Stormbringer # 2
Written by Simon Furman
Penciled by Don Figueroa

Summary:

A dark shadow falls over a city on the peaceful planet of Nebulos; a terrifying enemy is about to make its presence known.  To see where it came from, we cut back to Cybertron some time before.  Deep within the bowels of the ruined planet, Jetfire is being held prisoner by Bludgeon and a small group of Decepticons.  Jetfire is trying to talk Bludgeon out his plan; to awaken the inert shell of Thunderwing and use it to his own ends.  Bludgeon won't hear of it though, feeling Jetfire and his kind are to blame for what happened to Cybertron in the past.  Jetfire insists that Thunderwing's “solution” to the problem was not the right way and very nearly destroyed their entire race.  But Bludgeon seems dead-set on completing what Thunderwing started.  To his horror, Jetfire realizes what Bludgeon is trying to accomplish; replicating the grafting process that turned Thunderwing into a walking weapon of mass destruction.  Bludgeon reveals that Jetfire's comrades Scattershot, Lightspeed, and Strafe are being cut open to provide “raw materials” for the process.  The scarred Decepticon goes on to claim that those who already perished on the Calabi-Yau got off easy, even as we see in a quick panel that Afterburner and Nosecone managed to make it to planet side in one piece.  Meanwhile on the Autobot orbital command station, Searchlight hands Optimus Prime the recently-received distress call from the Calabi-Yau.  Recognizing the danger of past evils, Optimus immediately orders Searchlight to contact the Wreckers.  On a distant planet called Varas Centralus, said Wreckers are in the middle of a desperate situation.  The Decepticon infiltration unit has engaged “Phase Six” of their occupation of the planet and things are fast going downhill.  Springer received a communiqué from Bluestreak who apparently tells him that they are pulling out from the planet.  The Wreckers won't give in that easily however, and continue laying firepower on a Decepticon battle emplacement.  Springer radios Scoop and Twin Twist, who are trying to dig a storm tunnel under the Decepticon encampment, but they aren't having much luck breaking through the dense rock.  Roadbuster hands Springer another communicator to receive an incoming message from Autobot Ops-command.  Springer receives the order from Prime to pull out of Varas and tells Roadbuster that they are being redeployed to Cybertron.  Meanwhile, back on Cybertron, Bludgeon and his group prepare to awaken Thunderwing and he wants Jetfire to witness it.  Jetfire continues to plead with the Decepticons not to go through with it, but Bludgeon assures the Autobot that he has a way to control Thunderwing.  By directly imprinting his will on Thunderwing's apparently blank mind through the use of a machine, Bludgeon can direct the monster as he sees fit.  As Jetfire's struggles and protests become more adamant, Bludgeon orders Iguanus and Bomb-Burst to awaken Thunderwing.  As Finback and Skullgrin guard Jetfire, the Autobot decides to make his move.  He knocks Skullgrin away, but Finback pacifies him with a stun-pike.  Disappointed that Jetfire won't be cooperative, Bludgeon orders him taken away and put to the same fate as his Technobot comrades.  Iguanus speaks up, saying that Energon levels are rising and it won't be long now until Thunderwing rises again!  Meanwhile the Wreckers are traveling to Cybertron aboard a large Autobot battlecruiser.  Springer speaks through a holo-link with Prime, who is also headed to Cybertron on another ship.  Springer reminds Prime that conventional weaponry probably won't work if they are going up against Thunderwing again, and they should consider simply destroying the entire planet to stop him.  Prime simply says he'll take it under consideration, not without some hesitation.  Aboard the ship that Prime is traveling, the beleaguered Autobot commander takes a moment to reminisce about how Megatron suggested the exact same course of action after the last time Thunderwing went on a rampage.  Optimus couldn't go through with it then, feeling guilty about driving all of Cybertron into ruin because of their war.  Prime warned Megatron not to try any such action, and Megatron grudgingly agreed.  Back in the present, Dogfight snaps Optimus out of his reminiscing to express his excitement over working alongside the Autobot commander.  Optimus is a little taken aback by the rookie's eagerness and prays that “excitement” will be the only thing taken away from this mission.  Meanwhile on Cybertron, Nosecone and Afterburner slowly recover from a crash landing.  They barely managed to escape the Calabi-Yau's destruction and are in a bad way thanks to Cybertron's harsh atmosphere.  Nosecone helps the weakened Afterburner up and begins to look for shelter when he notices a large aircraft flying overhead.  Knowing that survival must be their first priority, Nosecone doesn't bring it to Afterburner's attention and instead focuses on finding somewhere they can rest.  Suddenly, the two Technobots are forced to find cover as a pair of “Centurion” battle-drones approach on a scouting patrol.  Nosecone wonders if the drones are looking for them or simply on a routine sweep.  He feels it's a safe bet, however, that whoever reactivated the Centurions also were responsible for shooting down the Calabi-Yau.  Nosecone helps the weakened Afterburner to keep moving as the two Autobots desperately try to find shelter of some kind.  But soon the harsh conditions of Cybertron's atmosphere wear on them, and Afterburner and Nosecone begin to collapse, nearly unconscious.  At this most inconvenient moment, Nosecone notices that several Centurion drones have spotted them and are moving in.  Meanwhile on planet Nebulos, the native Decepticon infiltration unit has detected an object that has arrived in the sky through a foldspace transition.  Ruckus gives them a visual and the Decepticons are horrified to see a reborn Thunderwing descending upon the planet!  TO BE CONTINUED!


