New Drift TPB

[andersonh1]

Second issue is out on Wednesday.

[Dominic]

Got it. And, I read it. Before any of you.

Ha.

Review coming soon.


Dom

[Onslaught Six]

Good for you. Some of us are filthy trade-waiters, you know.

From what I've heard, the art can be...confusing, because of how similar these guys are all designed. Also, there's 'tons' of nerdrage going on because of Hot Shot and SG Ravage getting offed, apparently. (Mind you, being shot or being incapacitated really doesn't mean they're "dead." I'm never going to understand some of these fans--I mean, Skyquake is unequivocally killed in LSotW, as are many others, but these guys are background characters who get blasted.)

[Dominic]

Hah! I am posting before Anderson (for once)!

How do you like that big man? Huh? Oh, what is that? You are not the big man any more? Then who is? Yeah, go on, say it.

DOM IS THE BIG MAN. OH YEAH!

eRM, yeAh. Okay, TURnING OfF caps lock now.

God, I am so tired. Oh, why am I so tired?


McCarthy does not have the right cult of personality for his books to get away with things like killing characters or in-jokes. The art is not as confusing as some people make it out to be.




Drift #1 and #2:
This review is going to come across as more snitty that I intend it to. First off, I am *tired*. (I actually avoided writing this last night as I was even more tired. But, it is slow right now, so I may as well post this now.) Second, the title character (and the writer) are somewhat controversial in the fandom, meaning that these comics have no small amount of drama attached to them.

Shane "the most evil man alive because he hates Transformers and the fans" McCarthy has been more graceful about this than one might reasonably expect from a man who might actually be evil incarnate. When certain elements of the fandom accused him of killiing characters off and writing certain plot elements for the purpose of sticking it to the fans or to disrespect Simon Furman, McCarthy (rightly) dismissed the idea as idiotic. While there have been flashes of anger from him about this, he has handled the whining with more patience than I would have. (I am willing to bet that McCarthy has kids in his life. And, even then, I know mothers with less patience.)

Artist Alex Milne has been a bit less restrained. In the second issue of "Drift", Hotshot and Glit (two obscure characters closely associated with David "Drama Queen" Willis), were apparently killed off in a skirmish. (Willis is obnoxious in his love of Hotshot and created a much over-rated, though still obscure, character by applying a new name to Glit's character model.) Milne said, (in his own blog), that said characters were included and killed at the urging of a friend. However, Milne also conceded that he is not a fan of "Armada", the series that Hotshot first appeared in.

For the record, I tend to think that Milne was putting the screws to the fans. I would not even rule out the possiblity that Milne's comments were a "worked shoot" intended to drum up publicity for the comic through controversy. Even if Milne was just shooting his mouth off, (a legit shoot), I cannot say I really blame him. I get annoyed reading posts from guys like Willis, (including wiki entries that intentionally mis-read clearly presented comic pages), and I really do not have anything to do with them.

Denton Tipton, the IDW editor responsible for "Transformers", tried to solve things by editorial fiat. (According to Tipton, who has the authority to make this call, it was not Hotshot or Glit who got killed off in "Drift" #2.) He said that these were simply generic characters. Tipton goes on to (rightly) point out that Milne does not have an authority over which characters die or not.

David Willis, in his world-wide-wank blog, resonds as follows.

" And if Milne really doesn’t have any control over who lives and who dies, maybe you should tell him not to draw characters dying. Because from where I’m looking, he sure does seem to be determining who lives and who dies. Or are we to disregard what we see in the comics we’re reading? "

Willis, it seems is disregarding Tipton's statement about the characters in question simply being generic characters. Of course, Willis is one of the people who deliberately misreads comics and official material to suit his own needs, so his statement quoted above should not be a suprise to anyone.

" If we see characters dying and we get upset, it’s our fault for caring? Great. " Willis also veers pretty well into tantrum territory simply by virtue of him whining about obscure characters getting killed off. (Hotshot has some sticking power. But, nobody outside of a sub-set of fans cares at all about Glit or Willis' SG Ravage.)

Wow, all of that, and I have not even mentioned the actual comics.

