More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

[Onslaught Six]

Yeah, I saw preview pages and it's uncanny. I just wish Roche had stayed in. I'm still kind of mad at Milne over that SG Ravage thing. (I'm not defending Willis, I actually think it was kind of funny, but it was still low. Stuff like that encourages...similar behaviour in others. Before you know it, someone who doesn't like Furman is killing off Grimlock because of that.)

[BWprowl]

Yeah, I saw preview pages and it's uncanny. I just wish Roche had stayed in. I'm still kind of mad at Milne over that SG Ravage thing. (I'm not defending Willis, I actually think it was kind of funny, but it was still low. Stuff like that encourages...similar behaviour in others. Before you know it, someone who doesn't like Furman is killing off Grimlock because of that.)

To Milne's credit, it wasn't actually his idea, one of his friends or something suggested who to draw dead in the background, with Milne unaware of the Willis connection until someone pointed it out to him later. Or so I heard.

It's be hard for me to be mad at Milne for something like that, since he's half-responsible for Reign of Starscream, so he gets major props in my book for that one.

But all that's neither here nor there. Feel free to talk about MTMTE#2 everybody!

[Dominic]

#1 and #2:

I sat down and read these as part of making a decision about comics. And, ugh, the at sucks. It is under-detailed I cannot even tell who/what I am looking at half the time. It looks like shit.

The writing is...not impressing me. It is not bad. There is some good dialogue. And, there are some genuinely chuckle-worth moments. But, good dialogue and chuckle-worthy moments are not necessarily enough to keep a book on my radar, and certainly not enough to keep me in the hobby. (I am also reading 3 Bendis books at the moment. So, Roberts is not even filling a niche with this book.)

It is not bad. But, it is not great either. It feels like, well, a comic book. Yay, look. Transformers. And, they are doing stuff.

If I stay in comics, (which I am still not sure about), I will keep this book for two reasons. Roberts has earned enough trust from me over the last couple of years that I am willing to wait and see if he is running a Bendis-style slow burn. He might wow me in a few months. And, more importantly, I *really* like the similarly titled "Robots in Disguise", and it is easier to just subscribe to both.

Grade: C


Dom
-does not even care who the traitor is.

[Onslaught Six]

It is not bad. But, it is not great either. It feels like, well, a comic book. Yay, look. Transformers. And, they are doing stuff.

To be fair: This was only ever what the book was pitched at us as. Rodimus and friends going out in space and Havin' Adventures. At the least, we get a different cast than the usual band though.

[Dominic]

Issue 3:

The art is still really rough on the eyes. At this point, I just going to assume that if a character is not pointed out by name, they are not important enough for me to bother identifying. And, for the most part, they ain't. This book is still in "stuff what happens" territory. A bunch of stuff happens. Some clues about what happened to the engine. Stuff happens. Hot Rod and some other guys chase the spark-eater around. Stuff happens. There is a scene with Cyclonus and Tailgate that gives me hope for something worthwhile happening in this book later. I know that Roberts and Roche can do better. I just wish that they would. The letters page seems pretty fannish this time around. (Whether this is due to IDW's selection bias or the caliber of letters they have available, I have no idea.)

Grade: C


Dom
-still favouring RiD over this book.

[Shockwave]

I'm sure there's gotta be more implications for the "stuff what happens" than just stuff happening. What happens and why? And what impact is that having on the characters? Otherwise there would be no stuff happening (unless it's Family Guy where stuff happens randomly, but even then it's done for comedic effect).

[Onslaught Six]

The art is still really rough on the eyes. At this point, I just going to assume that if a character is not pointed out by name, they are not important enough for me to bother identifying. And, for the most part, they ain't. This book is still in "stuff what happens" territory. A bunch of stuff happens. Some clues about what happened to the engine. Stuff happens. Hot Rod and some other guys chase the spark-eater around. Stuff happens. There is a scene with Cyclonus and Tailgate that gives me hope for something worthwhile happening in this book later. I know that Roberts and Roche can do better. I just wish that they would. The letters page seems pretty fannish this time around. (Whether this is due to IDW's selection bias or the caliber of letters they have available, I have no idea.)

Roche is not involved. Milne is drawing the book. (That said, he and Roberts are really buddy-buddy, so I wouldn't put it past Roche to be feeding him suggestions under the table.)

