has returned. Seemingly from the dead. But

out of that, we finally get an explanation of

why Starscream can see Bumblebee as a ghost.

I was waiting for this. I've been waiting for

this since they killed Bumblebee. I assumed that's

what happened to Bumblebee. What I didn't expect

was that something similar had happened to Shockwave.

And that he was okay. Sort of. So Shockwave was

thrown back in time and for the second time in

the IDW Transformers series is again, literally

responsible for every single event of the entire

series. And is the mastermind behind absolutely

everything. Well, I mean, honestly, can you blame

the guy when you, you know, Empirata and Shadow

play him? I mean, come on, you know. There's

gonna be shit he's gonna want to do Yes, but

we don't know the end game at this point I mean

I do because the series is over and I've read

it so I'm well aware of what he was trying to

do yeah, and why and In his defense. He's not

wrong about any of it. I Mean to be fair at the

end of this so we get the inevitable shot of

Unicron It's the absolute last panel of the entire

trade. And Shockwave actually had the best plan

for dealing with them, but get into that when

we actually get to the Unicron trade. Yeah, so

where to start? I had mentioned to you that there

were a number of different hints that Onyx Prime

was Shockwave. A couple of them are... The most

obvious one that I missed was onyx a never transforms

be never uses any of the extra limbs he's only

ever shown on two legs and Sort of two arms in

that you know shockwave only has one hand. Yeah

But yeah, he never uses any of the others which

Could have been a hint if I was somewhat aware

of it be his foreknowledge of everything. Oh

yeah. Which is related to the fact that of course

he already existed in the universe. So for a

long time in the Transformers IDW there were

two shockwaves, which is a disturbing thought.

Yeah, really disturbing because if you think

about it... An emotionless one and a - Know one

one filled with emotion two different versions.

It's same care same guy whatever but one with

and one without emotions. Oh That spells big

trouble for anybody Well, Senator Shockwave was

good and seemingly a force for good before the

Emperor out of the shadow play. Yeah strip them

of everything. Yeah, that's what I'm saying like

that that you know, him becoming that version

of Shockwave and leading up to Dark Cybertron,

and then, you know, we've got this one with time

traveling and everything else. I... I feel as

if, even though the big thing is Shockwave, the

big thing, obviously, as you said, at the very

end, is Unicron, I feel the two biggest characters

in this outside of all of that. Are Starscream

and Soundwave? Uh, at least for the first half.

And Starscream more in the... So first half,

yeah, Soundwave's one of the bigger ones because

it was his lies and the things he did way back

in Barber's Robots in Disguise that set the stage

for a lot of the stuff here. And the dissension

in the Decepticon ranks. And Starscream has...

Oh man, Shockwave with the sick burns on Starscream

where he points out that he essentially needed

an imbecile and a tool who would cause more dissension

on Cybertron in order for his plans to work.

Yeah, I mean Starscream got used like a day -old

penny in this. Having that revealed that... He's

just a pawn. He's not the chosen one. He's not

this he's not that Wow or Starscream I don't

think in my entire lifetime I would have ever

said for Starscream, but at the same time I would

have never said I would have enjoyed Megatron

as a good guy So in kind of typical barber stuff

I was trying to mention at the start was just

that It's pretty easy to sum up the story and

it feels like not a lot happens in terms of the

overall storyline here but what Barber has always

done well is there's so many character moments

in between the plot and so many moving parts

and pieces. It's difficult. They could sit here

for a week and sum up everything that happens

in this book. But in terms of the character moments,

the Aileron and Arcee relationship, which is

one of the highlights of Barber's run, I feel

like, not to mention Soundwave's changing viewpoint,

but Aileron and Arcee, their relationship kind

of gets, I don't know what to call it, if you

want to call it the culmination or... In any

case, it's one of the highlights here. That was

one of the moments that stood out for me. I mentioned

Soundwave already. Victorion finally has had

enough of Devastator. Yep. So we get the end

of Devastator period. Yes. He did, finally. Yeah,

he did. He lasted ridiculously, like ever since

All Hail Megatron. Yeah. I would rather have

Devastator go out the way he did than have Prowl

stuck in his head forever. Prowl is conspicuously

absent in this, and we'll see why eventually,

but yes. Man, I just, this is so cool. Like,

I wasn't sure what to, like, More Than Meets

the Eye, Lost Light, whatever, James Roberts'

