IDW Transformers Comics - retro reviews

[andersonh1]

More than Meets the Eye Annual 2012
Primus - You, Me, and other Revelations
James Roberts, Jimbo Salgado and Emil Cabaltierra

This is the annual that opens with everyone reduced in size and fighting Nanocons inside Ultra Magnus, before it moves on to Crystal City and the Revelation that the Circle of Light has vanished and the city is abandoned, but there is a Titan lying beneath the city. Cyclonus recites the creation story and we get a great, block-colored Marvel TF style flashback sequence that details the mythical creation story of this continuity's Transformers. This issue also does a lot to establish the strange nature of this continuity's Titans and how difficult it is to communicate with them. Magnus loosens up and decides that he prefers the company of the crazy Lost Light crew to the approval and respect of the Galactic Council.

Good story, less than stellar art on the present day sequences, though the retro-style flashbacks are excellent. Between this and the RID annual, a lot of origin story and history is laid out that the writers will come back to again and again, as I recall. Maybe it's just because the war is over, but MTMTE in particular spent a lot of time delving into Cybertron's past to find sources of conflict and drama, while RID for a long time was able to build its story more in the present day. The consequences of decisions made millions of years earlier come back to bite the cast of this book numerous times.

[andersonh1]

Robots in Disguise Annual 2012
Primus: All Good Things
John Barber, Brendan Cahill

This and the MTMTE annual are two halves of a whole. They both have the main cast encounter a Titan buried underground, and they both have retro-art and writing style segments detailing some of Cybertron's distant past. It's the same type of approach that the recent "Transformers 84" took in emulating the prose and art style of Marvel Transformers, and it's a lot of fun to read. The flashback segments go back to Nova Prime, Galvatron and the usual group of characters, in addition to Dail Atlas, and we get to see what Omega Supreme described in the Optimus Prime Spotlight: the creation of Monstructor and the launch of the first Ark. Omega Supreme reveals to Dai Atlas the presence of Metroplex, hidden beneath the surface of Cybertron.

The present day segments have Starscream, Metalhawk and a group of Autobots out in the wilds around Iacon looking for the missing Ironhide and the Dinobots. They find a Titan underground, and long story short, when he sees Starscream he declares him "The Chosen One" in the presence of a number of witnesses, something Starscream will use to his advantage to ultimately become sole ruler of Cybertron, though we're not there yet. In the end, Omega Supreme discusses the situation with Metalhawk in the same way he discussed the situation with Dai Atlas six million years earlier.

I'm not sure why these two books weren't simply storylines carried in the ongoing series. Both are enjoyable, both depict and expand on the history we've seen in past issues, particularly the Furman material which is the foundation for this universe. This one has more of a long term impact that the MTMTE Annual simply because of how prominent Starscream will become going forward, with this story being the start of all that. I enjoyed both annuals, but I would say the art is better in this one, and the story is more immediately consequential.

[andersonh1]

More than Meets the Eye #9–11
Shadowplay
James Roberts, Alex Milne

"Shadowplay" is a story that I did not comment on during our original discussion of MTMTE, though I think it was the story that later caused me to gripe that every time this series had a flashback to Cybertron's past that it was a dismal, depressing place to visit. And I also remember saying that coming up with a contrived explanation for why Shockwave and Whirl have similar faces was a very "fanfic" type of writing. There's still some validity to both of those complaints, but this re-read is all about re-evaluating this continuity years later, and while the storyline has some excesses, it's not a bad story, though it lacks some focus on just what genre it's trying to be. Is it a buddy cop story? A murder mystery? A heist caper? All of the above really, mixed in with some political intrigue and body horror just for good measure, set within the framing story of a number of bots sitting around at Swerve's telling this story to try and help Rung's brain begin making connections and functioning properly again.

#9 - a murdered Senator leads Chromedome and Prowl of mechaforensics to investigate. Meanwhile the derelict Drift was saved from a beating from two thugs by Orion Pax, and taken to Ratchet. Pax is in contact with an unnamed Senator who tells him that Nominus was assassinated by the Senate.

#10 - Continuing the story, another Senator is killed, while back in the present day we find that Red Alert has been found headless in the oil reserve. Rodimus blames Cyclonus, but First Aid finds that it was attempted suicide. The story details how the group deduced that a bomb made to look like the Matrix was placed in Nominus's chest, and would be detonated at the memorial service, with the resulting deaths blamed on the Decepticons. All of this was planned by Sentinel Prime, and Orion determines that they need to steal this fake Matrix.

#11 - This is the heist section of the story as Pax and his team do indeed manage to take the bomb, with a few complications along the way. Pax's Senator friend is arrested for one bit of defiance against the Senate too many, and like Whirl, he is subjected to both empurata and shadowplay. This is of course Senator Shockwave, once the friend of Orion Pax, stripped of both his appearance and his emotions. And we all know how that turned out...

