Heart of Darkness #4

THE ROAD TO “CHAOS” ENDS HERE! With his army assembled, Galvatron is ready to take the Heart of Darkness back to Cybertron. But first, he must now face down the ultimate threat, a force of unimaginable power and overwhelming darkness. Will Galvatron stand strong or will he bend to the will of inescapable evil?

For those who have read my previous reviews, you know that I’m an easy target when it comes to IDW’s Transformers comics. I truly enjoy almost every single comic I have read through IDW’s TF canon. However, Transformers: Heart of Darkness #4 will be one of the few that remains off that list. Everything that Heart of Darkness #3 built up to at the end fell flat and the conclusion provided no more information than we already knew through the other recent IDW comics.

As Heart of Darkness #3 ended, Galvatron had assembled his army upon returning from his encounter with the D-Void. He heads to the planet Dykayra, where he senses the first sign of the D-Void approaching the universe. He finds another transdimesnional sphere in the underground, only to discover that his former leader Nemesis Prime is coming out of the portal. As Heart of Darkness #4 begins, Galvatron and his crew battle Nemesis Prime and discover his former leader’s true intent. Ultimately, the ending ties in Transformers #20 and Transformers: Infestation #2 to this story.

Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning finish their run on this four-part mini-series. Whereas the first three issues generated some interesting stories and twists, the final issue seemed to lack any punch. The “return” of Nemesis Prime was a big tease and potentially wasted a future resurrection. The ending provided no satisfaction, with the only resolution being that Galvatron has assembled his army and has headed to Cybertron. But, we knew that following Transformers Ongoing #20. Nothing further was truly revealed about the D-Void either. Arcee or any other current Autobot do not make an appearance, although one of the covers would make one think so.

Ulises Farinas again is on art duties, with Andrew Crossley again on colors. Unfortunately, this was my least favorite attempt by Ulises on art. Proportions and faces were inconsistent throughout this issue and seemed rushed. With quite a few close-up shots, my concentration seemed thrown off by the art as a read through the issue. Andrew did a fine job on colors, but that made little difference to the lines already completed by Ulises.

Heart of Darkness #4 simply disappoints. It ends up that the story was truly filler. While the likely threat in the upcoming Chaos story arc was revealed early on in this story arc, nothing further was truly revealed about this entity. So, we ended up with four issues about how Galvatron found his army. As an avid fan of the Transformers canon by IDW, I was majorly disappointed by the mini-series. Having seen solicitations for this mini-series and from my experience with Galvatron’s character thus far in the IDW comics, I expected something great. I still, however, hold out that hope that we’ll see that in the Chaos story line.

Overall Rating: 1.5