Luke Owen reviews Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #13…
SHORE LEAVE! The AUTOBOTS visit the planet Hedonia—and get a chance to put recent events behind them, ingest some energon, and relax. Everyone, that is, except Swerve, who faces the toughest challenge of his life: in just six hours, he has to teach Ultra Magnus how to have fun.
I think it’s fair to say that I was quite harsh on the Issue #12 of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye. Some comments made about my review claimed that I was “stupid” and that it was a review from “Bizarro World”. I still stand by my comments that James Roberts is not writing the best Transformers series going at the moment and this issue backs up my argument. It’s pretty pointless, badly paced, wacky and all-over lousy. But do you know what, I kind of liked it.
I still take issue with artwork mostly down to the colouring by Josh Burcham and Joana Lafuente. They just seem to choose boring block colour schemes with bland greens, uninviting purples and hideous yellows. Even Ultra Magnus, famed for being a red, white and blue Transformer, is coloured here to be varying degrees of turquoise in what I guess are supposed to be lighting effects. Guido Guidi’s art is a little better than we’ve previously seen but it’s let down by seemingly rushed colouring.
But despite its unappealing look, Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #13 is a bizarrely fun comic. It’s such an interesting idea to take the Transformers on “shore leave” and see them go to a bar to kick back. The story focuses on the over-enthusiastic Swerve who has been tasked by Rodimus Prime to exert some life back into the rule book focused Ultra Magnus. It plays as a flashback as Swerve relays the story to Blurr (who he plans on opening a bar with) which does give the narrative the pace I felt was missing from the previous issue. It’s quite an enjoyable little tale and does have a great payoff at the end that puts into question the price of fandom, but overall it does feel like a placeholder issue while not a lot else is happening. There is a reveal towards the end between Cyclonus and Tailgate, but it’s nothing that you’d need to buy the comic for in order not to miss out.
I may get more flak for this but I still don’t like the More Than Meets The Eye series, despite quite liking this issue. There is quite a lot wrong with it, but the endearing quality of Swerve coupled with Ultra Magnus’ negativity make for a nice balance that comes with a good ending. It could be one to miss out on, but you won’t regret picking it up if you do.
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 February 6, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
