TF Views

Redumption: one shot by Barber/Ramondelli
Barber seems to do a bit better with the one-shot format than he does with the ongoing series. And, I am a huge fan of Ramondelli's art.

Barber seems to be back-writing Furman's origin for the Dinobots (from "Spotlight: Grimlock"). Apparently, they were created by being exposed to warp stone, erm.... dark energon, rather than just being a bunch of 'bots who chose strange alternate modes. Not sure what Barber is trying to add here.

There are a few points where Barber veers too much in to "human robot" territory. But, that seems to be the current tone of TF.

Grade: B/C

Dominic wrote:Barber seems to be back-writing Furman's origin for the Dinobots (from "Spotlight: Grimlock"). Apparently, they were created by being exposed to warp stone, erm.... dark energon, rather than just being a bunch of 'bots who chose strange alternate modes. Not sure what Barber is trying to add here.

This is sort of a retcon to a back-write... This origin was first shown in the "Monstrosity" series, written by Chris Metzen and Flint Dille. After encountering "cyber-morphic predators" in the caves beneath the Toraxxis Plains, the Dynobot's medic (Skar) used his theory of "dynamic alt-mode adaption" to scan the beasts to give the Dynobots their dino forms in order to fight back. For whatever reason, Barber decided to change that here, explaining their dino forms as the result of this corrupted energon instead (which was also in "Monstrosity", but only as a means to explain the Dinobots erratic violent behavior). In the follow up series, "Primacy", the Dinobots were shown having been restored to their vehicular forms and the corrupt energon purged from their systems. Furman's "Spotlight: Shockwave" is thus retroactively the second time the Dinobots had taken on dinosaur forms in the IDW universe.

I thought the Dille/Metzen stuff was not supposed to count towards the current IDW series. If anything, it was supposed to be vaguely tied to the old Sunbow series.

Who decided they had to bring it in? And, why is Barber reconciling disparate plot elements in the clumsiest possible way?

Why am I even reading this series?


(Moral and mental deficiency likely play in to the answers for all of these questions.)

Dominic wrote:I thought the Dille/Metzen stuff was not supposed to count towards the current IDW series. If anything, it was supposed to be vaguely tied to the old Sunbow series.

Nope, they were always meant to be a part of the IDW universe.

Dille's stuff seemed like the intent was to be vague enough that it could fit into any of the continuities--Sunbow, FOC, IDW, Aligned, whatever.

Why did Barber have to go out of his way to make it fit, when he could have just ignored it? (It is not like Dille's stuff was good, or even popular, enough to warrant that kind of editorial push.)

Onslaught Six wrote:Dille's stuff seemed like the intent was to be vague enough that it could fit into any of the continuities--Sunbow, FOC, IDW, Aligned, whatever.

It wasn't that vague at all... They reference stuff that happens in the IDW universe specifically in those stories.

Dominic wrote:Why did Barber have to go out of his way to make it fit, when he could have just ignored it? (It is not like Dille's stuff was good, or even popular, enough to warrant that kind of editorial push.)

He didn't go out of his way to make it fit, those stories were always meant to be part of the IDW universe and so already took the established continuity into mind. And they establish some pretty important parts of the IDW continuity as well. Like how Orion Pax got the Matrix and became Optimus Prime.

They also, apparently, had a conflicting Dinobot origin...which is the obvious answer to Dom's question.

It's important to always remember where Barber got his start on TF. It was Sector Seven, a human-focused Movie book that aimed entirely to reconcile the numerous (and I do mean numerous) prequel Movie bullshit comics...and apparently did it well enough. A lot of his early RID run was all about this too, like reconciling the Reflector "problem" and other stuff like that. Barber gets off on taking disparate fiction and fixing plot holes, the way Roberts gets off on making fangirls cry over faceless machines or almost killing characters before revealing they are actually okay in the next issue.

They also, apparently, had a conflicting Dinobot origin...which is the obvious answer to Dom's question.

And, Barber reconciled it....by having redundant events happen in the same timeline.

Onslaught Six wrote:They also, apparently, had a conflicting Dinobot origin...which is the obvious answer to Dom's question.

There wasn't anything conflicting about the Dinobots origin... Like I explained above, in "Monstrosity" they had to take dino forms based on "cyber-morphic predators" on Cybertron, but they were soon restored back to their vehicular forms in "Primacy". Eventually they took on dino forms again in "Spotlight Shockwave", this time based on Earth's dinosaurs as a means to protect themselves from energon radiation, like in Beast Wars.

Dominic wrote:And, Barber reconciled it....by having redundant events happen in the same timeline.

All Barber did here was change how the Dinobots got their dino forms in "Monstrosity", explaining it as a result of corrupt energon rather than "dynamic alt-mode adaptation" technology.