Luke Owen reviews the trade paper back release of Transformers Prime: Rage of the Dinobots…
The DINOBOTS hold the line as CYBERTRON falls! With OPTIMUS PRIME and the Ark long gone, the rest of the population makes their escape from the dying world–but SHOCKWAVE remains behind, continuing his experiments!
If you read my reviews of the individual issues of this series, then you will know just how much I loved Transformers Prime: Rage of the Dinobots. I praised everything about it and claimed it to be one of the best Transformers comics I’d ever read. If you missed out on it first time round, then here is your chance to redeem yourself.
As the Autobots and Decepticons leave the war ridden Cybertron, the Dinobots are left behind as they search for Ultra Magnus whose ship has crash landed during his escape. But things go from bad to worse as the devious Shockwave has some tricks up his sleeve – and the Dinobots are the ones who are going to pay.
While the storyline isn’t groundbreaking or even that engaging, Rage of the Dinobots is sold on two simple mechanics – the excellent script by Mike Johnson and Mairghread Scott and the eye popping artwork from Agustin Padilla. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best looking Transformers comics I’ve ever come across.
To all those people who left comments on my reviews for bad mouthing the artwork in Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, look at his book at tell me it’s worse. It is just simply stunning. Every single panel is rich with detail and the colours are just outstanding. To be honest, I’d recommend buying this trade paperback just for the artwork alone.
But there is more to it than just some decent art. The script from Johnson and Mairghread is really, really good and the dialogue between every character more than makes up for the weak plot. Even as the comic progresses, Rage of the Dinobots never gets going storywise and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a touch dull. However it’s helped along by some really clever interactions and beautiful characterisations of Grimlock – who is more than just a brute with a sword. Even the rest of the Dinobots are well represented.
I love Rage of the Dinobots and I implore you to seek it out. Either by buying the comics individually or with this trade papagerback. The artwork should sell you on it alone, but the dialogue is also really strong. I’m very much looking forward to Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters later this year to see where this superb iteration of the Dinobots takes us.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Month in Review show for Flickering Myth’s Podcast Network. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published May 15, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