MTMTE is livened up by the inclusion of Orion/Optimus for a story arc, and I quite like him as a daredevil, no-nonsense policeman, something we saw back in Chaos Theory. It seems obvious now that Roberts had all of these early MTMTE storylines in mind at that time. Structurally it's hard to find fault with the way the framing of the story in the present day is set up. This could easily be a very complicated story to tell, and it could easily have been a lot of exposition drily delivered, so I can't fault the writing on this front. And the different genres may well be deliberate homages

As an origin story for how Shockwave came to be as we've always known him, it's interesting that they chose to put it in this book rather than over in RID where Shockwave is actually a part of the cast. But then that book usually stays in the present day, while MTMTE often shows us the past in order to create a conflict in the present day, as the characters' actions come back to bite them thousands or millions of years later. The violence in this series remains pretty graphic, or would be if it wasn't robot violence. And I haven't even gone into the clinics yet, where bots can swap bodies for a little "body surfing" or commit suicide and end it all. Cybertron of the past is a brutal, often terrible place to see, no wonder this version of Megatron wanted to burn it all down. Who can blame him?

It's a story that's well drawn, and well-executed in terms of presentation. It has some interesting ideas and makes good use of MTMTE's extensive cast. I still don't quite know how to feel about it though. There's a certain level of enjoyment I have for some aspects of the story, while other parts of it are just needlessly cynical or violent. I guess at this point it's "mixed feelings" for me for an interesting story, well-told, that sometimes goes to some pretty dark places. I like it more than I dislike it, but I would not give it a rousing endorsement. And empurata still feels like fanfic.

[andersonh1]

Robots in Disguise #10
Syndromica (2)
John Barber, Livio Ramondelli

This is the crazy, all out of sequence time traveling planet issue. It's hard to follow, but it appears that Pax and the other characters are constantly jumping time zones on the same planet that Wheelie was once stranded on, and keep meeting up at different points. A few things can be gleaned from this issue though. Turmoil wears an eyepatch because Orion Pax hit him in the face and busted his optic. Wheelie's friend Varta from his Spotlight issue is part of a race who built Turmoil the time machine that Wheeljack found on his ship. And the shifting time zones explain how Reflector died during Spotlight Wheelie, but were seen alive later on Earth and Cybertron.

This is without a doubt the most jumbled narrative of any of these books, and honestly a bit frustrating to read because it jumps around. It's not impossible to figure out what happened, but it's more trouble than it's probably worth. But it's not just Barber playing with an out of sequence narrative, the next issue in the collected edition, MTMTE #12, will do the same thing, though not in quite the same way as this issue.

[andersonh1]

More than Meets the Eye #12–13
Before & After, Cybertronian Homesick Blues
James Roberts, Alex Milne, Brenda Cahill

"Before and After" is a fairly simple story made more complicated to follow because it's told by jumping back and forth between instances before the end of the issue and after, possibly in an attempt to liven up a pretty straightforward series of events. Note that it's nowhere near as complicated as Syndromica 2, with which it is paired in this book The main benefit of this issue is probably all the little tidbits of information about the varous characters that come out in dialogue as the story progresses (or regresses, as case may be). Issue 13 is the "Magnus can't hold his liquor" issue where a group of bots go on shore leave and banter and fool around with holomatter avatars. These are essentially two issues where the plot is an excuase to dump reveals about various characters and little else. They're entertaining as you read, but fairly forgettable after the fact. I think this is the point where I had started to sour on this book because it never seemed to actually be staying true to its premise, and the Lost Light just wandered around the galaxy while the characters quipped about everything. But that was a bit harsh, and after re-reading, I would say that by and large it's been a good first year for MTMTE, if not without its flaws.

Robots in Disguise #11
The End of the Beginning of the World
John Barber, Guido Guidi

Starscream uses the Titan's pronouncement that he is "the Chosen One" to gain the support of the crowds in Iacon, and he attempts to get Omega Supreme to endorse him, but Omega will not. This is the issue where Omega is badly wounded by an explosion and left on life support, and I honestly don't know if we ever see him again. He might be on life support for the rest of IDW's continuity for all I know. The Decepticon "pen" is destroyed by Prowl and Arcee, with this done to give the appearance that all the Decepticons had died in the explosion. Starscream plots to sieze total control of Cybertron, only to see Megatron walking into the city from the willderness.

This issue was where it started to become apparent that a number of dead characters probably weren't, because we actually saw the faked deaths this time and because it just didn't seem likely that Barber would kill so many prominent characters. And of course it was inevitable that Megatron would return at some point, so all credit to the writers for keeping him off-page for nearly a year, though of course as we'll find out he's the one responsible for what's been going on out in Cybertron's wilderness, so in retrospect he's been there all along even if we didn't realize it. This just feels like a much more consequential story than MTMTE 12 and 13, neither of which did much to advance that book's overall plot, while this issue took RID's plot several huge leaps forward.

