Topic: Transformers (Read 20883 times)

Cannon · « **Reply #60 on:** May 08, 2008, 12:02:49 PM »

We'd both buy it. Helps that I recently picked up The Killing Joke hardcover (the re-coloring and brief comic by Bolland in the back is worth the price of admission, but I go on any longer and this'll belong in the Funnybooks thread).

I very much dig the "new" Wreck-Gar. The Fooly Cooly influence is there (visually and character-wise), but after ten seconds of thought, you realize he's basically the same Wreck-Gar, sans Junkion tribe. Teletraan I says Idle was slated to voice him, but I'm glad they went with Weird Al. The first good reason is obvious, and the second is that Yankovic would be easier to get into the studio (he pops up in my cartoony shows with some frequency) if Isenberg wants to use the character again. I hope he does, even though he's rather a throwaway creation.

If anyone needs me, I'll be listening to my inner eight-year-old and watching this episode for the hajillionth time.

Thad · « **Reply #61 on:** June 20, 2008, 10:23:18 AM »

My favorite part of the new Transformers Movie Prequel Special comic is the shot where the computer screen in Sector 7 is a screen grab of someone searching Mac Help for how to do a screen grab.

Roger · « **Reply #62 on:** July 04, 2008, 04:36:14 AM »

And so, depending on which region you live in, Transformers Animated Season 2 has drawn (or will draw) to a close.

I didn't watch EVERY episode, but hey. It made me smile when I did.

Roger · « **Reply #63 on:** July 09, 2008, 11:57:46 PM »

The new Classics toys are hitting stores now under the "Universe" moniker.

While Animated's toys are all about smooth transformations that are clever, Universe is as fiddly as movie was before it.

Prowl in particular reminds me of Alternators/RiD toys, and not in the GOOD way.

On the other hand, this is like the first Octane toy in 23 years, and he's glorious.

And Sunstreaker has the BEST transformation gimmick ever. You rotate his chest piece 180 degrees for robot mode, and as you do that, his head emerges and his big ol' head fins unfold via springs.

HE'S THE FUCKING MEGAZORD.

Thad · « **Reply #64 on:** July 10, 2008, 10:25:02 PM »

Transformers: Saga of the Allspark #1 is a thing I advise nobody else to blow $4 on.

How many fucking different perspectives on the events immediately before the movie can they fucking write?

Norondor · « **Reply #65 on:** July 10, 2008, 10:46:18 PM »

How many times will you continue to buy comics featuring a different perspective of the events immediately before the movie?

Guild · « **Reply #66 on:** July 10, 2008, 11:01:41 PM »

Nor, just because it's been done before doesn't preclude it being done again better.

Thanks Thad for the heads up, and though I don't read comics, I'm sure someone appreciates your information. *glare at Norondor*

Thad · « **Reply #67 on:** July 11, 2008, 12:28:11 AM »

Quote from: Norondor on July 10, 2008, 10:46:18 PM

How many times will you continue to buy comics featuring a different perspective of the events immediately before the movie?

Thank you, Norondor, for pointing out that my stupid purchase was stupid; obviously describing it as "a thing I advise nobody else to blow $4 on" was far too subtle on my part.

But yes, it's fair to note at this point that the IDW books fall into the following categories:

Stories set in the movie universe. I don't think I've read a good one of these yet, and, as I pointed out and Norondor very helpfully pointed out again immediately afterward, should stop buying them.
Reprints of UK Marvel books. Not bad if you don't hate Simon Furman.
The Spotlight series. Far and away the best Transformers comics out right now.
The whatever-you-call-it main series of miniseries. Infiltration/Escalation/Devastation. These were not very good, but Devastation started tying things to Spotlight, which shows promise. I like the sound of All Hail Megatron, but haven't cracked issue #1 yet. I will let you all know how I like it, and then Norondor can marshal his awesome deductive power and tell you if I should have bought it or not.

Norondor · « **Reply #68 on:** July 11, 2008, 09:46:52 AM »

Hey, look, if i didn't make that post, probably Shinra would have had to.

Thad · « **Reply #69 on:** July 13, 2008, 01:03:59 AM »

Quote from: Thad on July 11, 2008, 12:28:11 AM

I like the sound of All Hail Megatron, but haven't cracked issue #1 yet. I will let you all know how I like it, and then Norondor can marshal his awesome deductive power and tell you if I should have bought it or not.

It was pretty good! No twists yet, just the setup we already knew was coming -- the Autobots have been forced to abandon Earth, and the Decepticons swoop in and take over; finally robotic beings rule the world.