Drama aside, the "Drift" series is an origin story showing (asynchroniously) Drift's recruitment and departure from the Decepticons as well as his joining the neutralist faction mentioned in the AHM Coda story. There are no real suprises here. (Of course, some fans need to have more spelled out for them than others. So, there is arguably a need to *show* Drift joining and leaving the Decepticons, rather than just assuming readers can figure out what more or less happened.) Despite not having any real revelations, the story itself is competently told. Of course, a good number of people have already made up their minds about Shane McCarthy, Drift and what Transformers should be.

Grade: B


Dom
-and McCarthy totally ruined Lockdown just by including him in this series. He *ruined* Lockdown just by having him on the page with Drift. (Just wait. Somebody will say it without sarcasm.)













--
-The healthiest leper in the colony is still very very sick.

[Onslaught Six]

McCarthy does not have the right cult of personality for his books to get away with things like killing characters or in-jokes. The art is not as confusing as some people make it out to be.

That's the thing, though! It's not him! I blame Milne's jerkwad friends. I have nothing against Hot Shot, but SG Ravage can go die in a fire. It was cute at first but now it's just obnoxious--and killing characters in official fiction to spite those who like them is really low.

Denton Tipton, the IDW editor responsible for "Transformers", tried to solve things by editorial fiat. (According to Tipton, who has the authority to make this call, it was not Hotshot or Glit who got killed off in "Drift" #2.) He said that these were simply generic characters. Tipton goes on to (rightly) point out that Milne does not have an authority over which characters die or not.

David Willis, in his world-wide-wank blog, resonds as follows.

" And if Milne really doesn’t have any control over who lives and who dies, maybe you should tell him not to draw characters dying. Because from where I’m looking, he sure does seem to be determining who lives and who dies. Or are we to disregard what we see in the comics we’re reading? "

Willis, it seems is disregarding Tipton's statement about the characters in question simply being generic characters. Of course, Willis is one of the people who deliberately misreads comics and official material to suit his own needs, so his statement quoted above should not be a suprise to anyone.

I don't buy Tipton's statement. If they're generics, they need to 'be generics,' instead of clearly those guys. (Mind you, the panel where Hot Shot gets offed barely looks like him and I wouldn't think it was him if someone didn't tell me it was, but Glit/Ravage is pretty distinct.) I'm kind of two minds about it, really, because on the one hand, nobody says those characters are dead besides them visually being dead (which means fuck-all for a Transformer--if they're not grey, they're still alive, in my book) but Tipton is basically admitting that these are characters 'meant to die,' even if they aren't the specific characters in question.

-and McCarthy totally ruined Lockdown just by including him in this series. He *ruined* Lockdown just by having him on the page with Drift. (Just wait. Somebody will say it without sarcasm.)

Does he even show up in this one? I'm interested in what happens with it though.

[andersonh1]

Hah! I am posting before Anderson (for once)!

How do you like that big man? Huh? Oh, what is that? You are not the big man any more? Then who is? Yeah, go on, say it.

DOM IS THE BIG MAN. OH YEAH!

eRM, yeAh. Okay, TURnING OfF caps lock now.

Well, I did read the book on Wednesday...



So I suppose I'd better write my usual review!

Between this and Brightest Day, I could easily get used to bi-weekly comics. I like resolving cliffhangers in two weeks rather than four (or five or six...). That aside, I found the third faction a lot more interesting when they were mysterious and unknown. Now that we've met them, they're not terribly impressive. They seem every bit as petty and territorial as the typical Autobot or Decepticon, even if they have gone to great lengths to avoid the war. I suppose it remains to be seen how they will be used in the rest of the story.

There's a lot in this issue about how Megatron sold his agenda for the Decepticons and why Drift bought it. He reminds me of Thundercracker, and seems to be that rare example of a sane, reasoning Decepticon idealist, as opposed to those who just want to kill or who are mentally imbalanced. Drift seemed to have an entitlement mentality, as if pre-war Cybertronian society owed him something, and when he didn't get it, he turned to crime. This led to a murder and then going on the run, and ultimately recruitment by Megatron.

