During the week of my birthday (Feb 25th), this wonderful trade was released - Transformers: Stormbringer. The second collected series in IDW's main continuity proved to be a hit with the fans even before its single issues release. The unofficial tagline "No humans" satiated the need for pure robot vs robot action - of which "TF: Infiltration" in some people's opinions thought was lacking. In my opinion, TF:I was an excellent story driven mini-series that introduced the new universe (IDWverse) for the Transformers. Stormbringer takes this to a whole new level. We are immediately introduced to some familiar and perhaps less familiar characters, the Autobots in this case are led by Jetfire, and later Optimus Prime arrives and takes the lead. The Decepticons of this story are an underground cult, led by Bludgeon, who are desperate to resurrect the fallen Thunderwing.
What this mini-series does in bold strokes is expand the continuity with more characters, a bigger universe to play with, plus it seeds directly into Escalation (the third series of the ongoing) as well as many other places as well. To the fans, the existence of Nebulos and other planets shows the scope of the Decepticons plans - their tactics seem to be working in many cases.
Simon Furman received a fair bit of slack for "Infiltration", mainly on the point that some people thought it's pace was too slow. Stormbringer is rather the opposite, a tight 4-issue mini with some excellent cliffhangers. Don Figueroa's art continues to grow and is always a highlight, and young but highly gifted colourist Josh Burcham provides a magnificent palate of deep colours and extreme highlights. IDW have also included some great extra's in the form of sketch art of the series artist, Don Fig. The sketches include; Optimus Prime, Bludgeon, Astrotrain, Cosmos and others.
Overall, this series was a fast ride after the slowly drawn breathe of Infiltration, and it blew refreshed life into the series as a whole. 4/5
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