Spotlight Arcee is an odd one, it brings up some interesting concepts but I feel as if the concept of a female Transformer didn't need an explanation too. When I think of femme bots I think of how well Beast Wars handled the two ones it had without really making a big deal of it, you know until they give Blackarachnia and Silverbolt too much screen time.  

I think this issue is fun enough if you want some action, and the artwork is damn well beautiful by the way, but the point remains is that it's just odd introducing Arcee like this. Especially when we saw female Transformers in Megatron Origins which pre-dates the release of this issue (I think)

 

Unfortunately, I don't think they ever have an explanation behind "science" (another example of IDW's what-hath-science-wrought mentality) for why making Arcee look female and receive feminine pronouns makes her female. And I believe the matter has been thoroughly retconned with the arrival of (as you observed) more fembots later on, so we may never reeeeally know. I guess it's the whole gender-as-construct thing taken very literally.

I agree with you that Furman certainly didn't mean anything intentionally off-putting by this issue, more that he struggles to write female characters in this regard. It was itself a retcon (as Reask said, female bots can be seen in Megatron Origin), which suggests that Furman was looking for a way to give G1's only female lead a special and memorable entrance into the IDW world, but the reaction wasn't what he was looking for.

As it stands, I believe the current explanation is that there have always been female transformers, but one hasn't been born on Cybertron itself in so long that none of our ensemble recalls them ever existing. Which is a pretty lofty statement considering nearly every character encountered thus far is around four million years old, but hey, retcons.

 

This spotlight basically failed at explaining. Sunbow proved - no explanation was really necessary.

If you don't explain something as (realistically) nonsensical like transforming into vehicles, then there's no need to explain females. Or males.

 

You have to use that specific caveat to make your point. Otherwise you'd know that sunbow (or the marvel comic) pretty much explained away all of those aspects. Males, Females, Alt-modes, all of it gets an explanation (after a fashion).

 

Sunbow never made any effort at explaining more serious than "Quintessons did it". And this one was supposed to justify everything.
In the long run worked better than trying too hard because nobody was asking stupid questions.

Marvel UK had "Prime's Rib". Bad example of explaining. Very, very bad one. Marvel US had no fembots save for TFTM comic book adaptation.

IDW tried too hard. Hilariously too hard. To this day better not ask what exactly makes them female.

 

While more than happy to accept Furman had good intentions when he wrote SP Arcee, I can't look past his biological sex = gender ID presumption. Story can almost be read as every Cybertronian being an intolerant twat who can't look past Arcee's altered biology to keep referring to her as a he (which is Arcee's assumed preference) and Arcee calling them out on it. The whole thing falls apart for me in that respect. Nobody has touched it since unsurprisingly.

 

I find it amazing now to think I didn't have this exact reaction when the story was first published. I guess for a start I hadn't considered trans people at all, really, which says it all in terms of my ignorance.

I remember finding the explanation about gender very unsatisfying, but more out of a sense that Furman had written himself into a corner and tried to sweep it under the rug. I also recall that this issue was quoted absolutely endlessly in furious ongoing debates with one fan who was using it to prop up his theory that sexual dimorphism and sexual relationships existed throughout all continuities of Transformers, so it's hard to think past that context to the way in which the issue was originally received.

I think you can give props to Furman for trying to do right by women by making Arcee a badass, while acknowledging that he made a right pig's ear of it. I think that's exactly what Scott did, in fact, in her statement and I was surprised at Furman reacting so badly to it. I think it was really on him to say "My bad" at that point.

 

New Avengers / The Transformers: Man and Machine #1

[PS: Cheers for all the great comments following the Arcee review!]

Having been forewarned that this mini had a pretty shocking reputation, I considered doing it all in one hit, just to get it out of the way. But I read the first issue and... yeah, not bad at all. Decent set-up, all told. 3/5

First of all, let me just say that my Marvel Superhero knowledge is not particularly great – I read Marvel UK titles such as Secret Wars and Spider-Man and Zoids when I was a kid, but beyond that, nothing. I saw a few of the Marvel superhero movies, and to be honest I wasn’t particularly impressed (although I thought the Ang Lee Hulk was pretty good), so when it comes to the New Avengers, my ignorance is so high that I was half-convinced this mini would see Megatron outwitted by Purdey and Mike Gambit.

