Transformers: Regeneration One #99 Review

For a title making plenty of big promises, does Transformers: Regeneration One #99 live up to its own expectations?

The official description from IDW:

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS! Can the Autobots prevail against JHIAXUS’ New Cybertronian Empire? The disastrous invasion ends in dramatic and shocking fashion with twists, shocks and surprises galore, and STARSCREAM right in the thick of things. Dark forces are stirring for the final chapter of the original TRANSFORMERS epic!

Straight away, this issue opens with  the large scale action seen in the last few issues. This is natural territory for the story as, with inter-dimensional settings, huge space-stations and lots of robots fighting, it’s not something you can easily screw up. That being said, Transformers: Regeneration One #99 still offers plenty of character along the way – after 98 other issues, it’s great to still see a sense of escalation and character development.

Simon Furman once again captures what this title is about – lots of awesome robots, big action and plenty of explosions. At the very least, he understands the franchise more than Michael Bay does. It may not be Optimus Prime versus Megatron, which feature little-to-none here, but Jhiaxus makes for a worthwhile villain. However, this issue, more than most, refers back to previous issues and back story more often. This is fine for long time fans, but newer readers may be confused at points.

Visually, the art team continues to roll out the big guns. Guido Guidi offers some great layouts and details to play around with, which John-Paul Bove’s colors certainly make use of. This can be seen in the largest panels and pages, where the sheer use of color adds variety and depth.

In short, despite a few minor complaints, this is a large scale Transformers arc done right. It’s exciting, beautiful to look at and runs smoothly from start to finish. At the moment, this may be one of the best examples of the franchise on the shelf.