Last Stand of the Wreckers discussion

[Dominic]

The last panel gives the impression that he crushes the slug. When Prowl talks about pressure, there are movement lines coming from the data slug.

If you are talking about the object on Prowl's desk during "Police Action", that looked a little too big to be the slug. Or, maybe Prowl is keeping it around until he can find a better way to be rid of it. (In theory, the files could still be imaged from a crushed drive.)


Dom
-also wondering why Prowl never took a shot at Verity.

[JediTricks]

As for this purchase, after Dom got vocally upset about his local shop screwing up his pull for LSotW, I tried to talk him down by pointing out alternatives, but he riled himself back up so I decided to quickly learn more about the book to find out why he was willing to punish himself for someone else's misdeed, and got so frustrated at the ease of acquiring a book that sounded like an adequate self-contained jumping-in point that I just preordered it myself to prove how easy it could be done. "Gee whiz, that's so fascinating!" Really? "No."

That is what JT said.

I bought this to win an internet arguement with Dom.

What JT meant.

No, I had ALREADY won the argument, that was just me shoving it in your face.

I tend to treat the spines of books wth respect anyway, just to keep them in good condition. Hardcovers tend to age a bit better than soft covers. Books, (comics or otherwise), that I plan to keep get bagged and carefully stored.

I find it very difficult to read comics while keeping the spine intact, and generally I prefer to read a book than worry about its damned condition. I have no intention of selling it down the line, so as long as it doesn't puke its pages out, why should I have to be all super gingerly with it? I'm currently reading Making of Empire Strikes Back, the damned book a hardcover at like 30 pounds and 300+ double-column pages, I am trying to keep it in nice condition but it seems mutually exclusive to actually read it if I do, even turning a page with it on my lap is an ordeal. Maybe if I set it on a table and read from the chair it'd be easier, but I don't like reading with my eyes down, I don't find it comfortable (this is part of why I like the kindle so much, it's light enough for me to hold up higher).

Maybe it's selfish of me, but I treat comics and books like consumables that I have no intention of sharing, I do whatever it takes to enjoy them and let the chips fall where they may.

Figure $4 for 5 issues is ~$20 to start, without the extras that were included in the earlier edition. Hardcovers are generally more expensive than soft-covers, so $30 is about right.

Nobody pays cover price for the contents of a graphic novel/tpb though, that's part of why you buy them in that format instead of cover by cover.

Up until now, I thought that I was the only one who was annoyed by the colours. There are a few pages that are so over-detailed that it is a bit hard to tell what is going one. I am not overly bothered by it because the important parts are clear. But, I can see how this would be irksome for people.

I'm annoyed by your use of the british spelling of "colors". But seriously, at least we agree on something for once.

Remember, this story is an intentional genre riff. The flash-backs and "then/now" divide compliments the store. The "team gets together" is a huge cliche in the genre. LSotW had to touch on it.

Sorry, no, meta for meta's sake is circle-jerk bullshit. Also, I'm familiar with the basic ideas of the genre cliches, this wasn't that, it was just bad pacing and poor clarity for the then/now. They could have given nods to the cliches, but instead they bogged down in them. The "then/now" stuff also broke up the "getting the team together" stuff.

I am still wondering which of the named characters were saved by what. We know that Springer, Kup and Perceptor were all on the killing block at various points during the drafting. One was saved by Hasbro, one by IDW editorial, the other by the writers getting squeemish.

Kup was clearly not saved by Hasbro, given that IDW trashed him in "Infestation". But, there is no way to know if him being killed there was editorial mandate or editorial consent. (Either way, it was a waste of a good plot line to kill him in a cheap stunt cross-over.)

I am quite turned off by Infestation, the zombie thing is overused out the ass these days.

Anyway, I think keeping Kup alive works a lot better than if Guzzle had gotten to see Kup's death, there's something too easy about Guzzle being pissed at Kup for surviving when his friends didn't only to get to watch Kup die (or worse, to have an annoying cliche moment about finally seeing the value in Kup's life and letting go of his anger). No, I think the most likely death would have been Perceptor since he's stepped on and just disappears from the story at that point. Alternately, I suppose it could have been Springer since he was badly thrashed and now we have Impactor free of G9 and of his crimes (assuming Prowl's fingers kept crushing, although I like the lack of clarity on whether they did or didn't) and more importantly understanding the value of his previous actions that landed him there in the first place.

He wanted to get Megatron's attention. That was clear throughout. He could not figure out how to hurt, or even get a rise, out of Megatron. And, that just ate away at him like a brain bullet would inch towards your frontal lobes.

It's funny, it's made clear he wants to get Megatron to come face him, yet everything he does only is the sort of thing that would get the Autobots' attention, not Megatron's. Overlord never actually stabs out at the greater political universe that Megatron is concerned with. Overlord runs his own cruel fiefdom, but keeps that to himself -- Megatron doesn't give a squirt about Overlord torturing a few dozen guys, he's got grander plots to concern himself with, and Megs surely wouldn't give a crap about the sentient-rights-violations going on there.

