Review: ‘Transformers Beast Wars’ #5 Changes The Narrative

Writer Erik Burnham continues to create interesting variations to familiar moments. Burnham also continues to use familiar characterization to hopefully appease die-hard fans of the show (Beast Wars: Transformers [1996-1999]). However, Burnham does have one bit of dialogue that feels premature. Also either Burnham or letterer Jake M. Wood mix up some words. This mistake is obvious and quite jarring. Yet, Wood does a nice job with positioning word balloons and text. Wood’s lettering also is good at suggesting differing vocal volumes.

Artist Josh Burcham does fine on sequencing the interiors of this issue. Although Burcham mostly does fine on the characterization there are a few flaws. One is that characters sometimes look off model in either height or head size. This is most obvious in one panel featuring a maximal. The other is that certain bits of movement look like those one would see on pre-production animation storyboards. In other words these moments are rather poor quality by most standards.

When it comes to the interior colors they are high quality except for two pages. The last page is arguably a little too light in terms of the upper portion of the background, and the standing character. While the second problematic page is more of a problematic area. It is the area where the poor quality movement occurs. The problem is due to a small of amount one color and a lot of negative space being around two characters. Thus, some readers may find this a very jarring read.

When it comes to the regular cover Burcham provides a bit of a generic, but still engaging, design. However, this cover actually requires the logo and other bits of text to make it feel engaging. Without these bits of text it may as well be a commission piece for a fan. Artist Dan Schoening and colorist Luis Antonio Delgado provide subtle characterization and a great type of red, respectively. Yet, the general design is still the same as their previous ones. The other variant cover features the talents of artist Alex Milne and colorist Sidvenblu. It features great texture by Milne and realistic coloring by Sidvenblu.

Transformers Beast Wars #5 (2021) is out now from IDW.