Transformers: Unicron Review

I have summoned you here for a purpose. Hi, this

is John Barber from IDW Publishing. You are listening

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So without any further ado, it's time to talk

about the comics we are reading right now here

inside the pull bag. We considered sparing your

wretched little planet, Cybertron. And now, you

shall witness its dismemberment. Hello and welcome

to The Pullback! This is episode 370, I am of

course TF2 and my join me is Ryan the Unevenflomercly.

Hello, sir. Yeah, hello. Hello. I don't want

to go through this, this is the last... This

is the last volume of IDW 1 .0, whatever people

are calling it. No, it's not the last volume.

Well, chronologically it is. Unicron is the last?

No it's not. Well, sorry, alright. Optimus Prime

volume 5 is next week. Yes, I know, but the shows

we are doing and recording are the finale, and

I want... Undo either of them, so they're...

Well, you already talked about 13 years of Transformers

with Jen apparently, so, you know, there is that,

I mean... Go back and listen to that, folks.

Episode 337. Genevieve and Amy. Yep. Genevieve

and Amy. The two of them are fantastic. Yes,

yes, they are. I still need to bug Jen about

getting Malformers to be a thing, because that

was hilarious. I know it's not! You're like,

why do you find that funny? It's just... Think

of it as... It's not that. You and her have an

imagination. I do not. That's just it. It's not

that I don't find it amusing or anything like

that. My creative pursuits are not imaginative.

I'm not very good with that, unfortunately. Kinda

sucks sometimes, but oh well. I amuse myself,

that's the important thing. Yes. And we are here

today to talk about the end of the universe as

we are covering the six -issue mini -series Transformers

Unicron. Getting the creative out of the way

right off the bat, John Barber is on writing,

Alex Milne is on art, additional art done by

Sarah Peter Durachet, Andrew Griffith, and Kay

Zama. Colors by Sebastian Chang and David Garza

Cruz. Additional colors by General Fuente. Letters

by Tommy Long. The one thing... Series edits

by David Marriott. Yes, series edits by David

Marriott. Sorry, David. The one thing about this

in trade, I don't know. I have the trade and

I have the single issues. I don't know about

the single issues because I only really read

the first two or three of them. And then I just

eventually just got the trade, but it includes

all of the other stuff, like the ROM stuff, the

GI Joe stuff, the mask stuff, the micronauts

and the visionaries. The trade reads in order

the same as the individual issues did. So yeah,

that stuff was contained at the end of each issue.

There were sort of mini stories. The trade also

contains the issue. Zero, which was a I want

to say that was the free comic book day. It was

the free issue Yes. Yeah. All right, so it does

have the issues here Her as well, which would

have been a really crappy thing to leave out

since it contains wheeljacks sacrifice So, yeah,

let's I'll touch on that first. I guess then

the short stories so wrong G .I. Joe, Mask, Micronauts,

and Visionaries each get individual kind of short

stories as well as, for the most part, really

with the exception of Visionaries, they all appear

at certain points during the main story of Unicron.

But I really wanted to bring them the short stories

because holy shit, they made me care about these

characters more than the long -form stories did.

They were really well done. I was... impressed

with how interested I was in those stories when...

I think I've always been kind of blunt about

it. I'm not... I'm an 80s kid, but I didn't...

There weren't many 80s properties that I was

all that interested in. Obviously Transformers

was the big one, but I grew up on He -Man and

G .I. Joe to a lesser extent, et cetera, et cetera,

but I didn't really care about their inclusion

in the IDW universe. I wasn't all that interested

in Revelations, et cetera, but yeah. I just...

It is... No, they're really good short stories.

I kind of wish that's how they had been included

in the universe, instead of the sort of large

crossovers and trying to kind of... Really kind

of shoestring or hamstring, just beat them into

the universe, basically. These are a lot better.

Yep. And also, I'll get this out of the way too.

The artwork is amazing. It is. We say that every

time it's IDW, but there's so much going on in

every single panel in this. The characters are

exceptionally expressive. The covers are beautiful.

Everything is just so well done. Sarah's covers,

like... All of her main Unicron covers need to

be put together in a giant, you know, multi -cover

thing and put as an art print somewhere because,

wow, those are awesome. I just thought everybody's,

you know, the Andrew Griffith with Prime holding

Unicron up is striking. I just, I like all of

them and yeah, any one of them pretty much could

be a poster that would be You know, even some

of the actual covers that were used for the issues

or some of the alternate covers like Nick Roach's

of Metroplex bounding up towards Unicron. It

was gorgeous. The individual character ones,

though, by Francesco Francovela, also beautiful.

