When last we left Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Megatron had returned, and that simple act threw the entire fledgling post-war society on Cybertron into a tailspin. Starscream’s all-but-assured election began to unravel, Decepticons began to riot in the streets, and it turned out that Prowl, the most hardline ‘Con hater of them all, was actually colluding with them. So TF:RID #14 was hence mandated to be a doozy.
That it is.
While we’ve been busy getting truly invested in the political machinations of Bumblebee’s interim regime, Starscream’s political maneuvering and Metalhawk’s insistence on a neutral conscience, the Decepticons have been skulking in the background planning to destroy everything the Autobots, NAILs Non-Affiliated Indigenous Lifeforms) and few scattered ex-Cons had managed to build – and Megatron had been spearheading it all from afar in ways we never could have guessed. Using his connection with a mystical creature to manipulate the environment of the nascent reborn Cybertron to make sure everybody stayed in one habitable area while he researched and unlocked the secrets of gestalt technology (that being the science of getting a bunch of robots to merge into one giant ass-kicker robot), Megatron has been relevant even when we thought he was gone and outmoded.
Now, he’s on the precipice of total domination. He’s got the towering might of Devastator crushing everything in his path, Omega Supreme has been neutralized, Optimus Prime is out somewhere roaming the galaxy with no idea what’s going on, and the Autobot leadership has either had their heads crushed – including Bumblebee and Wheeljack! – or their minds completely subjugated, which is what happened with Prowl. He’d been a victim of Bombshell’s mind control for many moons, and in his brief moment of regaining himself in this issue, he’s absolutely crushed that none of his friends could tell the difference. Luckily, though, it seems Megatron’s overlooked the fact that Crazy Old Ironhide, the leaderless Dinobots and the big honkin’ gestalt Superion ain’t as dead as he thinks they are.
While it’s unfortunate that writer John Barber gives us the skinny in what feels like an exposition-dump supervillain monologue explaining his master plan to his enemies, he makes up for that by actually killing the heroes he just dropped the knowledge on, which villains don’t usually do. True, it’s been established quite a bit that Cybertronians are very hard to kill, but they’re as good as dead for now. My inkling is that the angrily neutral Metalhawk will finally understand why Autobots are Autobots instead of tending to lump them in as warlike goons like the Decepticons… and that maybe Starscream will finally flare up and do something amazing that goes against his natural tendency to be cowed in front of Megatron. If this truly does become a Decepticon Regime that will force the Autobots into guerilla warfare and reignite the age-old conflict, I’m not sure how I’ll feel. I’d hate to see all the highly compelling real-world-allegory complexity amount to nothing. Then again, Prowl being vocally anti-Con and then turning out to be a closeted Con is still very much related to actual human issues of the day, too. And by the by, IDW is great at getting artists who were seemingly born to draw Transformers. It’s my same comment all the time, but the stuff is just fantastic.
The next issue promises to be even more explosive than this one, capping off the big first-year arc of Transformers: RID with GIANT ROBOT FIGHTS. Well, Transformers are already giant robots, but Devastator and Superion are gestalts, meaning EVEN GIANTER ROBOT FIGHTS! Also, everything’s going to come to a head, the future of Cybertron will be forever affected, and more characters are probably gonna die. Hoo-boy.
But Wheeljack better come back to life. Because he’s Wheeljack.
