This is the first transformers comic i have ever read. I'm mostly a Marvel guy with a lil DC, but i stopped collecting/reading comics when they fudged Amazing Spider-man (c'mon Quesada) and I just recently started getting into Transformers about a year ago and I heard about this All Hail Megatron thing. So I thought I'd pick it up even though I have no idea what has happened in this universe, just cuz I figured what could go wrong, it's Decepticons. I'm oblivious to many of the things people said would need an explanation, for example I think someone said Soundwave actually talks like g1 Soundwave. I'm guessing in the previous comics he used to sound like any other guy? It's little things like this that when I read it I had no idea it was out of place or leaves out information.

All in all, I love the art. As for the story of AHM, its mediocre at best coming from my standpoint but the art is simply amazing!(i mean the decepticons are badass in this issue, don't get me wrong, but nothing really happened but destruction and all that). Being a marvel/dc guy, I had never heard of Guido Guidi but I'm going to have to look into his stuff.

I'm going to keep reading AHM and in the meantime, I'll be going to borders to purchase/read some of the collections of past idw tf stories. thanks for listening to my opinon and all that!

 

My sentiments exactly on Furman. But I don't consider this to be a step forward.  

zmog

 

Guys.

Furmanisms.

Half the fun of reading Furman's stuff in between the long-winded speeches and vague threats that take 2-3 years to reveal are his strangely florid prose (CAN I DO LESS?) and his perchant for weird sound effects (SPOOM! VAARK!).

In most Transformers comics (including IDW's books), Soundwave talks like anybody else, and his personality is more true to his toy biography.

The G1 cartoon and the Dreamwave comic portrayed him as how he is better known: the monotone eternal loyalist of Megatron. (IDW's Megatron Origin also portrayed him in this manner, because the story was originally written for Dreamwave's comics...)

Guido Guidi's one of the veteran fan-turn-official artists in the TF community.

IDW's previous TF stories (alledgedly in the same continuity as AHM) were mostly written by Simon Furman, so they're very different to what you've seen thus far in AHM.

 

Sunstreaker is on Cybertron? According to "Hail and Farewell" wich is cannon, he should have been on Earth. I´m confused...

I hope they didn´t killed the Wreckers though.

Who left Prime in a condition like that? Nova? Galvatron? I doubt Megatron did a number on him, since he was on Earth.

Either unless the Dinobots are still on Earth, i do´t see this looking good.

 

We don't know why Prime is all messed up or how Sunstreaker got off Earth, or for that matter if his head is a human! It's been a year since the end of the events of Devastation.

 

"Hail and Farewell" take place two years after in the IDW continty. Hunter even makes a reference to a "full scale Decepticon invasion."

 

Oh, the Mosaic? They're going have to take that back. AHM is the show now.

 

I think it has been already establish as cannon. You can´t simply take something that has been establish as offical cannon back. Or else anythime a new story comes up, all the others are taken back.

 

Why not?

 

LOL! I hadn't seen that before. Pretty damning when it comes down to it...

"FLORID!!" And here I thought I was the only person to use that word specifically in conjunction with Furman's overwrought dialog. I mean seriously... narrator hyperbole is a comic-book tradition stretching back to Stan Lee and beyond, but ALL of Furman's characters also speak with the same forced eloquence.

Aha! That explains quite a bit. I was wondering why Megatron:Origin felt like it was written for a totally different continuity... it was!  

zmog

 

With Soundwave in Origin, I thought it fit his IDW personality...

I mean, my impression was that he simply saw Megatron as the future, and that he would have more upward mobility if he sided with him. So he betrayed Ratbat.

Which fits with his character as established in the spotlight - loyal to himself first, others second.

 

I thought it was alright. It read a little short, but then most comics do these days, TFs often moreso than most. There's also the fact that I'd already read half the thing and only needed to skim the first half. My sense has always been that McCarthy has had the core story brewing for some time and while it was not necessarily conceived with Furman's IDWverse completely in mind, it has been adapted/rewritten where necessary to fit...which is fine. Lotta ongoing fiction comes about that way.

