Review: Transformers Combiner Wars “The Council”

In which the Council makes stupid-ass decisions and others elect to ignore them.

If you were to look at shows that draw a more or less clear line between good and evil, Transformers is probably one of the first ones people think of. Autobots good, Decepticons bad. Optimus Prime good, Megatron bad. But after their fight ends, do loyalties stay the same. Does the value of defeating your enemy outweigh the price of lasting peace? Can some enemies be redeemed or are they beyond hope?

Combiner Wars takes place after the battles of the original G1 series have long since ended. Factions once at each other’s throats are now desperately forging bonds to avoid another major conflict. People once thought above the angels or lower than the demons, now attempting to hold an unsteady alliance, and neither looking completely clean coming out of it.

This brings me to the topic of Starscream, the bot so infamous for betrayal that he is TV Tropes’ go-to word for “scumbag henchman that is constantly trying to betray their boss the instant they turn their back”. Like I’ve said before, I really only know the “Transformers: Prime” version of this guy, but if you’ve seen that show, then you know that really only furthers the point that he can’t be trusted. He’s only ever looked out for his own authority and power, and will take any opportunity thrown his way to gain more.

However, then we have the Starscream we saw in the Prelude, which is the same one in this series. This is a version who holds his position in high regard, as well as those he rules under alongside his fellow council members. Surely these aren’t the thoughts of a power-hungry maniac, right? This is someone who respects and even fears the power he’s been given, to the point that having equals to hold him back might even be…relieving. Well, that brings us to the events of the episode.

SPOILERS

Differing from last week, this episode takes place on the one and only Cybertron, beloved home of the Transformers species that both factions fought to preserve and rejuvenate. And it looks like they did a heck of a job, because as we zoom closer to the surface, the place looks more explosion than planet. Either someone ripped a huge fart next to The Mistress of Flame or there’s still a war going on. We pick up following Starscream hotdogging over the capital and sticking the landing inside the Council Chambers. Because your entire people might be on the verge of killing each other and making your entire reason for making an alliance pointless, but there’s always time to practice for the high dive at next year’s Cyber-Olympics.

He convenes with the aforementioned Mistress of Flame and former enemy and autobot, Rodimus Prime. Having never really watched the G1 cartoon, I don’t really have much reference on Rodimus. The closest would be Hot Rod from the Armada cartoon, but he hardly seemed more than the comedy guy. Though from what I understand, he was made Optimus’ replacement during the Transformers feature film back in the 80’s after Optimus himself bit it. Fans were none too happy about either of these developments, which were eventually undone, but it seems Ol’ Roddy has done well enough since then to net a Council position. This draws some parallels between him and Starscream as being the respective #2’s of their sides now having to take charge in order to clean up the mess their superiors made.

The one who doesn’t fit this parallel is the Mistress, who hails from Caminus but seems to not be too attentive to that, at least not now. Either way, Rodimus asks Starscream how things looked during his flight, too which he says they’re getting worse, mostly in part to hearing about the two Combiners duking it out on Caminus that we saw last week, making everyone fear for another war breaking out…and sure enough they were right. The members are divided on how to approach the idea of Combiners: Starscream thinks the ones loyal to them should be allowed to live, Rodimus suggests creating more and then controlling them all, and the Mistress suggests using the Enigma of Combination (the artifact which makes Combiners in the first place) to destroy all existing ones, making the problem moot anyway. Basically it boils down to “don’t use the thingy”, “use the thingy to make more” or “use the thingy to kill them all”, the latter two sounding like really drastic choices, even given the state of things. I’m not even sure if destroying the Combiner means just making it incapable of combining or just killing all the parts that make it up.

What is clear so far is that at least two Combiners had already existed at this point: Menosaur and Computron, one made for each faction, which ended up fighting and taking the fight to Caminus. Why they started and where they came from initially are still unknowns. So, as the council ponders this, we see through the scope of a sniper rifle that none other than Windblade is observing their pondering. As they gaze into the Enigma, placed decoratively above them and in clear view of Windblade’s gun (seriously what the hell), Starscream urges them not to use it until they know exactly what it can do, so the Mistress agrees. Windblade takes her shot, but is stopped by someone, deflecting the bullet meant for the artifact into Starscream’s arm. The intruder is Optimus Prime. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN

Aside from the continuation of Windblade’s story, the key thing to note this time is Starscream’s position on things. His decisions were far more reserved than his peers and urged for peaceful deliberation before action. It might be that he’s simply taking the logical route here of only acting when they have all the information, but now this seeming assassination attempt has happened. Suddenly, he’s about to have more sympathy and credibility than he previously had, as well has seeming like the more rational member of the council. This incident may grant him more power, and also…he’s Starscream. He’s clearly playing to long game so as to hold all the cards himself. Of course, this series has been shown to want to play with expectations, and this could very well be one of those times.

On the technical end, the animation is still a bit choppy at times. Lip flaps are still off, more complex movements seem to only half done, and the voice work definitely needs…work. Still though, it seems consistent with the quality of the first episode, so I can’t say it’s any worse. We’ll see how this escalates as we enter the second quarter of the season.