TF Views

I'm thinking the Combiner Hunters one-shot discussion should go here. I bought it today and flipped through it, but haven't had the chance to review it yet. It basically looks like an origin story for Victorion though, and she's another combiner who is created inadvertently from what I can tell. Anyone else read this? I'll probably read it this evening and post a more thorough review in a day or two.

Combiner Hunters
As stated above, this is pretty much an origin story for Victorion. And aside from Ironhide and possibly the badgeless bot, I think it's an all-girl issue. Arcee heads to Camina to either retrieve or destroy the Enigma of Combination, because apparently she shares Galvatron's view that Combiners are abominations, and she doesn't want Starscream to have it. Chromia and Windblade pursue her out of the city into a desert where they run into a group of "Torchbearers", and it doesn't take much to figure out that the Torchbearers will become the next Combiner, Victorion. And that's just what happens as they try to prevent Arcee from destroying the Enigma, because they see it as a holy relic of the Primes. There's a fight between the three individual bots and the Combiner before Windblade talks her down and the Torchbearers separate back into themselves.

The book is well drawn, and while the plot is perfectly serviceable, it's also very predictable. There's not a surprise to be found in this book, and the enjoyment mainly comes from character interaction and the very nice art. Enjoyable but not essential.

Is the factionless 'bot likely to be the Sixth member of the team?

'Combiner Hunters' is a misleading title. Not that I expected Arcee, Windblade and Chroma would hunt down combiners, but it just seems like an odd thing to call the comic. Anyway, yeah it was a fairly uneventful issue that really only served to introduce Victorion. It was kind of interesting why Arcee was trying to destroy the Engima though. It's not that she shares Galvatron's views, but rather, she says she doesn't think bots should be changed against their will. Given Jhiaxus' other experiment was a combiner, I'd wondered how she'd react to all these new combiners. Also really enjoyed Windblade's explanation behind why they couldn't just destroy the Enigma with peace being worth protecting even if it is imperfect.

TFW2005 also posted concept art of the Torchbearers from artist Sara Pitre-Durocher from her tumblr page.

Combiner Hunters.

So, why exactly are we using art by Corin Howell and colors by Thomas Deer on Windblade vol 2 when Combiner Hunters' art by Sara Pitre-Durocher and colors by Yamaishi are an option? Pitre-Durocher and Yamaishi knocked it out of the park, I was totally satisfied with the gravity of their work AND they fit the bill of "more comics by women", their work was comfortable balance between Milne and Ramondelli for my tastes.

As to the story itself, it was readable but disappointing. It really is misleading a title and utterly without surprises, you guys are bang on with that. The biggest surprise is how badly it misses the tone of the SDCC set it's based off, I was going to say it's altogether misleading but it's possible these characters could still enjoy that storyline and this is the launching pad... if you squint hard enough... and believe with all your heart. So it's fine but not enough.

Dominic wrote:Is the factionless 'bot likely to be the Sixth member of the team?

No, I think you're referring to the use of "badgeless", he means the Badgeless as in Starscream's secret police who wear faceless armor. The 6th member of the team is the repaint of Groove, and on the team he turns into their gun which is WAY cooler but sadly not how the toy will be.

JediTricks wrote:The 6th member of the team is the repaint of Groove, and on the team he turns into their gun which is WAY cooler but sadly not how the toy will be.

Don't you mean "she"? Victorion and all of her components are female Transformers.

Seemed like Livio Ramondelli always forgot to draw the 6th member of the combiner teams in the Combiner Wars story. By contrast, it's almost funny to see Sara Pitre-Durocher remembered to include Rust Dust but made her a gun instead of the chest piece the toy actually transforms into.

Sparky Prime wrote:Don't you mean "she"? Victorion and all of her components are female Transformers.

Sure. I was thinking of the Groove mold, I suppose; and also Rust Dust was drawn pretty masculine.

Seemed like Livio Ramondelli always forgot to draw the 6th member of the combiner teams in the Combiner Wars story. By contrast, it's almost funny to see Sara Pitre-Durocher remembered to include Rust Dust but made her a gun instead of the chest piece the toy actually transforms into.

It's disappointing that it won't work out that way, Rust Dust made a good gun. Pire-Durocher got the alignment of the copter blades accurate enough (you'd have to move the vehicle tail up, but the spinning blade does barely work, minimal clearance), there had to be some communication with Hasbro on the little things, so that's a very strange miss.

Apparently the trade of Combiner Wars features a few corrections to the artwork. The scenes with the Protectobots have been fixed with Streetwise and Blades (with Alpha Bravo's head) appearing rather than Grotusque and Mainframe (Starscream's dialog was also altered to say just "You!" rather than "You five!" towards the 6 'bots), and in part 5 when 7 (plus Scoop) Constructicons were shown, Scrapper has been removed.