More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

[BWprowl]

Post here and nowhere else cause the rest of the fandom are dicks and you guys aren't.

I think we've found the board's new slogan.

[Dominic]

I am not saying that anybody is obligated to be a fan, or to buy a certain amount of product.

I wager that Gomess has less stress on his Wednesdays than I do because he is not going to the comic shop and wondering if they screwed him this week. So, yeah, Gomess might have something here.

And, yeah, limiting myself to old content and/or toys would definitely cut down on clutter. (Even a complete and comprehensive set is only going to take up so much space.)

But, I just cannot see being a fan of something when it has not done anything (or even anything for me) in recent years.

For example, when the "Star Wars" comics went bad in 2006 or so, I was done with SW because the movies were over and there was nothing left for me beyond buying newer iterations of old characters. I gave "Clone Wars" a chance with the movie, and that pretty much killed it for me. (Given how many other options I have just for fiction, which I am trying to cut back on, SW is out.)

This gets back to my Red Sox example above. Why the hell did people follow an objectively terrible team? I am not saying every team had to be as good as the Yankees in the late 20th century. But, it is certainly easier to understand why people liked the Yankees.

I think we've found the board's new slogan.

To the feedback forums!


Dom
-likely to to skipping toys this year.

[BWprowl]

And, yeah, limiting myself to old content and/or toys would definitely cut down on clutter. (Even a complete and comprehensive set is only going to take up so much space.)

But, I just cannot see being a fan of something when it has not done anything (or even anything for me) in recent years.

For example, when the "Star Wars" comics went bad in 2006 or so, I was done with SW because the movies were over and there was nothing left for me beyond buying newer iterations of old characters. I gave "Clone Wars" a chance with the movie, and that pretty much killed it for me. (Given how many other options I have just for fiction, which I am trying to cut back on, SW is out.)

Maybe the comics went bad, but surely there were earlier parts that you *did* like, right? You don’t specify, but with SW let’s just hypothetically say you liked the first couple movies. You can still kick back and watch the first couple movies every now and then and go “Oh yes, this is enjoyable” and if they put out a toy of a guy from one of the movies that you liked and don’t have a toy of yet, you can be all “Oh, this guy was cool and I would very much enjoy this toy of him! Take my currency, retail clerk!”.

I mean, you love the hell out of ‘Man of Iron!’, right? To the point that you *keep buying compilations* that reprint that story, because you enjoy reading that story more than just the first time. Ditto for it being the primary reason you looked forward to a new toy of Jazz. They haven’t written a sequel to ‘Man of Iron!’ ever, and it never got made into a direct-to-video movie or anything, but you still have a fond opinion of it and keep coming back to it. You are a *fan* of ‘Man of Iron!’ even though that story hasn’t ‘done anything new for you’ in nearly three decades.

I mean, I love the hell out of the anime FLCL. There’s never been a sequel or anything to it (and god willing, there never will be), but I still rewatch it regularly because it kicks ass, and am more inclined to spend money on any cool merch I come across. I am a *fan* of FLCL, despite a lack of new media relating to it. Ditto Back to the Future.

This gets back to my Red Sox example above. Why the hell did people follow an objectively terrible team? I am not saying every team had to be as good as the Yankees in the late 20th century. But, it is certainly easier to understand why people liked the Yankees.

Because following a team throughout ups and downs is half the fun, man, and there’s always the thrill of seeing them get *better*. Case in point: This football season has been a JOY for me to follow because San Francisco finally got their act together, and the new coach is an interesting character, and it’s thrilling to see how far they can get on this. This is the interest in devoting some consistent attention to a sports team.

[andersonh1]

More than Meets the Eye #1
Simon Furman likes to work on huge plots, with just a hint of character. Roberts and Roche are all about characters, and lots and lots of fan references. I've never read another Transformers writer who can make these guys jump off the page. Now that's largely because they pick one defining trait and make sure it's highlighted when someone has a scene, but it works. It gives Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, et al a presence beyond "generic Transformer that fits in this plot". We also get lots of dialogue, meaning it takes longer to read the issue, meaning it's more worth my $4.00 than an issue I'm done with in under five minutes.

Hot Rod/Rodimus is a cavalier, or that's how he was listed on the old specs. He likes to go out and be a hero and have adventures, so that's what he does here: he finds a quest. And he puts out the call to gather crew. And that's the thrust of the issue as we're introduced to the quest and some prominent and not so prominent G1 characters are given a chance to make their mark in a few scenes as they prepare for the trip.

So, did Prowl destroy the engine, causing the deaths of a quarter of Rodimus' crew? We're clearly meant to suspect that he did, though that's far from certain. Tailgate finally makes the launch. Whirl is a crazy individual. Ultra Magnus just can't let it go. And after watching Headmasters a few months back, I'm glad to see Chromedome among the cast as well. And the cliffhanger ending promises lots of interesting things to come.

So, is this Lost in Space or Star Trek, configured for the Transformers universe? Either could work, and I enjoyed this issue more than Costa's run, which was quite good. Yeah, it's geared more towards the fan and less towards the casual reader, but I suspect it's mainly fans reading the thing anyway. And I love my chrome foil logo on the cover.

[Onslaught Six]

New interview with Roberts:
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... ts-174340/

I haven't read it yet but figured I'd drop the link.

[BWprowl]

Transformers Empty Empty E #2

I friggin’ hate Skids.

