Re-Generation One (IDW retro G1)

[Dominic]

Most of the stores around here have limits. And, that does make sense. It keeps people from raiding the freebie pile.

I don't see the competition you're claiming, really don't. For one thing, as in anything where shit is being given out for free, it's a first-come first-served thing, and supplies are, naturally, limited. Get there early if you want the best shot at grabbing Literally Everything. In a case like this, 80.5 is as much for new readers as it is fans of the old series.

The limited supply is where the competition comes in.

I have no moral problem with new fans coming in. But, I do have a practical problem with people taking the last copy of a book that I want to read. I do not apologize for getting my copy early in the day or for getting copies for friends later.

What I am saying is that it might not be the best idea to set up competition between new and potential fans for a free comic, especially when the series that the free book leads in to is being produced because of fan demand.

Incidentally, if they really wanted to do it right, they could encourage people to buy things by giving away comics with purchases. Limit someone to three entirely free, and then add a free one for every single issue they buy. (Buying a trade grants you as many free ones as you want.)

This is a good idea. There might be some kind of rule against it. But, in principle it is solid. And, I would be suprised if at least a few stores did not do something similar.

Yeah, but it also stands that if you're reading comics, you might want to take this chance to try out something for free. For example, this is a good chance for someone to grab Mega Man and see if they'd like it.

That only works if there are no limits. But, if I am only allowed 2, or even 5, books, I am going to prioritze for books that I would read anyway. This is similar to how, during the week, I prioritize for the books I read consistently. I am not going to skip an issue of something that I read regularly in order to try something new. This year, there were two such books.

If comic shops did not have limits, people would not have that problem. However, the stores would also run out of books more quickly, which would ultimately mean fewer people would get comics.


Dom
-at least new content is consistent with the idea of FCBD, unlike Aspen's yearly sampler.

[Mako Crab]

Don't take this as an insult Dom, but given your recent complaints about Simon Furman's induction into the HOF, I was expecting your review of 80.5 to be negative and focus on all the insular fan-love surrounding the man. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that not only did you like 80.5, but you pointed out where Furman avoided some of the tropes he's become known for. I too find it aggravating when he dumps a faux epic on us, but you're saying he did a good job of reigning in those old habits. And just the fact that he's trying to show some restraint at all is a big positive in my book. Some other reviews I've read have also been positive, with a lot of people saying it feels like they've come home again. It literally puts a smile on my face to hear that somehow Furman and Wildman have managed to tap into the same vein that they were in back in the 80s. Not many people can recapture the magic like that.

[Dominic]

I am betting that Furman learned a lesson in '06/'07 from the (well earned) drubbing he took post "Beast Wars".

My complaint about Furman in the HoF is that he did get lazy about 10 years back. There were guys who worked harder, and did not ride the gravy train as shamelessly. I would have preferred one of them. I was not taking away from Furman's early work, much of which I will stand by even now.

Dom

[Mako Crab]

That's cool.

[andersonh1]

Transformers Regeneration One #80.5

I didn’t think they could pull it off, but I have to admit that opening this book feels like going back in time to the good old days of the old Marvel Transformers. The combination of Furman’s writing and Wildman’s pencils really has managed to recapture a lot of the feeling of the old series. And it’s not just Wildman’s visual style, but the fact that he uses older character models, such as Megatron with his dark helmet or a visored Ultra Magnus that does the trick. Nicely done to all involved. This really brought back some enjoyable memories.

The story itself is largely a recap of some major events in that series (the Underbase, Thunderwing and the Matrix, Shockwave’s early victory, Bludgeon’s leadership, Unicron’s attack on Cybertron, etc), as well as giving us an idea about what’s happened since the old series ended. Jhiaxus from Generation 2 even gets a cameo, though it looks like Gen 2 never happened in this continuity. We just get hints of how the story might play out, and there are some familiar one-liners, and Optimus Prime makes a major mistake.

I guess I’ll be buying three Transformers books a month once the series gets up and running. I don’t know that I expected to enjoy this preview as much as I did, but Furman and Wildman deserve a lot of credit for stepping back into their old shoes. Very nice.

[Onslaught Six]

Am I the only one who thought Ultra Magnus' visor always looked like sunglasses? Made him look like a cop, which is pretty appropriate to his IDW job. (Or similar to Robert Stack's character in the Beavis and Butthead movie.)

