The X-Men aren't the only comic book heroes dealing with a schism the days. The events of Transformers: Death of Optimus Prime have led to the rebirth of Cybertron but a split among the ranks of the Autobots. Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye follows the faction that sides with Rodimus in his quest to search the cosmos for the fabled Knights of Cybertron.
Of the two new ongoing books, More Than Meets the Eye seemed instantly more appealing because the lack of fixed setting allows for more story diversity. It's difficult to say yet whether that potential will be realized. The first issue gets off to a fairly plodding start, with the characters not actually departing until the final few pages. To draw another comparison to Schism over in the X-books, this issue plays out more like X-Men: Regenesis. It concerns itself overly much with the reasons why Rodimus' allies side with him and not enough with simply pushing the plot along.
A lot of the characterization is handled well, but some is burdened with too much continuity minutiae. There's no reason a debut issue of a supposedly new reader-friendly series should have so many editor captions encouraging readers to look up older issues.
The art should please Transformers fans who don't find a stylized aesthetic more along the lines of recent animated projects rather than the rugged, functional look of classic Transformers tales. The art lacks depth at times when the shading is kept to a minimum, but the bright colors do lend a nice sheen to every page.
The final pages of this issue finally pick up the pace and go a long way towards building excitement for what is to come. It's just a shame more couldn't have been done to establish this new book right off the bat.
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