Anyway, none of that really explained anything about Overlord's rather flip-floppy personality. His hunger to face Megatron surely wouldn't have driven him to such a place, that doesn't make any sense.

Another problem about characterization, the setting didn't affect characters in a way I felt was true and it also didn't really feel like a prison visually

How so? Rotorstorm got his before he would have had a chance to see how bad G9 really was. (I still love that scene and occassionally read it for comfort.)

Pyro and Ironfist got whiny when they realized that sacrifice can be painful and that "adventures" are not all fun and games. Overlord's Garrus 9 would be the sort of place where one would learn those lessons the hard way.

I meant the location as a setting, the scary prison transformed into a soul-crushing gladiator fighting ground meant to tear the robo-humanity away from those trapped within. They don't act like they're in a prison, they don't act like they're surrounded by blood-lusting psychos who have been turned into animals by 3 years of manipulative cruelty.

Ironfist wasn't "whining" about the mission not being a fun adventure, he was angry, he was yelling, he had had enough. The Wreckers always seemed romantic to him, and now that he was there and living the truth, it reminded him that he was there to face his own sacrifice and not to have the fun he had always assumed the stories contained. He wasn't pulling a "but I was going into Tosche station to pick up some power converters" Luke Skywalker whining, he was outbursting from anger.

Pyro's bitching was that he, an OP faithful and true believer in the nobility of sacrifice, should be doing more noble shit -- I suppose it did border on whining, but it was situational, not settings-derived. He would have been in the same predicament on any Wreckers mission.

Speaking of this, what are your thoughts on Prowl crushing the data slug at the end? He may have denied somebody an aquittal, albeit post-humously.

Prowl doesn't crush the data slug, he starts to, he gives it some pressure but doesn't fully deliver destruction the way the alternate ending had it. I liked that, it's ambiguous. However, going on your assumption that he did crush it - thus rendering the entire mission somewhat moot (which I think feels right considering that all the nobodies then died for virtually nothing) - the secret trials I don't think any acquittals were going to come from that, he only had records of existing trials, so unless there was some intention of revisiting those trials for appeals, I don't think it was going to gain any new judgements, and could only further indict others -- acts which the Autobots no longer seemed to want to pursue.

That is a common problem in the modern comics, and made a bit worse by the above mentioned art you mention.

Doubly so since Overlord turns into 2 things - a tank and a jet. There'd be tanks and jets in the background with zip lines to Overlord, or 2 jets that looked the same and there's Overlord, and all the coloring is off, it was really annoying.

Disagree here. The story was very open to new readers. The characters and readers find out what is going on and what needs to be done at the same rate. The concepts and ideas in this store are not unique to TF. The writers explain who is doing what and where.

In the first 2 chapters, there is no such thing, it is just a muddled mess of character interplays and some guy taking over. And then you have the larger scheme of things, which is the contrast of the noble Autobots creating a prison and secret trials which must be protected even at the very lives of more Autobots. Megatron and the larger war are both nebulous concepts to this story. You have Ultra Magnus randomly leaving partway through. You have a human hanging around on Cybertron going on a dangerous mission without any frame of reference. You have turncoats and Autobots gone mad without a sense of the meanings behind them. All of that hampers the accessibility to the new reader. Plus, the new reader expects Transformers to transform and to be in disguise, neither of which happened much.

I think that was part of the "cliche" theme that ran through the story. Verity is not the most sophisticated, so it would not make sense for Roche and Roberts to make her intelligent on the last page.

1) I'll remind you of my previous "meta for meta's sake" comment above. 2) The expanded alternate ending suggests otherwise, that it was going to end with a bumper sticker no matter who was saying what.

Dom, your quote is messed up. You can see what you were trying to do but it takes slightly more effort than usual.

Yeah, I see that, I'll go in and fix it for him.

[Onslaught Six]

I'm annoyed by your use of the british spelling of "colors".

I've been doing that for years? I know it was directed at Dom, but still.

It's funny, it's made clear he wants to get Megatron to come face him, yet everything he does only is the sort of thing that would get the Autobots' attention, not Megatron's. Overlord never actually stabs out at the greater political universe that Megatron is concerned with. Overlord runs his own cruel fiefdom, but keeps that to himself -- Megatron doesn't give a squirt about Overlord torturing a few dozen guys, he's got grander plots to concern himself with, and Megs surely wouldn't give a crap about the sentient-rights-violations going on there.

Anyway, none of that really explained anything about Overlord's rather flip-floppy personality. His hunger to face Megatron surely wouldn't have driven him to such a place, that doesn't make any sense.

The point was that Overlord had gone rogue. Attacking G9 wasn't in the plan. Overlord figures that the mere act of abandoning his mission and loudly yelling "COME AT ME, MEGATRON!" will actually get Megatron to come. (Of course, Megatron is dead at the time this story takes place, or at the least on life support, so that makes it a moot point.)

