A double dose today as I'm off on holiday next week...

Last Stand of the Wreckers: The Appendices

One of Bob Budiansky’s finest traits was his capacity for world-building. When he wrote ‘The Smelting Pool’, he didn’t just give us Cybertron, he created it. Cities, political situations, Empties, Scrounge, resistance fighters, neutralists and even alien time measurements like vorns and breems. This wasn’t just the backdrop to a story; the planet was the story.

Fast-forward a few years and he does the same thing again, this time for the planet Nebulos. We get a history, a once war-torn planet now dedicated to peace. We have political parties, peers, lords and overseers. Mercury fountains, gardens, forests, and alien pictograms. A lot of silly stuff happened in the Headmasters mini-series, but somehow we could forgive the little quirks because the tapestry was more than just a few individual threads.

So here we come to the LSOTW miscellanea and paraphernalia, all of which serves to act as a backdrop to the comic we’ve just read. LSOTW isn’t just an isolated incident, its part of a world. These characters aren’t just one-offs, they have lives outside of what we saw in the comic – it’s all very cleverly done.

‘Bullets’ is the biggest and best of the bonus features, a story that goes in many different directions before tying everything up with a satisfying ending. Ironfist gets all the best bits here. He comes across as meek, nerdy and also as a bit of a pushover. He treats Skyfall as a friend even though it’s obvious that Skyfall is no good. However we learn that Ironfist isn’t quite as naïve as he seems, and is able to turn the tables on Skyfall from beyond the grave.

From what little I know of Roberts’ later MTMTE work, there are a few things here that will play out down the line. I caught mentions of the DJD (which I know there are 3rd party toys of, so presumably they become important), and also Rung, who I believe I’ve seen pictures of.

There are a couple of minor quibbles (the idea that Autobots are confusing a holographic image of Springer with a portent of death is something I don’t think works), and also the Guzzle/Kup thing is played up here for very little pay-off in the main comic. Otherwise, though, this was an enthralling read.

I especially appreciated the Rotorstorm backstory – how his brash persona is just a façade, hiding an insecure victim underneath. Great stuff.

The A-to-Z style character bios were fun (I understand they featured in the original issues), but the ‘Bullets’ story, which covered a lot of the same ground, made them slightly redundant.

‘Zero Point’ was another short prose story, and overall a lot less successful than ‘Bullets’. It was basically ‘Character X talks home truths to the comatose character Y, who then proceeds to wake up from the coma’. Sadly the clichéd nature of the plot marred what was otherwise a decent character piece.

Another thing that slightly bugged me was the proliferation of in-jokes, which only served to take me out of the story somewhat. Roberts and Roche are trying to build a world here, and it kinda takes me out of that world when I spot references to Ladybird Books, Doctor Who Magazine and Furmanisms. Whilst I can appreciate a smattering of these in-jokes, I think here they crossed the fine line between funny and over-the-top. I inwardly groaned when Impactor was arrested at “G’th Semane Spaceport”, for example.

Overall, though, there’s a lot of good stuff here, which definitely made buying the separate trade worthwhile (thanks for the recommendations, guys!). ‘Bullets’ is worth the asking price alone, and the rest of it serves as a frame of reference for the main LSOTW strip, making it seem part of something bigger, instead of just an isolated incident. This entire book has raised the bar, and I eagerly await to see what Roche and Roberts have in store for us next!

Spotlight: Prowl – “Ride-Along”

1/5 Back to Earth with a bump.

One of the main drawbacks with having so many writers on IDW’s Transformers series (and with seemingly very little in the way of editorial guidance), is that the characters have different voices, depending on who’s writing for them – Prowl being a case in point.

Prowl is the devious one, the master manipulator, who’s not afraid of doing morally-dubious stuff if it means getting the job done. In the ongoing, however, Prowl broke cover in order to save the Decepticon Breakdown. This then, is a ‘fudge’ issue (see also ‘Two Megatrons’ from the original Marvel run), an attempt to retcon events so that the Ongoing Prowl matches up to the AHM/LSOTW Prowl.