Shit blows up, and that's about it. McCarthy executes the story with a refreshing lack of bullshit; he spends precious little time pretending we're supposed to give a fuck about any of the humans in the story. In fact, he pretty much takes a backseat and lets Guidi handle it, with the ultimate result that we get what amounts to an extended widescreen action sequence. The Hitch influence is obvious but welcome.

So Nor, what are your thoughts?

Norondor · « **Reply #70 on:** July 13, 2008, 01:58:24 AM »

Seems like it's a good buy... if you like that sort of thing.

Thad · « **Reply #71 on:** July 13, 2008, 11:50:58 AM »

Spotlight: Cyclonus starts to ramp up the Nemesis Prime/Dead Universe plot, and ties a bunch of the previous Spotlight stars together.

The big question mark is what happens between here and All Hail Megatron #1, regarding the reveal at the end of the latter. [spoiler]Prime's working just fine here, but quite a bit the worse for wear in AHM.[/spoiler]

Thad · « **Reply #72 on:** July 17, 2008, 11:23:00 PM »

Reign of Starscream is turning out to be the only movie tie-in comic to be satisfying so far. Not great, but decent enough.

Thad · « **Reply #73 on:** July 19, 2008, 11:09:31 AM »

Spotlight continues to be good with the Hardhead issue. It goes all the way back to the Nightbeat ish back at the beginning of the series and starts to fit the pieces together.

I go back and forth on Roche's art, but I think it's great here. I WOULD complain that, in the beginning, where they touch down on a planet and nobody's moving -- I realize it's hard to distinguish characters who are moving from characters who aren't in a static art form like comics, but it can be done more skillfully than here. Go from one panel to the next and have the Autobots change poses and everything else stay the same -- pretty simple.

Thad · « **Reply #74 on:** July 25, 2008, 09:33:55 PM »

Nrama on the SDCC Transformers panel.

The Destiny mini: another movie tie-in, but it's by the guys doing Reign of Starscream, the only good one yet, so it might be okay.

Maximum Dinobots: blah blah Furman loves Grimlock. Could go either way.

The 13: awfully vague on this one, to the point that they don't even say what universe it's set in. My guess is they'll do like Megatron Origin and make it something that could fit into either G1 or IDW.

Roger · « **Reply #75 on:** July 28, 2008, 01:30:17 AM »

Meanwhile, Hasbro's Transformer panel gave me a handjob with both fists. Hound is one of the few Transformers I can remember growing up with, and I always loved his chummy good natured attitude and Jimmy Stewart-esque voice.

So yeah. This, with updated Cyclonus and Inferno is just the most glorious news of the con for me.

Thad · « **Reply #76 on:** August 21, 2008, 01:25:02 PM »

All Hail Megatron #2 isn't as good as #1, but it moves the story forward a little more.

Lots more humans this issue, including the first appearance of somebody named Witwicky in the IDW Universe. (This one's named Danny, but he's a colonel with graying hair rather than a child who hangs out with Grimlock and whines a lot.)

It's similar to the movie in that it's all about a Decepticon strike and a military response, but the whole teen soap opera story's been cut out. I've seen this happen before -- Ultimate X-Men certainly felt like the first X-Men movie with some of the crap cut out.

Anyway. Eh, it's okay.

Thad · « **Reply #77 on:** August 23, 2008, 12:45:53 PM »

Spotlight: Doubledealer doesn't really spotlight Doubledealer at all. He's pretty much inconsequential to the story. That was always the risk of having a major arc play out in Spotlight, but the last couple issues managed to make it work all right. This one doesn't -- ironically, it would have probably worked better if they'd switched the titles between this one and Hot Rod.

And hoo boy Furman sure does love him some stupidly-named MacGuffins. How many were introduced this issue? The Darkness, the Magnificence, and three different strategically-placed objects that the Autobots are going to have to split up and destroy, which presumably also have stupid names.

Spotlight's still the best Transformers series. But this wasn't one of the better issues.

Tangentially: what the fuck is wrong with numbers? The first two issues were numbered -- Shockwave was #1, Nightbeat was #2. Then they abandoned the numbers, and EVERY issue is #1.

I understand the psychology -- long-running series are daunting, and #1 implies "you can pick this up without knowing anything about what's going on".

Well, the first problem is, that's no longer true. With the Revelations arc, you absolutely fucking DO have to read the issues in order, they are NOT self-contained, and they DO rely heavily on events that have occurred throughout the series to date.

