Energon Universe 2024 Free Comic Book Day Special Review

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Make your greatest game in the comics and enjoy

the show Everyone just an editor's note before

we get to the episode I do make mention several

times of the digital version of the Free Comic

Book Day Energon Universe 2024 Special not being

available digitally until June. This was after

Amazon had originally posted it for a release

in May and then changed the release date as we

approached that to sometime in June. As it turns

out, they did end up releasing it here in May.

So as you'll see in the episode, I talk about

the fact that it was delayed several times, but

I just want to make note that as of recording

and release of this episode the digital version

of that free comic book day energon universe

special is available to purchase digitally so

you can get that and if you don't have it yet

you did miss out on the physical copy highly

recommend purchasing that digital version as

you'll find out here in this episode it reveals

and sets up a lot of interesting things to come

in the energon universe all right so thank you

and sit back relax and enjoy the episode welcome

to another comic review my name is Jesse and

I do not have TFG1 Mike with me on this episode

I am flying solo and the reason for that is he

does not have this particular issue yet and I

didn't want to wait too long to record this so

I'm covering it now sorry Mike you'll have to

catch up at some point so in this episode we

are covering the free comic book day energon

universe 2024 special Now I do want to say that

so this came out on free comic book day which

was May 4th so that was three days ago as of

me recording this and again that was Saturday

May 4th and the only way to get this particular

issue was to actually go on free comic book day.

or you could have ordered the actual physical

issue online. I was seeing that some people were

able to purchase this a little bit early by getting

it on eBay and I think on Reddit is where I saw

this someone actually had the issue. like a week

and a half before its actual release. So if you're

interested in picking this up, you didn't get

it on free comic book day, you can check out

eBay. I believe there are some retailers out

there that are selling the physical copy as well,

and I think you could get this from Image Comics

or Skybound, one of those two. I don't remember

which site specifically it was you could order

it from, but I believe that they were selling

it direct as well. Now Mike did share with me

a link to the Amazon comics. or Comixology section

of Amazon, where it looks like you can also purchase

the digital version of this release. That was

set to come out tomorrow, actually, along with

Transformers number 8. However, I checked this

evening and it looks like they've actually pushed

back the release, the digital release of this

free comic book day Energen Universe 2024 special

all the way to June. So... Again, if you don't

have the physical copy, you can order it a couple

of different places online. You can get this

digitally. It will be coming out in June. I don't

know that I would wait that long because I feel

like if you do, you're going to run into spoilers.

And especially if you're listening to this show,

you're probably going to run into these spoilers

sooner rather than later. So yeah, so that's

what I would recommend is if you're if you're

following the Intergen universe at all, definitely

pick up the physical copy. until the digital

copy comes out and then if you've been reading

these comics digitally you'll probably purchase

that as well. All right so this Energon Universe

2024 special is actually broken up into three

different stories. So this covers pretty much

everything that we've seen in the Energon Universe

so far. So the three stories are Transformers,

Void Rivals, and G .I. Joe. So I'm going to run

through each one of these, give you a quick synopsis

of each, give you my thoughts and review of each

one. So just word of caution, word of warning

right now, I'm going to be spoiling this. So

if you don't have this issue... you don't want

to be spoiled, I would suggest turning this off

now and wait until you actually have it before

coming back and listening to this episode. Okay,

so that was my warning. So I am diving into this

now. All right, so if you have seen the physical

copy of this 2024 free comic book day special,

you'll note that it has Megatron on the cover.

So pretty safe bet that we're gonna see Megatron

in here and yep. We do. So the comic opens with

our Transformers story. And this was by Daniel

Warren Johnson. So again, same writer that we've

had throughout all of Transformers up to this

point. We have Ryan Ottley, who is the artist.