Slagged!:

-The Technobots are in dire straits this issue.  Scattershot, Lightspeed, and Strafe are seen being cut open by Bludgeon's machines, and Nosecone and Afterburner are on the run in a hostile environment.

-Jetfire gets booted around and shocked a bit while trying to get Bludgeon to abandon his fanatical plan.

-The Wreckers are in the middle of a war zone on planet Varas Centralus when Prime calls for them.  No one gets slagged, but ammunition flies back and forth with reckless abandon.


Sightings:

-We get a look at planet Nebulos here.  The Nebulan inhabitants are pictured far more alien than we've see before.  In the original Marvel comic, the Nebulans simply looked identical to Earthlings.  In the original cartoon, they were green-skinned, but otherwise looked identical to Earthlings.  In this comic, they are green-skinned, pointy-eared, yellow-eyed, and bald- they kinda look like the Namekians from Dragonball Z, except without antennae on the head.

-We get our first look at Bludgeon up close here, and he's a pretty gruesome looking bot.  Not only are parts of his body stripped down to the wires and “bone”, but the lower half of his face is missing.  This evokes his eventual Pretender shell's skull-like appearance, and I'd wager the damage on his frame is to show his fanaticism and is possibly self-inflicted.  Also, I made a little mistake in identifying one of the Pretenders under Bludgeon's command.  It is Iguanus, not Carnivac, as I mentioned last review.  The similar-looking “head in between the jaws” robot mode caused this flub, as well as the fact that Iguanus and Carnivac are similarly colored in robot mode.

-Crosshairs is the Autobot at the console in the background when Searchlight gives Prime the message from the Calab-Yau.  There is also another Autobot sitting down at a console in the same scene.  He's colored like Pincher, but doesn't have Pincher's uh, pincher hands.

-The Wreckers include, as usual, Roadbuster, Whirl, Sandstorm, Broadside, Twin Twist, Topspin, and Springer as the commander.  Scoop is also with the group, but it is possible he was “borrowed” from another Autobot squad on the planet.  Another interesting note; Whirl's redesigned helicopter form bears quite a resemblance to Vehicon Obsidian from Beast Machines.  I'm not sure if Don intended this when he drew the design, but it is a nice touch.

-The Autobot battlecruiser “Xantium” is based off of an original character Don Figueroa created named Stronghold.  He actually kitbashed it using a Fortress Maximus toy as a base.

-The Autobots aboard Optimus Prime's ship headed back to Cybertron include but are not limited to Crosshairs, Gunrunner, Dogfight, Sureshot, Backstreet, Pointblank, and Override.

-We can see that Optimus has “armored-up” a bit as he's preparing to head into a battle situation, with more weapons attached to his frame.

-The Centurion drones vaguely resemble the Mega-sized Vehicon Tankor toy from Beast Machines.  Again, I don't know if this was intended by Don or not as the homage isn't quite crystal-clear, but it's still pretty cool.

-The Decepticon infiltration unit on Nebulos includes Darkwing, Dreadwind, Ruckus, Skullcruncher, Thrust, Crankcase, and Roadgrabber.  Darkwing, Dreadwind, and Skullcruncher are the only ones that actually linked with Nebulans in the binary-bonding “Master” process from the old cartoon, comic, and toy line. 