book. We knew something cool and epic and interesting

was gonna happen because that was ending which

obviously is what we just talked about a little

while ago on this podcast, but This is continuing

this story Barber's story and all of the artists

that work on this like seeing Kay Zama's art

seeing I've always loved Livio's art And seeing

Sarah's art as well like Normally, I get taken,

and I've mentioned this thousands of times on

this show by now, I get taken aback when art

style changes, but because of the way Barbara

is telling the story of different times and different

places, the art fits in, and having Livio always

do the past stuff, I love it. Because it's essentially

him getting to do G1. Sort of. Yeah, and the

two books couldn't feel... More disparate from

each other and not in a bad way more than meets

the eye in slash lost like whatever screw it

i'm just gonna call it our ID and more than meets

the eye again more than meets the eye was. The

culmination of character developments and. It

was about the crew and their relationships with

each other this book. is the satisfaction comes

from all of the moving pieces just sort of clicking

into place. Because that's what Barber does really

well is puts all the pieces on a chessboard and

he's able to just have everything just move perfectly

into place and then execute. I was going to try

to come up with them like funny really terrible

analogy where I mix like chess and checkers.

I couldn't. No. I love the moments that Optimus

gets in this. I love, honestly, the furthering

of Shockwave's story. Like, sending him back

in time, and then the reveal of how all that

went. What his plan really really is Well, a

lot of it comes from Bumblebee too and Bumblebee

is the most overexposed character in Transformers

right now and I'm tempted to say of all time

and thinking about it. Obviously Optimus is up

there Bumblebee at least sat out some shows.

So I guess Maybe not but right now he's the most

exposed and he's the most out there And to be

blunt, he can be annoying in certain iterations

and he's a standout character in this book and

he always has been under Barber. Just the growth

and everything else we've seen from him as a

character. And in here, he's not a leader as

he was in the RID stuff, but he's also much happier

not having to be the leader, so there's that.

But no, he remains a standout character. One

of the things I think Barber does really well

is he's realized who he writes well and uses

those characters to their fullest. If it wasn't

for Marguerite Scott's Starscream, Barber's Starscream

would be, in my opinion, the best he's been written.