We have Annalisa Leone, who's the colorist. And

of course we have everybody, Russ. who is doing

the lettering. So we open with Megatron attacking

the Autobot Ark, which is flying in space above

Earth. He single -handedly takes on Autobots

left and right, blasting a hole right through

Braun, which is like pretty much straight out

of, you know, Transformers the movie. Prime and

Megatron battle it out and Prime slices off Megatron's

right arm with Fusion Cannon, using his Energon

Axe. Stunned, Megatron is kicked backwards by

Prime, who nearly flies out of the door in the

Ark, but manages to grab onto the edge. who was

hiding in the shadows, sees Megatron clinging

on for life and blasts him with his own null

ray knocking Megatron out of the arc, leaving

him to fall to earth below. We cut to some point

in the future where Megatron awakens and cries

out for Starscream, as we see that his right

eye is gone and not functional. Now armless,

Megatron breaks free and threatens to kill one

of the captors unless they tell him where his

arms are. The captor gestures to a door after

exclaiming that they only have one arm, not both.

Megatron kicks the door in to discover his left

arm. Megatron bends down to his arm which sort

of self -reattaches and fixes itself to his own

body. The Cobra Law guards spring into action,

a few of them riding giant beasts, and try to

quell Megatron's uprising. Megatron takes them

all on and manages an escape, but not before

his only functional eye is also destroyed. With

no functional optics and only one arm, we close

the Megatron high up in the mountains, exclaiming

that he is coming for Starscream. All right,

so my thoughts and review. So again, this was

written by Daniel Warren Johnson. So we're familiar

with Daniel Warren Johnson at this point. He's

written everything Transformers up to this point

in the Energon universe. So there isn't much

of a surprise here. What I will say though is

that this particular story in this issue is very

light on the actual word bubbles. So even though

Daniel Warren Johnson wrote it, uh there isn't

much to say here with regards to what you know

the characters are actually saying a lot of what

is told here is done through visual uh so it's

mostly it's mostly visual storytelling as you

go from panel to panel here it's it's a lot of

action to kick things off and as megatron kind

of comes to as a lot of action involving his

escape the artwork here again the artwork is

is by ryan otley who we've not seen do uh any

transformer comics up to this point The art,

I would say, does not fall in line with Jorge

Coronas, who is the current artist on Transformers,

or Daniel Warren Johnson, who had done everything

up to the point that Jorge had taken over. The

art isn't bad, I will say that, but it's just

completely, in my opinion, it's completely different

than what we've seen from the other two artists

up to this point. To me, it feels almost a little

bit more... cartoony in some cases. In other

instances, I would say not so much, but it definitely

has a different feel and tone to it. I think

it still falls in line with Transformers, like

the artwork itself still looks good for what

Transformers should look like, but I don't think

it's on par with what we've seen for Transformers

up to this point, right? I would say this artwork

is less gritty, it's a little bit more flashy,

it's certainly a lot more... colorful than what

I'd say we've seen in the past. And I think it's

just not having that gritty edge is sort of a

turn off to me because that's really the kind

of the standout thing that, in my opinion, we've

seen in the new Transformers series here so far.

But again, not bad. I think it works. It looks

good. There are a few oddly drawn characters

in here. Like there's a page with It's like a

two -page spread here where it's got Megatron

and Optimus fighting, and the way that Optimus

is drawn, it just looks a little weird to me.

It's almost super deformed in some aspect, and

I'm not a big fan of the way that looks, because

again, we lose sort of that grittiness. But again,

it works, it's not terrible, it's just not my

cup of tea. But going to the story, we finally

learn kind of where Megatron's been, right? So

we saw that in Cobra Commander, that he was in

Cobra Law, he was in Cobra Commander's lab. But

here we see that he's still locked up in Cobra

Law. He comes to, he's able to break free from

his captors and is able to bust out of there.

I'm curious to see what happens now that he can't

see. He does have an arm back and yeah, how how

he's gonna go about finding the rest of the Transformers

considering he can't really see anything. This

does answer one of my long -standing questions

that I know I've brought up on this show before,

and that is, are these really taking place at

the same point in time? And it appears that they

are. At the end of one of the Transformer comics

early on, we saw that Omegatron was frozen and

encased in ice. Well, that was obviously him

after he fell out of the Ark. He landed... or

crash landed, and he got frozen in the mountains.

