TFARCHIVE FORUMS

Hey, the new issue is out.

Quick thoughts: Sara P-D does us a blinding service. Much much better than Combiner Hunters. A great advert for Till All Are One.

I quite like the issue of Prime's 'faith.' Him coming to terms with being a godking is really interesting, especially from a pessimistic agnostic like him. The Mistress of Flame's justification for conquering Earth is very British Christian, very Japanese Zen. You'd have thought Prime would have heard it all before.

Digging the synching up of the Dinobots' scene with Redemption. Poor Slug. He's really a lost soul.

Makes perfect sense for Sky-Byte to be attracted to the commune. It still all seems so wholesome.

And that Jazz scene is really nasty. Jesus.

Since moving on from the combiner wars stuff, I think Barbers probably writing his best run since RID began. There's a lot of plate spinning here and over the last few issues it feels like some big stuff isnt getting the amount of page time it might need but I think he's put together an interesting version of AOEs sub plot of Humans using TF tech. There's also still the possibility of a Scorponok reveal (or other) behind blackrock that wont feel so out of the blue as the Megatron reveal in Season 1 of RID.

Also think Barber has got a good handle on what is a massive cast of characters - I often felt during his first spell that characters dropped in and out far too much and you didnt get a good idea who was important beyond the main players. Here everyone is much more defined in their roles and he has some good takes on some characters including comedy bits which are (and this is important) different to the humor in MTMTE.

I had considered dropping RID/ TF as I didnt quite get the first few issues of the Blackrock stuff and Prowlastator, really didnt get the Barbarian Galvatron stuff (although I like the character those issues were a chore to read) and the less said about the combiner wars the better. But the last few issues have been very enjoyable, Punishment was a quality one shot and overall I'm looking forward to the next few issues of this and the Dinobot redemption arc.

Mostly a placeholder issue (tellingly the Autobots on the Ark have no advancement in their plot at all, and all of Optimus' soul searching basically comes down to "Go see these other guys next issue"), but it was nicely done placeholding with Galvatron on fine--and unusually serious--form and some nice moments for a lot of characters like Slugslinger, Astrotrain and the two little mini-Prime worshipers.

Not essential by any means, but perfectly readable and will probably work better as a bridge in the trade.

I'd agree that this issue has a bit of a thread water feel, and thats a problem Barber needs to solve because it was a common issue (but not the only issue) in both RID and Dark Cybertron. Whats worse is given the events of the last issue there should be no threading water going on, especially given the amount of plot threads going on. Maybe he would have been better splitting the events of the last issue over two issues instead?