2 out of 5

While I imagine this was positioned as a kick-off one-shot for the Titans Return storyline, it instead comes across as a bit of a jumble, likely due to some of the same crossover-scheduling woes mentioned in my review of the Transformers issues following this; more specifically, ya’ had something planned, but now Hasbro / IDW has a shared universe planned, so be a dear and wrap your stuff up as quickly as possible.

Thus: The Titans Returns one-shot lays out some Titans Returning side details – what other characters are doing, how someone got from place A to B – through the narration of decepticon-hating returning titan Sentinel Prime.  But the way the structure hops back and forth in time to get all its ducks in line for the various ongoing tformers titles is madly confusing if you’re nor actively reading those books, and is especially gimmicky to charge extra for it when the main content is actually only the regular length of a monthly comic…  Insult to injury comes in the form of the extra pages, which collect the two part Revolution prelude – the Hasbro crossover thing – that ran in like every affected book for a few weeks.  Having it in one spot is nice, but if you’re reading this one-shot, chances are you’re reading the monthlies and so already read that “extra” material you just paid another buck for.  Furthermore, it undermines any meager sense of importance Titans Return builds by plainly making it clear that whatever happens won’t have much overall effect: Revolution is the one that matters, boyo.

Artist Livio Ramondelli delivers his usual frustration: Poorly blocked panels  with sludgy colors from that make it difficult to understand what’s happening even when, uh, nothing’s happening.

While the Transformers Titans Return issues were at least plotted clearly, just super-compressed, this one-shot is in such a rush to set things up it has no time to develop amy sense of narrative.  Only required reading for those trying to plug in some connecting details from the various ‘formers lines.