IDW Publishing 2020
Written by Cavan Scott
Illustrated by Juan Samu
Coloured by David Garcia Cruz
Lettered by Neil Uyetake
Great Scott! Marty McFly has just returned from the adventure of a lifetime to a new, better Hill Valley—everything's looking up for him! That is, until Marty and his friend Doc Brown's time machine attracts the attention of the Decepticons! With one small mistake, Marty finds himself once again thrust into adventure to stop the Decepticon plot in the past, present, and future... all with the help of a new time machine... the Autobot, Gigawatt!
I kept going back and forth on this one as I wasn’t sure that a crossover would actually work. Then again I am also a fan of the recent Transformers/My Little Pony crossover so I guess anything in the entire world is possible. Also Cavan is writing this and I have been a fan of his work for quite some time now and he’s one of those whose work regardless what it is is something that you read. So when I finished this issue I was a tad flabbergasted, how every part of this story worked and worked so well is just something astonishing to witness.
The way that this is being told is outstanding. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is beautifully laid down. The opening for example is perfectly done, we see Marty in the Delorean and it takes me back to the theatre seeing him outrace someone to get away. The nostalgia effect is priceless and the way that new readers can see this is just classic and when you factor the Decepticons it just adds a whole new layer of intrigue. The character development is so spot on and you don’t even realise it till later because you are so caught up in the moment you forget to think twice about it. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story full of its twists and turns it’s easy to see how well everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
The way this is structured and how we see the layers within the story begin to emerge and culminate at one heck a great cliffhanger ending is just masterfully done. I found myself enthralled, engaged and enchanted by what I am seeing within these pages and honestly I hadn’t expected that to happen at all.
The interiors here are fantastic! I like the way that we see the linework and how the varying weights are being utilised to show off the detail work, especially in the Transformers. I love the style of the work here as well as it brings us this high end Saturday Morning Cartoons feel that just makes this that much more believably fun! I like my backgrounds to be fully utilised because of what I feel they do for the moment among other reasons. The backgrounds here are where that comes into play and to this here is beyond amazing. The creativity and imagination that are on display here is phenomenal. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show this amazing eye for storytelling. The colour work that we see is also extremely well rendered. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is rather quite impressive.
These are the real hidden gems these days. Team-ups or crossovers that seem to be incredulous but in reality are the very kind of story that we’ve needed to see.