TF Views

This year, I am only reading the TF centrice chapter of the cross-over. (I would have read a Raicht penned Joe chapter or a Tipton written 'Trek chapter. But, TF is the only one that beat my writer/franchise screen this year.)

Mars Attacks the Transformers:
This is the best of IDW's inter-property cross-overs yet. And, if that is not damningly faint praise, I do not know what is. It is far from the comprehensive failure of the first "Infestation" (failing at being contained unto itself both for readers and the properties in question) and at least has a built in reason for the predictability that plagued the second "Infestation".

The setting is yet another bastardization of the G1 cartoon. The art style is similar to the "Rodimus v/s Cyclonus" pack-in (from the RTS set a few years back). The writing is "lolololololol parody".

This is the part where I have to admit that my own methodology for buying comics ain't perfect. I tend to follow writers more than titles or characters. And, as stated elsewhere in this thread (and on the forum as a whole) I am Shane McCarthy's bitch. And, damn if I am not paying for that now. There is nothing about this comic that could not have been written by....just about anybody. A high-schooler could have written it. The over-all joke is "the old cartoon was teh stupit". And, that is not breaking any new ground, nor is it really entertaining. I am not going to blame McCarthy for taking a pay check. But, I am also not going to say this book is worth reading.

Buy it if you are a completists for either "Mars Attacks" or "Transformers". Avoid it otherwise.

Grade: D


Observations about the cross-over as a whole:
"Mars Attacks" is definitely being played lower key than the two "Infestation" events.

If nothing else, IDW is publishing fewer comics over a shorter span of time. As far as I know, there are no book-end issues that nominally unify they whole mess, and each property is only getting one chapter rather than two. This is likely IDW trying to adapt to a weaker economy and people being more reluctant to buy in for large events.

Each chapter has cover variants that feature *other* properties. In the case of "Transformers", the other properties are the Buffy-derived "Spike" and "Strangers in Paradise". There is nothing about the cover, aside from the writer/artist credits, to indicate that the content is not what the cover would indicate. I imagine that there are going to be some upset Buffy and Strangers fans. (And, they TF comic they will end up with is not likely to make them want to read more TF comics.


Dom
-IDW seems to want to keep Fun Publications from cornering the bad comics market.

Dominic wrote:I am Shane McCarthy's bitch. And, damn if I am not paying for that now. There is nothing about this comic that could not have been written by....just about anybody. A high-schooler could have written it. The over-all joke is "the old cartoon was teh stupit". And, that is not breaking any new ground, nor is it really entertaining.

Can't say I'm at all surprised, based on his work with AHM...

What? Dom walked right into that one.

LOLOLOLIOLOL McCarthy sucks. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

But, there are some differences between AHM and Mars Attacks.

"All Hail Megatron" is an idea based story that failed because McCarthy misoverestimated his core audience. (He should have known how many of them were intellectually stunted and had little, if any, frame of reference outside of the hobby.) "Mars Attacks Transformers" failed for being a backwards looking in-house parody with jokes that are only funny to the fans who have been around for several years. (And, it might even be enough to discourage new readers from bothering with TF comics because they are not going to find the jokes funny at all.)


Dom
-would accept being called on blindly following specific writers or artists in this case....

Dominic wrote:"All Hail Megatron" is an idea based story that failed because McCarthy misoverestimated his core audience. (He should have known how many of them were intellectually stunted and had little, if any, frame of reference outside of the hobby.)

No, it failed because McCarthy had terrible execution and storytelling. Most of the negative fans reactions I saw actually wanted more out of it. "Ideas" are great and all, but they don't mean anything if you can't tell a good enough story to actually get that idea across.

Sparky Prime wrote:Can't say I'm at all surprised, based on his work with AHM...

