Out Wednesday April 8, 2009.

didn't really dig this issue. making the fallen a transdimensional being feels like a weak move to me. i would've preferred him to be some ancient cybertronian, but he's not even a transformer according to what he said. and what happened on the nemesis? all those decepticons just up and vanish with no explaination? seems like they left something out

The dimensional hopping was a bit much for me as well, but that's probably something we see in the movie, so it couldn't be avoided. The rest of the issue though, did more to get me excited about the movie than any of the advertising, figures, etc. And I don't mind the Fallen not being a "Transformer". It appears as though he's still Cybertronian, just a race older than the Transformers. It does kinda make me scratch my head and wonder why he turns into a jet then, though.

Great issue. Defiance ended up way better than Alliance.

Backstory = Awesome.

Admittedly, I have a hard time enjoying this. I hate feeling like Megatron's suddenly become second-banana to the Fallen - I keep on suspecting he'll go Sith on him when next he appears.

Still, some things redeem this for me. Optimus evolving into the leader we know him to be, the setup for the film, as well an explanation for why the mock-up Allspark from RoS didn't work. Plus, a cameo from Jetfire!

June can't come soon enough...

My thoughts, as posted elsewhere:

I assume Jetfire is supposed to be the black w/red stripes "Seeker" shown during the fallen's monologue? He looks like the Axalon.

I think at least some of the other early transformers are supposed to be the contructicons. In the panel with the bubble "They were all different. And they were all needed.", the one on the far right looks like it could be Long Haul, and the one on the far left looks a little bit like Demolishor. Not sure about the two in the middle. On page nine, panel 1, there's also a TF dropping out of the sky that has two arms and tandem treads but no legs... I'll guess that's definitely Demolishor. The one in the foreground with the large curved arm panels could be Mixmaster.

Man, the Fallen's brothers all look really creepy. And apparently the Giza pyramid houses a Sun-eater thing.

One thing I don't like is that in the original movie's prequel comic, it's implied that the Allspark landed on Earth a really long time ago - it's shown landing on solid ground, and yet later is found under the Colorado river and the dam is built over it. It would take a really long time to do that. However, the Fallen is shown arriving on Earth after one of the Giza Pyramids has been built. That was roughly 4500 years ago. And we're supposed to believe that the remaining history of Cybertron only occurs in that relatively short span of time, unlike all other TF series, which have Cybertron's history going back several million years. On top of that, shouldn't it have taken at least hundreds of thousands of years for the Allspark to get buried under the Colorado river?

The only thing that makes sense to me is that maybe, since the Fallen can travel transdimensionally, maybe he traveled to Earth's future to begin his plan of getting power for himself, especially since he didn't want to be found out by his brothers. This leaves me with another question - on page 10, panel 2 -4, is that supposed to take place on Cybertron? I have to imagine so, since his sarcophagus was found on Cybertron in issue 1.

Oh, one last thing - the "Matrix?" I didn't think that was going to show up in the movieverse. And I want to know how it's distinct from the Allspark.

I'm surprised no one has considered the idea that the Fallen and the other members of his race are Quintessons.

Also who's to say the fallen wasn't mutated by allsparks energies into a being that can change form.

So the Allspark is a life creating cosmic battery.

You haven't read the TFW thread on this issue, have you?

I personally don't really see the connection between the Fallen and the quintessons. So far, the Movie Fallen isn't too different from DW Fallen - both are the first members of their species and both betrayed their brethren. And it's not like the Fallen and his "brothers" created the Transformers Proper - the Allspark did that. If anything, it seems like the Fallen is just Cybertronian 1.0, whereas Jetfire, the contructicons, and so on are Cybertronian 2.0/Transformer 1.0.



I'm with you on that, pretty much. His toy's alt mode seems too involved to be something added as a play feature, as in Movie Scorponok's robot mode. I suppose he'll get his alt mode in the movie after he's freed at some point. May not be the Allspark that does it, but that seems the most likely.

Maybe the Pyramids are far older than we think they are?

Maybe. At least, the people shown in issue two look to be much more primitive than actual Egyptians....but again, I got the feeling from the original prequel comic that the Allspark landed on Earth (perhaps) before people evolved, or at least before civilization.

According to the movie, the Allspark landed on Earth about 12,000 years ago. That's long after we humans evolved, but definitely before recorded history.

I liked the Defiance story, seeing the movie-verse's history, and I liked how it went through the last prequel story.

Some parts confused me, like the page with the All Spark creating the Fallen, there's buildings in the background, did the All Spark create them before the Fallen and his kind?

I also found it interesting that the Fallen's race is Cybertronian born on Cybertron and from the All Spark, but different from Transformers.

I liked Jetfires cameo, especially that his altmode resembled the Axalon.

And the splash page was great.


I did think the same thing, they turned Megatron from leader of the Decepticons into like Vader, a servant of a greater evil. I guess I'll just have to see how the movie plays out.

So, I'm a little late to the show, but I just picked up the TPB of Alliance and Defiance. I definitely enjoyed Defiance more. The writing in Alliance seemed stilted and I suspected they were hampered by what was coming in the movie compared to Defiance where they seemed to have a much freer reign.

That being said, there was a real sense of Unicron reformatting Megs to Galvatron in the whole Fallen Shard thing. Yeah, he didn't actually get a new body but he was still taken over and subjected to the whim of this more powerful being.

I did enjoy seeing all the other alt-modes not to mention the fact that I liked some of their Cybertronian bot modes better than their Earth ones. I'd love to get the BM Jetstorm-like Seeker alt-mode over the flying sperm preview Starscream we did get from the last movie.

All in all, this did make me more excited for the movie than I have been up to this point. I remember the prequel novel for the first film was such a horrible piece of dreck I was sorry I read it, but this was good and it even made Alliance more enjoyable too.

(Maybe I can shed some light on this since I drew the page in question.) Someone else said that too about the Axalon! One of life's little ironies, I guess. I had to look up the Axalon after reading a comment about the similarity to see what the Axalon even looked like. (Haven't seen BW in quite a while.) So yeah that was just a coincidence. Chris Mowry wanted Jetfire's Cybertronian alt mode to look a good bit different, he didn't want it to look like just a futuristic SR-71.



Good spotting with the Constructicons. You're spot on with who is who. Except that they are supposed to be either Cybertronian versions or twins of the ones in the movie. At the time all I had to work from was early concept art. An sharp eye can also pick out mixmaster in issue.



Hopefully that's a good thing. I wasn't supposed to show any detail on those guys and I didn't have anything really to work from design wise anyway.

Yo, 'sup, Poly!

As for The Fallen's bros looking creepy, didn't half of the fans said the same thing when the designs on the TFs were released in regards to the first film? It certainly adds the whole "realistic robotic alien" thing to them, especially them being the first.