But he writes sound wave I think better than

anyone else like this is the most most interesting

nuanced version of sound wave and To be blunt

he executes Despite the fact this shockwave is

rooted pretty strongly in Furman's g1 shockwave

version He executes it better than Furman ever

did Cuz there's more depth to it there's more

layers to it there's more. Well his plans take

place over millions and millions of years. Exactly

like you I think you had asked me either earlier

in this episode or some other conversation like

how many million years is it or whatever and

at least for shockwave it's been I think it was

said in this 12 million years. Well over and

over again too. Right. You know he lived that's

what he lived that time once then he lives it

over again. So 24 million years. Yeah so. He's

old. Yes, he's very old. He's got to be one of

the oldest... Yeah, by the end, he's by far the

oldest Transformer, period. He is, yeah. It's

interesting because I don't think he's ever been

that old in any other incarnation. But yeah,

that's... No, this is a really good book. This

lead up to the end. So two of the things, other

things that Barber's done well. I think on this

show and on others and when I've talked about

it, I've been a big fan of the events in the

Transformers IDW universe. Yeah. And one thing

though is the lead up to the events. Man, Barbara

just nails those like the Dark Cybertron lead

up where he had the Long Night of Starscream,

which was great. He had the story of Soundwave

developing his abilities as well as meeting the

cassettes slash his friends just he does this

setups for them so well and this is the setup

for unicorn and it continues to be fantastic

yeah will it stick the landing we'll see but

i think i i don't think i've made it a secret

that the ending to transformers was ridiculously

satisfying yeah And Barber's finale, in particular,

is one of the strongest points of all IDW. Yeah,

I mean, I'm very excited to... I was excited

to read the impending chaos, which is Unicron,

anyway. I think Unicron has been the one event,

whatever, that I've really... Like, I looked

forward to Dark Cybertron to see what they were

gonna do. I wasn't a huge fan of Combiner Wars,

I don't think, but I don't know. This, because

hello, they marketed the hell out of this as

the universe is ending. We're done. There's only

one thing. In all of Transformers history, if

you said that 13 years of IDW -Transformers comics

were coming to an end, there's only one being

that you could bring in that you haven't yet.

That could send it off rightfully. So and that

is fucking unicorn Because you know we always

said you know in them in the movies take the

movies for what you want, but But you know, where's

unicorn? Why didn't they use you? What you know?

How you done you did it, right? Oh, yeah, they

left they left it as a build -up. You can't just

yeah Marvel Cinematic universe another example

of this he can't just if you use your big bad

or Your largest event or whatever off the start

People just you're not giving time to care about

any of the characters their plights To learn

about the enemy etc etc Which one of those they

don't do a great job with we'll get into that

when we do unicorn, but still It's They did a

good job building to it It wouldn't have meant

anything if we didn't have stuff like this trade

this particular trade so Optimus Prime volume

4 is Outstanding on its own and as buildup it

is also outstanding like it works as a standalone

or as a culmination of a number of different

storylines such as Starscream, Cybertron, Ruler

Shockwave, Cybertron, Douchebag, whatever. Absolutely.

And it works as a culmination to a lot of those.

But yeah, it's also really good. It's a really

good character. It's a really good character

section of the book, of the series as well. Like

you just said, it works on an individual level.

It also works as a setup level for what is to

come. Individually, what it does is... It finally

gives us an answer as to what the frag happened

to Bumblebee. And it gives it to us in a way

where, technically, not really, but I guess technically

for Transformers standards, you think of Optimus

Prime as the father figure and Bumblebee kind

of as the little kid kind of character. He's

not really a little kid character, but we always

think of him kind of that way. you know, so you

get a whole father -son kind of moment with them

in that in -between space or whatever, and I

loved what the artists did on turning prime purple

for that. That was hilariously cool. I thought

that was great. And then, you know, you get the

character moments with Starscream, you have the

character moments with Aileron and Arcee. Everybody

really shines in this individually, and then

you have, as you said, the... end of the world,

the lead up to, oh shit, what are we gonna do

now? We're being sucked into it. You know, that's

what this does. And Barber, I don't think, I'm

sure once I read other stuff that John has done,

but I think this is him just not necessarily

feeling like he's, oh shit, gotta end it, oh

shit, gotta end it, oh shit, gotta end it. This

is him just like throwing everything at the wall.

and it sticks. It doesn't not stick. Yeah, there

is next to nothing that I don't enjoy in this.

It's, again, it's pretty verbose, but it's filled

with so much character arc and development that

I'm fine with it. Some of the stuff we haven't

mentioned too is we really get, for the most

part, we get the culmination of the Pyra Magna

the Optimus Prime slash not liking Optimus Prime

storyline ending so the torchbearers versus Prime

stuff is kind of over with now And I like that

like it was about time to end it Yeah more on

more on why it was time to end it in the next

in an X trade, but I think he shows up here though.

So one of the things with Magna and Co, we know

as the readers, because we're exposed to everyone's

differing viewpoints, that Optimus is generally

trying to do the right thing. He's just not perfect.