Wait, I'm confused here. The reason you think AHM 'sucks' is simply because it doesn't maintain solid continuity with the shitty Furman comics that came before it. Mars Attacks The Transformers, meanwhile, is a stand-alone gimmick title with no continuity before it to adhere to, so I can't imagine why you would expect it to have the same sorts of problems. If anything, you would've expected it to be 'better'.

Spoiler

PS: Kup says that the war was started because of what the Matrix 'represented', which is, in fact, true, given that the Matrix was a symbol of the Autobot Senate leadership.[/quote]

BWprowl wrote:The reason you think AHM 'sucks' is simply because it doesn't maintain solid continuity with the shitty Furman comics that came before it.

No, not following the already established continuity was only one reason I thought it sucked. It had a lot more problems than just that, as was discussed at some length back in the AHM thread...

Mars Attacks The Transformers, meanwhile, is a stand-alone gimmick title with no continuity before it to adhere to, so I can't imagine why you would expect it to have the same sorts of problems. If anything, you would've expected it to be 'better'.

Again, because continuity wasn't the only problem with AHM.

Spoiler

PS: Kup says that the war was started because of what the Matrix 'represented', which is, in fact, true, given that the Matrix was a symbol of the Autobot Senate leadership.

The Senators were not Autobots. In fact, two of them were Ratbat and Shockwave. Before the war, the Autobots were simply security forces on Cybertron. And it has since been revealed (in issue 23 of the ongoing) even the name Autobot came from Orion Pax during a speech he gave to the Senate shortly before the war began, as he was also becoming disillusioned with the Senate having read Megatron's manifesto. Plus Kup had actually said Megatron wanted the Matrix and what it represents. Then consider Megatron had a hand in killing Sentinel Prime, Zeta Prime and Nominus Prime, plus nearly killed Optimus Prime on several occasions. He had ample opportunities to take the Matrix over millions of years of war, so if that was truely what he'd started the war over, why didn't he take it sooner? "Megatron Origin" showed Megatron couldn't take the oppression of a corrupt Senate anymore. Certainly he wanted a change in leadership, but that had nothing to do with the Matrix itself seeing as the Senators were not representatives of the leadership granted by the Matrix. That leadership is given to Primes. McCarthy forced the point about the Matrix into the storyline despite it not fitting what we'd already seen.

Six, you damn right we doin' this again...

Sparky Prime wrote:No, not following the already established continuity was only one reason I thought it sucked. It had a lot more problems than just that, as was discussed at some length back in the AHM thread...

Again, because continuity wasn't the only problem with AHM.

See, you say that here, but then everything you outline next

…The Senators were not Autobots. In fact, two of them were Ratbat and Shockwave. Before the war, the Autobots were simply security forces on Cybertron. And it has since been revealed (in issue 23 of the ongoing) even the name Autobot came from Orion Pax during a speech he gave to the Senate shortly before the war began, as he was also becoming disillusioned with the Senate having read Megatron's manifesto. Plus Kup had actually said Megatron wanted the Matrix and what it represents. Then consider Megatron had a hand in killing Sentinel Prime, Zeta Prime and Nominus Prime, plus nearly killed Optimus Prime on several occasions. He had ample opportunities to take the Matrix over millions of years of war, so if that was truely what he'd started the war over, why didn't he take it sooner? "Megatron Origin" showed Megatron couldn't take the oppression of a corrupt Senate anymore. Certainly he wanted a change in leadership, but that had nothing to do with the Matrix itself seeing as the Senators were not representatives of the leadership granted by the Matrix. That leadership is given to Primes. McCarthy forced the point about the Matrix into the storyline despite it not fitting what we'd already seen.

is just complaining about how McCarthy’s story didn’t fit parts of the continuity Furman had established. And here’s the big thing I’ve always honed in on: Furman’s stories *sucked*. Look, if a comic writer does decide to keep all the elements from his predecessor’s works and rigidly follow their established continuity while still crafting their own successful story, good for them! That’s great and I’ll even praise them if they do a really good job of it (see: Barber following up brilliantly on Roberts and Roche’s Prowl thing in RID). But if a writer chooses to ignore parts of a shitty story someone wrote before them, in order to write a superior story? I will absolutely condone that, because I’d much rather have a good story that did its own thing than a shitty story that tried too hard to match up with everything. McCarthy may have thrown out parts of Furman’s arcs, but I don’t mourn the loss of those stories in the slightest; to do so would do a disservice to the story he clearly put a lot of effort and thought into writing.