Spotlight: Megatron
Story and art by Nick Roche

I guess the placement of this issue here is meant to remind the reader how Megatron got the stealth bomber body, remind readers of the last time Starscream took command, and to remind readers of Megatron and Starscream's dysfunctional relationship, because the events depicted here took place back during Costa's run, and honestly contradict Starscream's blase "I know you'd be back" attitude then. Here he's terrifed and dispirited, convinced Megatron is going to inflict major pain for Starscream's failed stewardship of the Decepticon forces. He inherited a nearly victorious army and let them fall apart, doing nothing to take advantage of the galaxy-wide victory they'd won during AHM. How much you enjoy this issue is going to depend on how much you enjoy Roche's attempt to explore how Megatron and Starscream view each other. There's no new ground covered in this issue, and I was more interested in the next chapter of the story than I was in going back to already-settled events. But the placement here offers the most value by allowing us to contrast Starscream's leadership then and how he approaches things now.

[andersonh1]

"Signal to Noise"
James Roberts

This volume ends with a text story, which I vaguely remember from the back of one of the MTMTE issues, but I can't recall if I ever actually read it or not. I didn't remember anything about it. It's four pages following Rung as he reflects on his past, both distant and recent, with interludes featuring the other Lost Light crewmembers shopping and quipping on Hedonia, so those portions are set during issue 13. Rung tries to warn Rodimus about the voice that Red Alert heard from below decks and Rodimus brushes him off, saying he'll look into it. And of course he's talking about Overlord.

So what exactly was the point of this story? I'm not quite sure. It's fine, but I had expected it to fill in some gaps somewhere or offer extra background information, but it's more of an addendum to MTMTE. Maybe it was cut scenes from issue 13?

[Shockwave]

I certainly think Starscream winds up coming into his own... sort of. When he gets elected to lead the post war Cybertron, there are call backs to Spotlight: Megatron as he himself compares his ability to lead. Maybe that was the point of the issue, setting up the story later. Here, it's about being prepared to lead, later it will be about the ability to lead.

[andersonh1]

I think so, at least in part. It does show that Starscream does a better job at being in charge with his second chance than he did during the first.

Before moving on to the next book, I had intended to stop and take a look back at the end of "Phase 1" and offer some overall thoughts and impressions. But I'll tack the first three volumes of "Phase 2" on as well.

Before starting this re-read, I'd have told you that Simon Furman's era was my favorite, and so far that has not changed. I still think he did a fine job rebooting the G1 Transformers to be both familiar and yet taken in some different directions. He borrows some familiar ideas from past continuities and then adds some new ones. I especially enjoy the disguise angle really being played up, and the cold war, spy vs. spy aspect of the series with facsimile humans and the diguises actually being used to hide the presence of giant alien robots at war on Earth. I think it may have been something of a mistake to start out with not one but two clandestine groups already aware of the Transformers being there, since it seems like a journey towards discovering the presence of the Transformers might have made for some interesting storylines. I'd have said Furman was the foundation for everything that followed, but I did not quite remember just how true that was. Every writer that followed him would use elements of his storylines, most notably the Dead Universe and the Heart of Darkness, but facsimiles and holomatter avatars were also used again, and his human characters would all appear sporadically down the line. This era still feels truncated, even with the wrap up issues Furman was given. There was a lot of potential in his setup, only some of which paid off before he was gone.

McCarthy gets a lot of flak for "All Hail Megatron", which has always seemed to me to be a more violent take on a more traditional G1 setup. It ties into Furman's earlier work better than is commonly asserted. Furman had evidently planned to have the Decepticons conquer Earth after the Autobots left, so McCarthy's basic idea is no great departure. I like the art for McCarthy's storyline, I like the character beats for the most part, I just think the pacing of the early issues is a bit drawn out, though in collected format it works well enough. But this era feels small in comparison to the first, with the action largely confined to Earth and Cybertron rather than the much wider canvas of multiple planets, multiple universes and past and present that we got with Furman. The IDW Transformers universe contracts here.

Then it's on to Costa's series, which starts well, stumbles a bit in the second half of the first year, and then picks up again and finishes strong with some good ideas. If Furman was "cold war in space" and McCarthy was "Earth gets conquered, then what?", Costa's series is about learning how to change in order to handle the peace. From changing the command structure to building bridges with the humans to comparing the rapidly learning and adaption of humans compared to the static, locked-in behavior patterns learned and reinforced over millions of years of war, this series is about how that behavior does not translate to peacetime. Bumblebee, completely unsuited to be in charge, is nonetheless made the leader and has to fight for everything he wants done. I'm not a big fan of Bumblebee, he's fine as a supporting cast member (and I think has been handled far better by Ruckley in the current series than he ever was in IDW1), but he's not suited to be in charge, making his tenure as a weak leader something quite different as the Autobots pull in different directions. The Decepticons do the same under Starscream, also an unfit leader, until Optimus and Megatron return and assert themselves. I had never quite noted the parallels before, with both factions left with flawed leaders, resulting in disorder and a breakdown in discipline. It's only when Optimus and Megatron return and reassert themselves that the old factions begin to reassemble.