The second problem is sorting the fuckers. My comic inventory list contains the following:

Quote

Transformers Spotlight: Shockwave, Nightbeat, Hot Rod, Sixshot, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave, Kup, Galvatron, Optimus Prime, Ramjet, Arcee, Mirage, Blaster, Grimlock, Wheelie, Cyclonus, Hardhead, Doubledealer

That's no fucking way to sort comics. You know what's a GOOD way to sort comics? "Transformers: Spotlight #1-#18", God dammit.

Not only is it much more concise on my inventory sheet, but it's more convenient for actually pulling the books out to reread -- if I'm thumbing through the stack and I want to find Optimus Prime and I pull up Ultra Magnus, I don't know if I should be going forward or back in the stack, or by how much, without looking at a fucking decoder sheet. If I want to know where #9 is and I pull up #5, on the other hand, I've got a pretty fucking good idea of the relative positions of those issues. (What makes it worse is that the covers generally put the character's name at the BOTTOM. Fortunately, I can recognize most of them, so this isn't quite as bad as the brief 1990's trend of putting issue numbers on the bottom of the cover instead of the top -- or, in TMNT's case, the thoroughly obnoxious trend for much of the series to put the issue numbers on the BACK.)

And of course I can't just sort them alphabetically, because their order IS important.

Thad · « **Reply #78 on:** August 29, 2008, 01:09:39 PM »

...So, as I said before, The Reign of Starscream is the only comic in the movie universe that's actually been any good.

Here's why it was good: it turned Starscream into a complex character. He's the same old lovable, treasonous egomaniac he always has been, but he's more. We get an inkling of his philosophy here, and it's one we can sympathize with: he wants to save his world. He doesn't just want power (though it's a perk he's more than happy to enjoy), he wants to restore the glory of Cybertron, and he's determined that neither Megatron nor Optimus Prime are going to do that -- the former is only interested in himself, and the latter would rather ally himself with cliches out of a John Hughes movie than go home and fix the place up.

Of course, in the end, it's something of a throwaway story, as all movie tie-ins must be; in the end, everything's back to where it was at the end of the movie, and everyone's in place for Transformers 2: Megatron Lives: Everyone Act Surprised.

Thad · « **Reply #79 on:** September 18, 2008, 01:36:25 AM »

All Hall Megatron #3, similarly, has as its high point a scene that finds a new way of examining the relationship between Megatron and Starscream. Megatron -- magnanimous toward his troops in his undisputed victory -- speaks to Starscream as almost an equal, as a warrior who he respects. He intimates that Starscream's true weakness is the limited nature of his vision, the lust for power as his primary motivation. It seems, perhaps, as if Megatron isn't so much angry at Starscream for his repeated attempts to overthrow him as he is disappointed that he sees that as an end in itself.

At least, that's the way I interpreted it. It's a pretty nuanced conversation between two characters who really aren't known for it.

And the clues as to what happened between Revelation and here are equally well-broached; rather than speaking in heavy-handed exposition, they speak naturally of things they already know about even if the audience doesn't. (In fact, it took a few panels for me even to realize Megatron was referring to Revelation; I thought at first he was suggesting that a human had betrayed the human race, rather than speaking of Nova Prime's betrayal of the Autobots.)

While I had my complaints about the most recent issue of Spotlight, I think that the two stories developing in parallel works well -- kind of what 52/One Year Later was supposed to be at DC, except that 52 turned into something better than just filling in gaps and then they decided to do WWIII just to resolve everything at once.

And again, the humans are neither the biggest part of the story, nor are they annoying. (There are moments when I remember, dammit, they're probably going to bring back Verity, Jimmy, and Hunter at some point, but fortunately that hasn't happened yet. But seeing as next issue cuts back to the Autobots, that'd be a logical time to do it...) Also, if Human Who's Not Sparkplug actually FINDS Dead Squadmate's Girlfriend, that's colossally fucking stupid. I'm hoping the "She lives in New York? We'll find her" line was intended as a deliberately absurd statement (like "We'll meet in Central Park" on Simpsons), an example of how people under duress say reassuring things that clearly have no actual possibility of coming true.

Anyway. All Hail Megatron's still going pretty well (and the Communist revolution covers are great), and #3's better than #2 but not as good as #1. I'm liking the pace so far despite the fact that nothing's really happened beyond the Decepticons kicking an incredible amount of ass and occasionally hinting at what happened to the Autobots, but at some point there's going to have to be a conflict that's not totally one-sided. I think the Decepticons should still win (at least until the next mini), but at least a few Autobots need to show up and present some kind of a challenge.

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Author Topic: Transformers (Read 20883 times)