Transformers - ongoing series
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Yep. I really liked the way they built up to the big reveal for the first film. Although it has to be said that no one really knew what to expect. We all knew that the 'bots were going to look very different, so there was a bit of mystery there for the fans. And for the general public, which thought that Transformers hadn't been around since 1984, it was a big shocker. You will notice that in RotF that there's giant robots transforming all over the place in the first 5 minutes. No need for a big reveal or drawn out build-up in that one.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Well I promised onslaught that I'd go into detail the reasons why I dropped IDWs' TF ongoing. Here goes.
I was bored.
That's how it started. When I first began reading ongoing, I was excited. I actually liked the new character designs with their more-mechanical look. Dom's art was really gorgeous to look at, freaky segmented faces and all. I remember defending the art and the comic against its detractors at the beginning. But somewhere along the line I began to lose interest. I really do need to re-read the 13 issues I do have to see if I can pinpoint about where it began to happen, but I do know for sure that the final straw was issue 13.
Two things happened. The issue was lackluster anyway and featured the return of Megatron. In addition to that, I read the preview for issue 16 which described how Starscream was back to plotting behind Megatron's back. It was that specific moment after I had finished reading the preview that I realized I didn't care anymore. Not one bit. For years I had always wanted to see how Starscream would do as a leader. The end of AHM set up a situation where it seemed that both Megatron and Starscream were actually moving beyond their constant undercutting of each other and into something different. I know a lot of people think Megatron's speech to Starscream in AHM was total bunk, but it fit in with how I picture those characters.
Anyway, along comes the ongoing and instead of showing us what Starscream actually does as leader, we get a full years' worth of issues set on Earth away from the 'cons in space. By the time we catch up with Starscream again, it's just in time to have Megatron return and yank leadership back. So yay? Then I read the preview for 16 and I just didn't care. I don't care if Starscream plots anymore, because IDW showed me, showed me for an entire year, that even if Screamer does gain leadership, they won't ever show what he does with it.
There's more to it than that, but that moment really was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Bumblebee as leader- I actually wasn't put off by this. I knew the only reason BB was picked as leader was because of his sudden popularity due to the movies, practically confirmed by his upgraded alt-mode (a dead ringer for the beat up camaro BB starts off with in the movies). G1 BB even has black stripes now whereas he never had stripes of any sort before. But that part doesn't bother me. I'm okay with it. The part that bugs me is that they didn't do anything with it. Costa quietly dropped that little character arc and ever so quietly reinstated Prime as leader when he realized he couldn't do anything with BB.
Everything's back to where it was. And I think that may be my big problem with this book. All the continuity issues don't really bother me. I don't keep such close tabs on the characters that I'd know if Soundwave were on Earth or off in space during such and such time. The constantly changing alt-modes and art styles don't bother me. I'm rather happy to see that IDW allows various artists to draw the TFs in their own style rather than forcing a house-style on them like douche-nozzle, Pat Lee. What does bother (and BORE) me is the feeling that the story is drifting aimlessly with no direction. Stuff happens but nothing changes. When I have a chance to re-read the 13 issues I have, I'll see if I can't cite some more specific examples, but that's it in a nutshell.
I was bored.
That's how it started. When I first began reading ongoing, I was excited. I actually liked the new character designs with their more-mechanical look. Dom's art was really gorgeous to look at, freaky segmented faces and all. I remember defending the art and the comic against its detractors at the beginning. But somewhere along the line I began to lose interest. I really do need to re-read the 13 issues I do have to see if I can pinpoint about where it began to happen, but I do know for sure that the final straw was issue 13.
Two things happened. The issue was lackluster anyway and featured the return of Megatron. In addition to that, I read the preview for issue 16 which described how Starscream was back to plotting behind Megatron's back. It was that specific moment after I had finished reading the preview that I realized I didn't care anymore. Not one bit. For years I had always wanted to see how Starscream would do as a leader. The end of AHM set up a situation where it seemed that both Megatron and Starscream were actually moving beyond their constant undercutting of each other and into something different. I know a lot of people think Megatron's speech to Starscream in AHM was total bunk, but it fit in with how I picture those characters.