[Dominic]

Issue 81:

It was harder than I thought to review this issue on its own merits. I really need to separate my reactions from what I am guessing will be the GeeWunner reaction. Yes, I know that many of the same fans who complained about the violence of McCarthy's run on "All Hail Megatron" are going to give Furman a pass

Spoiler

for having Megatron wipe out, or at least inflice great damage, on Earth and its population

. Many of those same fans will probably feel the need to note and praise how "clever" it is that in this book

Spoiler

Earth is more or less destroyed

while in Fun Publications

Spoiler

post issue 80 Earth is the only thing that survives

.

Over-all, it was worse than it should have been, but better than I expected. I counted a few Furmanisms. And, Furman is still overly fond of using exclamation points. (To be fair, this is as much a problem with the soft sci-fi genre as it is with Furman. But, Furman has been at this long enough to know better.) This issue is still in set-up mode, and it is too early to tell what (if anything) Furman has planned for the series as it goes on. It is striking that while IDW's modern TF comics have consistently been about change and newness, this series is about having "everything go back the way it was" after 20 or so years.

The art is true to the old comics. It looks like IDW tweaked their printing/scanning/colouring process to make the art look consistent with comics from ~20 years ago. Provided that Furman's writing is not stuck there, that will add flavour to the book.

Grade: C

Quick count of post issue 80 timelines:

-Marvel US: Furman's closing piece in issue 80 mentions "Another Time and Place", which places it after the US and UK series.
-Marvel UK: The late run black and white stories are inconsistent with the end of the US comics. And, there is also the (crisised out) timeline shown in "Time Wars".
-Generation 2: Ignores "Another Time and Place". May or may not include "Alignment", depending on what Jim "not at all helpful fantard" Sorenson is saying this week.
-Fun Publications: Ignored all of the above, eventually destroyed and merged with "Shattered Glass".
-IDW retro book: just starting now....


So far, this is better than Fun Publications, but faint praise can be more damning than a well reasoned indictment.


Dom
-giving this 3 or 4 issues...

[andersonh1]

If nothing else, the last few pages of this book quickly make it clear that G2 doesn't exist in this new continuity. That's a shame since G2 was a great continuation of the original series. This issue doesn't quite recapture the tone and feel of the old series as well as 80.5 did, and I wonder if this is the direction Simon Furman would have gone back in 1990. Still, it's undeniably very nice to pick up with the old familiar characters and situations from a series I remember fondly and see where they go from here. And the cameos by the Deluxe Insecticons and some of the G2 jets is a nice touch. I'm fairly sure we wouldn't have seen them at the time, but why not expand the cast? Suits me.

Perhaps the last few pages are this continuity's version of "All Hail Megatron"? That'll irritate the McCarthy haters.

[Shockwave]

Picked up this issue yesterday (which resulted in far greater difficulty than it should have). I actually really liked it. Seeing a post war Cybertron carry on from the end of the old comic was interesting and especially interesting to see that the Decepticons haven't really given up the fight. The thing with the Wreckers on Earth will certainly be interesting as well. My only one complaint with this issue is... Unicron. Yeah. Unicron. Again. I have mixed feelings about this. Not really about Unicron, but his appearence gives me mixed feelings on the series in general. On the one hand, there's the same appeal here as there is with RID with the whole "post war Cyberton" thing but then there's that hint at Unicron which makes me feel.... Here's the thing. Unicron died in Marvel G1 around issue 75 or so. Now, in what is arguably a paltry 6 issues later... there's another one? Maybe it's a different one from the one that was killed, I dunno. I don't really know where Furman is going with this but on the face of it, it seems sloppy to not have at least checked previous issues before writing such an element into the continuing storyline. I mean, honeslty, if Furman's not going to check his facts or care about writing the issue, why should I care about reading it? And, I really hate feeling that way about a Transformers comic especially after all the trouble getting that comic cause me.

And in case anyone's wondering, I went the to comic shop, bought issue 81 and when I went out to start the car... nothing happened. So, I had the shop owner try to jumpstart the car and that didn't work. I called my Dad (who runs the automotive toolroom at a local community college) as he was about to go into a meeting for one of the Masonic youth groups that my mother is in charge of, to come out and help me with the car. Come to find out, a wire had blown. Called a tow truck and three hours later, my Dad finally drove me home.