Hearings:

-Both Jetfire and Scoop invoke the name “Primacron” in this issue, as if this being were some kind of deity.  Primacron, as he appeared in the original Gen 1 cartoon episode “Call of the Primitives”, was an alien scientist who supposedly created Unicron.  I doubt that a short little monkey-like squirt is held in deity-like regard by Transformers.  But the fact that Jetfire, who is usually portrayed as an atheist, invokes Primacron's name might suggest that in this continuity at least, Primacron was a legendary scientist in Cybertron's past.  Or some fans have suggested that Primacron equals Primus +Unicron, referring to the back story held in the original Marvel comics and elsewhere that Primus and Unicron were initially one being that was split into two; good and evil.  Or of course, this could just be a throwaway line by Furman and he doesn't plan to follow it up anytime soon.  It's all pretty much up to speculation until we hear more, I guess.

-Jetfire mentions Thunderwing's “grafting” process, which Bludgeon and the others are trying to replicate.  The end result of this process will probably yield Pretender shells for Bludgeon and his ilk.

-Springer's talk with Bluestreak over the communicator reveals that phase six of the Decepticons infiltration campaign usually means a lost planet, as hinted at by Ratchet in Infiltration.  Scoop mentions that the Decepticons have deployed their siege mode armature, and the fortress that the Autobots are trying to breach looks very similar to Starscream's Decepticon base from the Infiltration arc.

-The Centurion drones are similar to the Guardian drones from the UK Marvel comics, and the name “Centurion” also has a link in the old UK Marvel comics.  Centurion was a machine controlled by a human named Professor Morris.  It was created to fight the Transformers, but Morris instead became their ally and appeared in several UK Marvel stories.


Wreck and RULE!:

-Geez, Don's art isn't so good.  Wait, the opposite of that.  It's AWESOME.  Bludgeon's creepy new redesign, the revamped Wreckers team kicking booty in the middle of a war zone, Dogfight conversing with battle-ready Prime, and every portrayal of Thunderwing (especially the last page, kick-ass!) are the keepers from an issue full of great stuff.

-People are calling this the “anti-Infiltration” story arc.  And that's not far from the truth.  Where Infiltration was slow-paced, Stormbringer brings the heat so fast that we're already waist-deep in plot points.  Despite a LOT of characters being flashed before our eyes, Furman manages to keep focus on a select few.  We are able to grasp the magnitude of Thunderwing's threat without even having witnessed it firsthand thanks to excellent characterization of Jetfire, Bludgeon, Springer, Megatron, and especially Prime.  And even secondary characters like Nosecone and Afterburner get a plot thread dedicated to them.  So far, so good!

-The use of characters that you wouldn't usually think of this early in the game like Dogfight, Darkwing, and Scoop is a welcome change from the usual sticking-to-the-first-year-characters bit we usually get.  The Transformers universe has an expansive cast of characters and Furman uses them to good effect.

-The revelation of a Decepticon infiltration unit on Nebulos and actually seeing a phase six Decepticon military action on Centralus Varas really hammers home the threat that the Earth is currently facing and the breadth of the Decepticon empire.

-While we've only seen flashbacks and heard accounts of Thunderwing's last rampage, it looks like we're about to experience one firsthand with the next issue, which is good since this arc is only four issues long.  After seeing how meticulous Furman was about pacing Infiltration, I'm hoping that Stormbringer will wrap up rather nicely.


Wreck and ROT!:

-A lot of fans have been mentioning this, so I should probably bring it up.  The Photoshopped-in faction symbols on some Transformers are getting really distracting and ugly in some cases.  The biggest culprit is Searchlight's on the fifth page; it is stretched to cover his chest for some reason and just looks sloppy.

-According to the colorist for this issue, Josh Burcham, the bot we saw last issue on the Autobot Orbital Command station standing behind Blaster was indeed supposed to be Bluestreak.  So if he's there, why is Bluestreak also on Centralus Varas?  Springer is talking to him via communicator in this issue.  I suppose you could argue that the Autobot command station is actually orbiting Centralus Varas, but why would the Wreckers and Prime's team then need to take separate starships back to Cybertron instead of just rendezvousing back up at the station and going together?  Okay, really just a minor nitpick, I'm just searching for things wrong with this issue.

-As I mentioned above, with only two issues to go, there is still a lot to wrap up.  Furman's only been able to establish Thunderwing as a major threat through vague flashbacks and character dialogue.  Hopefully he can back it up through action in the next issue.


Final Judgment:

I'm totally loving this series, and we're only two issues in.  As with the first War Within, the sheer love and effort that Don puts into his work shines forth on every page, and Furman is writing some of his best stuff since Dreamwave's prime.  I can only hope the momentum keeps up and when all is said and done, Stormbringer is a Transformers tale held in high regard.  You can tell I was struggling to find some workable criticism for this issue; perhaps it stretches itself too thinly between plot lines for some people, but I really didn't feel that.  Pick this puppy up if you haven't already!  Peace.

A Thunderwing review