Anyway, along comes the ongoing and instead of showing us what Starscream actually does as leader, we get a full years' worth of issues set on Earth away from the 'cons in space. By the time we catch up with Starscream again, it's just in time to have Megatron return and yank leadership back. So yay? Then I read the preview for 16 and I just didn't care. I don't care if Starscream plots anymore, because IDW showed me, showed me for an entire year, that even if Screamer does gain leadership, they won't ever show what he does with it.
There's more to it than that, but that moment really was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Bumblebee as leader- I actually wasn't put off by this. I knew the only reason BB was picked as leader was because of his sudden popularity due to the movies, practically confirmed by his upgraded alt-mode (a dead ringer for the beat up camaro BB starts off with in the movies). G1 BB even has black stripes now whereas he never had stripes of any sort before. But that part doesn't bother me. I'm okay with it. The part that bugs me is that they didn't do anything with it. Costa quietly dropped that little character arc and ever so quietly reinstated Prime as leader when he realized he couldn't do anything with BB.
Everything's back to where it was. And I think that may be my big problem with this book. All the continuity issues don't really bother me. I don't keep such close tabs on the characters that I'd know if Soundwave were on Earth or off in space during such and such time. The constantly changing alt-modes and art styles don't bother me. I'm rather happy to see that IDW allows various artists to draw the TFs in their own style rather than forcing a house-style on them like douche-nozzle, Pat Lee. What does bother (and BORE) me is the feeling that the story is drifting aimlessly with no direction. Stuff happens but nothing changes. When I have a chance to re-read the 13 issues I have, I'll see if I can't cite some more specific examples, but that's it in a nutshell.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Okay, first off.....
Joking aside,
Seriously this time....
It sounds like your complaints are like less forgiving iterations of the sort of thing I would say.
I tend to think that BB as leader had as much to do with Costa's weak leader theme as it did with anything else. BB was clearly not ready for the job when he took it. And, he was only offered the job because he was in the room and stupid enough to accept it. We as readers have about the same amount of trouble accepting BB as a leader that many of the other characters do. I am pretty sure that this was intentional on Costa's part from the beginning.
I would argue that much the same could be said of Starscream and Megatron, but I am not sure Costa is done with that particular thread.
Dom
-and Costa avoids thought balloons, meaning we have watch what he writes the characters doing,
Best typo ever. I mean that. Thank you sir.*Dom's* art was really gorgeous to look at, freaky segmented faces and all.
Joking aside,
Okay, sorry....Dom's tuchus is really gorgeous to look at, freaky segmented buttocks and all.
Seriously this time....
It sounds like your complaints are like less forgiving iterations of the sort of thing I would say.
I tend to think that BB as leader had as much to do with Costa's weak leader theme as it did with anything else. BB was clearly not ready for the job when he took it. And, he was only offered the job because he was in the room and stupid enough to accept it. We as readers have about the same amount of trouble accepting BB as a leader that many of the other characters do. I am pretty sure that this was intentional on Costa's part from the beginning.
I would argue that much the same could be said of Starscream and Megatron, but I am not sure Costa is done with that particular thread.
Dom
-and Costa avoids thought balloons, meaning we have watch what he writes the characters doing,
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Hehe, okay that made me chuckleDominic wrote:Okay, first off.....
Best typo ever. I mean that. Thank you sir.*Dom's* art was really gorgeous to look at, freaky segmented faces and all.
Joking aside,
Okay, sorry....Dom's tuchus is really gorgeous to look at, freaky segmented buttocks and all.
Seriously this time....
Dom? Don? Bah! You know what I meant!