[Dominic]

Look, it is time for me to confess. Yesterday, I lied. I lied to all of you. And, honestly, I lied to myself. The worst thing is that I believed that lie.


Ah, screw it. I was going to write this whole thing in Simple Simon's bloviating hack prose. But, that is more work than this comic is worth, and would mean putting more thought into the style of this one post than Furman puts in to basic content.

On my way to work this morning, I stopped by the comic shop and cancelled my sub for this book. It sucks.

I am trying really hard not to use "retard voice" when talking about this book. That has nothing to do with me respecting the most backwards ass elements of the fandom, nor Simple Simon himself. But, I know a few legitimately retarded people and feel a twinge of guilt mocking self-selected idiots by conflating them with legitimately retarded individuals.

Perhaps the last few pages are this continuity's version of "All Hail Megatron"? That'll irritate the McCarthy haters.

Nope. Some of them are actually saying "Furman did in one issue what it took McCarthy 6 to do", or stuff to that effect.

I wonder if this is the direction Simon Furman would have gone back in 1990.

I doubt it. The black and white UK stories along with "Another Time and Place" are probably a better indicator of where Furman was going. (Some of those stories strongly implied Action Masters, and the Autobots having to adapt to new technology.) And, as violent as G2 was in places, I do not thing that Hasbro would have let Furman wipe out, or even devastate, Earth as was the case here. (The changes in the comics market between '91 and '93 were staggering. I honestly do not think that G2 could have happened in '91, let alone something more violent than G2.)

My best guess was always that the Ark was going to re-crash. There were likely more guys in the stasis hold, and they would have been Action Masters along with some of the other guys who were on Cybertron. Again, that was my guess 20 years ago, and it has been influenced by other things I have read since then.

On the one hand, there's the same appeal here as there is with RID with the whole "post war Cyberton"

That is pretty well gone. And, it is a safe bet that Simple Simon is not looking to try anything new.

I dunno. I don't really know where Furman is going with this but on the face of it, it seems sloppy to not have at least checked previous issues before writing such an element into the continuing storyline. I mean, honeslty, if Furman's not going to check his facts or care about writing the issue, why should I care about reading it?

I do not see any continuity issue here. Furman is acknowledging that Unicron was defeated in issue #75, But, Unicron is cosmically awesome remember? And, he is a multiversal singularity, so he is totally coming back and it is awesome.

Unicron showing up in the first proper issue has less to do with Simple Simon not bothering to re-read his old work than it does with Simple Simon having no ideas.

I am guessing that Leadfoot is going to die next issue...just because. Leadfoot is not a "real" Wrecker and we know that Simple Simon likes to have obscure characters show up and die to prove that his "writing" is totally awesome and serious and that Simple Simon means Serious Business.

Part of me wonders if this series will end with everybody/everything getting blown up real good. And, I have to wonder how happy Simple Simon's syncophants will be about that. Simple Simon's writing seems to be stuck at that weird developmental stage where "breaking shit is awshum" (sorry could not resist). And I would wager that the people who clamoured the loudest for this book never quite got beyond that stage.


Joking aside, this really does annoy me. Simple Simon is a hack, plain and simple. He has been shamelessly riding the TF gravy train for a decade or so now. Other guys he worked with back in the old Marvel UK days have gone on to start their own companies, build other properties (or franchises in those properties) and to write other stuff. In contrast, Simple Simon barely got out of TF. And, the only thing that he is known for is TF. He stayed with TF long enough back in the 80s and 90s, and was lucky enough to have the right editor and a fan base that turned out to be regressive enough to consistenly reward bad behavior over not only years, but decades because Simple Simon had a better than average run at a time when expectations were low.

In fairness though, who can blame Simple Simon? He does have a good gig. He has a solid base of fans who will buy anything with his name on it, especially if it is GeeWun (erg, sorry, slipped). Most people, myself included, would take the easier/lazier route when given the chance. (Sloth is commonly recognized as a sin for a reason.) But, that does not change the fact that Simple Simon has no ideas and can barely write.


Yeah, I am mad. And, part of that is being mad at myself for reading this book so charitably yesterday despite it having so many obvious problems and there being no reason to have any faith in Simple Simon. I am probably stuck for another issue or 2 before my subscription is cancelled. But, I am not expecting Simple Simon to suprise me in that time.


Dom
-not supporting the hobby for the sake of supporting it.