(courtesy Image Comics)
Storytelling universes are very much in vogue in Hollywood at the moment.
The most well-known and most successful of the lot of them is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there are a great many far less successful pretenders to the throne including the D.C. Comics take on the idea and even Universal’s Dark Universe which, let’s be honest, never really got off the monstrous ground.
Joining these up-and-running and not quite moving interwoven narrative neighbourhoods is the Energon Universe, a joining of the Transformers and G. I. Joe characters, which are, and say hello to modern blockbuster storytelling imperatives my friends, both Hasbro properties, which will find its outlet not simply on the bigscreen but also in a series of graphic novels coming out from Image Comics.
Kicking things off is Void Rivals, a fast-moving piece of dazzlingly good space operatic world-building that sees two races, the Agorrians and Zertonians, who each occupy one half of a highly-advanced piece of tech known as the Sacred Ring and who are engaged in bitter warfare with one another.
Theirs is a futile battle in a way since their sun is dying meaning there soon won’t be a solar system over which to squabble, but for reasons unknown and lost to the murderously mists of the past, the battle continues, their enmity not even really ceasing when combatants from each side are stranded on a barren planetoid with not much in the way if survival enhancing properties.
The two crashlanded pilots have a choice – fight to the death or join forces and try to find a way to get off the planet and go back home; they choose the latter, to the disgust of the Agorrian character’s AI gauntlt which insists his wearer is breaking all sorts of sacred codes and tenets.
But why do all those sacred rules matter and why can’t the Agorrian Dark and his rival Solila take off their masks and what might happen if they do that and combine their efforts to survive?
So many questions, but thankfully in the assured hands of The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman, we get all kinds of fascinating answers and a story that even fast-moving as it is, manages to give its characters and its mythology more than enough time and space to find their place and make a real impact.
(courtesy Image Comics)
Void Rivals is a brilliantly clever piece of storytelling.
Not only is the story propulsively good, keeping things going at a cracking pace while furiously but rewardingly world-building – even the appearance of one of the Transformers, while a little random, mostly makes some sort of narrative sense – but the artwork is so captivatingly good that it you near-instantaneously lose yourself in the story.
In fact, Lorenzo De Felici artwork is so vividly good, enhanced by Lopes’ vivaciously alive colouring, that it feels less like reading a 2D graphic novel and more like plunging right into part one of an expertly and fulsomely realised movie.
Given the ambitions of those behind the nascent Energon Universe the movies will inevitably follow, and while you could be wildly cynical over what is simply storytelling designed to sell more toys, the fact is that Void Rivals is actually pretty damn good.
It doesn’t feel wafer thin in its storytelling ambitions, it actually brings some intelligence and emotional thoughtfulness to the twists and turns of the narrative and it imbues its characters, enough of them at least, with something beyond cardboard cutout veracity that you buy what they’re feeling and going through.
That indicates that, while the drivers for Energon Universe might be purely commercial, those engaged like Kirkman to do the storytelling are trying to try some robust and emotionally hefty stories which gives this latest attempt to build a storytelling universe a reasonably good chance of succeding.
Because while all the CGI in the world, or in the case of Void Rivals impressively good and hyper-involving artwork, is nice, it does not a lasting story make and if Void Rivals is not going to be last of its line – to be fair, volume 2, Hunted Across the Wasteland is already slated for a September release – it needs to stick to the brilliantly weighty storytelling and rich characterisation it contains.
That’s the key and after reading Void Rivals, it appears to this reviewer at least that all those Transformers films, many of dubious quality, might actually go something pretty sci-fi worthy good if attention is made to them being more than just cinematic cash cows and what we get are worlds and stories that strike some kind of very human chord.
More comics beside Void Rivals are on their way, of course, including Transformers Vol. 1 Robots in Disguise (May 2024), Duke Vol. 1 Knowing is Half the Battle and Cobra Commander Vol. 1 Determined to Rule the World, and if they are as good as this first entry in the Energon Universe, Hasbro might actually have a viable franchise on its hands with the storytelling chutzpah to make a lasting impression on the fickle pop culture universe we all love to inhabit.
Void Rivals Vol. 1 More Than Meets the Eye is out now from Image Comics
(courtesy Image Comics)
Want more info on the Energon Universe? You’ve got it …