Sadly, the match is less than seamless. Prowl begins the issue cold and logical, arguing against Prime’s orders and seeing humans as a swarm, far less worthy of life than the Autobots are. He winces when the humans discuss killing Thrust in cold blood, and sees human life as somehow pointless and empty.

However, living under cover as a human police car eventually makes Prowl see the light, and he risks his own life, breaking cover to save a human girl. This moment of realisation makes Prowl a ‘better person’, hence him saving Breakdown in the ongoing.

Firstly, I kinda liked the old Prowl, the one we had in AHM and Wreckers. Turning him into a more heroic character only serves to make him less interesting. Secondly, this is basically a re-hash of ‘Hidden’ (one of the AHM Codas), in which Bumblebee similarly breaks cover, risking his own life to save humans.

The art is really good and clean and crisp, and it’s a shame it’s wasted on such a terrible story. Well, I say “story”, but this is actually just the plot equivalent of a band-aid, patching together a problem that needn’t have arisen in the first place, if editorial were on the ball.

Tell a story that needs to be told, bring me a tale that’s worth telling in its own right. The first duty of a comic should be to entertain, not to act as a fire extinguisher.

 

Nicely observed and put. Budianksy had his low points too, but he did give a lot (almost everything) to Transformers. I still sort of miss vorns and breems.  

I agree less about Nebulos, which for me just felt like an utterly generic Flash Gordon-style future society modelled on the usual echoes of classical Rome. There was nothing particularly alien or specific about it.

I mostly agree with your sentiments about the Wreckers back-up stories, and this also reflects one of my personal observations about James Roberts... that his prose stories feel like they lack the genre-specific panache of his comic book stories. I know that this shouldn't make a difference, but somehow it does. I think there might just be something about how some stories are woven through dialogue and images that feels different when placed into a conventional prose format. It doesn't feel as fresh.

Also, it's good to remember that Roberts was only co-writer on LSotW, and that while many elements are his, and will return later, I think a big part of it (maybe the larger part of it) is Nick Roche's baby. This feels very clear when you get to Sins of the Wreckers, though you also get flashes of Roche's personal style in an upcoming Megatron Spotlight.

That is one of the hazards of Roberts' writing... his weakness for the cheap laugh or nudge. For me (though many disagree) this became a bit overpowering in the second half of his More Than Meets the Eye run... but then, you'll read for yourself and decide.  

On the subject of Ride-Along, I hated that story as a piece of retroactive continuity trying to smooth the utterly careless gaff Costa made early in his run with Prowl. However, as a purely stand-alone story, outside of that context, I don't think it's actually so bad (and I like EJ Su's new art style in this issue as well). I think that it's potentially interesting, as it gives some introspective into how Prowl's personality isn't -solely- clockwork. There is a moral underpinning to his outlook, and he means well... but he's also too pragmatic to subscribe to easy illusions, which is why I find the ending falls so flat.

I much prefer Prowl a la Roche. Costa will come back to Prowl and try to develop that angle further much later in his run, but it's too little too late, and Prowl comes off, despite his vast intelligence, kind of stupid and naive about some stuff. Unfortunately, this is the thread that John Barber picks up with Prowl in the following run, so while it's still the version of the character who is somewhat of an amoral plotter, it lacks the sense of direction and the self-possession that Roche's version had. Honestly, the handling of Prowl has become one of my main evaluative lenses through IDW's work. It feels like seeing how each writer attempts to handle the character tells me a lot about them and their foibles.

Long story short, Prowl definitely pops up a lot in IDW ahead.  

zmog

 

Also, I see that the next issues are Infestation #1 and #2. According the the wiki this was part of some big crossover event? Without spoilers, would I need to read the other Infestation stuff in order to 'get' the Transformers segments? I see there was also a follow-up called Infestation 2, but I don't see those issues have ever been reprinted in the TF trades (and they're not listed in the stickied reading order thread, either. Is the Infestation Omnibus worth getting, and if so, where does Infestation 2 fit into the reading order?

Cheers!

 

Infestation is horrible, but nah, the Transformers ones are basically their own thing. You don't need to read any of the other infestation comics to know what's going on.

