Cover detail for Transformers: Regeneration One #90. Hasbro/IDW Publishing.
Julian Titus is a writer/editor for PixlBit.com and the host of the Nerds Without Pants podcast. He's also the biggest Transformers fan I've ever met (besides Javier Fuentes, who argues this point with me when every Roll-Out article is posted) and will be covering IDW's Transformers comics right here on a regular basis. This week, he's reviewing the latest book from IDW...
Transformers: Regeneration One #90 - “Natural Selection” Part 5
Here it is, folks! The culmination of the past four issues of Scorponok’s grand plan to remake Cybertron in his image! This is for all the marbles!
…and it ends with a resounding thud.
Transformers: Regeneration One has been a book I’ve struggled with since its first (er, 81st) issue. It’s been a slog of a comic, moving at a glacial pace, and Andrew Wildman’s pencils don’t hold up to what other artists have done with these characters in the years since the original Marvel Comics ended. While I continue to hold up the “IDW Universe” books - Robots in Disguise and More Than Meets the Eye - I’m hard pressed to recommend this one. Two arcs are now completed in this return series, and so little has happened that I’m yawning as I write this.
Simply put, “Natural Selection” wraps up as neatly and as quickly as any ‘80s Saturday morning cartoon. Spoiler alert: the bad guys lose. That’s all fine and dandy, but a far more interesting scenario would have been Scorponok actually succeeding and taking control of Cybertron, as the scattered remnants of the Autobots try to fight back against increasingly difficult odds. It’s been proven in the past that the Decepticons need a strong leader to focus them into action, and with Megatron dead Scorponok seemed like a good candidate. However, with his defeat in this issue, the future of the Decepticons feels much like the future of this comic: directionless.