Our Zertonian and Agorrian protagonists are reunited – though in very different circumstances; jailed, by the Zertonian authorities. It’s not long before the Agorrian is being horribly interrogated by the Zertonians.

With his life in the hands of the Zertonians, how will he survive, let alone escape? The answer may come from a very unexpected place.

When I saw the cover and read Void Rivals #5, I couldn’t help but think back to the vile, graphic and sustained torture that Robert Kirkman subjected his characters to in The Walking Dead’s initial Woodbury story arc.

Thankfully – and without spoiling anything here – things don’t get quite that bad here, which is a relief.

Also, it’s worth noting that we do shift back to Transformers universe characters at one point, though there are finally signs that the two settings may be converging again, which helps to make these little cut aways a bit less of an irrelevant disruption to the main narrative.

The ending of this issue does just feel like it’s a bit too abrupt, however – there’s no huge cliffhanger, though the twists and turns the narrative takes throughout the issue perhaps does keep it quite compelling anyway.

So Void Rivals continues to be a pretty entertaining read – and the slightly shoehorned in Energon Universe stuff (yes, that’s what it’s called at Skybound Comics) does look like it might be justifying its inclusion a bit more, very soon.