 

There is only ONE plot point that emerges out of Infestation that is relevant down the road. A character dies, and then they later tie his fate in Infestation to the Dead Universe in order to 'naturalize' it back to the Transformers setting. You don't need to read the Infestation stories (and probably shouldn't). It's not really mentioned ever again (other than the earlier point). Plus, it's garbage.

zmog

 

These two Infestation issues are worth reading for their relevance to continuity, but aren't particularly good in their own right. And you don't need to read the rest of Infestation to follow them. As for Infestation 2, that's completely separate, and falls into the Hearts of Steel continuity.

 

Tiptoeing around spoilers I literally had no idea said character was missing until their reappearance. Figured author x or y had simply chosen not to use them.

And then I was like, oh, that's where they've been. Wait what the crap did I miss? Well. Glad they're back.

 

Oh dear I want to scream like a fangirl.   All in good time.

Unfortunately I don't have the hardcover yet so aside from the mosaic I couldn't read these stories.

Anyway, Spotlight Prowl. I liked it when I first read it but when I think back on this version of the character and how much of a prick he is, it's really not in character for Prowl to be a likeable hero in the end. Prowl is definitely the most inconsistent element of these comics. Also why does the cop never notice the weird alien symbol on the hood of his car? And Prowl couldn't remove his Autobot symbol while going undercover? Meh.

On the plus side E. J. Su's art is still gorgeous but I find it curious that he has done three different artstyles in these comics, you got the artstyle used from Infiltration to Spotlight Cyclonus, to the completely different if utterly beautiful artstyle in Spotlight Sideswipe, to the artstyle used here. It's still great but I wouldn't have know it was the same artist.

Not really no, but I think it's best you do read the two Infestation issues that are coming up next. They're still important slightly as they detail events around certain characters and set up two more stories later on, but when you read these issues, you're definitely going to be thinking WTF is going on, I know I did. The second issue does give an info dump on what the hell is happening and who that other character is, but it's still a bit of a mind trip and I don't think reading the Star Trek and TMNT issues will help too much. I don't hold up either issues of Transformers Infestation in high regard, but it's still more important to the overall story than the New Avengers crossover was at least. But honestly they should have placed these issues in after Heart of Darkness even if they take place before International Incident.

Well anyway, enjoy your holiday!  

 

Don't worry about reading the rest of Infestation. The Transformers issues are the only ones that matter.

And yeah, the attempt to explain Prowl's change was a very poor one.

 

FWIW, I didn't read Infestation.

 

Yeah, I really don't think it's necessary to read any of the Infestation stuff, unless your curiosity is piqued. But you won't get that 40 minutes of your life back.  

Yeah, exactly. It's barely relevant, though I was disappointed when I heard about the death in Infestation, because it meant that they apparently had just truncated a whole developing subplot involving that character, and that pissed me off. Fortunately, they eventually picked it back up again and dusted it off.

I think he also did the story with Starscream and the Cons falling apart on Charr... similar style to his Prowl issue. This versatility is one of the reasons that I think EJ Su is one of the best TF artists to work with IDW, and it's a shame he's not on the scene anymore. He and Alex Milne have become my faves.

I think his style through the Infiltration run is my favourite from Su. The painted stuff is beautiful, but sacrifices dynamism. It tends to feel a bit statuesque and rigid, even if it does feel a bit reminiscent of the old Ladybird books. His later style on the Prowl Spotlight looks good, and is probably a much faster style for him to work in, but I miss some of the finer detail from his old TF work.

zmog

 

You know, this is why I always like reading/seeing reviews. I was fully aware of this whole worldbuilding that Budiansky did in those issues, but I wasn't aware-aware of them.

Yeah, this was one huge screw-up. Not only did they make Prowl less interesting by making him a more generic goodie Autobot (even the Furman penned Prowl in Marvel US #76-80 was more interesting), but the whole argument they were trying to convey, is utter BS. The line of thought seems to be: prowl first was strictly logic and thus he was a manipulative bastard, but now he looked beyond logic so now he's all good.