Like, I really like the RC and Soundwave ones.

Just, you know, the artwork is... You know if

I was going to show off the artwork from transformers

So I'd be what I considered to do it, you know,

it's just All the characters look the way they

should in the foreground and the backgrounds

are Incredibly detailed as well. So yeah, the

art is amazing So how do we want to synopsize

the chaos bringer here? Cuz there's a lot In

this Unicron is here and We're all gonna die.

Yeah, he starts with each of the Cybertronian

colonies. So we begin at zero With a colony that

we don't really know next we hit up Rom's homeworld

of Elonia, which gets munched on Then we actually

have Caminus which gets destroyed the shocker

for me Was Cybertron is destroyed in this obviously

I'm like going way ahead And then the last colony

last Cybertron Ian colony of Earth Is where the

final fight takes place throughout all this the

Cybertron Ian's and everybody else really in

the entire universe are fighting Unicron, but

they're fighting a retreating act in because

well, it's Unicron and nobody knows How the hell

to stop this thing? Mm -hmm. Yeah, you can't

just whip out a Matrix add -in this time. No,

the Matrix was already depleted, so... I don't

know. I feel like, for something like this, I'm

basically just kind of jumping around. Yeah,

we are. Summing up the moments. But I do like

that, yes, the Matrix wasn't a solution. Jeez.

So many character arcs. I love how they're closed

off. And how they're done cosmos for example

was sad but. He died you know like you said he

wasn't alone. I was well done one that really

sticks out for me is the closure of. The dinobots

and and bludgeon basically all dying together

with the exception of the dinobots who weren't

kind of consumed. By the war in strafe and swoop.

I like that they survived but the rest you know

snarl slag and sludge I'll give their lives in

this Yeah, I've mentioned it before I really

feel like RC has one of the best arcs She knows

transformer them choose fantastic in this sound

wave is fantastic literally giving his life for

what he believed in, that everyone was equal,

human, Cybertronian. Yep. For the Decepticon

cause. Ah, jeez. Just Starscream. Holy cow. Did

not expect that to happen. Yeah, Starscream surprised

me. And I think that's been the strength of the

writing for him through, especially to the Lawler

one. But I mean, Barber himself did a good job

with them as well, too, that Starscream was still

Starscream, but he could surprise you. And it

never came out of left field. It always made

sense. I like in the epilogue, which is not in

this, but screw it, I'll bring it up anyway.

That Starscream is now Bumblebee's ghost. It

was a cute turnaround. Yeah. And Optimus Prime,

I'll kind of save the eulogizing for him because,

you know, who didn't know that Optimus was going

to die going up against Unicron because he always

does, but his eulogy is contained in another

issue, so we'll mention it then. So you mentioned,

so we talked a little bit, that you were a bit

let down by it. I don't know if I read it too

fast, and I've mentioned this before on the show,

I've said this for the last six years. When I

sit down to read comics on Comixology, I sit

here at my computer, and I love the way they

look in the guided view, and the guided view

is all that I use, because it zooms in on, it's

basically storyboard reading kind of thing. And

as great as the inclusion of all the other non

-Transformers characters is, I felt as if that

was just, like... I love all the creators that

worked on visionaries and masks and all that

and everything else. They're great people. But

I just felt that it took away from... The main

thing of you like how are we gonna stop the Cybertronians?

This is all the Cybertronians fault all over

again yada yada yada yada yada This is like,

you know, let's always blame jazz kind of thing

and I Mean to be fair. It was all of the Cybertronians

true Like instead of trying to find a solution

the humans did nothing but play the blame game

I felt but that's just either you that they're

more guilty of that in Optimus Prime volume 5

which we'll get to but I don't know like it just

like the bits where we see Unicron like the the

the impending of Unicron coming the eye hunger

the this the that that was all great it was all

cool but I just felt at the end of it it was

kind of all sadly anti -climactic I don't know

that's just Kind of the way I felt. I didn't

have the same feeling as I had when we read Lost

Light Volume 4. I wasn't as big on it whenever

I read it in individual issues. I think it reads

a lot better in trade. I also think it's better

when it's better given more time to digest too.

So for this, this was the fourth time. I've read

it the first time was via individual issues the

second time was the trade just when I first got

it and then third time was kinda in between then

and now and I find I like it a lot more now than

I did originally especially Same old kind of

story with the IDW stuff though. I think it reads

better in trade So that accounts for that, but

I still think between you know reading two and

four I Like it a lot more and maybe it's because

we've been doing these shows and so I read whatever

we're gonna do or record about and so I kind

of get a I've gotten a refresher and I've gotten

the chance to Read it trade by trade once basically

every couple weeks. Yeah. And see, for me, like

I've said before, I read them to record the shows.