Yeah, at first I thought it was really cool that Costa was shaking things up with the changing of the guard. With Bumblebee, I liked that we got to see how hard it was for him to transition into the role of leader. I think one of my favorite moments was when BB and Prime were in the room together and Spike (I think) wanted to talk to their leader, referring to Prime. Everyone just kind of stood there in an awkward silence. What would've really given BB's arc some weight and credibility is if he had to snap at the troops with Prime watching, basically telling them that, "Hey! I'm the leader! Prime- sorry, but we can't have someone that's going to come and go whenever they like. You're a field commander from now on, but I'M THE LEADER!" Something! Anything. I did think that BB as leader was shaping up to be something good. But then he gets shot in the chest, is put out of the game for a while, and Prime just kind of picks up where he left off, no questions asked. I'm sure BB will come back in at some point (if he hasn't already) and say, "Whew! You can have it! Being leader is tough!"
I do really like what he's been doing with Thundercracker, I'll say that. Probably one of my favorite aspects of the comic that had yet to go down the drain when I dropped it.
Starscream as leader- again, I think the gist of the situation was that Screamer had been enthralled by the shiny blue Matrix and just sat on his throne staring at it day after day. . . for a few years, while the Decepticons under his command cannibalized each other. That's just weak. Even if SS didn't do anything, there's still a story to be told there. We could've been shown his gradual decline into an entranced and useless leader. We could've been shown how the other Decepticons were dealing with it. Surely they weren't happy with their new leader just sitting around all day doing nothing. But no. We get nothing.
That's cool. Yeah, I don't know. I've slogged it out through a lot of bad TF fiction, whether in comic book or cartoon form, but I just couldn't stay with this one.It sounds like your complaints are like less forgiving iterations of the sort of thing I would say.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Bumblebee still gets to shine for a bit in the most recent issue. (Have you read that? Even with some terrible art, it still has a genuine "oh my god" moment.) Bumblebee tries to talk a human out of killing several wounded Cybertronians. It is unclear how successful BB would have been, as Jazz shows up and kills the human. But, BB attempted to take charge of the situation, and was the first one to call Jazz out on what he did. (Mind you, I do not think Jazz was terribly out of order, nor do I think the human was. But, those are separate questions.)
Magnus is another variable in the leader question.
Given that two of Costa's big angles are weak leaders and lack of change, it makes sense that Starscream would spend a couple of years just staring at his shiny new paper weight of leadership. And, we do see how the Decepticons react to his leadership. They either fall into depression, (Acid Storm or Sunstorm being examples of this), or they turn on each other, (as shown by the fate of that unfortunate Target Master in issue 7).
We knew from "Heavy is the Head" (the "Coda" story) that Starscream was going to blow it. When Megatron was damaged in AHM, Starscream saw and took his opportunity. And, as Megatron pointed out, Starscream was not mature enough for the job. He was *given* an empire at the end of AHM. And, he failed to maintain, even at a local level. Starscream had no real plans for being leader, he just knew it would be a swanky gig. And, Costa's run does show us the results of that.
We even get this angle with the much maligned human cast. The discontent shown by Spike's troops in issue 9 (I think) is refelctive of their leadership. Spike is a competent warrior (fights with natural inclination and talent), a passable soldier (fights as a job), and a failure as a leader.
His actions in early issues of the series are unbefitting his post-AHM rank. He would be allowed to have Ravage's head over his desk or mantle, as he took that *before* being promoted. But, taking Breakdown as a trophy after being promoted was just crass. He *should* have given Breakdown to one of his soldiers. Going AWOL to take down Scrapper was a demonstration of Spike's martial skills, though not his professionalism.
Dom
-still unsure why Brawn did not kill Starscream when the opportunity presented itself.
Magnus is another variable in the leader question.
Given that two of Costa's big angles are weak leaders and lack of change, it makes sense that Starscream would spend a couple of years just staring at his shiny new paper weight of leadership. And, we do see how the Decepticons react to his leadership. They either fall into depression, (Acid Storm or Sunstorm being examples of this), or they turn on each other, (as shown by the fate of that unfortunate Target Master in issue 7).
We knew from "Heavy is the Head" (the "Coda" story) that Starscream was going to blow it. When Megatron was damaged in AHM, Starscream saw and took his opportunity. And, as Megatron pointed out, Starscream was not mature enough for the job. He was *given* an empire at the end of AHM. And, he failed to maintain, even at a local level. Starscream had no real plans for being leader, he just knew it would be a swanky gig. And, Costa's run does show us the results of that.
