Comic Review Transformers: Tales of the Fallen #6 (IDW)

Could it be? Can IDW actually produce a comic series that makes Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen a better movie, one with a coherent story? The ongoing Transformers: Tales of the Fallen series is starting to make me wonder if this is possible. While the series got off to a repetitive start, it is really starting to hit its stride with the previous entry focusing on Ravage and this new one which spotlights Arcee, the female Autobot who had about a line and a half of dialogue in the movie.



One of the things that this issue does really well is to provide some much needed background on some of these characters that only appeared briefly in the movie. It also addresses some continuity issues that were raised by this movie that was not only unconcerned with continuity from the previous movie (welcome back, Bonecrusher) but even with events from earlier in its own story. The movie-verse Arcee was introduced in the expanded universe and toylines that supported the original Michael Bay Transformers movie so it was a bit jarring to see her reintroduced as a trio of motorcycles early in the movie.


This comic actually explains some of the events that happened in between these movies and how Arcee was nearly destroyed and rebuilt by a Decepticon scientist as part of a super secret project, so the fact that she's a weird-looking three-in-one robot is actually explained. Skidz and Mudflap are also introduced as by-products of these experiments which makes their appearance and behavior a little easier to swallow in the context of the story. I quite enjoyed the artwork as well and it does a great job of highlighting the very biomechanical aesthectic of these new Transformers designs while simplifying them enough so that they are easy to make sense of.


The Tales of the Fallen series is actually shaping up to be a good read and one that may help redeem the narrative failures of the movie which it supports. The real test will be if the comic supports the movie enough so that one could read the comic and watch the movie and feel like between them both you get a satisfying story telling experience. I was skeptical of this series at first but now I am excited to see what it has in store.

Patrick Garone
Staff Reviewer