Some thoughts about Transformers: Lost Light #25

Is this truly the end for the Lost Light?

During the funeral of a loved one, the team can't help but remember the good times and hopefully, this could bring even better ones for the future.

Boy, it has been a long journey isn't it?

I remember hearing great things about the original More than Meets the Eye series written by James Roberts and that's the reason why I ended-up becoming a huge a fan of that book and the IDW universe as a whole. I absolutely adored how much character, story, worldbuilding and EMOTION Roberts brought to this whole universe during Season 1 which is one of the reasons why I considered him a breakout star and started praising him and MTMTE in every place I could talk about it.

But that's the thing, that was Season 1 which is for most people I believe, considered the highlight of Roberts' entire work on the franchise. I liked Season 2 despite of a few shortcomings (including the reveal about Tarn's identity that, while surprising, ended-up being pretty underwhelming) but then Lost Light arrived and incremented the issues I had with Roberts' recent Transformers work by a huge margin.

And sadly some of those issues appear in this final issue.

For one, I'm going full SPOILERS here but the story opens in the future with Ratchet's funeral and it turns out to be that he became Drift's conjunx endura.

... Okay, look, I have no problems with the idea of Transformers getting into romance due that I was a big supporter of the incredibly emotional reveal of Chromedome and Rewind's relationship way back in Season 1 and even kinda shipped Rodimus and Drift because of the hilarious situations between them. However, then Cyclonus and Tailgate came along with a romance that always felt off because Tailgate was always presented as a little kid and I always thought it was better to leave that dynamic as a some sort of father/son relationship but even then, I didn't complaint. However, at that point I was ready to leave romance aside because things have been exploited way too much and now that Drift and Ratchet has happened, I can't help but feeling that Roberts is simply pandering to a certain part of the fanbase who are always asking for their ships to become canon and therefore it becomes less interesting and sincere once that it actually happens, not to mention that Ratchet and Drift fall into the "Oh, they hate each other! Oh, now they love each other!" trope that I personally hate and I wish they would have ended just as good friends.

And just leaving that begins another complaint with the appearance of Prowl who, credit to Roberts here, is at least not portrayed in the caricaturesque way how he usually appeared in MTMTE. That being said, he's still immensely petty due to his early failed attempt to punish Megatron to the point where he's ready to condemn him despite of all the good he ultimately did and that's one of the reasons why Roberts' Prowl is so different from Nick Roche's Prowl, Roche's Prowl at best would have forgiven Megatron because of his good deeds and at worst, he would have realized that Megatron was still a valuable asset for the cause and would have decided to keep using him under his terms. Roberts' Prowl is simply vindictive because his ego is more important than his intelligence and therefore, is way less complex than how Roche initially portrayed him.

The story jumps constantly between past, present and maybe future constantly reminding people of the good times and while some of those conversations are sound and the tone of the issue is appropriate, it ends-up becoming too melodramatic for its own good, especially because of how inconsistent Lost Light ended-up being in terms of quality, not to mention that Roberts himself pulled this better at the end of Season 1 and felt much more earned.

Speaking of things that are not earned, I really like Jack Lawrence's artwork, I really do. I have been a big defender of his work because of how flexible his expressions are but considering that this is the end of the road for these characters, it would have been way more appropriate to have Alex Milne here due to how important he was for this team and at least would have given a proper sense of closure for this group despite of the flaws of the main story.

And that's it. Roberts' tenure on Transformers has come to an end, not in the most appropriate way, it could have been much better, it SHOULD have been much better but alas, nothing can be perfect. At least I will always remember fondly the beginning of this journey.