Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird… it’s a plane… oh, actually that’s just Starscream. Hey folks, Crooker here back once again with Skybound’s Transformers #23 by Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona and Mike Spicer! Godlike issue. I’m gonna talk about it NOW.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Transformers #23!
This is the first time this book has made me cry. Full stop, emotionally gripped crying. In this issue, DWJ explores deeply moving and deeply personal themes of loss, isolation, hope, fatherhood, love… and so much more being juggled. And it all works flawlessly. We have the full circle moment of Ultra Magnus’s character in a truly mythic speech about rising up for what you believe in, a touching moment that feels right out of a Superman story where citizens saved by the Autobots pay their thanks to Prime’s comatose body… and in Optimus’ dreamscape, we once again meet Spike’s father Sparky. The two go on something of a vision quest, and the parallels between the two first introduced in the very first issue of the series come full circle. We learn that, this whole time, Sparky and Optimus have been bonded, together in some shape or form, and that they’ve changed each other. Two father figures, two lost and broken souls worn down by loss and regret, find each other and learn from each other’s kindness. Facing down an ultimate end, they both learn to hope again, how to love again. One stands, one falls.
Optimus lives… Sparky dies.
Image/Skybound
I cried. The shot of Sparky cradling his son’s hand brings tears to my eyes even now as I recall it writing this very sentence. My own father died not that many years ago, and like Spike, losing him was a wound that didn’t quite show on the surface. Sparky was a lot like my dad, a man who loved deeply and had his problems, and all I could imagine was him in Sparky’s place. That’s an emotion I was wholly unprepared to face, and it was raw, it was beautiful, it was personal and the farthest thing from an objective experience. But it made me remember how much my own father loved me, and that’s a feeling I cannot, will not ignore. Many people look at Optimus Prime as a father figure; to many, he is the father they never had, or one that reminds them of their own. He’s been that for me too, and if nothing else, I hope DWJ knows how touching it is that he brought this aspect back to the forefront of the character. My dad loved Transformers, and I’m sure he’d love this too.
Image/Skybound
The art was incredible. Stunning action, incredible panel work from Corona and fantastic colours from Spicer that sells the conceit of the dreamscape. The Marvel-inspired colors and details helping sell the idea that we’re seeing Prime at his most core essential self, the very fabric of his being as a character and as an icon. Heartbreaking, powerful shots that I’ll be thinking about for years to come, and the completely and utterly earned final confrontation from Optimus and Megatron.
Let me tell you, they really earn that Transformers: The Movie quote.
Image/Skybound
Transformers #23 is my favorite issue in the entire run. I am not objective about this; it’s fully speaking to a deeply personal and resonate emotion that I feel about my own life, and not something everybody will understand to that degree. It’s a heartstring so rawly tugged that I am incapable of doing my impartial job as a critic here. It’s simply wonderful. Please read it for yourself – this is a story that reminds us why this character means so much to us all, why we love him, and why it’s always best to be kind, never complacent.
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