[Dominic]

I'm annoyed by your use of the british spelling of "colors".

Sorry. I was a regular reader of "White Dwarf" for several years. And, the word "colour", using that spelling, came up frequently. And, the British spelling is better.

Maybe it's selfish of me, but I treat comics and books like consumables that I have no intention of sharing, I do whatever it takes to enjoy them and let the chips fall where they may.

Hey, I generally have no intention of selling, passing along, or otherwise sharing my comics. I want them to be in good condition for me.

I am willing to hold the book's cover apart at a 90 degree angle. I can still read it, and the damage to the spine is less than if I just splayed the damned thing open.

I don't find it comfortable (this is part of why I like the kindle so much, it's light enough for me to hold up higher).

Wow, and I thought that I was lazy.

I will even accept a bit of self-mortification to keep my comics and regular books in good shape. (If I have to get hot water on me, or even a bit on my comics, guess where it goes.)

Nobody pays cover price for the contents of a graphic novel/tpb though, that's part of why you buy them in that format instead of cover by cover.

Remember, the first compliation had extras. The hard cover merits a higher price just for being hard cover. And, there were even *more* extras. The $30 retail price was not unreasonable at all.

am quite turned off by Infestation, the zombie thing is overused out the ass these days.

I have been sick of the zombie genre for better than 10 years now. (I hate c-grade movies to begin with. And, zombies are on the stupidly insulting side of that.

The real problem with "Infestation" is that it is a transparent, and clumsy, money grab. IDW is attempting to use their license books to force sales on their in-house stuff.

No, I think the most likely death would have been Perceptor since he's stepped on and just disappears from the story at that point.

The possible deaths were all very early in the draft stages. There really is no way to know beyond ruling out Kup as having been vetoed by Hasbro.

I don't think any acquittals were going to come from that, he only had records of existing trials, so unless there was some intention of revisiting those trials for appeals, I don't think it was going to gain any new judgements, and could only further indict others -- acts which the Autobots no longer seemed to want to pursue.

The dialogue indicates that at least some of the trials were not yet resolved. Some of the guys incarcerated on Garrus-9 were waiting for the computer to calculate a verdict. Some of those guys may have been found "not guilty", and as a result would have been exonerated.

Doubly so since Overlord turns into 2 things - a tank and a jet. There'd be tanks and jets in the background with zip lines to Overlord, or 2 jets that looked the same and there's Overlord, and all the coloring is off, it was really annoying.

I would say it is more the inking, even the line art, than the colouring itself. But, either way, the fact that comics managed to convey movement and transformation more clearly 20+ years ago makes the problem now even more mind boggling.

The point was that Overlord had gone rogue. Attacking G9 wasn't in the plan. Overlord figures that the mere act of abandoning his mission and loudly yelling "COME AT ME, MEGATRON!" will actually get Megatron to come. (Of course, Megatron is dead at the time this story takes place, or at the least on life support, so that makes it a moot point.)

This. Overlord is desperate to do/try anything to get a rise out of Megatron.


Dom

[Onslaught Six]

The point was that Overlord had gone rogue. Attacking G9 wasn't in the plan. Overlord figures that the mere act of abandoning his mission and loudly yelling "COME AT ME, MEGATRON!" will actually get Megatron to come. (Of course, Megatron is dead at the time this story takes place, or at the least on life support, so that makes it a moot point.)

This. Overlord is desperate to do/try anything to get a rise out of Megatron.

I wanted to clarify--attacking G9 wasn't in Megatron's plan. It was in Overlord's, as much as Overlord had a plan--which he really didn't. Overlord is basically a kid acting out for attention. He figures, if I kill a lot of Autobots, Megatron is sure to notice me, right? And he believes himself able to take down Megatron, who is at least 'arguably' the strongest Decepticon, so a couple puny Autobots who might show up as reinforcements won't be an issue.

[Tigermegatron]

I wonder if any fans of the wreckers will be buying the 2013 toys of the five man wreckers team that combines to form ruination.

personally I hate the head sculpts,they look to nice & friendly for my taste. I was never a fan of topspin & twintwist as they remind me of G-1 wheelie.

[Dominic]

I have no idea how Topspin and Twintwist remind anybody of Wheelie.

That being said, I am skipping the Combiner. The base moulding is good. But, if I buy Wreckers toys, I want them to look like the comics that made the characters worthwhile.

I wanted to clarify--attacking G9 wasn't in Megatron's plan.

Garrus-9 was part of Megatron's plan, albeit a small onel. Remember, Skyquake and his team of "obscure UK guys" were acting on Megatron's orders. But, that was likely more of a "generally attack Autobots and hurt them" rather than....what Overlord did.


Dom
-also wants a modern Overlord, but that ain't gonna happen ever...