Digital Ink: Review of "Transformers: Autocracy"

Every Wednesday, Chris Renshaw from the “Obsessive Comics Disorder” website (http://ocdcast.com) reviews some digital comics that you can read on your iOS devices via the comixology app.  Do you have any suggestions?  Feel free to email him at chris@ocdcast.com.

Okay, this week I am definitely breaking away from the norm and reviewing a comic from IDW.  That would be the digital-only comic “Transformers: Autocracy” by Chris Metzen (yes, THAT Chris Metzen), Flint Dille, and Livio Ramondelli (IDW, $0.99 per issue).  It’s a 12 issue series that comes out every other Wednesday.  I fell behind a couple of issues due to work and sat down yesterday to get caught up on issues 9 and 10.

Here’s the story: before he became Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots; he was just Orion Pax, a solider of Iacon sworn to hold up the law of the Autobots.  Yet, under the rule of Zeta Prime, the various robots have become oppressed and Orion is put into a position where he has to question everything that he has stood for up to this point.  Along the way, his path crosses with the rebel fighters known as “Decepticons” and their leader Megatron.

I LOVE this book.  It is everything that I want to read in a comic and so much more.  Of course it doesn’t help that I do like the Transformers and what IDW has done with them.  I anxiously await each issue as it comes out and even though it is a 12 issue series it has not skipped a beat yet.  I can’t wait to see where this comic ends up and see if it leads to anything else down the line.  In addition, the $0.99 price point for each issue is my must buy price for digital comics; honestly I feel like all digital comics need to be at that price.

The artwork in this book is stunning as well.  Going along with the theme of the book, we see a very dark Cybertron.  In the grand settings of the Autobot leaders, it is very shinny and new, yet in the grungy towns of the oppressed robots the setting changes to represent this drastic difference in class.  Don’t expect the Transformers to be exactly the way you remember them, as these are their Cybertronian forms (before they ever went to Earth).

IN CONCLUSION: Buy this comic.  Now!  Even if the Transformers are not your thing, at 99 cents you don’t have anything to lose by trying out an issue or two.  Didn’t enjoy it?  Have any other good Transformers comics I should read?  (I’ve already read All Hail Megatron by the way.)  Let me know in the comments below, or feel free to see me an email at chris@ocdcast.com.