Luke Owen reviews issue 14 of Transformers: More That Meets The Eye…
THE RETURN OF OVERLORD! Locked in a secret cell underneath the Lost Light, hidden from the crew, a DECEPTICON psychopath is talking without opening his mouth… and an AUTOBOT with needles for fingers is about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
I’ve been getting a lot of negative feedback to my reviews of IDWs Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye. I’ve heavily criticised James Roberts’ text heavy scripts, Alex Milne’s choppy art style and Josh Burcham’s over-zealous colouring. People have told me that I’m wrong and that I don’t get it. And I argued back at them that I was in fact not wrong, however last issue was a bit of a turning point for me. While I didn’t like a large portion of the comic, there were some glimmers of brilliance in terms of story and writing.
Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #14 doesn’t really follow on from where #13 left off and focuses on a separate part of the ship with Chromedome interrogating Phase Sixer Overlord, thought to be one of the most powerful Cybertronians to ever live. The Autobots believe that Chromedome’s ability to get into the mindspace of other bots will help them find a way to defeat Megatron once and for all (even though he is already believed to be dead).
Once again, Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #14 is incredibly text heavy with Roberts’ words over shadowing what the artwork could tell (as choppy as it is). But the majority of it is incredibly gripping and engaging with a wonderful narration from Chromedome that is very snide and cutting as he takes this once great Cybertronian through his many loses to the almighty Megatron. It doesn’t exactly paint Chromedome (you know, a good guy) in the best light as I found myself routing for Overlord (you know, the bad guy) and gave a bit of a cheer when the tables are turned.
And I hate to sound like a stuck record, but Milne’s artwork and Burcham’s colouring just isn’t good enough – especially when you compare it to the other Transformers titles available (Rage of the Dinobots for example). Burcham does try to use lighting effects to his advantage but it just comes off as lazy. I even scoffed at one point in the comic where Chromedome says, “up there – most of the crowd are the same colour. And look, every third or fourth person is missing their face. All signs of memory fatigue”. I guess I also suffer from memory fatigue as I seem to see the same things as Overlord…
Criticisms aside, there are things to like about Transformers: More The Meets The Eye #14. Not much, but there are some things. Mostly surrounding the story which twists and turns to its pretty gripping conclusion with some great banter from Chromedome and sinister retorts from Overlord. I’m kind of hoping that the series does start to pick up speed as it is a distant last in terms of quality compared to the other IDW Transformers comics – and it needs a big spark of life to make up the distance.
Luke Owen is one of the co-editors of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @CGLuke_o.
Originally published March 7, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