And as well as in some cases, he just has a number

of crap decisions to... Choose from like no outcome

is gonna be good. He's just got to pick the least

bad. Yep, and We have other characters so slick

most notably because slick will be a part of

the next two trades we review But when you've

got another character who's just spouting it

and in slicks case from a thoroughly Uneducated

viewpoints at least pyra magna was Part of the

council and privy to a lot of decisions and discussions

With slicky of somebody criticizing everything

optimus does without having clue What's really

going on and it really grates so if they had

chosen to have a Number of characters doing that

leading into the final arc. It would have gotten

real annoying fast And it's annoying enough So

anyway, I'm glad they kind of vary the hatchet

here. Not so much in Pyra gets to be the one

who literally disarms Shockwave, so. Yes, that

was awesome. That was very, very cool. Everything

about this is a super fun read. And like you

said earlier, when we talked about Lost Light,

the last issue of Lost Light takes place after

all of this happens. Yep. Because I feel, and

I've always felt this way, that Lost Light more

than meets the eye, Robots in Disguise, Optimus

Prime, I've always felt that even though they

are on the larger scale Transformers universe

in the IDW comics, they are each their own thing.

So I'm fine with the final issue of Lost Light

taking place after this, because it's a self

-contained thing of learning what happened to

the crew. Yeah, it very much is. There's next

to nothing that gives away anything from this

as well, aside from the presence of Prowl. So,

we know he survives what happens, but that's

not a huge spoiler or anything. Not a lot of

stuff with Prowl is a huge spoiler. No, and also

to be fair, if you didn't think he was going

to play into... The finale or anything then you

haven't been paying attention because it's proud.

Come on. He's the Autobot version of shockwave

So yeah, this is This is what made all of those

you remember we've reviewed past trades of Optimus

Prime and then I Don't want to say down on them,

but definitely not as enthusiastic as this. Yeah,

that's because all of those were the setup to

This stuff and when everything finally kind of

clicks into place Each it just feels great and

it reads really well and that's why I like stuff

like the expanse and To a lesser extent breaking

bad where I love breaking bad more by the way

I'm saying like in terms of what I'm about to

describe but There's slow setup And sometimes

you need that because it makes the final sort

of reveal or that final moment where everything

suddenly, oh, that's why this happened, or oh,

that's why they showed this, et cetera, et cetera.

When you get that, it makes it all worthwhile

when it's done well. And it's done real well

here. Yeah. Again, like I said earlier about

how we get Shockwave time travel stuff, but we

get all the story like everything that has happened

since he got Shadowplayed and Empirata and all

that there anything else ever since that happened

way back when Through Dark Cybertron through

Supposedly thinking he's dead well instead of

thinking he's dead. He just time traveled You

know way back in the past and get to live all

of that all over again for two different times

and Shockwave's a planner. He's always been a

planner and he's always gonna, you know, seed

his oars and whatever he can. Sounds dirty. Never

use that phrase again. No, it's yeah, this so

this is another five out of five. I can't. Give

it anything else. This is the culmination Maybe

even me debatably more than Moments in Unicron

and in Optimus Prime 5. This is the culmination

of 13 years of storytelling. Yeah, absolutely

and particularly from barber so When the story

is very very good as this is I've said it before

and I'll say it again. We're probably never going

to see this level of quality from Transformers

again. I hope I'm wrong. When I say that too,

I mean within my lifetime at least, who knows?

True. X number of years. The franchise has survived

this long. It's not... impossible that Transformers

is going to outlive me. Yeah, we'll be dead and

dusted and this thing will still be going. I

mean, I have surgery on the 30th, maybe I won't

survive that, but if the listeners are lucky,

I want that. Wow, that's dark. Considering this

actually won't air until like the middle of September.

