The Transformers: Movie Prequel #2
by Chris Ryall, Simon Furman, and Don Figueroa
from IDW Publishing

advanced review by EdC

So... we're now at issue two of the Transformers: Movie Prequel comic, setting up the premise and characters for this summer's blockbuster Transformers movie.

And the question is, what's being set up? There are really only two Transformers in the issue, Megatron and Optimus Prime, and Prime is only in flashbacks. But who are these characters? Will the same fans who nearly rebelled after seeing how different these characters looked from what they were used to react negatively if these same characters act differently, too?

The movie Megatron is more singular and driven in his goals than some previous incarnations. Prime has launched the Allspark into space and Megatron has given chase. The Allspark is obviously meant to stand in for the matrix, but we can't have Megatron searching for a 1999 Keanu Reeves movie, now can we? This Megatron seems to not care as much about ruling over others, he wants only the Allspark, and, in fact, he'd destroy Cybertron to get it. Prime, on the flip side, is just as driven to protect the Allspark. He has sent it far into space, dooming Cybertron to what Megatron calls a "slow death." Whether that means the movie Prime is more ruthless, desperate, or reckless than other versions we're used to, we don't really know yet.

Movie Megatron, rather than throwing underlings at the problem, has thrown himself at the Allspark, nearly destroying himself crossing the cosmos in an attempt to possess it. He crashes through the Earth's atmosphere, and overheated and depleted of Energon, then falls through the Antarctic ice, freezing and shutting down.

The story then jumps forward to 1898 and Captain Witwicky and his exploration team have found something beneath them in the Antarctic ice. The captain, despite the warnings of his crew, starts to dig. And what he finds leaves him both blind and mad.

Two mysterious men, who seem like they might be from some kind of Generation 1 version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen given the curiosities in their possession, decide to follow up on what Witwicky found and a year later, in their Antarctic research facility, they've unearthed what they call the "Mega-Man".

The story then jumps ahead again to 2003 and to a military base in Colorado that has just confirmed the arrival of an object from space that transformed upon touchdown.

It seems to the military that Mega-Man has a relative...

I honestly wasn't sure I liked the first issue of this mini-series when I initially read it, but, I like it more after this second issue. The art is nice, with flashbacks shown in black and white, nice coloring, and, I must admit I like the look of the movie Megatron more after again seeing him in action (until he freezes, anyway) in this issue. The story jumps forward abruptly here and there, but I really enjoyed what this issue has set up. It moved at a brisk pace, touched on a lot of interesting ideas (I wish we'd stayed in 1900 a little longer), and set up a lot things that will pay off in the movie (at least that's what I suspect based on the movie spoilers I've read).

I was one of those fans who nearly rebelled after I saw the designs for the movie... but I'm liking them more and more now, and, really, if the movie prequel comic can overcome my bitching about how the movie Megatron looks, well, it must be pretty good.

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