Obviously he was found in the mountains by someone

in Cobra Law. They brought him back. He's been

in Cobra Commander's lab ever since, and now

we see him breaking out here. And when we last

saw him in Cobra Commander, right, he had no

limbs, or he had no arms, rather, he still had

his legs, but he had no arms. And here we find

out that, okay, yeah, they did remove his left

arm. It's in a room across from where he's at,

and he's able to reattach his own arm. And we

know where the other arm is, right? It's presently

attached to Optimus Prime. So I imagine at some

point in the near future, he'll be wanting that

arm back. So yeah, I think this was a great way

to reintroduce everyone to Megatron and who he

is he's you know seemingly been almost talked

about in every issue so far but they sort of

just stopped short from saying his name so yeah

again I think this is great and I'm really curious

to see where things go from here the last panel

for this story says to be continued in Transformers

don't know how far into the future that that

will take place but uh i think now that we know

that he's alive and we know that this is taking

place at the same time that transformers is taking

place i would imagine that it's going to be uh

somewhat soon all right so i think that's everything

i've got to say about transformers all right

so let's move into story number two which is

void rivals this was written by robert kirkman

the art was done by lorenzo de felici The color

was done by Mathias Lopez, and of course the

lettering was done by our buddy Russ. So, the

quick synopsis. We open with Scuxoid being held

at gunpoint by Slazardo, asking where the alloy

is that he was carrying. Scuxoid explains that

he ran into the Gwentissans and that they took

it. Not happy with the progress of the questioning,

A familiar transformer emerges from the shadows,

Hot Rod, who was trying to use Slazardo to get

the information he wanted. Hot Rod explains that

he is tracking an ally of his, who is obsessed

with an old Cybertronian legend, thinking it

would lead him to saving Cybertron. Skooksoid

provides all the details and coordinates of the

spaceships and alloys from his past encounters,

and Hot Rod goes on his way. We close with the

robot overhearing the entire conversation and

reporting back to someone that they refer to

as quote, my lord. Alright, so my thoughts on

the void rivals. story here so unlike the Transformers

story which again was very short in terms of

word bubbles was still somewhat lengthy for the

actual story the void rivals one here is six

pages and in reality It should just be five because

our very first page here is really just a large

image of scuxoid Just saying one two three four.

He just says six words in one bubble there So

I don't really count that as a page So really

our the meat of the story here is really five

pages long. I was not expecting to see a transformer

show up Or at the very least, I wasn't expecting

to see a Transformer show up that we have not

been introduced to in Transformers or G .I. Joe

at this point. It seems odd to me that they would

do that in a, you know, a free Comic Book Day

comic. But hey, they did. And I'm there to take

it in. So yeah, so Hot Rod. He looks like Hot

Rod. He's drawn fantastically. Colors are dead

on accurate for Hot Rod. And, uh... The biggest

question I have coming out of this, Skuxoid and

Slazardo are really just there to give us a little

bit of backstory about the alloy. And really

it's just a way to pave the introduction into

Hot Rod here. But what I'm curious to know about

Hot Rod is who the ally is that he is searching

for. Now when I read that, my mind immediately

went to, oh, it's probably Springer. And I don't

know that it isn't Springer. They may be talking

about a completely different character at this

point, but my guess is it's probably Springer.

Because again, Springer is off -planet, not on

Cybertron. He's not with the rest of the Autobots

who crash -landed on Earth. As we know, he's

going to be showing up in the next issue of Void

Rivals, and my guess is that's who Hot Rod here

is trying to track down. Now why are you trying

to track him down? I don't know. We don't get

that information here. It just says, I am tracking

an ally of mine who has gone missing. He was

obsessed with an old Cybertronian legend thinking

it would lead him to some way of saving our world.

I need to find him. Are you going to help me

or are you going to stand in my way? So again,

I don't know why he's trying to find whoever

this ally is, but now I'm very curious and I'm

hoping that I'm hoping that it is Springer because

I would like to see Hot Rod and whoever Hot Rod

may be, you know, with at this moment in time,

kind of show up in void rivals. and then see

how that translates into tying in with Transformers.

Again, we close here with some robot reporting

to, quote -unquote, my lord, whoever it is they're

talking to there. But obviously, probably one

of the main villains within Void Rivals is who

this robot's reporting to. I think sooner rather

than later, we're going to be seeing Cypertronians

more and more within Void Rivals, and I'm here

for it. I'm ready. I'm anxious. And yeah, I think

overall the art for Void Rivals, for the Void

Rivals story, I should say, is on par mostly

with what we see in the Void Rivals comics. I

do think the pain here, the last pain on page

two, I'm not quite sure what happened to the

art there because the background looks fine,

the setting looks fine, but it's our main characters

here, Slizzardo and Skuxoid, they just look like

they're terribly drawn. It's like we've lost

all detail, and I'm not quite sure what happened

there, but the rest of the artwork looks fine.

