Courtesy of adventuresinpoortaste.com we finally have a look at the IDW Optimus Prime #25 Full Preview.
This 5-page preview of the final issue of Optimus Prime brings us some flashbacks of Optimus Prime’s first days and the aftermath of the battle against Unicron. As we can see, not all humans are happy to have so many Transformers on Earth, but it is not a problem for some of our heroes.
Optimus Prime #25
END OF THE ROAD! The battle is over. Heroes have fallen. Worlds have died. Now Optimus Prime faces his final ordeal–as past, present, and future collide. Who will stand with him? And when it’s all over, who will carry the mantle of “Prime?”
Bullet points:
– Extra-long final issue! Tying together and putting a bow on stories from the past 13 years!
– Ties in to the Unicron event!
– Part of the summer of Transformers–all building up to the end of the universe as we know it!
– Variant cover by Andrew Griffith!
Written by: John Barber
Art by: Kei Zama
Colors by: Casey W. Coller
Letters by: Tom B. Long
Cover A by: Kei Zama
Cover B by: Casey W. Coller
FC • 40 pages • $4.99
Release Date: November 21, 2018
You can check out the mirrored preview after the jump.
Agamus
Solid fix-fic, I was thinking that either Jhiaxus completely smooth talked her into it, or that he took the experiment farther than Arcee was expecting. and this aligns with the dialogue about "you don't even realize you're doing it" from Spotlight: Arcee perfectly.
The distinction between biological sex and gender identity should be noted though. The chassis is superficial, but there has to be some kind intangible difference in all 'bots if highly androgynous characters like Rewind and Tailgate and Strika are also specifically gendered.
Hadlen_Weltall
Seeing Optimus' "birth" seems fitting and goes back to his original origins, not just how Shockwave manipulated events. If anything, I want to believe that when Shockwave got shunted back to the beginning of time and started manipulating events, establishing religion etc, he would later use his collective knowledge of who those Forged Sparks would be and only helped to establish the Prime's order of succession. However each and every Prime before Optimus was corrupted by that gift of power and authority. He on the other hand was the antithesis of the 'gift' of being chosen to carry the Matrix, because he was always 'born to be a Prime' but never knew it until it happened naturally through happenstance in Autocracy.
Brave Magnus
Half the IDW cast have Gundam legs.
Mako Crab
So tomorrow’s the day. Looking forward to seeing if those theories about the Arisen come true.
TargetmasterJoe
Is it me or do Orion Pax's legs look like Gundam legs?
AzT
Casey W. Coller on Twitter
GizmoTron
So? Hot Rod was an OC created for the 86 movie, too, it doesn't change the fact that they're all established in TF lore now.
Besides, while I don't care about OCs in the fiction, it's a valid complaint. I would say he could have used any random bot to get the IDW Jhiaxus over, had Arcee seek revenge for something he had done to another bot, but Furman took the opposite approach. I do think between this story and his past usage of the character in Marvel UK it's easy to argue that Furman doesn't particularly care for Arcee, which may be partly to blame for why he didn't think through the (rather blatant in hindsight) negative connotations of what he was writing.
Bass X0
Do you have something against Furman inserting his OC into a story? Jhiaxus isn’t nearly as evil or powerful here as he was in G2. Besides, Arcee is someone else’s OC created for the 86 movie.
GizmoTron
That distinction is dubious at best.
It was always a problematic story, even if you disregard any implication it made regarding Trans individuals as being a recent issue people have with the book, it was and has always been looked upon negatively for the sexist implications it made against women.
Gender politics aside, even as just from a Transformers fan's perspective, it was also criticized at the time for Furman throwing Arcee's character under the bus just to get his OC over as a bad guy. It just was a poorly conceived story on Furman's part, giving many reasons continuity nuts like Barber had to spend a lot of time in the past decade trying to fix the mess it made.
Insane Galvatron
Yes, and it's totally a retcon now that gender has been introduced. At the time of the Spotlight ( and her madness ), that was not the case. Also, notice now that they've changed her to wanting the change, they've also made her sane. She's never been both trans and crazy at the same time. Which would make your point hard to prove.
Exactly. They threw out the "genderless" aspect and now they have to backpedal to fix something that wasn't a problem at the time.
Again, all retcons. Also… not crazy anymore.
Reask
To be honest, I've been looking forward to this more than Unicron 6 just to get a deeper conclusion to Optimus in this continuity, that and I want to see how Barber addresses Optimus's potential past as the Arisen, and maybe but doubtfully the fates of the other 4 members of the Thirteen who have been left unaccounted for. Still here's to one more issue. It's been fun.
Sockie
The existence of Solus Prime and other female Transformers shows that to not exactly be the case.
Also SOTW and other places already indicated Arcee wanted to let Jhiaxus experiment on her, and that she wasn't exactly remembering events right in her Spotlight.
Bass X0
It’s wrong though. Every Cybertronian being forged of one gender doesn’t mean that the default gender is male. They’re originally genderless. No females. No males.
Plus the line in the preview doesn’t match up with what actually happened in Spotlight Arcee.
Bass X0
My idea is to use Detritus as a Death’s Head stand in. Detritus would be the original Death’s Head in all but name and appearance. His attitude, motivations, mannerisms and abilities would all be the same as Death’s Head.
AgentOrange
Did you not read the preview in the thread you're posting in? Arcee DID want to be changed.
ultramagnus1
I love deaths head from the marvel UK days but hes a largely one dimensional character but as James was a marvel UK fan specifically UK 113 when he was introduced I was disappointed James couldn't use him
Dinoprime09
Exactly aside from that Darkhawk comic Death’s Head has been grossly underused lately plus IDW have had a marvel crossover before so could it still be possible in a future comic maybe?
Haywired
If he only wasn't gated behind the Marvel comic's rights… Marvel isn't making much use of the character anyway.
Dinoprime09
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