By: John Barber (writer), Andrew Griffith and Levio Ramondelli (art), Priscilla Tramontano and Levio Ramondelli (colors)
The Story: Soundwave vs. Shockwave beneath the crust of Cybertron in an ancient city WHERE TIME AND DEATH HAVE NO MEANING!!!!!!
The Review: I admit that I’m a little sad to see another month go by without an appearance from Starscream, especially after the prolonged delay between issues 20 and 21. All the same, if you’re in the mood for beloved Decepticons and can’t get a Starscream, you can’t go wrong with Soundwave and Shockwave or, as some of you might know them, the tape guy and Sark.
Though Soundwave’s claim to fame for many is his highly processed robotic voice, this issue has done away with it and instead reveals that, even in this more talkative form, still energon runs deep. Early depictions of Soundwave in the mini-series era emphasized the self-serving and sly nature found in his original toy tech specs, while, after All Hail Megatron, he tended towards a cartoon-like robo-loyalist persona. This story, for it does continue from last month’s issue, leaves us with a clever amalgamation which I think fans of the character will appreciate. He hasn’t had much time to shine, but I think we finally have an iconic version of the IDW Soundwave.
John Barber focuses this issue around Soundwave’s relationships with Megatron and his cassettes, much as he focused the last one around his interactions with Shockwave. A lot of people, often influenced by Michael Bay, think of Transformers comics as a slightly grown-up expression of smashing two robots together, but Barber’s Soundwave is a surprisingly sympathetic villain and his struggles with Shockwave are subjugated to the exploration of his history and interpersonal
As a result, barring one dramatic moment, the scenes in the present are actually fairly mundane, however the frequent jumps in time help to obscure that. That said the real meat of the issue is in flashback, where reverse chronology, the return of Furman-era ideas, and effective character work create an impressively immersive portrait of a bot with a dream.
The dialogue is usually nothing exceptional, but there’s enough heart beneath the words to make it an issue worth remembering.
This issue and its predecessor also introduce – or at least I think they introduce – an interesting ability of Soundwave’s, namely the ability to read emotions. This issue doesn’t focus on Soundwave’s strange synesthetic perception of this ability so much as it builds on it, showing how the sensory input that seems too much for his processors to handle used to be much worse. It may be a personal weakness, but I think it adds a new dimension to the character and to the series as a whole. This is the sort of grounded sci-fi what-if that Transformers at its best has always reached for.
Andrew Griffith and Priscilla Tramontano provide classic, dynamic Transformers action in the present day scenes. Poses and angles are well-chosen, though Griffith’s compositions fare better when they’re framed close to the action or with one central focus. All in all, the pair do an admirable job, but they’re simply outshone by the issue’s flashbacks.
Beautifully colored and cloaked in a misty shroud inherently at odds with the supposed golden age it claims to represent, Levio Ramondelli’s art is absolutely amazing. Backgrounds are frequently barren or nonexistent, a likely consequence of the detailed grain and damage on our mechanical players, and I’m not sure that the effect could be sustained as the primary style of an ongoing series, but interspersed with flashes of more conventional artwork and put towards this particular story Ramondelli’s art sings.
The Conclusion: Robots in Disguise #22 is the latter half of a fairly simple story, but one that accomplishes a good deal. It succeeds as a lead-up to the Dark Cybertron event and gives us a glimpse of the banished Decepticon faction but, even more, it serves as one of those oft forgotten character building issues that were so beloved in the days of Claremont and Ostrander.
It would have been nice to get settled with Starscream and the series’ new status quo before we launched into a major crossover, but I can’t honestly complain about getting excellent character-driven Transformers stories and gorgeous art.
Grade: B