TF Views

That is a sentence where almost every part of it is something I thought I would never see. Thought McCarthy was done with the brand, thought Drift was being shuffled along all out-of-sight-out-of-mind, never thought we would see MOTHER FUCKING GIGATRON in an IDW comic.

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... 987634.jpg

I have to buy this comic when it starts coming out. I have to. I can't not.

Granted, at this point we don't know ANYTHING about the character on the cover--not even that his name is Gigatron, I'm making assumptions here--other than...well, he's very clearly Gigatron. I doubt they would go as far as to try and call him Megatron in any form, and they thankfully avoided that other Gigatron fiasco with Overlord, so I think we're good on assuming that's probably going to at least be his name.

Knowing McCarthy's tendency to stick to primary source materials like tech specs more than anything else, I'm hoping Gigs here will at least superficially resemble his character in Car Robots--a huge dude who talks a lot of shit and can't back it up at all except when he totally does.

Nice! I've never seen Car Robots, so I look at the guy as RID Megatron, but it's still cool to see him showing up.

I was in for this book already, so this is just gravy.

Given that he rubbed elbows with Dai Atlas last time he got his own series, I guess Drift's 'thing' is going to be interacting with Japanese-series characters. I am totally okay with this. Maybe he can bump into Ginrai sometime and he'll be way better-handled than FunPub's attempt to introduce the character into Western continuity.

Onslaught Six wrote:Granted, at this point we don't know ANYTHING about the character on the cover--not even that his name is Gigatron, I'm making assumptions here--other than...well, he's very clearly Gigatron. I doubt they would go as far as to try and call him Megatron in any form, and they thankfully avoided that other Gigatron fiasco with Overlord, so I think we're good on assuming that's probably going to at least be his name.

Maybe he'll spend the first issue or so intermittently claiming to be Megatron and Overlord.

Knowing McCarthy's tendency to stick to primary source materials like tech specs more than anything else, I'm hoping Gigs here will at least superficially resemble his character in Car Robots--a huge dude who talks a lot of shit and can't back it up at all except when he totally does.

A series of skirmishes with a new enemy preclude a large battle that's coming, built up over the mini-series as something that Gigatron could greatly take part in. In the final issue, the stage is set, and the enemy army crests over the horizon...

Gigatron transforms to bat mode and flies away.

Gigatron is a pretty big surprise. Kinda odd seeing him with Decepticon symbols instead of Predacon. Really nice to see so many Beast-era Transformers showing up in the IDW comics lately. Wonder if they'll make a reference to him being Skybyte's former commander or some such...

I finally read issue 2 last night, getting ready for a trip to the comic shop to pick up new comics.

The story is fairly simple but effective, Ratchet and Drift and some confused Decepticons on a remote planet, Drift is all emotionally f'ed up and not a kiss-ass, Ratchet is trying to keep Drift from getting himself killed and Gigatron has them captured looking for the army of stone while his goons may be into their own thing. I loved seeing Gigatron's weapon combine to be a double-bladed staff tearing up the temple, that made me smile.

What didn't make me smile was the art. I don't know why the pencils were started by Guidi and finished by Stephen Baskerville, but Baskerville seems to have brought the book's art quality down to almost Scioli's level of "WHY???", perhaps in a misguided attempt to take us back to the Marvel book feeling. But this ain't the UK in the '80s, and his inking on Issue 1 was fine, so I have to assume Guidi couldn't finish this one.

The art is definitely trying to be good retro. But, the level of success is debatable.

Over-all, it is not a bad series. But, I am not terribly in love with it so far.

I'm trade-waiting this one. I wasn't all that inspired when I flipped through the first issue, but I would like to read it at some point. I'll just wait and read the whole story at one time.

On a limited miniseries that's only 4 issues, I don't understand the desire to wait for the trade. What's the benefit? Saving a few bucks, a paltry extra feature? Or is it story impatience?

JediTricks wrote:On a limited miniseries that's only 4 issues, I don't understand the desire to wait for the trade. What's the benefit? Saving a few bucks, a paltry extra feature? Or is it story impatience?

It's not financial, no, not for a miniseries. But since I didn't feel like picking up the the first issue when it was out, I'd end up buying multiple issues now to get caught up, and at this point I may as well just wait and get the trade. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Compilations look and store better on shelves.

And, it you are going to only get one, it makes sense to wait for the one that is going to have more stuff. ("Uber", "Final Crisis" and "Last Stand of the Wreckers" are all worth getting in hardcover because of the extra material. Had I the money, I would buy the "Absolute Edition" of "Final Crisis", which has more story content and more back-matter.)