New Drift TPB

[Shockwave]

I know what a Nazgul is, but I don't get why Thundercracker would be yelling it while flying and shooting at Autobot City. I mean, I'm not seeing the connection... did the voice actor for Thundercracker play a Nazgul in the LOTR movies? Cause then it would be funny. Horribly obscure, but funny. I dunno, it just seems too random. Random can be funny, but this isn't.

[Dominic]

There is probably some tenuous connection of the sort that only people who do not need the wiki in the first place would get.

Dom

[Dominic]

I have not read it yet. Anderson, you can still beat me this week....

[andersonh1]

And so I shall...

I finally noticed that Wing has yellow eyes, and Drift has blue eyes. Finally, I can tell them apart!

This is the all out war/action issue, as the small group of Knights and Drift take on the aliens in a battle on the surface. Drift passes up a chance to betray them and side with Lockdown and the aliens, leading to a pretty decent confrontation with Lockdown. He and Drift fight, and both come across as sane individuals, fighting for something they believe in. We may have to add Lockdown to the very short list of non-psycho/thug Decepticons. He definitely needs to return.

Wing's death was predictible. What I didn't really see coming was how well matched the aliens were to the Cybertronians... at least until Dai Atlas raises the city and brings everyone into the battle, which ends it quickly. Drift officially renounces his alliegiance to the Decepticons, and Lockdown leaves, having heard him say it. The story wraps up with Drift leaving on his own to find his own peace. The final pages show him in the present day.

The McCarthy haters will probably gripe and complain, but aside from a few obvious things happening, this was a good, solid, character-based storyline that added some depth to the Autobot/Decepticon war, and expanded the universe of the Transformers by showing and defining the third unaligned faction. And Drift's story is about one Decepticon finding redemption, which is a theme I appreciate, and one we don't see much of with both factions being pretty hardened against each other. I've really enjoyed it.

[Dominic]

Oh curse my foolish bravado!

I will have a review up either today or tomorrow.


Dom
-kind of busy at the moment.

[Dominic]

-Tranformers (Drift) #4:
And...the origin ends. There are no real shocks or twists. (Drift makes the big decision at the end of issue 3.) McCarthy sets up for more Crystal City focused stories. (And, if the Perceptor story in "All Hail Megatron Coda" is anything to go by, there is at least one more important even in Crystal City's future, namely being re-hidden and/or wiped out.) The last few pages seem to have been tacked on by Hasbro in order to make the "Generations" figure match up with the comic. The explanation for Drift's long sword reads a bit like fanfic, (and it does indeed have kanji on the blade for some reason). Obviously, some people are simply going to hate this series for existing. It is neither excellent nor awful, fish nor fowl. It is an origin story, and that is all.
Grade: B/C

[BWprowl]

I was mainly happy that they actually gave a real reason for the long sword only being used in 'Dire Circumstances' besides "It Is Special".

[Dominic]

The problem is that the reason comes across as the kind of thing one would find in a fanfic, which for Drift is a very *bad* thing. "The sword drains the life force of those who use it" is just....awful.

I do not know enough about McCarthy to be sure, but part of me wonders if he put that in just to rile people up.

[BWprowl]

Eh, I didn't mind it. Spark-powered weaponry has been seen in TF before, and given the self-sacrificing nature of the Knights faction, it makes sense in terms of characterization.

What sort of reason would you give for them not using the big sword all the time? Frankly, something like 'Because we has honors!' would be even more fanfic-ish.

[138 Scourge]

What sort of reason would you give for them not using the big sword all the time? Frankly, something like 'Because we has honors!' would be even more fanfic-ish.

The sword's particularly dangerous because of...something, I don't know. Crazy energy fields it generates or something. So the sword's got an onboard computer that analyzes the situation around it and won't let the sheathe release it unless things are really, really bad.

That's more of a "how would I play with the 'only in the direst circumstances'" thing more than a "why it's only the direst circumstances, but still.

Like, dig it, say Drift's fighting Bludgeon or whatever, and just having his ass kicked clean off. So he figures, "Well, I'm boned UNLESS..." and tries to draw the sword, only to hear "Access denied" and find the damn thing doesn't think that Drift's own safety is worth letting the sword out?

I guess draining dude's life force is okay, too.