Transformers: Devastation #5
by Simon Furman and E.J. Su, IDW Publishing
With this issue, Furman proves that he can still write a good Transformers comic. While his Beast Wars stuff has been absolutely lackluster and suffered from Furman trying to pull from too many directions into one center that is not big enough to possibly hold it all, much akin to this sentence, Furman's reimagined Generation 1 continues to vroom along strongly. Possibly, his only weak point when it comes to this G1 stuff is that he has a penchant for decompression. In the G1 comics it's not so awful, since they're all six-issue minis. But the Beast Wars stuff comes in four-issue mini installments, and with as much going on as there is, there tends to be not a whole lot resolved by the last part, and/or it doesn't make sense. With G1, he doesn't have quite as much going on, though there's still a lot, but he does have the extra two issues to work with, which makes it all work out.
Even so, because of the decompression, sometimes the pacing can feel a little off. Going into the last chapter of Devastation with next month, it'll be the third issue that the two human characters are dead, with Ratchet trying to jolt them back to life. Across the issues, only about five minutes has elapsed, but it's a matter of - why the need to draw it out three issues? But then, I guess in a 22-page issue, certain things need to be there, and thus one must cut from the least important parts. Still, just save them off-screen and show a couple panels with them recuperating. Unless Furman actually intends for them to stay dead, but I somehow doubt that.
What Furman does have going for him is that he's the sole writer of Transformers books for IDW, aside from, I think, the mini Megatron: Origin. He writes all of G1 and all of the character-centric one-shots. That makes him the mastermind of everything, and it means he can pull stuff in as he deems fit, and as he wants it. As he's made Earth into more and more of a central area, he's been able to pull in bits and pieces from the one-shots, such as Soundwave and his cassette-bots, and now the Dinobots as well.
The last chapter of Devastation looks to be absurdly good, and I have no idea how it'll end. The next phase of the war should be good, too, and I have no idea where it's going to go. The Decepticons' living weapon, Six-shot, has betrayed them. Starscream, awoken from the tube Megatron imprisoned him in, has faced off against Six-shot and seemingly beaten him. Megatron orders the rest of the Decepticons to attack the enemies assaulting their base. Prime orders Hot Rod and Wheeljack called back to their ship orbiting the Earth in order to abandon Earth and head elsewhere, apparently fine with leaving Ironhide and Sunstreaker behind. One of the humans has made himself set to join with a Sunstreaker body as a Headmaster, and he probably won't be making it off Earth with the rest of the Autobots, assuming they actually do abandon Earth.
Regardless, Furman's G1 comics continue to run strong. There've been little lulls here and there, but have otherwise been solid.
