Shattered Glass review

[BWprowl]

I do not want to see simple "everything you know is opposite" stories. It is odd that BWP agrees with me about how useless the Crime Syndicate (any of the 4 or 5 iterations) is, but then wants to see a humble Sunstreaker and extols the virtures of "Shattered Expectations".

The difference, y'see, is that the Crime Syndicate (And 'Shattered Glass', for that matter) takes itself seriously, while 'Shattered Expectations' very clearly did not. As soon as a story like this realizes how ridiculous and played-out its concept is, gives up on any hope of being taken seriously, and starts having some bloody *fun* with itself, then it crosses over into the territory I want to see. And my point about the whole Opposites Day shtick was that if they were going to run with it, they should've gone the mile. They didn't.

Hrm... Might have to say Starscream. I love that he has Jetfire's colors, he actually gets along with Megatron rather than being a backstabber and his plan to stop the Autobots actually works... once they get some assistance from Cliffjumper.

So...you must hate regular universe Starscream, since the virtues you're extolling of the Shattered Glass version are simply that he's the direct opposite. And also that he looks like Jetfire. Hn. Personally, Starscream did nothing in that comic that caught my interest. He...typed on a computer and agreed with Megatron. Real cool character there.

See, I like "Shattered Expectations" Grimlock not just because he's the opposite of regular Grimlock, but because he's a clever spin on that idea. He's an elitist who's high-class manner of speech leads him to interject "I, Grimlock!" into EVERY ONE of his sentences. It had me rolling.

'Expectations' had lots of little touches like that. Thanks to its story, I was tipped off to the fact that the four non-Prime guys in the giftset were the same guys who got Pretender Classics toys.

[Sparky Prime]

So...you must hate regular universe Starscream, since the virtues you're extolling of the Shattered Glass version are simply that he's the direct opposite. And also that he looks like Jetfire. Hn. Personally, Starscream did nothing in that comic that caught my interest. He...typed on a computer and agreed with Megatron. Real cool character there.

I figured you'd try to twist my opinion around somehow... I never said I hated the regular universe version of Starscream nor is that something I'm implying here. The normal universe version of Starscream I think a great character and it's fun to watch his power hungry, backstabbing ways in trying (but pretty much always fails) to over throw Megatron and battle the Autobots. However, I also find it interesting to see him here portrayed as actually being loyal to Megatron, working for the greater cause, especially because that's something the normal Starscream would never do unless it was in his own best interests. To top it all off, his plans to combat the Autobots actually works out for them. Given the plan of action he comes up with, I see this version of Starscream as being a more like a brilliant scientist (especially given the Jetfire colors) where as the normal Starscream is decidedly more of the brute force type.

See, I like "Shattered Expectations" Grimlock not just because he's the opposite of regular Grimlock, but because he's a clever spin on that idea. He's an elitist who's high-class manner of speech leads him to interject "I, Grimlock!" into EVERY ONE of his sentences. It had me rolling.

Sounds to me like you like that version of Grimlock for the same reason I liked "Shattered Glass" Starscream. Personally I would have preferred this version of Grimlock in Glass as well, instead of what we got.

[Dominic]

I do not mind homages on occasion, but it used to be a matter of professional courtesy to credit the original artists. Figueroa and Khanna are especially bad about this. Rob Liefeld used to be (rightly) lambasted for exactly the kind of thing these guys are doing now.

Now you're comparing Don Figueroa and Dan Khanna to Rob Liefeld? Seriously? Rob Liefeld was (and still is) lambasted because of his art style (lack of proper anatomy, unrealistically giant guns, unnecessary amount of pouches and so on...) and not to mention because he actually is guilty of blatantly plagiarizing stuff. Drawing some homages is not the same thing at all.

LIefeld got lambasted for a good many things, including lack of proper anatomy. But, the kind of thing that Khanna and Figueroa have done is very similar to what Liefeld did. If you do a homage, you are supposed to credit it. Lifeld, Khanna and Figueroa are not the only guys who have done uncredited tributes. But, that does not make it okay.


Now, to SG.

Self-parody like "Shattered Expectations" is over-rated. It takes little talent or abllity. *I* came up with a similar idea for "GI Joe"while sitting on the can a few weeks back. And, a self-parody is a waste of a quarterly comicbook.