It's an era of three different and distinct visions of what the Transformers should be, with McCarthy and Costa more or less building on what came before while taking things in their own direction. Both feel like attempts at course correction by IDW, trying to find something that can be sustained for the long run after Furman's sales slipped too far for comfort, though as I've said elsewhere, I don't think that's entirely his fault. McCarthy and Costa certainly got their share of strident criticism, as is only to be expected in the age of internet fandom. McCarthy's story feels like a stopgap, something to fill a year while editorial decided on a long term replacement. I'm not sure that these three eras and the associated Spotlights and mini-series necessarily form one cohesive era, whatever the book branding might say. I would have said at one point that Phase 2 was post-war and Phase 1 was wartime, but the Autobots during Costa's run are quite adamant that the war is over, so that's not quite the case. IDW published far more post-war comics than wartime.

Costa spent some time examining the nature of the Transformers when it comes to change and contrasting them with the humans, but James Roberts will delve far more deeply into the same qeustion. After the break from Earth-based stories when Cybertron and the Lost Light become the default settings, the tone is different, more post-modern and not so earnestly straightforward, and a lot of inspiration seems to have been drawn from Last Stand of the Wreckers, which was perhaps the best-received mini-series of Phase 1. YMMV on whether or not that was a good thing. As I'm re-reading More Than Meets the Eye, it's Last Stand of the Wreckers, the series in terms of tone, violence levels, worldbuilding and dialogue. And it will change emphasis at the drop of a hat, from humor to horror and back again, sometimes blending them both. Robots in Disguise is messy post-war politics and is much more straightforward than MTMTE. There is a completely different look and feel to these two ongoings compared to what came before, and a sense that IDW found a direction they liked and committed to it. And it worked for a long time. It also seems to me that rather than focusing on the present, there is a heavy emphasis on what happened in the past coming back to haunt the characters. Sometimes it was the very distant past. There is a lot of mythology and world-building that goes well beyond Nova Prime and the Ark-1. There's a lot more exploration of who the Transformers are and how they fit into the universe. Phase 1 is broadly about the war and the messy consequences, while Phase 2 is about the Transformers themselves and their history.

[andersonh1]

I was giving this some more thought while reading "Sins of the Wreckers" last night, and it seems to me that one of the problems with IDW's original continuity as a whole is that there are very few consistently sympathetic moral characters to root for. Every major character, even Optimus Prime (who should be the moral center around which the series is built) are morally compromised, often massively so. Some years ago my wife and I were watching the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, but we never finished the series because it got to the point where there were no sympathetic characters. I did not care what happened to any of them, and if they all died horribly, it's probably what they had earned. Sometimes IDW's Transformers feels the same way.

Now that's not always the case. Post-resurrection Ironhide is a decent character. So is Windblade, Wheeljack, Tailgate, and are others that I could list out. But there is often a cynicism to the writing across all the series that bleeds over into the characters and how they act, and it just wears me down after a while. Many of the stories are one group of flawed characters fighting another group of flawed characters, and it's hard to cheer when either side prevails. I often end up with more of a "ok, that happened" reaction. To be fair, that's not always the case, I have mostly been enjoying these books more this time around than I did when I originally read them, but at the same time I can see why I got tired of them and stopped reading. It's been more apparent when I've read so much in so short a time than it was stretched out over years.

As I said, it was "Sins of the Wreckers" that brought this line of thinking on. In that book you have a group of killers (the Wreckers) fighting to retrieve Prowl (IDW's most "ends justify the means" character of all) from Tarantulus and his allies. Tarantulus is an extremist, an amoral scientist who sees everyone else as material to experiment upon. About the only sympathetic characters in the book are Verity and Stakeout. The Wreckers are nominally "in the right" here, but in most ways they're only marginally more moral than Tarantulus. The story was interesting and so were the character interactions, but at the same time it was hard to care when one terrible group of people beat another terrible group of people. I guess the outcome is marginally better if the Wreckers win, but that's hardly a rousing endorsement. Maybe it's realistic, but am I reading these books for realism?

I guess what I'm saying is that a number of idealistic and admirable characters would have done a lot to give me as a reader someone to root for and symapthize with, rather than leave me constantly searching for someone to care about in a massive cast where it's hard to root for far too many of the characters.

[Ursus mellifera]

This is the same reason why I never watched the Sopranos. Everybody's awful, so who gives a shit?