It's been so long now since I read Unicron number

one and number two, or zero, Freecom Book Day,

number one and number two, that I don't... I

barely... I remember it a little bit from the

Freecom Book Day thing, but I didn't really...

I went into this super fresh, and I'm like...

I like it, it's good, but I don't know. Like

you said, all of the character moments, all of

the character arcs and various things that are

in this are great for the Transformers. The humans

to me are just there. I think that's okay, mostly

because the name of the series is the Transformers.

That doesn't bother me I kind of wish Marissa

had more to do she was really the only one that

It bothered me. She wasn't a more significant

portion of it. She basically gets to sit around

and look after the dog. Yeah, I Mean that's I

mean, that's literally what she did but yeah

I don't know for me there's just so much going

on so many issues or so many things coming to

head you know shockwave continues to be a major

portion but even some of the characters who have

been left behind or we haven't seen as much of

so you know Prowl gets a fairly major role again

I don't know it just I liked it I like the I'm

trying to remember all the character moments

now, there's just so many. Just everybody has

something to do. There wasn't anyone, and I'm,

you know, maybe listeners, maybe somebody out

there can think of somebody. There wasn't anybody

I thought, well, whatever happened to blank,

or this character got left out, or I have no

idea what happened to this character. It was

all pretty clear cut. Such is the nature of it.

Again it fight like this there was some stuff

so I was saddened at how quickly trypticon Who

I really liked as a character really? The first

time in transformers dome. I was sad at how quickly

he got cut down Yeah, but it also makes sense

because I mean he's gigantic a B unicorn, you

know blew him in half basically You know, yeah,

it's sad but it made sense Same with, you know,

Ironhide gets cut down. Ironhide kind of had

to die just because of all the prophecy stuff

in the early IDW days, which none of that could

possibly come true. And I'll say this too, and

we'll talk about him more probably when we do

the next volume of Optimus Prime, but when I

first read this, I was bothered by Slyde's redemption.

Right. He very quickly goes from consistent douchebag

and annoyance to, well, now he's one of the torchbearers.

It holds up better for me now. Maybe it's because

I read them back to back, but it bothers me less.

Yeah. Yeah, I. I mean, with this being the end

of the main, the original IDW 13 -year universe,

it's like, hmm, what can we do to leave these

characters in either a better off place or a

less better off place? And stories of redemption,

no matter who the character is, are always a

good thing, I think. especially when characters

have not been really given a chance or have not

been written as such to be able to have given

a chance. Of course, you know, there's, you know,

someone like Unicron who you don't need no chance.

He's pure evil. We know that. But like, you know,

like we mentioned earlier about R .C., how this

is one of the greatest things and the end of

this and the end of Optimus Prime is the best

story we've seen with her. in thirty five years.

You know, I feel like you can say that about

a lot of them. I think whatever you. Believe

of Optimus Prime himself, for example, this is

one of my favorite versions and stories featuring

him, and I like how it gets ended. In. Not necessarily

ended. I can't get summed up in the end essentially

that crime was all of the bad things he didn't

want to be. But at least he questioned them instead

of. He could have very easily embraced a lot

of the negatives. Which is. A lot of what happened

to Megatron for a time. But he didn't and he

managed to He managed to Avoid a lot of the pitfalls

Megatron fell into despite how similar they were

And how similar the kind of rise to power has

been I had mentioned back in episode 367 with

with Heather when we did Orion packs Thundercracker

and Megatron spotlight issues Reading Megatron's

spotlight issue again because I had not read

it since when it first came out. I'm like This

feels wrong evil Megatron just feels because

I've already been reading all of the more than

meets the eye and lost light and the trial and

after the trial and all this and all that and

everything else and all but Megatron as a as

a good guy kind of thing going back and seeing

how Horrible he was to the Decepticons. It's

like Specifically yes i think the difference

but i think the difference is megatron at least.

What is. When you write megatron as a one dimensional

evil character now it's hard to see him is that

that's kind of what he was he was just looking

to be bad kinda. For the sake of being bad versus.

