Transformers #10 is, pardon the language, a massive cocktease.
The slow ratcheting of tension, the build up of pressure continues here. Events are picking up momentum, a juggernaut of consequence that will eventually lead to calamity, change, chaos, all the things that Megatron seems to be pursuing. This is a bot who wants to fracture the status quo, who wants the Autobots to respond to the escalating chaos with a steel-shod boot of oppression to justify his claims, even bringing in outside influences to do it – but is the situation in danger of getting out of his control? We’ll just need to wait and see.
This issue weaves multiple threads together. The main focus being on Megatron as he speaks to the other senators, baiting and stonewalling them in equal measure, plainly uninterested in helping to deescalate things. There’s also a lovely line in this scene: “Ideas are like shrapnel. They do not know friend from foe.”
Of course, the fact that Megatron is the one (metaphorically for now) pulling the pin and rolling the grenade into an enclosed space makes the statement all the more portentous. Following the meeting with the senate, there’s a brief riot, another rather half-hearted attempt at Megatron’s life and then we’re introduced to our Master of Mayhem, that cold hearted logician himself, Shockwave, who has actually been responsible for a lot of what’s been going on up till now at Megatron’s behest.
For the record, it will be interesting to see if IDW keep Shockwave’s origins in this new continuity. You see, Shockwave wasn’t always the one-eyed, one-handed master of logic. Oh no. At one point he was an eager senator who disagreed with how things were being handled. Sentinel Prime decided to show him the error of his ways by not only obliterating his emotions through a process called Shadowplay, they performed something called “empurata” on him where they took away his face and his hands, replacing them instead with the one-eyed mask of a face fans know and love as well as the gun arm that has become his signature weapon (Whirl and Glitch have both had this done to them as well, though without the brainwashing it would seem as Whirl remains a borderline sociopath). Some of the Transformer storylines really do go to dark, dark places.
The issue ends with Sentinel Prime and his squad arriving back on Cybertron, none of them looking very happy and Sentinel stating that “there are some heads I want to smash together”.
By this point, Cybertron is becoming a powder-keg but the story needs to be careful not to overdo it. There’s only so much tension-building you can put in before the audience starts to expect a pay-off. There have been ten issues leading up to the arrival of Sentinel Prime back on Cybertron, so we can only hope that issue 11 kicks it into a higher gear and the fecal matter will finally hit the rapidly rotating object.
Transformers #10 from IDW Publishing is available digitally and in comic shops.
