Don’t worry, the story inside is even grimmer than the cover implies. (Image: IDW)

A few months ago, I saw someone loudly complaining about an issue of Transformers: Lost Light on Twitter: “Oh, so to get this issue, I just need to have read and perfectly recall every issue from the past five years. No big deal.” To which my initial thought was “Welcome to the world of sequential storytelling pal,” and also “Well, you’re not wrong.”

Transformers: Lost Light is referentially dense. It’s a super-massive black hole of inside jokes, sly asides, and cameos that don’t pay off until 100 issues later. Opening Volume 2 cold, you’ll immediately find yourself digging for the back catalog, asking yourself things like “Why is Rodimus purple now,” “Wait, Tailgate can beat up Cyclonus,” and “What the heck is up with Ultra Magnus?” TLL is a series that rewards careful reading and doesn’t wait around for you to catch up. Either resign yourself to diving for TFwiki every few pages, or be sure you’re familiar with at least the previous couple of volumes before starting.

It’s also one of the most socially forward comics on the stands (that deal with giant, transforming robots). Picking up Volume 2, I never would have expected a full page dedicated to a character’s self-chosen gender reassignment, but it didn’t surprise me. That’s what Lost Light and its predecessor, More Than Meets the Eye, does best – it pushes past the stories that have been traditionally told in Transformers comics.

YOU get to grieve over your lost loved one! And YOU get to grieve! And YOU… (Image: IDW)

That’s not to say Lost Light is nothing more than pages of social commentary. Those are just the spots where we can breathe before being thrown into the thick of mutinous captains, brain-eating cannibals, mentally tortured and manipulated prisoners…and that’s just one-third of the collection. Volume 2 gives us satisfying chunks of each part of the ongoing stories. We start with Rodimus Prime attempting to get back to the Lost Light, losing one of his core crew in the process (possibly forever). The middle issues follow Anode, Lug, Velocity, and Nautica as they try to revive long-dead friends and discover an entirely new form of Cybertronian life. The final third of the collection deals with Getaway who, despite being a murdering, lying, mutinous bot, has managed to get the Lost Light closer than ever to its destination.

But what Getaway has sacrificed may prove to be far too dear. He makes a deal with the devil to mentally manipulate the entire crew, coerces his confidants into committing murder, and generally makes a mess of things as the crew revolts. The only thing saving him is their sudden arrival at Cyberutopia.

The speed at which the Lost Light was able to make it to Cyberutopia has me suspicious, but I imagine it belies a whole new level of strife that’s about to befall Getaway (in a wholly satisfying fashion, one would hope). After all, there’s nothing given in this comic that doesn’t come with a very dear price.

Beyond the personal pain to be visited upon the wannabe Prime, some of the revelations about Cyberutopia and its appearance itself got me musing. It’s revealed that there are five factions of knights that surround the planet. What if they weren’t there for protection, but containment? With Unicron coming in just a few months to the IDW comic universe, I wouldn’t be shocked if this “utopia” was…ahem…more than meets the eye.