Like I said, Hot Rod here looks fantastic in

my opinion, and I'm very curious to see him show

up in Transformers, or at the very least see

him continue to show up in Void Rivals, because

if he's drawn like this going forward, I think...

It looks fantastic. On page four of the story

here, where he's first introduced, it's very

detailed. He looks fantastic. The colors are

dead on. It looks great. It doesn't have that

Daniel Warren Johnson grittiness to it, but it's

an art style that really works for Transformers.

So I think the artwork here for the way the hot

rod is drawn works far better for Transformers

than what we got in the Transformers story itself.

So I wish it would have been drawn like this

in the Transformers story, but unfortunately

it wasn't, and we'll all live. All right, so

that's it for Void Rivals. So let's round out

the episode here. with discussion of story number

three. Alright, so the GI Joe story here. This

is by Joshua Williamson, Jason Howard, Mike Spicer,

and our buddy Russ. So my synopsis here, so we

open almost immediately after Duke number five

with Duke in Hawk's office and Hawk berating

Duke about the Baroness joining the team. While

talking about while it's a bad decision and Duke

explaining why it's not, we see Baroness out

and about walking the streets where she's attacked

by what appears to be a male and female cyber

ninja. Duke rides in on a motorcycle. to save

her, and we cut to some point in the future with

Duke flying a large plane with a Baroness inside

suiting up. After asking if she's in or if she

would rather spend her life behind bars, Baroness

proclaims, Yo Joe, as we see her suited up in

G .I. Joe gear. We cut to Hawk looking at various

file folders containing all of the G .I. Joe

characters from Duke 1 through 5 along with Scarlett

and Destro, you know, the next set of upcoming

miniseries. The dread knocks and a folder with

the Autobot symbol on it. We close with the two

ninja characters who had attacked Baroness walking

into the room and removing their helmets. They're

revealed to be Flint and Lady J. Hawk reveals

that while the intent was to recruit Baroness

with Flint and Lady J, that the end result is

the same and that she now has a bond with Duke

and that they are working to put together not

one, but two teams. All right, so my thought

and review on this one, so... Again, the art

here is different from what we saw in the Duke

miniseries, which is not a bad thing. I think

the artwork here, in my opinion, actually works

better than what we had in the entirety of the

Duke miniseries. I still think that Duke has

drawn a little weird here in most of the panels

that he's in. I still feel like they're not capturing...

the essence of Duke's face. If you look at the

Sunbow cartoon, that to me, that's Duke. Maybe

it's because I'm a child of the 80s and I grew

up at that time period, and even though I did

not watch much of the G .I. Joe series, that's

the image that I have of Duke in my mind. Just

for whatever reason, they don't... Seemed to

capture it quite as well as as what that is Even

if you look at the GI Joe a real American hero

series Which I know is not part of the energon

universe like the they capture the essence of

Duke in in Anytime that I see him in that and

it's it's grittier But that to me is it's along

the same lines of what we see in the Sunbeam

cartoon at least in this this new iteration of

a real American hero right now that has jumped

over to Skybound Image Comics. So yeah, so the

story here. Recruiting Baroness to be on the

G .I. Joe team. I did not see that one coming.

I don't know how long this is gonna last, but

we do see her suited up entirely in G .I. Joe

gear. She's wearing red, white, and blue. Whatever

the suit is, it's got red, white, and blue stripes

on it. There's this large star on her chest here.

And at least at the moment, by the end of this

story, she appears to be on Team GI Joe. So I

mean, also at this point in time, right, there

is no Cobra that we're aware of. Because again,

Cobra Commander number five is not out, hasn't

ended yet. Don't know where that's going to go.

