Comic Review: Autocracy #5 [uploaded]

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Red Dave Prime
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Comic Review: Autocracy #5 [uploaded]

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Transformers Autocracy #5
“Ruins”

Published Date: March 14th 2012
Written by: Chris Metzen & Flint Dille
Art by: Livio Ramondelli
Colours by: Livio Ramondelli
Edited by: John Barber & Carlos Guzman
Cover price: $0.99

Synopsis:


Orion Pax leads the hunt for the dissident bomber, Hot Rod, to the ancient Acroplex building in the city of Nyon. Unaware that Hot Rod is deliberately leading them to a specific destination they follow his path into the building, discovering a massive hall lined with statues of the Knights of Cybertron and a shrine to the Matrix. Unknown to them, they are also being watched by Megatrons spies as the decepticon commander is eager to see which side Orion will pledge to.
Finally the Autobots come to a room containing massive tanks of Energon and many of the inhabitants of Nyon, bleed dry of their energon and barely living.

Hot Rod and fellow dissident Slinger make their case that Zeta Prime is leeching energon from so many of Cybertrons less well-off population. They make the case that they needed to show Pax the truth and hope he stands up for them and the citizens of Nyon against the oppression of the Autobot Autocracy. Hot Rod even offers to hand himself over willingly, no matter Pax’s decision.

Before Orion can make his choice, he is confronted by the sight of Zeta’s Omega Destructors storming a devastated Nyon. Seeing that Zeta Prime is declaring open warfare and Cybertrons weaker members of society, He realises that he no longer has a choice.

Characters featured [in rough order of appearance]:

Orion Pax, Silverbolt, Hound, Prowl, Bumblebee, Ironhide, Hot Rod, Laserbeak, Starscream, Megatron, Slinger,

Notes:

Quick Spoiler – Acroplex is actually a hidden Metroplex. His guns are quite distinct in the opening shot of the building.

The Matrix shrine is similar to the room Optimus Prime will converse with Metroplex in during “Monstrosity”.

Slinger was the Megatron-backing civilian seen in issue 4. He seems to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Hot Rod in the Nyon resistance though so we can assume he is not an out and out decepticon sympathiser


Quote / Unquote:

“The young Hot Rod has lead a clever chase, a pity you could never recruit him” – Megatron makes a little nod to Starscreams role as a recruiter in Spotlight:Blur

“You met Zeta. He strike you bein’ powered by the source of all power and light?” – Ironhide doesn’t buy into the idea that the Primes are the chosen line of leaders that they claim to be.

“You’re government bleeds us dry and you wonder why we bomb you?” – Hot Rod makes a fair point to Orion Pax.

“Maybe it’s time we realised the Decepticons aren’t the Real problem” – 4 million years of war after this, I’m guessing Orion Pax wouldn’t agree with himself.

“You see that Fire on the horizon Prowl? That’s our future burning” – Orion Pax summing up the final panel of issue 5 pretty well.


Review:

This is a real slow burner issue, building up the scenes for the carnage that we will get in issue 6. Lots of nice references to the Knights and the other mystical side of Cybertron culture and while Pax’s realisation that he is on the wrong side is a little ham-fisted (he really has gone through this already in Chaos Theory), it’s still done well enough. I kind of get the feeling that Hot Rod could have been a bit more passionate in his words and it would have been interesting to see a Roberts speech thrown in here (or Nick Roche – no slouch at the speech writing there either) but that could just be me. It’s interesting to think that this selfless robot will evolve into the ego-led hero of MTMTE – usually these things go the other way.

The original character Slinger is an oddity here. Considering how reckless the writers have been with shoe-horning known characters into roles, it strikes me as odd that they didn’t try and have another known character as Hot Rod's mentor or friend. He also has the most basic robot design – I can’t imagine what his alt mode is, bar maybe he transforms from Slinger the robot to Slinger the slightly different robot. Maybe that’s the point though – he really just fades into the background.

Tied to some really nice artwork, Ruins is a nice lead-in to the second half of the Autocracy series. It feels like half an issue but that’s more the fault of the delivery system and certainly not the writing. Coming up to the midway point and I’m still enjoying Autocracy. At times it’s a bit too straightforward in its delivery, especially for a tale about the clandestine actions of an uncaring Government but it’s still an intriguing title.

Rating: 3 out of 5
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