Review: Transformers Combiner Wars: The Duel

Well, we spent a butt load of text on Starscream last week, so this week we’ll focus on Windblade!

Windblade is actually a very unique character in the Transformers franchise in that her existence (or at least the specific aspects of her that we know as her) is thanks to the fans themselves, and not simply in the way that a fan manages to make it onto a writing staff and insert their OCs into a canon work. No, this bot was actually put together through a poll conducted through April 18^th to May 17^th of 2013. She gained major popularity right of the assembly line, getting one comic mini-series and a short-lived ongoing while also gaining a strong fan following amongst the community.

Now, as said, I won’t be doing much in the way of research regarding her comic origins so as to let the Combiner Wars series stand on its own in its portrayals of that, but luckily she has appeared in other places! The current television show, Robots in Disguise, introduced Windblade near the end of its first season as a thousand year old Autobot sent to Earth by Primus (basically God) before any of the show’s events to hunt a great evil which may or may not be the evil her and the main team fight at the end of the season. If it is, it’s never stated, and there are so many “great evils” in this franchise that you can never be sure. So, she shows up, is super confident and cocky, has a pseudo love triangle/rivalry with the only other girl character Strongarm over resident doofus Sideswipe (which you can be sure that the fans loooooooved), and then she’s just on the team and hasn’t really rocked the boat since then.

With that in mind, you may notice some sharp contrast between that Windblade, who everyone loves and can keep a cool head, and this one, who comes from a ravaged war torn planet and is on a one bot mission to kill all combiners in her thirst for vengeance. Which is where we pick up on today’s episode.

SPOILERS

As Optimus disarms Windblade and attempts to talk her down, the two discuss viewpoints from their perspective of the conflict. Optimus keeps her from what he views as an assassination attempt, but Windblade barks back that he and the Autobots had to kill many to end the previous war. Despite that, Optimus still finds purpose and reason in his time as Autobot leader, which apparently that didn’t end well if he’s being referred as “fallen”. He even appeals to Windblades former position as “Speaker” (though without giving any insight as to what that position entails, sadly), noting that she wasn’t always like this. However, that just means the thing that could push someone as supposedly peaceful as her was something too hard to bear. While she clarifies that she wasn’t trying to kill Starscream, she can’t deny that she would rather see every Autobot, Decepticon, Combiner, and so on dead after so many on Caminus had died. Soon enough, Optimus ends the fight and urges her to stop and return to her people before her actions cause another war. He’s seen enough of that, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Windblade pleads for help, but Optimus rejects taking a leadership role again…until she tells him about the Council’s possession of and plans for the Enigma. While unsure if it can be destroyed, Optimus realizes there may be someone who can help the two of them…TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT WHO!

This episode was a bit more minimalist than the previous two, really only covering one scene instead of multiple locations. That said, the things it does focus on are well worth the time. While the animation does break the immersion a bit with its tendency to lag, the fight between Optimus and Windblade is a heavy one, even with the still missing pieces of info about how things got here. What happened to Optimus after the war to get him exiled? What was life on Caminus like before the Combiners? These are still things we should learn at some point, but that did nothing to hurt the portrayals Abby Trott and Jon Bailey give to these spirit performances. The subject matter the two struggle with is general enough that it can be relatable to anyone who is versed enough in the views that come out of war, especially between the soldiers who fight without question and the innocent civilians that suffer in the crossfire. All in all, still about the same quality as the previous ones, but we should be moving into stronger stuff as we close the first half next week.