After a botched bout of smash 'n grab on Cybertron, Cliffjumper is saved by Arcee JUST as both of them are called in to help Optimus Prime's mission on a mysterious planet called "Earth."
The Good
Johnson totally nails the tone of this book because it very much
feels like an episode of Transformers. Yes, that means the character interaction is as basic as Arcee being leery of Cliffjumper's recklessness ruining her stealth, but there's nothing wrong with feeling that. Nothing at all. I was especially digging the style of hatching and toning here, as it lent a wonderfully lurid pop art quality to the art to complement the pulpy tone.
The Bad
This book is a bit too decompressed for its own good, delivering maybe only half an issue of plot over 22 pages. A lot of that seems to be attributable to the splash pages, which were not only a little excessive in number but also (in the case of double-splash introducing Claimjumper) a little hard to read. This also could've benefited from some kind of prologue recap because I'm really not sure when it's supposed to take place in the Transformers timeline.
The Verdict - 3.5/5
This issues comes without too many explanations and, even though I've been following Transformers since I was a kid, I'm not quite sure where this is supposed to fit into the mythos. It was fun and easy to follow, certainly, but it could've benefitted from a recap page to establish things. Without much plot advanced so far, the heftier price tag is really getting you some slick, glossy pages instead of an extra amount of content.