But at this point in time there is no quote -unquote

Cobra for anyone to to lead so she can't quite

join that yet But at the moment she appears to

be on team GI Joe what I find interesting here

is at the end of this issue in what Hawk is is

talking about here and that they're looking to

create more than one team and I don't know what

that means like I'm not quite sure why he's wanting

to create multiple teams of characters But at

least at the moment, it looks like Flint and

Lady J are not part of the G .I. Joe team that

Duke is putting together. They appear to be something

completely separate and not quite sure who else

is going to be joining that team. We have no

other information here at this point in time,

but I do find it interesting that there's going

to be multiple teams. And I'm curious to see

how that's going to play out. And obviously the.

the one panel here that shows Scarlet. Again,

that's really more of a promotion for the upcoming

miniseries of both Scarlet and Destro, but I'm

curious to see kind of what team she ultimately

ends up on. And then the last thing here to kind

of note is that this story ends with to be continued

in not the Scarlet miniseries, not the Destro

miniseries, but it says to be continued in G

.I. Joe. And I don't know if that's a verification

that we are officially getting an ongoing G .I.

Joe comic series within the Energon universe,

or if that's just, hey, anything that's a miniseries

that encompasses these characters just kind of

falls under the umbrella of G .I. Joe. I'm hoping

that once these miniseries are done that this

is where we're going to see an ongoing series

of G .I. Joe and that maybe this is a confirmation

of that. Because again, we have G .I. Joe, a

real American hero. not part of the Energon universe

at all but I would think at some point we're

going to get an ongoing GI Joe series that is

going to be part of this especially especially

since with how Duke number five ended and that

we know he's trying to put together a team which

again we see here right he's recruited the Baroness

and he's apparently going after Optimus Prime

or the Transformers at large but you know Optimus

Prime more specifically because that's who we

saw that was the photo that he saw at the end

of Duke number five again I'm hoping for an ongoing

GI Joe I'm I'm kind of over these miniseries.

I will be purchasing Destro, I will be purchasing

Scarlett, but I am kind of over them and I would

like them to just kind of jump into an ongoing

GI Joe. I'm hoping that's what all this leads

up to and I'm hoping that what we have here is

a confirmation that that's going to happen. but

we'll see we'll find out and uh yeah that sort

of wraps up the free comic book day energon universe

2024 special i think for this being a free issue

that there is a lot of things that happen in

here there's a lot of setup for things to come

and uh if you do not have this uh and you have

not read it i feel like you're going to be missing

out as we continue through the ongoing series

here. So I highly suggest picking this up. Again,

I would track down the physical copy because

the sooner you read it, the less you're going

to be spoiled. And if you want to pick up the

digital version, like I said, it's going to be

coming out here, according to Amazon sometime

in June. So all right. So yeah, that's it. Overall,

I really enjoyed the entire thing and I'm really

happy that I picked it up. So all right. So plugs

wherever you're getting this podcast, I hope

you are liking and leaving reviews. That would

be fantastic if you're not. If you could please

do so, that would help us out immensely. You

can also find us on anothercomicreview .com.

That is our website. You can find me on YouTube.

I'm at youtube .com slash matrix underscore prime.

We are also on Instagram. You can find us on

Instagram at anothercomicreview. If you do have

any sort of feedback for us, follow us on Instagram

and shoot us a message on there. We don't have

an email address set up at the moment. But I

would love to hear from our listeners out there,

kind of your thoughts on the Energon universe

so far in general. And then if you have any questions,

comments for our podcast, that would be fantastic

as well. And yeah, if you want to find me on

Blue Sky, I'm also on Blue Sky. I'm at Jesse,

J -E -S -S -E, early E -A -R -L -E -Y. You can

find me on there. And yeah. think that's it alright

so coming up next we have Transformers number

eight that will be releasing very shortly and

we will be reviewing that I'm really looking

forward to that and I want to see I want to see

how this story continues to pan out and now that

Duke number five is wrapped up we know that he's

kind of gutting for the transformers or at the

very least, Optimus Prime more specifically,

because that's who we saw in that photo at the

end of Duke No. 5. I want to see how that kind

of starts to play into the story, because I think

we're going to kind of start to see those characters

overlap with Transformers. All right, yeah, so

that's it. So until next time, this is Jesse

signing off. Thank you for listening to The Bullbag

here on the Geekcast Radio Network, which is

featuring syndicated versions of another comic

review. Catch you next time. Make your greatest

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