My first thought after reading this issue was how ‘cartoony’ it was. IDW’s Transformers output thus far has been quite serious and convoluted – certainly aimed at adult or young adult audiences. This seems pitched a bit younger, which coming off the back of Spotlight: Arcee is quite refreshing.

There’s a lot going on here – the Decepticons have arrived in Latveria and are stirring up trouble in neighbouring Symkaria, and the region stands on the edge of nuclear war. Meanwhile, SHIELD assume it’s all the work of Dr Doom and so send the New Avengers to investigate. I love the fact that Symkaria have basically told everyone that they will launch a nuclear strike in exactly 24 hours, giving Our Heroes a time limit in which to save the day. It’s a hackneyed and cheesy narrative trick, but it adds to the larger-than-life feel of the comic, and gives the plot a bit of urgency and tension.

When the New Avengers arrive on the scene, they engage in a bit of in-fighting, thanks to Megatron’s Aggression Wave technology, which makes our heroes turn on each other. This plot twist is both great and terrible in equal measure – on the plus side, it’s a really clichéd and cornball idea (Hate Plague, Ghostbusters II, Day of the Dove, The Gene Key stuff in Regeneration One), but conversely it doesn’t allow a reader such as myself (who is unfamiliar with the New Avengers) to get a handle on some of these unfamiliar characters. I don’t really get a chance to know Luke Cage or Captain America, or what their personalities are like, because they almost immediately begin to act like jerks due to the Aggression Wave.

When the New Avengers attack the Decepticon base, Megatron scans the heroes – and determines that Spider-Man is the most interesting of the bunch (no arguments there) and so captures the web-crawler. This leads to some classic ‘reveal the whole plot to captured hero’ exposition from Megatron – another example of how downright corny this plot is.

I get the impression that writer Stuart Moore is deliberately sending this up with an outrageous plot – aggression ray, countdown to nuclear disaster, Basil Exposition – almost like an old episode of the Adam West Batman. When you throw in the fact that this is the same guy who wrote the tongue-in-cheek Spotlight: Ramjet, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it’s a deliberate choice to crank the hyperrealism up to eleven.

The story ends when the Autobots arrive, transform into robot mode and say, “leave this to us.” The final page is a splash of the Avengers dashing to attack the Autobots (heroes vs. heroes, another hoary trope). “Avengers, ATTACK!” yells Captain America, as this ridiculous (yet fun) comic rushes to a conclusion.

It might be a bit crappy, but I must admit, I had a lot of fun reading this. Colourful, corny, and eventful… it’s outré, but it kinda works.

 

Your commentary about how nothing about Arcee specifically makes her "female" other than a humanized "body type," which really means little in a Transformers universe with piles of body shapes that remain ungendered, is probably the most on-point. It's a problematic portrayal that is hard to read as anything but "post-op psycho trans femme," but the fact that there is no defining mode of "female" makes it worse. Furman getting upset about Scott's comments is disappointing but understandable; it can be difficult for people to admit wrong when it was unintentional.

Unfortunately, "intention" does not absolve. I've unintentionally said some crappy things to people in my life. We all do it. Just hard to admit.

There are two major issues Furman added to the IDW mythos that later writers have had to jump through major hoops retconning. One is "no female TFs except Arcee, who was made that way and is crazy"; the other is "combiners are almost impossible and generally insane LOOK AT MONSTRUCTOR." Most of the other world-building seeds you've come across like the Ores, infiltration phases, etc, Dead Universe have been put to good use but those two specific issues sure became major headaches to work with or around. Arcee has managed to become a really fun character under the pens of Barber and Roche, though. Perhaps it is because of these two glaring issues that Furman's IDW run has its detractors, because going through your reviews is a good reminder that it started out quite fun.

I hope this isn't a spoiler, but it's pretty wild that IDW comics have gone from "we have a single female who embodies the ugly BITCHES BE CRAZY YO trope" to MtMtE being one of the most queer-friendly comic books in the industry.

