G2 comic series - retro review thread

[Onslaught Six]

Same, he seems to appear and disappear entirely at random. Oh well.

[andersonh1]

Anderson, thanks for starting this thread. I have wanted to see one, (but never got around to posting it), for some time.

No problem. It's nice to discuss the series, since there was no chance to do so when it was published in my pre-internet days. And frankly, it's interesting to re-read the series see how my perspective on it has changed after fifteen further years of Transformers fiction since G2 to compare or contrast with it. It's a unique story.

[138 Scourge]

Good catch. I thought Scourge talked to him recently for some reason.

'Cause I did. Got his attention by naming a comic strip after a Misfits song. But that was back in July, so it's been a lil' while.

Also, I do seem to have the good luck tracking down our missing compatriots on occasion, so y'never know.

[Dominic]

True. TF fiction is rarely as focused as G2. Actually, mainstream comics are rarely as focused as G2.




Issue 3 is one of my favorites. It is not just that Jhiaxus pretends to be what Prime is. It is that he wants to be what Prime is. Jhiaxus is a petty thug. He gets off on hurting others. But, he is not proud of it. For whatever reason, (likely beyond platitudes about it being not at all nice to hurt others), he is unhappy with this.

A case could be made that a true show of inner strength would be the ability to selectively and rationally employ violence as necessary, rather than avoiding it completely.

As for Hound, his resistance to the rage creatures had more to do with his injuries than his inner strength.


Dom
-oh, G2, the discussions we should have had years ago.

[andersonh1]

Issue 3 is one of my favorites. It is not just that Jhiaxus pretends to be what Prime is. It is that he wants to be what Prime is. Jhiaxus is a petty thug. He gets off on hurting others. But, he is not proud of it. For whatever reason, (likely beyond platitudes about it being not at all nice to hurt others), he is unhappy with this.

It's not so much that Jhiaxus wants to be what Prime is in the sense that he aspires to that. It's more that he's long since been able to convince himself that he is what Prime is... until the Autobots show up and by virtue of being the real deal remind Jhiaxus of what he actually is, which is a sadistic, butchering tyrant. Jhiaxus presents himself as a rational and pragmatic individual, a realist who is serving to advance the Cybertronian empire, who has left his primitive ways behind. The Autobots' very existence is a threat to his reality, and so they must be destroyed to make his world whole again.

It's a far more interesting and novel motivation for the antagonist than simple desire for power or greed or megalomania.

[Dominic]

If nothing else, it nicely shows that Jhiaxus did not wake up in the mornning saying "hahahahaha, I am eeeevil".

As you put it, he tried to convince himself that he was not evil. As he put it, (paraphrased), in issue 3, he took his vices and tried to make them presentable.

Dom
-has had on/off identification with this principle.

[andersonh1]

Issue 4
“Dino-Might!”

Devices and Desires
Let the slaughter begin. I hope you’re not a fan of Red Alert, because he meets a grisly end in this issue, thanks to Grimlock’s rash actions.

Optimus Prime is still having visions of a coming apocalypse of dead Transformers. Grimlock, fed up with Prime’s inaction, is determined to keep hitting the second generation Cybertronians, so he puts together a commando group to attack Jhiaxus’ flagship. This is typical Grimlock, as Furman loves to write him, self-aware but full of bravado and confidence. It backfires badly on him as Jhiaxus has anticipated just such a move and prepared an ambush. Red Alert rather stupidly displays some bravado and raises his weapon and gets nailed by the G2 cons. He’s literally shot to pieces. Gruesome.

It’s good to see a genuinely competent villain for once. The old “steal a shuttle trick” is a sci-fi cliché at this point, and there’s no way it should work if security is even close to being effective. Grimlock’s rash choice gets Red Alert killed, and earns him a trip to the Liege Maximo, mentioned here for the first time. For a few panels it looks like we’re going to get a version of the similar scene from “Maximum Dinobots” where the apparent death of a soldier under Grimlock’s command makes him realize just how recklessly wrong he has been. But that doesn’t happen, as Prime comes to the rescue of his troops and Grimlock starts worrying more about how much trouble he’ll be in than reflecting on the death he caused. At least Prime’s “steal a shuttle AND the crew” strategy is amusing. Oh, and Mirage gets killed as well, so that’s two major G1 characters who get a no more than a cameo and a death in this issue.

In the end, Grimlock gets a slap on the wrist, if that. Prime even leaves him in charge temporarily while he heads off to Cybertron. I’m sorry, but Grimlock deserved some pretty severe consequences for getting two bots killed, and Prime comes off as pretty ineffective here. “Oh, ha ha, lesson learned.” It’s a trite ending to what was otherwise a strong story.