He would have already had surgery. Oh man, maybe

this will be like my last post -omni - post -omni

- yeah, now I can't even say the word. Anyway,

maybe this will be the last podcast I ever appear

on. Wow. No, because we still have, you know,

Unicron and Optimus Prime Volume 5, then we have

to do Star Trek versus Green Lantern Volume 1

and 2. No, but I mean if I don't destroy the

surgery. but you did survive the surgery because

you're here and we're in August of 2019 so you

survived it's okay he's fine folks oh so wait

so now it's not okay to expose when we're recording

geez anyway no this is a really good series though

i don't know what the future holds for transformers

but it's hard to imagine a scenario where individual

writers are allowed to build something like this

over years and years. And when I say the 13 years

of IDW, I mean, Barber and Roberts represent

not even half of the output, but it feels like

it represents so much more of it. They've done

such a good job of tying everything in and tying

everything together. And again, the possibility

that any series, much less a Transformers comic

series, gets the opportunity to actually end

on its own terms. Because we've seen it so many

times with the cartoons or the animated shows.

They get cancelled. Nobody knew what was coming

or whatever. And then with comics, it happens

all the time. I mean, look at Tom King, writer

who's doing a great job on Batman and suddenly

is removed. Surprise, you know, you never know

and it's rare that The people who start whatever

property or whatever run or you know, whatever

you want to call it Actually get to finish it

Yeah George RR Martin and Game of Thrones like

will that ever finish? Hopefully yeah, so it's

Again, sometimes when I just sit down and think

about it, it's so fascinating to me that this

actually ended, that the IDW Transformers universe

is done and finished and that's it. At least

the first full, you know, Transformers 1 .0 is,

or maybe this is 2 .0 and, well whatever. Because

again, the way I look at this is more than meets

the eye and robots in disguise. That's how I

look at it lost light optimus prime those two

series. Okay ran from 20 more than meets the

eye ran from 2011 to 2016 lost light ran from

2016 to this year, so Basically that's close

to being half of the IDW I just meant in terms

of issues though. They didn't necessarily have

half of the output because of one -shots and

all the different series that there have been.

Also, to be fair, I keep forgetting to include

her in this. I definitely shouldn't. Margaret

Scott's Joel or Juan is phenomenal. Everything

she's written is phenomenal. As much a part of

all of this as Roberts and Barber was. and this

lead up into Unicron. But anyway. Absolutely.

I am also going to give this a five. This is

what I've been waiting for. As Ryan said, we

were kind of on the lead up or the preparation

in Optimus Prime because, no offense to Mr. Barber,

he can get very wordy at times in his writing.

I think I said it back when we were reviewing

it, too. Just that, you know, this this stuff's

headed somewhere, which is why I always felt

bad. You know, any time I gave a three or three

and a half, like it's not a bad story. It just.

Yeah. Oh, just yet. Just you weren't getting

the end. You were reading something that was

solidly in the middle. Basically, and you weren't

going to get any answers at that time. Yeah,

so, Autobotly August this year is kind of extending

into September as this episode is airing, second

week of September 2019. We will continue on into

October to finish off this universe with Optimus

Prime Volume 5. Unicron will come later in September

of this year. And then, I don't know, I haven't

decided who I want. to review the first, uh,

bold new era version of Transformers yet, because

it's been very decisive down the middle with

certain fans. Device, if you mean. Yes, that

too. Uh, so, you know, who knows what's gonna

happen. Um, where are the people who find you

online, sir? At Nightbeat, on Twitter. There

you go. I am at TFU and Mike on Twitter. You

can follow at ThePullBag at GeekCastRadio. good

stuff. Stay tuned next week when we take a little

break from Transformers and I'm sure I can twist

his arm to come on here but my old buddy Jeremy

Fine is gonna come on and we're gonna finally

return to Sex Criminals Volume 3 in episode 369

of The Pull Bag. Yeah, Tied About Sex Grimmels

on 369. Woo! Of course. Episode 370, as I said,

Unicron, and then 370 .5 will be Optimus Prime

Volumes 5. Episode 420, woo! Oh, sorry. Actually,

it's funny you say that, because episode 404

is Comics Not Found. Hmm, nice. That's way later.

Make your greatest game to comics. We will catch

you next time here inside the pool. You've just

heard the latest episode of The Pullback, the

GCRN's first comic review and discussion podcast.

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