Transformers #32 (Energon Universe) - Video Review by ComicBook.beer

New comic book day!!

Now that I have my new comic books for the week, you'll never guess where I'm going to go to read them.

It's like a holiday every Wednesday when it's new comic book day. Let's give Shockwave a high five here. Welcome back to ComicBook.beer. We're taking a look at Transformers issue number 32 in the Energon Universe. Love this cover. I'm a big fan of Shockwave. I've told this story before, but back in the day, like 1985, '86, I could choose one of the larger Transformers. My parents would let me have one of the bigger ones like Optimus Prime. So I could have like an Optimus Prime. I could get like Megatron.

I chose Shockwave. I chose wisely. Shockwave's awesome. And he's crazy. Which makes for fun reading here in the Transformers series. Here's the creative team and one gets the impression that Robert Kirkman enjoyed smashing his Transformers together as much as I did since this issue and a lot of the recent issues are just like wall-to-wall action scenes. So what happens here is it helps if you know what's going on in the Transformers series. So I'll just tell you that much.

The previous issue deals with Megatron's seizures, but issue 30 is the important one here because Elita becomes Elita Prime. So Optimus gives her the Matrix of Leadership. And we wonder as readers, does Elita deserve this? Is she going to be as good a leader as Optimus Prime? Big shoes to fill, right?

So Optimus remains on Earth, now just Optimus, with the Autobots on Earth to fight Megatron and save the planet. Now, Elita One doesn't care at all about Earth. She only cares about the war on Cybertron. So she takes like half of the Autobots with her through the space bridge back to Cybertron to fight the Decepticons on Cybertron. Okay? Got that? So, sort they split it up here a little bit. We got a war on Earth, we got war on Cybertron. So she shows up there with Autobots like Ultra Magnus, Bulkhead, Mirage, Blaster. We haven't seen much from Blaster lately. Static Wave was better than Blaster but still, whatever.

So they're deep inside enemy territory and they're trying to sneak their way through and who do they encounter but Shockwave, who was like destroyed a bunch of issues earlier but now he's back and he doesn't have a head, just a glowing light, which is pretty cool, so it's like Shockwave upgraded or something. And Shockwave's there with all of these Decepticons, a lot of newer ones I'm not that familiar with.

Maybe you're familiar with them, but there they are. So these Decepticons just immediately open fire. I love that Bumblebee. Bumblebee's already been more or less destroyed and they let go the extra mile here to even more destroy Bumblebee. And I applaud that decision. Bumblebee sucks. So happy to get rid of Bumblebee. Too bad Jetfire gets knocked over though. I like Jetfire. There's Ultra Magnus transforms. Love this shot here with the Countach.

Sideswipe running over Decepticons, but the battle goes poorly and the Autobots start to lose. So Elita holds up the Matrix of Leadership. Later, darkest hour. You can almost hear the music from the Transformers movie playing in the background. But to her surprise, it doesn't really do the same thing that it does in the movie. It turns into a giant lightsaber. So it's like, okay, I didn't know it could do that. And apparently she didn't know it could do that either.

But she starts to kick ass and she's just all kinds of angry. She just cuts the Decepticons into little pieces and the other Autobots are kind of shocked by this. It's like they're aghast. I can't think of any other word to use. Her savage brutality sets her apart from Optimus Prime. I think that's where we're going with the story here. How does she handle the Matrix of Leadership compared to how Optimus Prime would handle this?

Since Optimus Prime is like, you know, good and just and honest. Elita One, I feel like, you know, she's not the most charismatic Transformer, so let's see what she does with this thing. Let's see what Shockwave's got up his sleeves and what happens with the return of Megatron. But I like this issue a lot. I like the whole series a lot. The artwork's a lot of fun. Colorful. It's great to see some of the Transformers we haven't seen in a little while do some stuff.

Sideswipe's always awesome. But where's Sunstreaker? They're twins, right? There are two of them. If you have two Transformers, like twins, definitely had to be a Countach back in the '80s. We never did get a Lamborghini Jalpa though. Transformer, you know. You have to watch Miami Vice to get that one. Transformers issue number 32, recommended from ComicBook.beer. Happy new comic book day.

What's going on in that weird eye of his?