 

Yeah. Unfortunately some of worldbuidling roadblocks from Furman's run weren't easy to avoid. We have a possibility for classic combiners only now and it required a bad, bad macguffin. Those characters should be in IDWverse much sooner.
From Arcee SL the continuity never recovered and never will - sure we can have female characters coming from colonies, but they will never be just Bots and Cons. No chances to have a classic update to Elita's gang - two of these characters already were given different characterisation and it's hardly a stellar one.

I like IDWverse, but I'll be honest - if it ever was totally reset and rebuilt from scratch I'd be as ok with it as I am with current run.

 

I've never read New Avengers/Transformers, mainly because it's difficult to find, it was delisted from comixology and it's widely regarded as being completely unimportant to the main IDW Transformers canon. So I just read it for the first time recently through different means and, I'm glad you enjoyed the first issue of it so far.  

I don't want my opinion to affect your possible enjoyment of the next three issues, and I will admit this first issue wasn't as bad as the others. Still:

I HATED THIS SO MUCH! XD

As a fan of Spotlight Ramjet, I thought this mini series was absolutely deplorable and made me want to vomit because of how bad it is, but I'm still sticking around to see what you thought of the rest of it.  

 

I never read the Avengers crossover and I never will. It's non-canon nature is the primary reason as to why I won't.

 

If you ignore the existence of the New Avengers and Latveria after the miniseries is done, it does technically fit into the continuity. That's a sizable "if" though.

 

New Avengers / The Transformers: Man and Machine #2

2/5.

Having now read two issues of this mini, I’m still on the fence. This is either an appalling piece of generic hack work, or it’s a really brilliant deconstruction of generic hack work. In other words, I’m faced with a question: is this a bad comic, or merely a satire of a bad comic?

As with all these crossover events, we get the initial confusion, in which the two sets of heroes fight each other. It happened in GI Joe and the Transformers back in the 1980s, it also happened when Spider-Man met the Iron Man of 2020. Chances are it’s also the exact same plot as in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but I’m going to steer clear of that movie. To bring the cliché full circle, our two sets of heroes must join forces with one nemesis in order to defeat another. In the Joe/TF book, it was Cobra who temporarily joined the Joes and the Autobots in an attempt to prevent the Earth’s destruction – here it’s Dr Doom who hangs out with Our Heroes, leading to some banal “can we really trust him” dialogue. This is so by-the-numbers, it almost writes itself.

Another point to note here is that, whilst this tries ever-so-hard to fit in with the ‘proper’ IDW comics (there are a couple of continuity references to other issues), the Megatron we get here is basically the moustache-twirling, scenery-chewing Sunbow version, rather than the intelligent, considered Megatron we’ve seen in IDW thus far. Indeed, Megatron’s plan here is completely wacky and makes no sense on any level at all – he plans to ‘refine’ Spider-Man’s mutation (“blood anomalies”) into a new isotope of Energon. You read that right – somehow Megatron can create a new type of Energon by refining Spider-Man’s blood. As with Spotlight: Arcee, this is another one of those ‘fun with DNA’-type evil plans, with pseudoscience on a par with all the Negavators, Voltronic Galaxers and Burmese Rubies we got in the Sunbow cartoon.

Also, it seems that after all the build-up and set-up of Infiltration and Escalation, all the ‘covert’ stuff has now been completely ditched. I realise this is by a different writer, and that the Decepticons are now in ‘Siege Mode’, but what’s the point of being subtle anymore (with clone agents in the Capitol and attempts to stir up trouble between nations), when you have a giant Technodrome installed in the middle of Central Europe? (Ditto Ramjet parts being spread across the globe.) At what point do the Decepticons just ditch the subterfuge and show their hand? Their scheme is less than clear here.

[On the subject of Ramjet, this story is clearly supposed to be set before Ramjet’s spotlight (he appears here), but this is now volume 3 of IDW’s collected trades, while Spotlight: Ramjet was printed in volume 2. WTF??!!]

