Variant cover detail to Transformers: Regeneration One #89, art by Guido Guidi. Hasbro/IDW Publishing.
It’s becoming clear to me that Transformers: Regeneration One is going to be a slow burn of a book. That’s fine with me, and it certainly is something to be expected from the way Simon Furman crafts his Transformers stories. With issue #89 we get a lot of developments with the Dinobots, but Furman is clearly keeping the more interesting threads for later on down the road.
Cover to Transformers: Regeneration One #89, art by Andrew Wildman. Hasbro/IDW Publishing.
By now, Scorponok has all but claimed Cybertron as his own. The “warrior gene” has been unlocked in nearly every Autobot on the planet, with only the Dinobots and a handful of holdouts standing between Scorponok and a new Decepticon golden age.
Getting the Dinobots to fall in line under Grimlock is going to take some effort though, as Grimlock’s former squad knows what he’s done and wants to restore the damage that’s been done to their name. It’s some intense Dinobot action as the rough and tumble Autobot faction works through some deep-seated issues with their commander.
Once again, the most intriguing bits of Regeneration One are frustratingly shunted to the background. Hot Rod has to make a choice when it comes to the relics of Primus. There’s some more of the origins of the Transformers race here, and though I’ve never been quite fond of Furman’s version of their creation it’s still rather interesting. There’s a little bit of what’s happened to Shockwave back on Earth, and Optimus Prime sets out on a quest for redemption. Soundwave and Bludgeon are nowhere to be found, adding to the glacial pace of the Regeneration One storyline.
I’m fully expecting some of those threads to not come together until an arc or two down the line. That works for me, but I want to see the action on Cybertron building to something larger than an evil scheme of Scorponok’s that gets thwarted in the nick of time. Stay tuned next month and I’ll let you know if things heat up.