Reign of Starscream and UK reprints

Money, violence, sex, computer graphics, scatalogical humor, racism, robots designed to be rednecks but given European accents, and maybe another sequel to the saga... what's not to love? TF m1, Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon and now Age of Extinction.
Post Reply
User avatar
Dominic
Supreme-Class
Posts: 9331
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:55 pm
Location: Boston
Contact:

Reign of Starscream and UK reprints

Post by Dominic »

Reign of Starscream 5: I may have reviewed this a few weeks ago. Bah. Either way, this week's reviews need some bucking up. Bottom line, we need more Chris Mowry writing "Transformers". (And, if the ad on the last page is anything to go by, we will be getting that.) Starscream's plan to unite and revitalize Cybertron comes to a disastrous ending, in part because he is betrayed by his underlings. The surprise nature of the betrayal works for the story. Contrary to early reports, the ending of the comic does not coincide with the movie, and some elements may be contradicted by later movies in the franchise. Frenzy is left of Cybertron, but Starscream is back in the general vicinity of Earth by the end. The "Mosaic" entry in the back is non-movie, and not remarkable in any case. Grade: A Probably the best thing to come out of the movie.



Saga of the All Spark #3: It has been about 5 years since I have been this excited about a reprint series, as I generally have already read the content in question. (For me to buy one, there has to be something about the presentation I like, or I simply need an extra copy of something.) In this case, it is a reprint of something, UK comics, that I have not seen before. And, as it turns out, I have not been missing much. The strong opening of the first issue has pretty quickly deteriorated into tedious filler. Unlike older UK stories, this one does not even work as a stand-alone arc. A plot that could have been handeld as a series of framed flash-backs is instead justified with a stupid, (even by the standard of the genre and ever lowering standards of the writer), McGuffin. That problem is accentuated here by the fact that the two chapter in issue 3 consist largely of......guess what.....wait for it.....flashbacks. The really irksome thing is that the writer, Simon Furman, used to be able to write this kind of story, in old UK comics no less. Art-wise, Guidi's Ironhide looks good aside from the face.
The "Mosaic" offering at the end, while movie themed, is likely to be ignored or over-written by any sequels.
Grade: C/D It is good to see the UK is not holding out on us, though maybe they should.


Dom
-waiting for the next IDW movie comic.
Post Reply