Maybe McCarthy did make the Matrix an element of the story where it previously had not been, but in the process, he made the Matrix more interesting than it has been in the entire history of the franchise, and what’s wrong with that? You know what’s telling? Writers that came in after McCarthy, like Costa and Roberts, have happily continued to utilize the Matrix as McCarthy introduced and conceived of it. You know what they haven’t bothered to use? Ore-13, the Magnificence, or the Reapers, the stupid crap Furman tried to push in his stories. I think that should definitively show which of the concepts had more utility and staying power. McCarthy’s ideas were better by vote of his successors; we’ve seen so much of the current arcs built using elements from AHM as the foundation (‘Leadership’ *continuing* to be a theme throughout the Ongoing and now the two relaunched titles), while Furman’s concepts were left in the background (the middling Heart of Darkness being the only exception, and a very telling one, if you ask me).

I’ve always felt vindicated by the fact that, despite all the fans whining about AHM, IDW editorial continues to stand by the storyline and their belief in what it accomplished.

…The Senators were not Autobots. In fact, two of them were Ratbat and Shockwave....

IDW's pre-war Cybertron has no small number of back-writes and revisions. AHM is not the only contrary point in IDW G1.

Furman’s stories *sucked*.

Wow. Even I did not go quite that far about his pre-"Revalations" G1. But, they clearly were not delivering on IDW's expectations, which brings us to the next point.

But if a writer chooses to ignore parts of a shitty story someone wrote before them, in order to write a superior story? I will absolutely condone that, because I’d much rather have a good story that did its own thing than a shitty story that tried too hard to match up with everything.

There is actually evidence, in the form of writer and editor interviews, that many of these decisions were not McCarthy's. He was carrying out editorial directives. IDW wanted a break with Furman's run. They wanted a soft reboot. Those tend to be messy.

And, we know that IDW editorial staff has been inconsistent and feckless.

Writers that came in after McCarthy, like Costa and Roberts, have happily continued to utilize the Matrix as McCarthy introduced and conceived of it.

True. Stealing the damned thing from a dead Prime's tomb was a plot point in MtmtE.

(‘Leadership’ *continuing* to be a theme throughout the Ongoing and now the two relaunched titles), while Furman’s concepts were left in the background (the middling Heart of Darkness being the only exception, and a very telling one, if you ask me).

But, stories about leadership are supposed to be about spunky young rebels finding themselves in positions of great responsibility and being forced to grow in to their roles, living up to the potential that everybody always knew they had! When has IDW done that? They certainly did not do that in AHM!

Joking aside, "Heart of Darkness" was Abnett.

I’ve always felt vindicated by the fact that, despite all the fans whining about AHM, IDW editorial continues to stand by the storyline and their belief in what it accomplished.

This may have had more to do with changes in editorial policy than with any real faith in AHM.

Over the course of Costa's run on the book, IDW started to tighten up on things like consistency and the like. That may have made them less willing to toss out a previous story, even a controversial story such as AHM. (This is all speculation of course.)

I will concede that IDW has done less with McCarthy since AHM. Costa not only continued on "Cobra", but was given a chance to write his own (non-licensed) 5 issue miniseries. Of course, this could also mean that McCarthy found other work. (For fuck's sake, the guy travels and teaches swing-dancing. He gets paid to dance with chicks and show them how it is done. He is da man as far as I am concerned.) Again though, this is all speculation.


Dom