Hey there folks, Crooker here, back again with another review for Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici’s Void Rivals. We’re on issue #16, and things are really starting to heat up again.
Well, this was certainly a big one. A lot of revelations have made themselves apparent this issue, and it feels like we’re in for a bit of a status quo shift. Biggest of all is Solila’s half of the story, where she finally gets some answers out of Vector Theta (the more or less “Vector Sigma but different” from last issue) and it’s… quite simple actually. She gets a curt answer to keep going and she does, which leads her to the name we’ve only heard spoken of with hushed secrecy for the most part so far: Zerta Trion. Now, from a Transformers fan perspective, this is kind of huge news. Unless a revelation next time changes things, this is our first look at the Energon Universe’s FIRST new Cybertronion character. And yes, considering their name had been long since established in the book ages ago, this would predate even Starscream’s dead friend from Transformers #13. Crazy stuff! If this actually is somebody wholly new that is, and I suppose we won’t know for sure until next time.
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Back in Darak’s half of the story, things get very real very fast with him almost immediately getting captured by his father for being a traitor. It feels like this was kind of the inevitable conclusion, even with the two starting to find some kind of understanding with each other, however minor, the past couple issues. This is showing us that even in spite of that, this society is still deeply, deeply corrupt, and there are more people fighting for the unification for the two warring cultures than we initially thought.
Sadly though, we also see the death of one of the book’s breakout characters – the Skuxxoid, killed by the agents of Cobra-La introduced a couple issues ago. Skuxxoid is a funny case of an obscure Transformers character gaining some new life in a new comic, and from what I understand most didn’t even realize he was from Transformers! The fact that Kirkman managed to make us like the guy, and then finally kill him off when things get crazy…. well, it is a Kirkman book, y’know? Gotta expect these things. Still a shame though, even if I’m not fully certain he’s gone forever…
The art from Lorenzo De Felici here is stellar as always, but one aspect of this particular issue I really enjoyed is how minimalist it is in spots. Notably, for most of Solila’s part of the story, she’s wandering around in the dark, with only her figure being in full light for the sake of our clarity as readers. I just really like this, because it makes any source of light nice and subtle, like seeing the vague outline of a wall or floor when they’re given attention, much like how you would only kind of see such things when your eyes adjust to the dark. I just think that was a really cool effect the book had and wanted to highlight it.
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So, that’s another Void Rivals. What did I think? Well there was no Hot Rod, so 0/10. Just kidding. As I outlined above, there’s a lot of plot revelation and movement going on here, and I think that’s undeniably positive. Compared to the rather breakneck pace of Transformers, Void Rivals can seem pretty decompressed, but it’s that contrast that helps balance the two titles off each other. It’s a very “Kirkman” issue, if you know the man’s work, and I don’t imagine you’d get this far into a series if you didn’t mess with that vibe, so safe to say this is still a book worth picking up. Unless Skuxxoid was your favorite character I guess. RIP.
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