[BWprowl]

More Than Meets The Eye #3

This might be the first issue so far to fully deliver on the promise of its premise. Rather than characters just standing around talking to each other about each other, this one actually has RODIMUS AND FRIENDS HAVING ADVENTURES IN SPACE! It works pretty well, telling a self-contained story of the crew dealing with a xenomorph-I mean genestealer- I mean sparkeater roaming around their ship attempting to murder everyone. One big thing Roberts is pushing here is the point that, while Rodimus may be charismatic as a leader and capable of rallying others to do things for the moment, and while he certainly has the *desire* to get things done for him and his crew, his actual style of leadership and action is patently terrible and dangerous. He jumps headfirst into wanting to fight the sparkeater since he’s dying for excitement (his ship blowing up and his crew raining down onto a planet apparently not being enough for him), then makes the *grave* error of assuming the sparkeater seeking out the ‘brightest spark’ means it’ll come for him. It doesn’t, it goes for Rung. Come on Roddy, you should know the fan-character’s spark will be the one to burn brightest! Ultra Magnus (probably my second-favorite character in the book behind Cyclonus) appropriately calls Rodimus out on his dumbassery at the end of the book, only to get shot down by Roddy pulling rank on him. I’m thinking Rodimus is going to continue along this sort of path until something monumentally cataclysmic happens on account of a stupid decision he makes, after which he’ll then be forced to grow up. Might make it interesting to see where this goes; until then this is just a story demonstrating what a crappy job Rodimus does in command.

The rest of the story pairs the other characters off per the buddy system to watch out for the sparkeater, and MTMTE’s already-trademark character-dialogue-interactions go to work. They’re more focused this time, with the characters really only able to talk to each other. Skids basically tells Swerve that he’s aware of his own status as a character who can, and is supposed to do, lolrandumb things, Swerve shows previously-unmentioned self-preserving sense, and Skids goes off and gets to help Save The Day. Both are considerably less annoying than in the last issue though, I’ll give them that. Cyclonus and Tailgate end up paired off (finally getting the two OG Cybertronians in the book together) so Cyclonus can explain the whole Autobot/Decepticon war thing to Tailgate and set up some character development for the latter that gets teased at the very end. Oh, and we also find out that Prowl’s plans for the ship were apparently of the decidedly non-destructive variety, so that dangling point is mostly resolved. The character interaction is all woven decently between the action chase-the-sparkeater scenes, with Skids and Whirl’s defining bits dovetailing nicely into the book’s main plot. This issue feels a lot better paced, and more substantial than the previous issues. There’s some interesting stuff being done with the characters here, even if they seem to be putting more effort than necessary into saying ‘Rodimus is a tool’.

Unfortunately, there’s kind of a massive, glaring plot hole dragging this issue down. At the climax of the story, Rodimus holds the sparkeater up to the ship’s warp drive and has it engaged, melding the sparkeater into it to kill it in the same fashion as Ore, as revealed in the second issue. Thing is, you’ll remember that when this happened to Ore, it caused the warp-engine-explosion that kicked off this whole plot in the first place. Yeah, no explosion or anything happens this time, the sparkeater just melds into the drive, everyone is surprised and pleased with Rodimus like this was a brilliant solution that would never have any ill-effects, and high fives are given all around. Maybe if it had been a while since this particular element had come up, or it was a different writer throwing it after Roberts had done it, I could be okay, but when you show in one issue this thing happening makes the ship explode, and then an *issue later* show the same thing happening with nothing bad happening, it just smacks of you pulling crap out of your ass because it’s a simple story solution and/or it seems cool at the time. Roberts is a better writer than this, hopefully it’s a fluke and things turn out more consistent from here on out.

That one huge issue aside, this is a solid, fun issue, which actually manages to tell a story that *feels* like a complete story rather than a short anthology of robot conversations, and the conversations that are there are succinct and effective in their contributions. If things keep moving up in this fashion (and there are no more glaring plot holes) then we could end up with a *very* entertaining book, and I might regret being so harsh on Roberts for the first two issues of blatant, slow-moving, character-dumping setup.

Dom, I don’t get your grievances with the functionality of the art, I could tell who everyone was just fine. Who (in what parts) exactly, are you having trouble identifying?

[Dominic]

There is a panel near the beginning of the story, with the POV being straight down on the characters. I can berely tell who any of them are.

As for the plot hole: I do not think that it was Ore being phased in to the wall that caused the explosion. And, while Rodumis' plan was likely fraught with possible danger, Rodimus is not the type of guy to let them deter him. So, it is less a hole in the plot and more a pretty good indicator of Rodimus' character.

Most likely, the explosion will be revealed to be the result of a more benign attempt at crippling the ship going horribly wrong, maybe because the responsible party blundered.


Dom
-gives credit for the "no factions" dynamic, for as long as it lasts.

[Onslaught Six]

As for the plot hole: I do not think that it was Ore being phased in to the wall that caused the explosion. And, while Rodumis' plan was likely fraught with possible danger, Rodimus is not the type of guy to let them deter him. So, it is less a hole in the plot and more a pretty good indicator of Rodimus' character.

Yeah, I never got the impression Ore getting phased into the wall did that, either. I just assumed it was something that happened because Everything Always Goes Wrong in this book.

-gives credit for the "no factions" dynamic, for as long as it lasts.

I like it a lot! Although the RID book is trying its damndest to start it up again.