We even get this angle with the much maligned human cast. The discontent shown by Spike's troops in issue 9 (I think) is refelctive of their leadership. Spike is a competent warrior (fights with natural inclination and talent), a passable soldier (fights as a job), and a failure as a leader.
His actions in early issues of the series are unbefitting his post-AHM rank. He would be allowed to have Ravage's head over his desk or mantle, as he took that *before* being promoted. But, taking Breakdown as a trophy after being promoted was just crass. He *should* have given Breakdown to one of his soldiers. Going AWOL to take down Scrapper was a demonstration of Spike's martial skills, though not his professionalism.
Dom
-still unsure why Brawn did not kill Starscream when the opportunity presented itself.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Yeah, I think issue 15 is where we see Megatron reflecting on Starscream's performance as a leader. It certainly was interesting to see how the different Decepticons dealt with it and also allowed for some strong use of the characters as well. Y'know in that we actually got to see their characters. Brawn made the logical choice to save Thundercracker because he saw greater value in that than in blowing up Starscream. Thundercracker's practically an Autobot now.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Actually, Brawn was going to take Starscream prisoner, not execture him. My question was why Brawn did not kill Starscream before helping Thundercracker. Yes, Thundercracker was injured. But, he was in no immediate danger.
Brawn could easily have said, "Yeah, hold on big guy. I got something to take care of. Gimmee just a minute." then, Brawn could have walked over and punched Starscream through the head or something.
Dom
-it would have taken maybe 30 seconds. Thundercracker would have been fine.
Brawn could easily have said, "Yeah, hold on big guy. I got something to take care of. Gimmee just a minute." then, Brawn could have walked over and punched Starscream through the head or something.
Dom
-it would have taken maybe 30 seconds. Thundercracker would have been fine.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Oh yeah. Well then yes, he totally should have done that.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
Maximum Dinobots: This series seems to fill the purpose of tieing up the loose ends from Devastation. Sunstreaker gets his body back, and EVERYONE gangs up on Scorponok all at once. Shockwave, the Dynobots, Hot Rod and Ultra Magnus all show up at more or less the same time (Hot Rod actually got there first). And it leaves with the Autobots completely off Earth and the Megatron led Decepticons still there unopposed. The perfect set up for AHM. It also leaves the Machination gone and Skywatch has been discredited. It's fast paced and answers a lot of the questions left remaining from Devastation. A good read and well written, Furman really made good use of the characters here.
My only gripe with IDW's TFverse is one that has already been addressed via Continuum. Which is that while reading all of this, I at some point was supposed to have read Stormbringer. I'll have to read that next so as to make sure I'm reading things somewhat sequentially. This would also be my complaint with the Spotlight books. They really should have done something 24esque: "the following takes place between issue # blah and issue # blahblah". It would have helped with the rereadability of the series to know where we should place these in our collections sequentially. I've started reading the Spotlight issues and will have reviews of that when I'm done. I'll review them as a series rather than individually so as to address how they fit in the larger continuity.
My only gripe with IDW's TFverse is one that has already been addressed via Continuum. Which is that while reading all of this, I at some point was supposed to have read Stormbringer. I'll have to read that next so as to make sure I'm reading things somewhat sequentially. This would also be my complaint with the Spotlight books. They really should have done something 24esque: "the following takes place between issue # blah and issue # blahblah". It would have helped with the rereadability of the series to know where we should place these in our collections sequentially. I've started reading the Spotlight issues and will have reviews of that when I'm done. I'll review them as a series rather than individually so as to address how they fit in the larger continuity.
Re: Transformers - ongoing series
The problem is that "Spotlight" was not meant to be read as a series unto itself. Initially, it was intended to be one-shots about various characters. Then, it became a necessary component of the main series. Different issues need to be read different ways....and IDW just assumes we are going to sit there and figure it out.
Dom
-would not use "Continuum" as a reference, especially after IDW discounted it.
Dom
-would not use "Continuum" as a reference, especially after IDW discounted it.