The cliffhanger involves the Spider-powered Decepticons attacking the Autobots, and Iron Man joining the fray, so hopefully next issue should see a fair bit of action.

All the way through this review (and the last one), I’ve found myself using words like ‘generic’, ‘cornball’ and ‘cheesy’; looking at it dispassionately, this story ought to be a complete disaster (which is, after all, the general fan-consensus). But I have to say, a part of me is quite enjoying this – it’s lowbrow eye-candy, with a plot and ambiance that screams ‘Saturday morning cartoon’. I’d like to think this mini is a gentle, good-natured spoof of cheesy Transformers plots and indeed crossover stories in general – but even if the satire was unintentional, there’s a lovable, almost childlike sense of fun that pervades these issues.

It may simply be the case that I’d been forewarned that this mini was terrible, and because of that, my expectations were so low that anything other than a total disaster would seem good by comparison. I’m certainly not blind to any of the faults (intentional or not), but there’s a certain B-movie, so-bad-it’s-good charm to all of this. It’s the Transformers equivalent of Shark Attack III.

 

I almost doozed off with this issue.

First of all, Ramjet's sudden redesign, obviously this is a design based on the toy but damn it's hideous. I thought he was Skywarp for a second and the writer just misspelled him but no. Now it's kind of confusing, but this story apparently takes place before Escalation, (Or during the latter part of Escalation issue 1, I dunno) and it just doesn't really fit well. Honestly Spotlight Ramjet was a more impactful story for Megatron when you read it immediately after Escalation as I first did. Here Ramjet's inclusion feels meaningless but this was written before the spotlight so eh.

This really doesn't feel like the same Megatron that Furman has been building up to be a more competent character. I can appreciate camp like in the (nearly concluded) current run of Transformers vs G.I. Joe but, this doesn't have that same campy look. And I hate to criticise art because I'm always thinking about the artists but, while the humans are all drawn beautifully in this comic, my god the Transformers look hideous. (Which is odd that the exact opposite is happening for me with the recent comics)

The action in this issue and the following two feels, too confined when I read this, mainly because it looked like the Avengers and Autobots were just standing in a big small square with an invisible barrier blocking them. They have this dome base right next to them and it feels like they don't want to move from the front door of it.

I honestly feel like I'm nitpicking, but still this was the point where this mini-series became unpleasant for me. I wish I could look at it as a fun cartoony story because I love those sort of comics, but I just can't see it. Oh and, Ms. Marvel, I know nothing about her but damn she is obnoxious. XD

 

I was reading the crossover after reading the new avengers comics so I had a bit more of an idea of the characterisation. this is the avengers just before civil war where it was a rebirthing period and things were essentially going well

luke cage had the start of a great bromance with spiderman so seeing him so focused on saving him was great, captain America is essentially the equivalent of optimus prime and iron man, while not as bad as he eventually turned out in cvil war, was the prowl of the avengers looking at the problem but ignoring the participants

the anomalies in spideys blood making energon wasn't really a big thing to me as his blood is infused with radiation and quasi mysticism at this point so I would assume megatron can harness that considering back in the g1 cartoon days they were making energon out of everything!

 

Shame that the Transformers/Avengers crossover didn't work out the way people wanted it because it's an awesome idea in it's core and it makes sense seeing as one of the first TF lore came into Marvel comics.

Also I do agree with your stance on the whole gender thing for the TFs. It's one of those things that to this day never made sense to me why it needs to be explaned in such a huge manner. Maybe it doesn't make sense in real life but the brand has already thrown a lot of logic out the window long ago and even when IDW does ground some things a bit even then it never go to the hardcore Sci Fi route so why try now? Overall the TF franchsie is a brand I can never see go that hardcore when it comes to explanations because it feels too much like trying to make Star Wars into Star Trek.

 

New Avengers / The Transformers: Man and Machine #3

1/5. Ouch.

The opening two instalments of this tale were kitsch, cartoony, unpretentious fun. It may have been obvious, simplistic and clichéd, but the first half of this story was still enjoyable on a basic level. Issue three should have been the point at which everything kicked up a gear as we head towards the finale, yet instead we get twenty-odd pages of stalling, as the plot grinds to a halt.