When i read stories of megatron as the. Revolutionary,

I think it works. Yeah Absolutely And How did

they get rid of a unicorn I don't remember off

top my head Well in this Alright, so the the

original idea from shockwave, which by the way

was a pretty good idea, but whatever shockwave

Knew that the talisman could destroy unit And

wanted it there when Unicron ate, tore apart,

whatever you want to call it, Cybertron. But

of course it wasn't. Starscream sacrifices himself

to get the Talisman in there. And Optimus kind

of jumps into the heart of Unicron to find its

creator there, who he discusses with. And eventually

it's all about which... Again, made sense because

that's what this series has been about, breaking

the cycle of hatred the Cybertronians have found

themselves in, and how it's poisoned so many

other worlds, and in the case of what would become

Unicron and Tila, that was another world the

Cybertronians destroyed. It's prime. I mean he's

apologetic about it, but he admits that he's

there to try to break the cycle and That's what

a lot of this story has been about Made sense

worked well What would you give this Five get

really give it anything else like I said every

Everything I wanted to was closed off. Everything

from Superion having issues with holding the

combiner code, whatever you want to call it,

from the... Oh, what the hell was the name of

it now? The enigma of combination. Combination.

The enigma of combination. There we go. Anyway,

everything from that to just the fate of... The

galaxy is encompassed here. Yeah, so It's hard

for anything else and I think even if you're

in your case were disappointed by the overall

feeling I just I don't know how I'm not sure

how I or anyone else could give it much anything

else. There's so many great moments here from

You know i can't even touch on the mall but omega

supreme's fate is finally show. When in a conversation

with bumblebee and just all this stuff that we've

been wondering about and it all came to a head

it. For me and i say for the most part is fully

explored and explored well like the questions

i had answered the only question i. Have at the

end of this would be what's next and I don't

think I think it's a good thing to end on with

something that's been as kind of political Oh,

and there have been so many moving pieces and

story arcs of characters in this book. Yeah Yeah,

all of the character pieces are wonderful all

the answers that we get all the questions we've

had over the years are great you know character

moments like Omega Supreme learning his fate

and Just the fates in general of what? What how

everything happened and everything else. I do

absolutely love that. I Don't know. Maybe I need

to reread it at some point. I don't know when

that'll be but I Give it a four and a half. I

mean, I did enjoy it. I didn't not enjoy it.

I just felt that I Don't know I just felt that

the humans got in the way. Like, as much as I

like Marisa, and I think she's a great character

and she works well as, I guess, Thundercracker's

sidekick or, you know, a T -grip or whatever

you want to call her kind of thing, you know,

I didn't miss her in this. Um, I don't know.

So yes, five from Ryan, four and a half from

me on Transformers Unicron from IDW Publishing.

The one thing that I do want to get to before

we get out of here is the cover gallery and the

other things that are in this because as you

said, this is pretty much the end. The super

giant double page cover from Alex Milne with

Unicron standing there holding the earth. Oh,

so good. Homage to Transformers the movie with

them, you know fighting Unicron Optimus Prime

and everybody homage to that poster by Alex as

well as you mentioned earlier Andrew Griffiths

with Optimus holding up Unicron There are a bunch

of other ones I think yes, Sarah did a cover

which I assume is a reference to one of the original

Marvel issues One more optimus is the first issue

of Marvel comics to the transformers. Yes first

in a four issue series of course As you mentioned

the one with Metroplex jumping into Unicron RC

has a cool cover And there are a couple that

I'm not even talking about here sound waves got

an interesting one All very, very cool. And then

at the end of it, the last cover we see is Francesco

Francavilla, his Jetfire cover, and then it goes

into Talking Transformers. We have interviews

with Simon Furman, E .J. Sue, Nick Roche, basically

everybody that's worked on it for the last 13

years. Margaret Scott. All the major ones at

least, yeah, for the most part. Shane McCarthy.

Uh, it's in there. Yeah. So I love it that John

Barbara, obviously. So I love that they did all

these little interviews and they put this at

the end of it. And then I love how they do the

little descriptor of the lost colonies of Cybertron.

I think that is super cool. That's a nice little

inclusion in, in the trade. Um, and obviously

all of that stuff is in the single issues as

well. I don't know if every interview is in each

of the six issues, but I think they maybe featured

one interview per issue or something. I don't

remember off the top of my head. But yeah, Unicron

is episode 370 of The Pull Bag. Oh my god, six

years and 370 episodes of this show. I am getting

too old for this stuff. I thought you were made

of sterner stuff. And yeah, next week we... We

end the IDW Transformers Uniforce with Optimus

Prime Volume 5. Where can people find you online,

sir? At Nightbeat on Twitter. I'm at TF2 and

Mike on Twitter. You can also follow at the pullbag

as well. Go read Unicron, folks. It is good,

despite my misgivings about certain parts of

the story. It is a very good story. It's a very

interesting story as as Ryan said if you've been

like us and You've been following this for as

long as we have It is a really really good ending

So there is that make your greatest game to comic

so we will catch you next time here inside the

pull bag You've just heard the latest episode

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