What's especially annoying is that Prowl's behaviour, saving Breakdown, a fellow Transformer, from humans, would fit perfectly with Streetwise...who's also a police car and was present at the scene (which in turn would've presented the opportunity to develop the Protectobots). It sadly was very indicative of the lack of understanding Costa had of Transformers and the different characters. Of course, if there had been a good editor who would've corrected him, then this and practically every other problem of the Ongoing, would've been prevented.

 

It was interesting because allegedly Spotlight Prowl was hastened thru the pipeline, since our reactions to Prowl being out of character were so vehement. The spotlight itself clearly wasn't the band aid editorial seemed to think it was.

 

Well, it was their attempt to say "See! We knew what we were doing! It wasn't a clueless mistake!"

I mean, it's a band-aid in the sense that it tries to give some justification for Prowl's nonsensical behaviour... but it's a weak one, especially when that incident came so hot on the heels of Nick Roche's excellent Prowl short piece in the AHM Coda.

zmog

 

The most remarkable thing about it to me was that Prowl was considered such an indispensable character that he rated a whole issue to explain such a beef. Comics Prowl is a far cry from "killed by the loser Constructicon" cartoon Prowl. At the time that was hard for me to grok, and even now it's sort of a pleasant mind-boggle.

Of course Prowl's role in LSotW drives this home--untouchable, superior to all.

 

So much of this is probably informed somewhat by Prowl being a sentimental favourite from my childhood... for whatever reason. And in that context, it never felt like he was really given his due. His personality was rarely portrayed in a distinctive way. On the cartoon, he was generally overshadowed by Jazz, and none of the kids in my neighbourhood believed me when I told them he was Prime's second-in-command.

In Furman's Infiltration, Prowl got a bit more face time, though in the thankless role of the stiff, by-the-books regional officer. Not an inappropriate portrayal, but not a very interesting one either. I feel like Roche in AHM and LSotW changed the game, and gave us a spin on Prowl's classic bio that really made him feel intriguing and fresh... an amoral pragmatist pulling strings in the backrooms of Autobot Command, and a stark contrast with the rambunctious, free-spirited, ostentatious brand of Autobot heroic idiocy that was the norm. So much potential there!

And then, it felt like Costa completely fumbled the ball, and potentially lost the whole game in one bungled, arbitrary character moment! It certainly made for a rather inauspicious arrival for Costa... fresh out of the gate, he gave us Ironhide, the "most nearly invulnerable Autobot", shot in the chest with an Earthling weapon, and killed instantly... and Prowl, the calm, controlled logician, having a nonsensical emotional outburst and running off half-cocked because human authorities had the gall to attack a Decepticon war criminal.

Ah, well... I'm not totally crazy about all the writing these days, but at least some things have gotten better...  

zmog

 

I think this cuts to the heart of it. Bar a select few (Prime, Megatron, Grimlock, Starscream, Shockwave, Hot Rod, Ironhide etc.), most of the other characters didn't get much in the way of development back in the 80s. These are essentially blank slates for the writers to go to town on.

Furman was especially good at this (at his peak), creating the likes of Bludgeon, Thunderwing, Springer, et al., and giving them a particular and memorable voice that has informed a lot of subsequent portrayals.

The problem with the other characters is not the lack of personality, but with the sheer amount of wriggle-room. When you have someone like Prowl, or Thundercracker, or Sunstreaker, who never really had discrete identities of their own and were usually just 'part of the gang', it gives modern writers pretty much carte blanche to do with them what they like - no-one's going to complain if you do something weird with Mixmaster's personality, because he doesn't really have an established personality.

The problem comes when you have a lot of successive IDW writers, all making their own little stamps on these characters, pulling them in different directions like Stretch Armstrong. The Marvel comics didn't really have this problem because there were only ever two writers (and even then the likes of Grimlock and Scorponok underwent a bit of a change), and in the cartoons the script editors seemed to take a firm hand on things, and any inconsistencies or jarring lines could easily be smoothed over by the the voice actors, who lent a familiarity to even the most uncharacteristic of utterances.