Tales of Earth Part One

Decepticons attack the Earth and slaughter thousands! The Autobots aren’t there to stop them! Is it “All Hail Megatron”? No, it’s “Tales of Earth” part 1, where Bludgeon and his crew burn, pillage and maim, all in order to draw out Optimus Prime so they can kill him and take the Matrix. Rather than Prime, they actually attract the attention of Megatron and Starscream, still stranded on Earth since the Ark was destroyed in issue 2, and the cliffhanger leaves us with the promise of a great, action-filled confrontation between Bludgeon and Megatron. Pity we don’t get that…

There’s not much to say about this story. As usual, the backup stories look far better than the main feature. Pity they’re so short. The Decepticons are more brutal than they ever were in the original comic, and one gets the feeling that the type of collateral damage they inflict here is more realistic (if you can apply that term to a Transformers comic) than the largely bloodless fighting of the older comics.

issue 4 dead: Red Alert, Mirage, lots of G2 Decepticons

[Onslaught Six]

Oh, and Mirage gets killed as well, so that’s two major G1 characters who get a no more than a cameo and a death in this issue.

To be fair, Red Alert was never a major G1 character in the comics. I think his moment of glory was when he went back in time with Rodimus, Kup and co during Time Wars.

[Dominic]

Suggestion: Maybe call the "G2 Decepticons""Cybertronians"? It might help to avoid confusion.

In Grimlock's defense, (and this ain't much of one), nobody forced Mirage and Redalert to go along.


The thing that sets the Swarm and Jhiaxus apart from other over-powed characters and McGuffins is that they were thematically consistent with ideas in the series, rather than just being thrown in to show how BIG the story was. Jhiaxus, like Prime, was running from the past and his own demons. The Swarm was the embodiment of what Jhiaxus hated abiut himself.


Dom
-comics as literature. Ah.....

[andersonh1]

Issue 5
The Power and the Glory
This story contains one of the more interesting additions to Transformers mythology that I’ve seen, as well as an answer to a question I’ve always had about replacement Transformers. Namely, if the matrix is the one and only method of creating new Transformers life, how is it that a race involved in thousands or millions of years of war isn’t extinct by now? The population would long since have been depleted if they were losing thousands to war attrition and only occasionally replacing a few via the Matrix. And even then, only the Autobots would have the means to replace losses. The Decepticon population would just fall continually.

Prime returns to Cybertron in order to try and determine what his apocalyptic visions mean. He descends into Cybertron to a point where he can commune with the Matrix or something. At any rate, he learns that Transformers once reproduced by division, where a new Transformer literally grows from another, like cells dividing. The process was meant to go so far and no further, producing a fixed but finite number of Transformers, and so the knowledge of the process was lost once that number was reached. But while Prime and Megatron’s crews were dormant on Earth for millions of years, the process somehow began again, producing the G2 Decepticons, the self-styled Cybertronians. This included Jhiaxus, whose creation Prime witnesses. The issue also details the creation of the Swarm, which Prime misses, as a byproduct of the excessive Transformer creation.

It can be rightly said that the second generation Decepticons, the Cybertronians, should not exist. Primus knew that given too much power, the Transformers would do exactly what they are doing, which is to move out into the galaxy like a plague, overrunning and conquering other life forms. It remains to be seen just what the Swarm is, other than a byproduct of Transformer fission. But all of this reinforces the seemingly unsolvable nature of the problem for Optimus Prime. Even if genocide were a moral option for Prime, the numbers are against him. The Cybertronians vastly outnumber the Autobots. And Jhiaxus is unlikely to listen to reason, particularly since part of Prime’s argument involves telling him how he shouldn’t exist.

Speaking of Jhiaxus, there is a scene following him as he inspects a Cybertronian colony in the process of being built. This scene serves mainly to show just how obsessed Jhiaxus has become with the Autobots. While the groveling head of the colony is trying to detail how the schedule will be met, Jhiaxus is watching the sky, wondering why the Autobots don’t attack, more worried about Prime now that he’s being quiet rather than attacking.

Overall: a creative and fascinating concept is added to Transformers mythology, which unfortunately has never been seen again outside the G2 series, at least as far as I know. And the massive scale of the problem the Autobots face is reinforced.

Tales of Earth Part Two
This short story boils down to Megatron versus Bludgeon, and to my disappointment, Bludgeon goes down in about ten seconds. Yeah, Megatron’s tougher than ever in his new body, but Bludgeon ought to have put up a better fight. Still, the ending was pretty much a foregone conclusion, given the constraints of a toyline-based comic. The story does produce an amusing quote by Starscream about death just making him and Megatron meaner and crankier every time they came back.

Sadly, Derek Yaniger is entirely absent this issue, meaning Manny Galan drew both features. I’ve found that while his characters are generally weak, that his layouts aren’t too bad. Still, I’d love to have seen a longer, more dramatic fight between Megatron and Bludgeon, drawn by Yaniger, so this story disappoints in that respect.

issue 5 dead: Bludgeon. Megatron rips off his Pretender shell’s head, and his inner robot mode is blown apart. Ouch.