Comic Review...

Transformers Spotlight: Drift

Writer: Shane McCarthy
Artist: Casey Coller

(covers by Casey Coller and Guido Guidi)

Summary: A mysterious cloaked figure obtains some information from a woman and her bodyguards in an alien bar. She tells him to be careful--he's dealing with a Cybertronian cruiser. She touches his arm and realizes he is a Transformer as well. She is shocked by this revelation but he departs before she can do anything else. Outside, Drift abandons his cloak and uses the stolen information to hide in the docking bay the Decepticon ship is landing in. He waits and plans to strike but the guard are taken out instead by the Wreckers, lead by Kup (it's never really explained why he's suddenly in charge of them, but...) Drift joins their battle, fending off the Decepticon guard. The Wreckers rescue the captive Autobots aboard the ship but are ambushed by more Decepticons, lead by their commander, Turmoil. He recognizes Drift's voice and blasts at him, separating Drift and Kup from the others when they fall through a hole in the deck. The two speak briefly and we confirm Drift is a Decepticon defector... they go to overload the ship's drive. Turmoil tracks them there and Kup escapes while Drift goes to attack him. We learn Drift was once called Deadlock. Drift incapacitates Turmoil then races to find Perceptor's downed form and rescues him narrowly in time to avoid the ship's destruction. Epilogue: Kup offers Drift a position in his new unit and Drift accepts, officially becoming an Autobot.

Comments: This was an interesting issue. The art was good and I liked both of the covers for a change. Storywise, it does a decent job of telling a story about Drift. We learn the basics about him and he gets to be a hero. We don't get much of a real sense of his personality and what's defined him, though. We read a fleeting comment about how an encounter with some third pacifist faction of Transformers changed his life and now he's trying to be a good guy. That's okay, but wouldn't actually telling us that back story have made for a better comic instead? Showing how he goes from a selfish brute to a selfless savant could've been just what we needed but instead we get this story that barely scratches the surface. Blurr's spotlight (also by McCarthy) did a good job in following his personality and his change-over but Drift's just tells us a story about him once it's already all over. Granted, every TF story shouldn't be about their early war switch-over from bad guy to good but it seems like the true meat of Drift's back story here is missed. On another note, I still don't see why they needed to invent Drift anyway--there's already a million Transformer characters out there. Surely they could've given one of them swords and did a story with them instead? All Drift seems to do is exist to be cool--he has short swords and one long sword *and* he becomes a drift racing car! Whoopie! It harkens back to the early days of TF fandom when everyone had an all powerful character codename that was best friends with Optimus Prime (or whatever the case was). It seems pointless to me.

Mildly recommended.