I've mentioned before about how the editors at IDW would often drop the ball, but I can't believe that nobody ever came up with a character bible, or indeed piped up when one of the many writers took a character in an odd direction. I understand that the ongoing and LSOTW were in production simultaneously (and that Costa may not have been aware of what Roche and Roberts were doing and vice versa), but it seems almost farcical in this day and age that none of the editors could get this stuff straightened out in advance of publication. Instead, along came Spotlight Prowl to fix things after the horse had bolted.

I've seen the Costa interview where he admitted his struggles with writing for the Transformers - it seems doubly weird, then, that he was seemingly left to flounder without the necessary guidance. Did Schmidt / Tipton just not bother to check the first draft of Ongoing #1?

With Furman, Roche and Roberts (i.e. those with a deep understanding of the franchise) a lack of a strong editorial hand didn't hamper them as much, because they knew what they were doing (although Furman could have done with someone to keep him more on-point). Costa, on the other hand, simply demonstrates that a freer hand isn't always conducive to better writing.

 

Schmidt? Not a chance. Probably just looked at it and found it a nice story.

Two quotes from him regarding continuity (from TFwiki):
- "I'm just constantly surprised at how you guys keep track of all this stuff. It's really impressive. And yes, it's a part of my job, but it's not how my brain works naturally. I have to really work at it. This is part of the job that doesn't come easily to me. ... Back at Marvel we just didn't care  "
- "If I could go back to the 70s and 80s and stop Marvel and DC from ingraining in comics fans[sic] brains that continuity is paramount, I would"

Quotes from the man responsible for the continuity of the comic making clear that he didn't care about continuity. He likely just let Costa do whatever he wanted. Actually, he even encouraged artist breaking with continuity. A little art based spoiler, but the next Ongoing arc is drawn by Guido Guidi who drew the transformers in his own style but in the body designs of Don F. He was asked by Schmidt to redraw almost the entire comic because Schmidt wanted Guido to draw Transformers like he wanted to. And that wasn't the super detailed Bay style from Don F. but cartoon style and the G1 animation models. And thus Transformers switched body typed between artists. (Actually, if I recall correctly, the only things that had to remain consistent were: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee's new body and Spike's hairstyle.)

 

From one grumpy old G1 fan to another, I think this speaks to what may be a fundamental disagreement in our outlooks.  

I think this is actually false. All the G1 characters did have established personalities. The original bios (long and short form) were printed on the boxes and published by Marvel. They were the originary text that all those G1 TFs were based on. It is the first TF fiction, the proverbial "Word of God," if you will (and on the seventh day, Budiansky rested?).

I think this is too often neglected, and the TV cartoon is treated as if it were the first and only G1 fiction. Not every kid could watch the show (especially so in the UK) and not every kid could read the comics... but if you owned Transformers, then each one of those toys came with a distinct personality, function, weapons, and a set of abilities. With such an expansive ensemble as Transformers, it was crucial to the world-building to flesh out the supporting cast in this way.

And it may not be the largest portion of the fandom that appreciates this, but this richly detailed panorama of characters is for many of us a big part of why we love Transformers. Going back to my childhood, those of us who kept track of the bios really felt like we had a source of secret, meaningful knowledge (contextually speaking, of course).  

So, for me, I really don't have patience with writers who assume that they have a blank slate and take an utterly poprietary approach. They are not working with their own original fiction, they are working with an pre-established canon, so the onus is on them to do some research... ANY research.

Which is not to say that charactes are static and there can be no variation, but that all of these characters should use their original G1 personas as at least a conceptual point-of-departure. There is some wiggle room... and even Budiansky worked flexibly with many of his portrayals in the Marvel run. Also, characters accumulate quirks or elements as they go, and often a writer can put an interesting interpretive spin on a particular TF or his history.

This is why Thundercracker's portrayal since AHM, Roche's Prowl, later, even Roberts' Whirl, are so great... they are not simply the author seizing the character and doing whatever they want with it... they are pointed, calculated, intuitive nods to their original personalities, with a nudge one way or another.

However, when writers assume they have just a blank slate, that's when they go awry. Mark Costa was particularly bad this way... he simply didn't care at all.

