THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CLUB AND CONVENTION TRANSFORMERS COMICS

Revelations, Part 4
Reviewed by Blackjack

"Do you have a plan?"
So, our interpid band of cardboard heroes are tossed into a new scenario... the Mini-Con Civil War! You know, it's a good justification to tell us where the Mini-Cons all went off to after the end of Armada. However, there's no build-up to it, and with Over-Run's boring mystery archaeology session with Skyfall taking nearly half of the issue... Anti-Blaze and company are another bunch of guys without any personality, and while Downshift, Sentinel, Over-Run and the RID guys get some good moments, there's just no hiding the sheer banality of this installment. The villains likewise are uninsteresting guys who we don't even know the names of. Really at this point you wonder if Leader-1 wouldn't be better off leading the whole rebellion instead of being reduced to a one panel gag cameo, instead of using random mooks without any personality.


New characters first. The candy-coloured Decepticon Landquake is the second part of the BotCon-exclusive combiner set, a repaint of the Energon Combaticon tank mold. Landquake is a Decepticon.

The Mini-Cons seen here are all repaints that were released during the Cybertron toyline, and the Mini-Con Civil War is mentioned in the package bios for these Mini-Cons. Presumably this stems from the not-so-harmonic Mini-Cons from the Dreamwave comics as well.

Mini-Con roll call! On the side of the good guys we have:
-The Mini-Con Council of Sages, Anti-Blaze, Schyte and Checkpoint, repaints of the Armada Rescue Team.
-The combiner Mini-Con Perceptor, who wouldn't be unfamiliar to anyone who's watched Armada and Energon. Naturally, Perceptor is in the colours of his repaint Cybertron toy.
And the rebels allied with Landquake, we have...
-Leader-1, former partner of Megatron. He doesn't get a speaking line and only appears in one frame.
-Same for Wind Sheer, the non-existent partner of Wheeljack. Both Wind Sheer and Leader-1 don't have toys out at this point, and it seems that their appearance in that one panel is merely a nod to Armada geeks.
-Backblast, a repaint of Armada Sky Blast.
-Razorclaw, a repaint of Armada Thunderwing.
-Sky Lynx, a repaint of Armada Gunbarrel.
-Ramjet, who is not to be confused with the melty Unicron herald. A repaint of Armada Sonar.
-Thrust, a repaint of Armada Jetstorm. Next issue would reveal that Thrust is the leader of the rebellion.
-Monocle, a repaint of Armada Drill Bit, see goofs.

The power of the Mini-Cons after being ignored largely during Energon and Cybertron are re-established, it's just that Megatron is preoccupied with the shiny new Cyber Keys to bother about the Mini-Cons.

Remember that the repair machine told Downshift he needed a reformat? Yeah, he's in his snazzy new Cybertron body.

This takes place 'gigacycles' after the defeat of Ramjet, thus giving some time for Unicron to do his rebirth. Also, this also time-jumps to somewhere in the midway of the Cybertron cartoon.

Over-Run says that the carving was found in the Energon pools ten years ago after the 'war' ended. Presumably this is talking about the Energon pools in the Energon cartoon (with the combiners and everything) except that Over-Run only existed in the comics and pflgtlhtgl.

Vector Prime is 25 million years old, while the ancient carving is 20 milion years old.

Unicron is the same size as Soundwave in his new body.


Again the writers do a mix-and-match from the cartoon and Dreamwave comic versions of Energon, what with continuity nods to the cartoon, yet the Mini-Con plot is closer to the comics. Unicron Singularity is the justification for continuity headaches.

Over-Run is again mis-spelt Overrun. Unicron Singularity cannot justify the existence of typos.

In the first panel he appears in, Downshift is slightly miscoloured.

Monocle, the Drill Bit repaint, is an Autobot in the toyline, but is seen with the Decepticons in this issue and the next.

Here Landquake has a blue Energon weapon, while his toy and subsequent appearances are red.