The problem with the Crime Syndicate (in a general sense), is that the idea brings nothing to the table. Killing them off in CoIE was the best thing that ever happened with those characters. Gardner (sp?) Fox is probably the most over-rated writer from the Silver Age of comics. Read some of those old JLA cross-overs. They will make you pine for Furman at his worst. Morrison's Syndicate is just a grittier variant of the Silver Age Syndicate. (Wow, nearly everybody on their world has their hearts on the right side of their chests! Clever!) And, one of the first things done to that Syndicate was to change some of the "rules" they operate under, as those rules were not only silly, but tedious. On top of that, the Morrison Syndicate has had stories with forced flashbacks that are there just to show cleverly inverted characters, like the "Justice Underground", complete with a literate Soloman Grundy. (I stand by my past comments that the CSA characters are possibly the most useless in all of fiction, at the very least all of printed fiction.) I just hope the new Earth 3 Syndicate characters stay dead.

The joke for "Shattered Expectations" would get old fast.

I am hoping for some kind of character study, as I described above, where characters with some (possibly minor) tweaks, wind up on opposite sides from where they normally would be.


Dom
-has no evidence to support the above statements about Sparky. Actially, it is probably BWP who does this. Yeah. Definitely BWP.

[Onslaught Six]

-has no evidence to support the above statements about Sparky. Actially, it is probably BWP who does this. Yeah. Definitely BWP.

Except Prowl does it in front of his TAI figurine.

[Sparky Prime]

LIefeld got lambasted for a good many things, including lack of proper anatomy. But, the kind of thing that Khanna and Figueroa have done is very similar to what Liefeld did. If you do a homage, you are supposed to credit it. Lifeld, Khanna and Figueroa are not the only guys who have done uncredited tributes. But, that does not make it okay.

I completely disagree. A homage, while typically is a repeat (to some degree) of a recognizable scene or stylistic element from the other work, it is still (supposed to be) a unique piece of work in it's own right. Of course there are different degrees of repeating a scene/element. In Liefeld's case, he tends to copy something almost exactly, in which case I'd agree it should be credited to the original source. In Figueroa and Khanna's case however, they usually do a homage to something using similar poses only, thus the scene really is completely different than the original. Is it therefore necessary to credit a source just because they used a similar pose as something else? I would say not. And for some cases I'd have to say if the scene is widely recognized, then it should be generally understood by the audience that the artist is paying a homage and it just goes with out saying.

-has no evidence to support the above statements about Sparky.

Sometimes there is a fine line between joking and being outright offensive and I have to say I think you took that too far.

[Onslaught Six]

I...Y'know what, I'm just not gonna post. Yes.

[BWprowl]

I figured you'd try to twist my opinion around somehow... I never said I hated the regular universe version of Starscream nor is that something I'm implying here. The normal universe version of Starscream I think a great character and it's fun to watch his power hungry, backstabbing ways in trying (but pretty much always fails) to over throw Megatron and battle the Autobots. However, I also find it interesting to see him here portrayed as actually being loyal to Megatron, working for the greater cause, especially because that's something the normal Starscream would never do unless it was in his own best interests.

But that's the thing: The character here has almost no resemblance in any way to previous Starscreams. "Loyal" and "working for the greater cause" describes 90% of the regular Universe Autobots, or in this case, the Shattered Glass Decepticons. Starscream's blatantly outspoken treacherous nature (as opposed to the more secretive ambitions of 90% of the regular Universe 'cons) was his main defining attribute. You take all aspects of that away, and what you're left with is what you get in 'Shattered Glass': Loyal scientist good guy. Even Jetfire had more going on than that. Actually, come to think of it, the direct opposite of Starscream would be something like Animated Lugnut. But aside from a couple one-off "O Great One" lines from this Starscream, there's nothing like that.

To top it all off, his plans to combat the Autobots actually works out for them. Given the plan of action he comes up with, I see this version of Starscream as being a more like a brilliant scientist (especially given the Jetfire colors) where as the normal Starscream is decidedly more of the brute force type.