I'm not one of these fans who scans the background generi-bots for cameos, so I could care less who "gets killed" and who doesn't. The appearance of Lockdown at the end was a nice surprise. I'm all about expanding the IDW G1 Universe with more original characters. The art is decent, though the look-alike third faction bots do get a little confusing sometimes.

Overall: there are a lot of good ideas in this story, but the idealistic third faction is a disappointment so far. Drift remains an interesting character.

[Sydew]

I didn't know blowing yellow guy was Hoshot. And Glit, I don't really think IDW would use the character, at least not in that white and blue Jaguar form. And one could argue that the jaguar leg one sees is necessarily Glit, I mean it's Cybertron -a whole planet with billions of transformers- there's a chance that there are more than just two Jaguar forms in that whole planet (not to mention it could be any quadruped form: a lion, a panther, even a dog).

On another note I like the series and personaly loved the apearance of Dai Atlas. I hope they plan to develop this third faction, they could use the characters that were exclusive to japan, that to me would be awesome.

[Dominic]

That's the thing, though! It's not him! I blame Milne's jerkwad friends. I have nothing against Hot Shot, but SG Ravage can go die in a fire. It was cute at first but now it's just obnoxious--and killing characters in official fiction to spite those who like them is really low.

Nobody blamed McCarthy for the Hotshot and Glit appearances. But, there was some venom cast his way for the first issue, where a character resembling some old Furman favorite, (I forget who), got killed by Drift.

I do agree that killing off characters just to jab at fans or to serve an in-joke is idiotic. It is the kind of amateur hour bullshit I expect from the Fun Publicatons comics. IDW staff should know better. And, like I said, I am pretty sure Milne knew *exactly* what he was doing, even if a friend suggested it.

I don't buy Tipton's statement. If they're generics, they need to 'be generics,' instead of clearly those guys.

Are you calling Tipton a liar? He is right in saying that Milne cannot make calls about characters living and dying. And, he does have the authority to declare things by fiat. Obviously, he is trying to fix things retro-actively. But, that is part of his job.

Between this and Brightest Day, I could easily get used to bi-weekly comics.

Yeah, it is pretty good to have comics more consistently and more often.

They seem every bit as petty and territorial as the typical Autobot or Decepticon, even if they have gone to great lengths to avoid the war. I suppose it remains to be seen how they will be used in the rest of the story.

I do not see wanting to avoid a war as petty. It makes perfect sense. I can even see Atlas not even wanting Drift in the building. The Circle built a good thing and did not want it getting wrecked by guys with a track record for wrecking things. In terms of real history, was Bismark really that far out of order for predicting the Balkans were going to ruin everything?

Megatron’s appeal was shown pretty clearly in the “Origins” series. IDW’s Megatron is a populist demagogue. Drift was not shown to be a criminal before the war . The scene were he is killing the guards was set during the war. I get the feeling that Drift as just a loner, (possibly a vagrant), before the war. Eventually, he joined Gasket. During the war, they were looking for fuel/food and ran afoul of the Autobots.

[Dominic]

It is a safe bet that the dead quadroped was meant to be Glit. But, if Tipton says it is not, then it ain't.


I am willing to bet that Atlas the most of the Circle of Light will be dead by the end of issue 3. Gut feeling.


Dom
-and Lockdown is only in a few panels at the end.

[Sparky Prime]

For the record, I tend to think that Milne was putting the screws to the fans. I would not even rule out the possiblity that Milne's comments were a "worked shoot" intended to drum up publicity for the comic through controversy. Even if Milne was just shooting his mouth off, (a legit shoot), I cannot say I really blame him. I get annoyed reading posts from guys like Willis, (including wiki entries that intentionally mis-read clearly presented comic pages), and I really do not have anything to do with them.

I don't see that there is any reason to doubt Milne's own account of why those character's (or characters that happen to look like them at any rate) appear here. He's commented on IDW's boards that he sometime draws characters in the background simply because he feels like drawing those characters, rather than making up bots for cannon fodder. But that's all they're meant to be, background characters.