Look, I didn’t want to lead off a review with a negative, but this needs to be addressed right away. I utterly loathe Skids. I can’t stand him. If Hasbro revealed an amazing looking Generations Skids toy, I would pass on it, and wait for the repaint, because after just this one issue with the character, I don’t think I want any representation of him at all. I don’t know if Roberts thought his book really needed a totally wacky lolrandumb character, or if IDW mandated inclusion of a crappy lite Deadpool ripoff in the comic, or what, and I don’t care, because there’s no excuse for a character this annoying, obnoxious, and attention-whorish. As many things as I *do* like about Roberts’s writing style, this character encapsulates almost all the things I *don’t* like about it, mainly his tendency to go WAY over the top when he thinks he’s got a really clever idea (even if he actually doesn’t) and his bad habit of over-writing previously established (however thinly) characters with his own Original personalities if he thinks the old versions weren’t ‘fun’ enough. That he debuts getting into a fight with two completely out-of-nowhere ‘wouldn’t it be cool if there were a spaceship that could randomly split into robots?’ robots that just chant ‘Nineteen-Eighty-Four’ over and over showing that even Roberts has hit the bottom of the barrel on trivia and references just puts the final nail in Skids’s coffin right out of the starting gate.

Oy.

Thing is, aside from Skids, this is actually a pretty good issue! Things aren’t looking as bleak for the crew as they did at the end of the previous issue, and seeing Rodimus trying to stress this to the group while still having to admit that, yes, a couple guys died continues to show his style of leadership and the strong and weak points thereof. The rest of the story is basically situational character interaction, with select members of the crew reacting to the crash. We see the cast getting herded into manageable mini-groups, and the hanger-ons like Whirl, Tailgate, and Cyclonus get properly assimilated in. Swerve mugs his way into a lot of page time, but I can’t hate him for it the way I do Skids since this character is clearly intended to be annoying. Whirl continues to be crazy but they’ve dialed it down a notch so he’s just enjoyable unsettling instead of being in-your-face look-how-scary-I-am. Cyclonus continues to be the best part of the book, playing a level-headed straight man, and coming off as surprisingly sympathetic. I dug the conversation between him and Rodimus. Also, it looks like the crash may not have been Prowl’s fault after all (the cause the characters cite is, in fact, pure dumb luck, which I actually appreciated the use of), though he and his accomplice having *something* to do with *something* on the ship has been heavily hinted at in both books, so it may be too early to declare him innocent just yet. And the very last page shows that all the somethings are far from dealt with, and provides a much more immediate problem for the crew to go up against in the next issue, even if it does smack of being a forced plot point that had no lead-in whatsoever.

Roche’s art continues to be solid, with the colors used being even brighter now that we’re off Cybertron. I still dig the character designs, and the look provides a good contrast to RID’s style. The stupid ship-bots that Skids fights could’ve stood to not be mono-colored, but they’re disposable extras, so it’s not that big a deal.

With the series apparently finding its footing, it’s looking like this is going to be a comic driven primarily by character interaction, with how they react to the various situations flung at them. As such, it runs into some of the same problems Sotrmbringer did, though at least the writing is more interesting. Still, it’s mostly Transformers standing around talking about stuff, with a lot of the ones doing the talking being obnoxious and annoying. I know that spells success for a lot of people, but that’ not really why I’m here. The next issue looks like it might get things moving a bit more, we can only hope. We can also only hope that Skids dies a horrible, painful, humiliating death. Actually, I don’t even particularly care how it happens, you heard it here first: Whatever issue kills off Skids is my Comic Of The Year.

[Dominic]

Ain't read it yet.

Question, how do you know, or what makes you think, that Skids is not intended to be an obnoxious ass along the lines of a few members of the Wreckers? We know that he is going to be a "bad thing" for Rodimus' crew. The cover variant I ended up with depicts Skids as being "Hotrod, minus the dignity".

If this obnoxiousness serves a purpose, then Skids is a more useful character for it.

[BWprowl]

Ain't read it yet.

Question, how do you know, or what makes you think, that Skids is not intended to be an obnoxious ass along the lines of a few members of the Wreckers? We know that he is going to be a "bad thing" for Rodimus' crew. The cover variant I ended up with depicts Skids as being "Hotrod, minus the dignity".

If this obnoxiousness serves a purpose, then Skids is a more useful character for it.

I'd like to believe this, but the fact that most of Skids's high-larious lolrandumb dialogue happens in narration boxes that only we get to see/hear, and that for all of his totally wacky antics he's still an awesome badass with tons of cool weapons who blows up the ship-bots and is funny because he doesn't know what a handgun is, seems to suggest otherwise.

But hey, if Roberts really did intend for me to hate the character then mission a-frickin'-ccomplished!

[Onslaught Six]

Roche’s art continues to be solid, with the colors used being even brighter now that we’re off Cybertron. I still dig the character designs, and the look provides a good contrast to RID’s style. The stupid ship-bots that Skids fights could’ve stood to not be mono-colored, but they’re disposable extras, so it’s not that big a deal.

Alex Milne is drawing MTMTE. Yes, Roche drew the first issue, but apparently that's it.

Weird that you thought he was, though.

Skids is probably directly responsible for some tragedy or other. I'm a little disappointed that Roberts seems to have gone this direction with him--I always thought Skids was a guy who just always ended up in shitty situations that permanently scarred him, forever. Would have much rather seen that! Maybe if he'd been stranded for years and it'd turned him insane?

I don't have the issue yet so I'll have to read it later.

[BWprowl]

Alex Milne is drawing MTMTE. Yes, Roche drew the first issue, but apparently that's it.

Weird that you thought he was, though.

My bad. I knew Roche drew that first issue and didn't bother to re-check the artist credit in this one. And to Milne's credit, he matches Roche's look extremely well.