It left me interested enough to see how they've connected it and why certain things are the way they are...and regardless of how well that turns out, Guido's interior art and the insanely awesome Hutchison propaganda covers alone are enough to keep me buying for at least six months.

 

Not necessarily. Chris was with us throughout the entire process of putting together "Hail and Farewell" with Simon, which was during the planning stages of AHM. I wouldn't write anything off yet.

 

Actually, I've found Soundwave to be one of the more consistent characters in a way...

Some people see him as emotionless and loyal... but if you go back to the original G1 TechSpecs, it can be seen that he's always been sycophantic, opportunistic and self-serving.

Ever notice that while he seems loyal to Megatron, in the cartoons Soundwave is pretty much loyal to whoever's in charge, for just about as long as they are in charge? Soundwave knows that as long as he's valuable to the head honcho (Megatron, Starscream, whoever...) and never tries to go to the top himself, then no matter what changes, he will remain safely to the right hand of the throne.

The King may change, but the Chamberlain remains the same.

zmog

 

Right.

Soundwave doesn't want to lead. He just wants to be closest to whoever's in power. He's a power behind the throne so to speak.

 

am i the only person that thinks that primes wound is connected to the scene in spotlight:mirage where starscream impales prime?
mabeyprimes distracted by nova and starscream "does him in", its in character (for ss)
or something.....i dunno...im not a writer... 

 

Just to be clear, the TF Wiki is not damning or mocking Furman, but celebrating the furmanisms. I don't have too much of a problem with Furman's writing, except when he puts his own words into the mouth of characters, like Ironhide saying 'modus operandi' in Escalation 2.

Ironhide? SERIOUSLY? Actually, its pretty funny if you try to imagine Peter Cullen's Ironhide voice saying that dialogue.

Not really, no, it was a story created for Dreamwave before they went bust, hence Soundwave being G1 cartoon/Dreamwave-esque. Monotone, stilted dialogue, loyal to Megatron and having absolutely no personality whatsoever.

It was just not adapted to IDW (specifically Furman's) protrayal. There are also other continuity errors in Origin, such as Megatron behaving like cartoon/Dreamwave Megatron, rather than Furman's more thoughtful, tactical Megatron seen in Infiltration-Stormbringer-Escalation-Devastation

Anything else is merely speculation on fans' parts to attempt to explain the differing personalities and speech patterns caused by different writers.

I don't think McCarthy will bother to address things from Furman's storyline if doesn't fit into his, though to be fair to him, Furman has created so many threads that he's forgotten about half of them.

 

I think that its more or less like the TF/New Avengers crossover in a way that its not in continuity but it can fit in there somewhere.

 

Yes, I'm finding the art very cool as well... The scene where Megatron backhands the plane, then walks through the flaming debris was just awesome, and a true Megatron moment. And Hutchison's covers are just sublime, I'll defiantely be getting the set of these!

All in all, a goiod first issue. Short, but that's just due to the lack of dialogue involved. It was purely an action setpiece, but a very good way to start the series. Hopefully next issue will be more dialogue based, and we can get a bit of story going on soon.

I love the reintroduction of the F15's (The Masterpiece look works surprisingly well), but I still prefere the F22 versions. But finally we get the core Earthbound 'Cons in the story, and that filsl me with such joy... I really hope we get to see some classic Bombshell schemeing.

And what a way to finish it, back on Cybertron with the ragtag Autobots. Loving the character design for Cliffjumper, and nice to see Classics Lambor twins in there too... They look like they've taken a beating, but I know we'll here more about it soon.

Answers are coming folks, but give it time... No point revealing everything that happened in this issue, or else you won't want to buy the other books!

 

This is kinda where I was going when I posted this:

So, what if this IS an "Alternate Reality/Worlds Collide/Age Of Apocalypse" type story, but one that will have ramifications for the "normal" IDW-TF-verse? As long as Vector Prime shows up to fix things, I'd read it.