Comic Review: Transformers Prime Beast Hunters #3

                You’re going to have to bear with me for a few weeks as the funds are getting tighter than normal around here.  I’m going to have to stick to reviewing comics that I would normally have bought anyway as no comic shops in the area seem willing to pony up a $4 floppy every week in exchange for some free publicity.  Seriously, if you want to see more in depth reviews of different books, just call up the comic shops in the Syracuse area and tell them to loosen up a bit.  That being said, the next few months we’re going to see a lot of Transformers reviews as that is the bulk of my purchases now.  We start it off with the one book that I have yet to review, Transformers Prime Beast Hunters.

Cover:

                All of the covers to this series are produced by Ken Christiansen and they all have a certain feel to them like they are right out of the Transformers Prime television show.  Obviously this is a huge plus as the comic touts its connection to the show from the get-go.  None of the covers to the comics (this one included) seem to have much in common with the story being told, almost as if they gave Christiansen a bunch of characters and told him to go nuts and they would fit the covers in wherever. As far as covers not pertaining to the story go, these are incredibly solid though.  This current cover features three of the Dinobots surrounded by Decepticons that are masked by shadows.  You can tell that they are Decepticons because of the symbol on their chest as well as the fact that they are glowing purple (the popular Decepticon color-scheme). 

                While the lack of holding lines on the artwork itself can lead to some muddled moments in terms of the artwork blending together, there is enough variation using light to make the characters separate ever so slightly from the background.  The movement within the three figures on the cover shows a great design sense as your eye moves fluidly throughout the image.  One would think that with the way that the characters are colored, combined with the blocky nature of Transformers in general that it would be a bit more difficult to achieve that kind of movement but Christiansen does it easily.

8/10 – I have to give it a knock for being a bit generic, but it has its own narrative qualities and a phenomenal design sense. 

Story:

                The general story of this series is that the Dinobots are left on Cybertron after everyone else leaves (which you can see the lead up to in the video game, Transformers War for Cybertron and the aftermath in the Transformers Prime television show) and they are not only trying to hold society together, but also to find out more about themselves as they have been subjected to numerous experiments at the hands of the Decepticon Shockwave.  The first two issues were more along the lines of keeping the peace on Cybertron while this issue starts to deal more with the basic origin of the Dinobots themselves.  While I am intrigued as to where the story will go, there is not much to this issue itself and it turns out to be a pretty quick read. 

Storytellers Mike Johnson and Mairghread Scott (and specifically Mike Johnson who actually wrote the issue) may have something bigger that this is leading up to, but after the last two issues that had a lot going on and felt like they really lived up to the Transformers moniker on the cover in terms of quality, seem to fall a bit flat here.  The big reveal at the end, where Grimlock and Swoop are fighting against actual dinosaurs is probably a bit of fanservice as who doesn’t want to se Grimlock fight an actual T-Rex, but it raises more questions than answers in terms of carbon-based life forms and their ability to exist on Cybertron.  Considering the fact that this brawl happened at the end of the issue, I will give Johnson an issue to work out the details of atmosphere, time (as the Dinobots have been in operation in their current iteration for a little while in the comic universe, so how did the dinosaurs survive, much less know how and when to break out at this convenient moment) and overall luck as Grimlock and Swoop just happen to be patrolling near Shockwave’s lab that spawned the Dinobots.

                Again, I will give Johnson the benefit of the doubt that after the dust settles we will start to receive answers to these questions and that everything won’t seem as “convenient” as it is presented here.  Other than that, the dialogue is good, with the interaction between Grimlock and Swoop staying true to their character and really playing up their own distinct “roles” within the Dinobots.

6/10 – The quality dips a bit in this issue, especially after the very well done first two, but it does set up a lot of questions to add to the mythos and keep us coming back for more.  I just wish it took longer than ten minutes to read.

Art:

                Agustin Padilla provides the art here and while it is miles away from the art we see in other Transformers comics nowadays, it is still very good.  The ability to consistently draw these characters in all their glory, both in robot and their “alt” modes cannot be understated, and while the Dinobots don’t turn into vehicles (which would be the bane of my existence) drawing the robotic dinosaurs is no easy task either.  Padilla handles this admirably and adds his own bit of flair in making the art darker and grittier than his counterparts in the other titles. 

                While Padilla does draw everything well, robots and actual dinosaurs alike, my main problem is the utilization of space on the page.  There are many times where Padilla will leave a lot of space around the figures, almost as if he is expecting a lot of dialogue to be added and he was making room for it.  When that dialogue is not added it just looks like poor pacing on his part as the panel could have usually been shrunk while others were expanded.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a background in nearly every panel, so even though there is a big space, it is not necessarily devoid of something, however looking at a large metal wall that has no bearing on the story is not really useful in any way.  I am not sure if this is the fault of Padilla or Johnson, the writer just not filing the space (I don’t know the scripting method used so can’t make that determination with any certainty).

7/10 – The art is a nice change of pace from the clean lines and open figures of most of the other Transformers titles.  Padilla does a great job of breaking up the different surfaces with a variety of textures as well. 

Overall: 8/10 – While this isn’t the best issue in the series, if you have even a passing interest in the franchise or the Dinobots, you should be reading this series.  It’s easy to see how Transformers stories have been told for nearly thirty years now.