Editor's Desk 
Heya folks, Crooker here again with another review in Skybound Entertainment’s ongoing Transformers series. This is issue #36, written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Jason Howard. The big third year issue! Three years of this book already, that’s crazy. Hard to believe I’ve been reviewing it that long.
So, much like previous issues lately, this one is about getting as much story in as possible, and I think it works well. There’s a nice, meaty fight scene at the start with Cobra-La and Superion (now featuring Thundercracker! So awesome), before the back half of the story is about the passage of time and how Autobots manage to integrate themselves further into the lives of us tiny Earth Guys.
I like this for a few reasons, primarily being that we haven’t had a Transformers story in comics with this status quo… ever! Quite literally, aside from tie-ins to cartoons (that always tend to follow the original cartoon in this way by having them be public or at least government supported heroes, more or less), no other comic in the series has followed the original CARTOON’s premise! Oddly kind of groundbreaking, and a really nice breath of fresh air from the usual “hard Furman or Budiansky” directi0ns we usually take. The idea of the Autobots being openly accepted on Earth, without any of that “we’ll only work with you if we control you/do what we say/secretly plan to kill you/etc”, Suicide Squad type stuff is such a huge relief.
Image/Skybound
I still mildly question what we’re doing having Cobra-La, something established for the G.I. Joe comic, be major villains in the Transformers book… but not a hint of them in Joe? Did Williamson just not want to use them, so Kirkman picked up the slack? Considering Clutch and Hound appeared near the end I assume the Joes are going to be in this art on the Transformers side of things, but I’m confused at the lack of greater connectivity here still. It’d be like getting a Batman show where he fights General Zod or something, only for the sister Superman show to never acknowledge it, just a weird choice to me.
Image/Skybound
Howard’s art is great as usual, the fight scene itself being maybe his second major one since joining the book and it does a very good job at feeling intense and frantic, as well as conveying the raw power of Superion. Though, my favourite parts are the down to Earth, slice of life glimpses we get into the daily lives of the Autobots and their allies. I’m beating a dead horse, but Transformers interacting with Earth and humanity is my favorite stuff in the franchise, and it’s really cool to see how we’re marching closer to the status quo and visual aesthetic seen in Transformers The Movie.
So, Transformers #36. A good one, I’d say! Aside from my minor misgivings with the baseline promise of connectivity in the Energon Universe still feeling like an empty one even three years deep, the issue itself, as an entry in the Transformers saga of this world, is quite strong. It does a lot for not only the characters, but the world building for the entire EU through bringing us back in contact with G.I. Joe’s villains that they’ve sorely neglected. And I guess that’s the whole Kicker Jones of it all, isn’t it? While Transformers manages to forge ahead and consistently deliver on massive, status quo shaking changes to the world, the book set in deep space somehow manages to feel more relevant than the third that’s seemingly uninterested in participating at all.
Ah well, at least this book knows what it’s doing.
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