We begin with a massive fight outside Megatron’s Technodrome, and by the end of the issue, the exact same fight is still going on. The cliffhanger ending sees Megatron enter the fray, which to be honest isn’t that exciting, as it means that this dire battle sequence will be dragged out for a whole nother issue. The action is padded out by scenes of Iron Man’s suit running out of energy, requiring the Autobots to give him a power boost. Furthermore, the Autobots and Avengers disagree about strategy – Optimus Prime decides that the death of a couple of humans and Autobots is a fair price to pay if it means averting nuclear war, and so decides to destroy the entire building. The Avengers disagree, and argue that a rescue should be mounted. I get that they’re trying to raise the stakes here, but it’s not engagingly written and there’s very little tension or sense of danger here.

I’ve generally praised the art in these IDW comics thus far, but here it didn’t really work for me. The scale of the giant Iron Man suit was all over the shop – in some panels he looks human-sized, in others he stands as tall as Optimus Prime, and then he’s large enough to swat a Seeker out of the sky with the back of his hand. I realise it’s a trick of perspective, but it just looks odd.

Meanwhile, Ratchet, Prowl and Luke Cage sneak into the Technodrome in a bid to free Spider-Man and save the day. Megatron has teamed up with Dr Doom (who saw that coming?), but Megatron betrays Doom pretty quickly and zaps him for incompetence or something. As with Infiltration, there’s a decent story in here somewhere but it’s padded out to extreme levels. Either come up with enough action and drama to fill four issues, or cut this down to a three-parter, it’s not rocket science.

 

New Avengers / The Transformers: Man and Machine #4

2/5. What the heck was that all about?

Skywarp and Thundercracker are back to being F-22s this issue; in part three they were F-15s. It’s a small thing, but it’s a microcosm of the slapdash way this whole series has been handled.

First point: what was the point of Dr Doom here? He contributed nothing of any value to this story. He showed up, vanished, showed up again and then vanished again. I’d say it was a waste of screen-time if it weren’t for the fact that this story is badly padded anyway.

Second point: the dialogue is atrocious. I mean, really bad. I thought Furman was the king of clunky speeches but this takes the cake. Example lines: “You know, I normally prefer house music, but who says metal’s dead?!” “An emergency warp-out will drain the Decepticons’ energy reserves for stellar-cycles.”

Third point: it transpires that the Autobots could have beamed (orbital bounced) into the Technodrome at any point in this story, they just chose not to until this issue. What the heck?! This entire story could have wrapped up so much sooner had the Autobots just beamed inside the Decepticon base in the first place, instead of fighting outside it for three issues. Considering they were working against the clock, it’s utterly unbelievable that they hadn’t thought of this earlier.

Oh, and the so-called ‘psycho-prism’ isn’t even prism-shaped. Doesn’t Megatron know anything about geometry?

On the plus side, however (and the sole reason this issue escapes a one out of five), we get a lovely panel in which Spidey wraps Megatron in his webbing, in a nice homage to the cover art to issue 3 of the old G1 comic. It’s a neat gag, but it in no way justifies the fact that this series just completely fell apart after issue 2.

Back onto the ‘main’ comics next time, with issue 1 of Devastation !

 

And we're back!  

There were so many things I wanted to tear apart here with the final two issues of the crossover, but I've forgotten about many of those points and, I don't want to reread it ever again, ever. It's completely non-canon for me, although it fits in better with the crud Marvel comics universe. =P

The dialogue, hoo boy, you've already mentioned Iron Man's house music line but I also take issue with this quote from Spider-Man.

"Oh... I think my lunch... is about to do its own 'orbital bounce'."

I don't read Spider-Man, but whenever I do I always remember the dork making a joke about lunch. Ugh.

The homage to Marvel issue 3 is cute and all, but that open ending I couldn't stand at all knowing it was never resolved thankfully. Who knows maybe it was a different Deception from Ramjet who transformed and crushed the Avengers inside him, will explain why they're not in the IDWverse anymore. XD

Looking forward to rereading Devastation, haven't read it in a long time.