THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CURRENT TRANSFORMERS COMICS FROM IDW PUBLISHING

Transformers Autocracy #7
Reviewed by Red Dave Prime

The Decepticon Base is located in Kolkular which is the capital of Kaon.
Megatron has the ability to hover in mid-air… apparently.

It doesn’t seem to take a lot of energon to overload the Vamparc Ribbon – and its unclear why Zeta can’t just choose to turn it off before it explodes.

There’s a fun scene with Shockwave assuring Pax that it was logical that Orion be repaired. On first read, it would seem Shockwave is alluding to the need for Megatron to side with him but given what we know from Shadowplay it’s possible that he means something different. Although Pax shows no recognition of Senator Shockwave's role in his rebuilding (and that empty space in his chest) so it’s possible I am hoping for more of a connection then there is.


“Decepticons, protect the Autobots at all costs” – Megatron with a truly unusual call to his troops.

“I end you with a weapon as ruthless as you are” – Zeta’s Pot calls Megatrons kettyle black.

“This isn’t over Zeta, I’ll make a long career of killing Primes!” – Megatron references his murder of Sentinal Prime in Megatron: Origins

“You just killed yourself, Old timer” – Even the Decepticons mock Ironhides age.

The last few issues have been fun, but as we hit into the second half of Autocracy, things start to wobble just a little. Megatrons confrontation with Zeta should be a bigger event and his ability to take out the Vamparc Ribbon so easily and quickly undermines the threat of the Prime. Maybe if there was a higher page count we would have seen Zeta kick a few low-grade decepticon asses before beating his retreat. As it is, he loses some of the kudos he earned last issue. Still, I did like how he genuinely has a look of fear in his eyes after losing the vamparc ribbon. It’s quite a well done panel considering we only ever see his eyes.

Ties to Shadowplay may or not be here but subsequent developments will make that (possible) nice touch irrelevant later on. In fact, we’re going to get quite a few re-imaginings of set-out history over the next few issues which always made me feel that the writers always wanted Megatron as the main atagonist even though at this point Zeta should be the key bad guy.

And there’s not a lot else to this issue. The infighting between Autobot and Decepticon as as you would expect with no attempt made to try and give us some new take on the animosity between the two factions. The ‘cons are clearly the deceptive bad guys with a few thugs, the Autobots are wary but courageous and Ironhide is an old timer. A single panel showing the two sides squaring up would have done fine.

I think the problem is not that things don’t happen in this issue, it’s just that they aren’t very interesting or game-changing. Megatron has a half-hearted flap with Zeta and Pax wonders if the evil decepticons can be trusted. But we already know that Zeta will fall to Megatron and that Pax cant thrust the Decepticons. So where’s the drama? Roll on issue 8.