Transformers Volume 4: Heart of Darkness

Transformers (IDW) Collected Series

by Dan Abnett (Illustrator), Andy Lanning

GALVATRON RETURNS! A major power-house villain returns from the Dead Universe with a new purpose, new powers, and brand-new army! Blazing out of the events of Infestation, and paving the way to Transformers: Chaos -- Heart of Darkness, is an essential piece of the ongoing Transformers saga and its by comic super-stars Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (Annihilation, Legion of Super-Heroes) and artist sensation Ulises Farinas!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Science Fiction, 21st Century

104 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2011

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weakest volume of the first 4 IDW Transformers and sadly worst Abnett & Lanning sci-fi story ever... And I am a great fan of them. :(
All the references to other issues, stories, one shots, miniseries and continuity issues (Hot Rod/Rodimus appears at the end while in previous volume he was wandering shot dead in space, and he is the only character from previous volumes appearing in this one...), all of these things make the story really hard to follow... Jim Shooter in person could not fix this mess. No surprise IDW reprinted all of his Transformers stories in a series of hardcovers titled "The Transformers: The IDW Collection", which aimed to reprint the IDW Transformers stories in a "suggested reading order".


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And the IDW Galvatron, no more an evolution of Megatron but a separated being (!!!), is now a flat character without all of the charisma of the original one. The same for Cyclonus and Scourge: they are no more two "upgraded" Skywarp and Bombshell like in old G2 cartoon, but two different characters.
This make IDW Transformers Universe like an "Ultimate" one and not at all a real good one.

Sad because previous volumes were really great.

[James Bowman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of an oddball tangent from the rest of the IDW Transformers comics, featuring Galvatron as the protagonist, as he rallies an army to battle a cosmic horror from another reality. The writing, unfortunately, feels a bit stilted, and the artwork (something I'm normally not too picky about) seems kind of stiff. It's a shame, because there are some neat ideas in here - if only the execution had been better. (B-)

[Martin Lund · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even with all that explicit exposition, it's still pretty unclear to me what I just read.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Galvatron returns empowered by the anti-Matrix, the Heart of Darkness, and begins gathering forces to investigate a mysterious threat from the Dead Universe. He soon discovers that an eldritch horror, bent on draining the life energies from all robotic lifeforms, is gathering its strength to break through into the universe of the Transformers.

Having read Volumes 1 to 3, all by Mike Costa, this book feels like a jarring 90-degree turn for the series, coming out of nowhere and having little relation to what has come before. In fact, all the way through, I had the feeling that this was a tangential miniseries, like Costa's 'Ironhide' or Zander Cannon's 'Bumblebee' and it was only after I'd finished it that I discovered that's exactly what it was.
Presumably events here have repercussions later in the larger story, but by presenting it as simply the next chapter in the ongoing series this book is likely to disappoint and confuse casual readers.

However, once I'd got my head around the fact that this is a separate story, things got easier.
I'll admit it also took me a while to get to grips with this version of Galvatron, who isn't a rebirth of Megatron and is, honestly, basically a good guy here. I grew up watching the cartoons (and the awesome 1986 movie), as well as reading Marvel's G1 comics, so to have such a radically different Galvatron was pretty jarring. However, it does lead a great scene in which Galvatron sees different versions of himself from different realities, including the various versions of Megatron, the original version of Galvatron, a blister-packed action figure and, best of all, Spock (if you're unclear on the reference, Galvatron was voiced by Leonard Nimoy in 'Transformers: The Movie').

Unfortunately, although the story slowly started to win me over, I have to say that the art style prevented me from really engaging with this book. It's not often that I can't just roll with the art of a graphic novel and judge the story for its writing, but the design of Galvatron here is, frankly, terrible and it was constantly jarring for me.

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[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this book gets a bad rap, and it mostly deserves it. The writing is bland and unengaging, and the art is some of the worst I've ever seen in a transformers comic. But underneath that horrible execution is actually a really interesting plot. This book could have been truly horrifying--in a good way! Ancient mystical races, a monster from beyond the reaches of time, crab-like pirates floating on a sea of clouds! If this plot was given to a different creative team, this could have been my favorite transformers book ever. But instead, it's pretty much toilet paper. Dan Abnett, you should keep pitching stories, but let other people write them, please. Farnias, please quit altogether; you made even Judge Dredd too ugly.

[Clint the Cool Guy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Don't Get It

So many questions... What is the dead universe? What is the heart of darkness? Who is D'Void? Why did Galvatron go to Gorlan Prime? What is Nemesis Prime trying to do and why? Why won't the Autobots help? And why is Galvatron so often drawn to look like a big baby? While still enjoyable, nothing about this story makes much sense. And that's a big negative to me.

[Hal K · Rating 1 out of 5]

These older IDW TF books should only be read if you’re a Transformers nerd and want to get into deeper IDW TF backstory. (Marvel TF is irrelevant to me.) This volume was the hardest to get through, out of volumes 4, 5, 6, and 7, because it was incredibly boring. Completely unmemorable, and I kept forgetting what happened as I took longer to finish it.

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just weird. Galvatron is back and an explorer now? And he’s a good guy? This just doesn’t jive with his personality in the original comics. Very confusing story line. Plus all those strange aliens…

[Kavinay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just don't have anything nice to say about the story or art. It's honestly a book you could and probably should avoid.

Nick Roche's alternative covers are nice.

[Cappy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Something off a deviation from the previous storyline, characters, and creative team. The disjointedness is hard to overcome even if it promises to be resolved later.

[Carola · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yikes.

[Matthew Bartlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story, but the art could have been better.

[Mayank Agarwal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent comic with good plot but nothing great, while the story is easy to follow and the art decent, it's not good enough to pull you in. Galvatron doesn't have the majestic of Prime or Megatron.