So you...liked that the good guys came up with a plan that worked? That's precisely the same as almost every G1 cartoon episode ever, right down to Starscream's moment where he nonchalantly says a randomly relevant word, snaps his fingers and says "That's IT!"

I think that that's what really bugs me about 'Shattered Glass'. Too often (read: Always) do Transformers stories devolve into your standard tale of GoodGuyBots versus BadGuyCons, with little mind paid to the fact that this is supposedly a *war*, and thus no effort made to paint the characters in the shades of gray inherent to warfare. The Decepticons are just evil cuz Hasbro said so. So here comes 'Shattered Glass' a new continuity, with an idea that I'm thinking just *might* play up the ambiguity that *should* exist between the factions, and instead we get...GoodGuyCons versus BadGuyBots. *sigh* They even completely redid the story of the origin of the war so as to paint the Autobots as inherently evil cuz Fun Publications said so. They could've... I dunno, made it so that the Decepticons were still war tech made to fight the Quintessons, and then the more-callous-in-this-universe Autobots wanted to "Decomission" them, so the Decepticons are fighting for their right to survive. More-jerkwaddy Prime thinks that there's no way for the war-based Decepticons to exist peacefully in society, and rational Megatron wishes he could convince him that that wasn't true. ...Or something, hell I dunno. Anything would be better than "In this Universe, Megatron has always been peaceful and good and Prime has always been power-hungry and evil and now they're fighting like always except everyone's different colors". You see what I'm saying? If you go over a paint-by-numbers canvas in the direct opposite colors, you still know exactly what to expect.

Except Prowl does it in front of his TAI figurine.

I still wish I'd gotten one of the Misha garage kits. Hell, I think the Kiss Players figurines look adarabibble.

This is what happens when you watch too much anime, kids. Learn from my mistakes.

[Sparky Prime]

So you...liked that the good guys came up with a plan that worked?

The 'good guys' here being the Decepticons whom never win in the regular universe because they are the 'bad guys'. I guess I just like the idea of 'mirrorverse' stories more than you...

[Dominic]

LIefeld got lambasted for a good many things, including lack of proper anatomy. But, the kind of thing that Khanna and Figueroa have done is very similar to what Liefeld did. If you do a homage, you are supposed to credit it. Lifeld, Khanna and Figueroa are not the only guys who have done uncredited tributes. But, that does not make it okay.

I completely disagree. A homage, while typically is a repeat (to some degree) of a recognizable scene or stylistic element from the other work, it is still (supposed to be) a unique piece of work in it's own right. Of course there are different degrees of repeating a scene/element. In Liefeld's case, he tends to copy something almost exactly, in which case I'd agree it should be credited to the original source. In Figueroa and Khanna's case however, they usually do a homage to something using similar poses only, thus the scene really is completely different than the original. Is it therefore necessary to credit a source just because they used a similar pose as something else? I would say not. And for some cases I'd have to say if the scene is widely recognized, then it should be generally understood by the audience that the artist is paying a homage and it just goes with out saying.

-has no evidence to support the above statements about Sparky.

Sometimes there is a fine line between joking and being outright offensive and I have to say I think you took that too far.

Dude, I was kidding. You should hear the voice mails I leave some of my friends. (One of them has called me "a walking internet shock image". )

As for the question of homages, duping iconic poses is right on the line of plagiarizing. Look at the UK exclusive cover to "All Hail Megatron" #1. The artist credited Brian "Killing Joke" Bolland. Figuroa and Khanna dupe similarly iconic covers, and do not credit the original artists. (The Adams/Byrne "X-Men" tribute cover comes to mind here.)

I can see what BWP is saying. Even without the moral ambiguity he was talking about though, SG could still be worthwhile. Hopefully, it will not turn into either a paint-by-numbers, or a simple genre-parody like all the others, but with TFs instead of "Star Trek" guys.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

Eh, the panel homage thing isn't that big a deal to me. Truthfully, I wouldn't notice half of them anyway. (No joke, it literally took me like two weeks to notice that AHM cover was a play on the cover of The Killing Joke. And I own the damn thing.)

Besides, how often in the G1 comics did artists just trace over the character models? Poor Ravage has been regulated to being in his boxart pose 'forever.'