To a degree, sure... there are a lot of characters, and many writers have passed through IDW... but I would expect that for anyone undertaking a Transformers writing gig for IDW... paid work... they should at least be obliged to read over the run, and do a bit of research on the characters they want to use. Working within a consistent universe is still the desirable outcome.

Yeah, you would think that IDW would have their own consistency document for these kinds of things... the fine details and continuity-specific story beats.

But beyond that, G1 Transformers isn't lacking for resources... the original Tech Specs, and the Transformers Universe Budiansky profiles are all online. There's also Dreamwave's More Than Meets the Eye guidebook series (basically just a paraphrased Transformers Universe), and the vast receptacle of knowledge that is the TFwiki.

I wonder the same thing, though Costa was also coming off a very successful run on IDW's GIJOE titles and might have entered Transformers with a bit of a golden-boy aura, encouraging the editors to give him a carte blanche. Costa's interviews certainly evidence a degree of aloof contempt for the material, so I'm not sure if it was so much a case of floundering, as just being cocksure. Later, of course, they seemed to back him up more, with guys like Barber and Roberts helping him assign appropriate characters to dialogue, and stuff like that. This may be why the latter part of Costa's run is more bearable for me.

Good point. It could be that IDW's editorial staff was just completely unaccustomed to needing to do any hand-holding... or less generously, to do their damn jobs (at least content-wise). Roche, Roberts, and even McCarthy are obviously all longtime fanboys, and Furman is practically Transformers canon manifest, after all.  

zmog

 

Very quickly, respecting your views on the current books, careful on predisposing (or otherwise) Ryan to stuff he's like, 70 issues away from. Counter-balance: stiiiil loving.    

But I definitely like your takes. I had a very weird relationship with the G1 cartoon. I'm born '81, so I was still quite small when the toon was originally airing. I lived in a bigger town, almost a city, in western Canada. I have those vivid, hazy childhood memories of seeing Optimus Prime rolling down the hill in truck mode from "MTMTE," of the s3 episode in the black hole where Magnus and all get weird color palettes, TERRIFYING hazy memories of Shipwreck being taken away by blobs in a GI Cartoon that was TO BE CONTINUED AND I DIDN'T SEE PART TWO FOR LITERALLY TWENTY YEARS AND IT LEFT A SCAR IN MY BEING. I saw the movie in the theatre at age 5. I think I cried at Prime dying, and I remember my KISS/AC/DC loving dad going "cool" at the theme song.

But then I moved to a small town that didn't get Transformers on TV, and my interaction with G1 became: renting TF:TM, renting FFoD, and watching our owned VHS copies of "Fire in the Sky" and "Roll For It" over and over and over again. So that puts certain characters forefront in my mind, including Prowl (searching... searching... maybe we shoulda gone to help Prime after all), Cliffjumper, Brawn (START KICKIN' PIG IRON!), Starscream having a bit more depth, etc. Lots of Hound and Mirage. But that's IT, essentially.

For me, TF was almost entirely the toys. Sometimes I had access to tech specs, often I didn't; many of my toys were second-hand from swap meets or garage sales. So I basically got to create personalities entirely, or use what little blurbs I got from something I read somewhere, or those small appearances in the cartoons, to inform the stories I played. Vehicle modes and factions dictated personality. But say, Brawn. His stuff in Roll For It and even the movie tells me he charges in and is tough for his size.

And Cliffjumper rules.

And that persists until I discover the TF comics with Matrix Quest, part 1. I don't know if the comics were or weren't available, but it was at a point where I started buying comics on my own, regularly. And so THEN at around... 11? 12? my TF knowledge gets HEAVY input from the more character-based stuff Furman was doing, and I become huge fans of Nightbeat, Bludgeon, THUNDERWING, Spinister (seriously one of my all-time faves now), Scorpononk (seriously, fuck cartoon Scorpononk), and on and on. The comics also expose me to the awesome Marvel biographies.

So I agree with you, generally, that the best shit in TF comics has been to use little bits, often extremely underdeveloped bits --- a la Thundercracker's uncertainty about the 'Con cause --- to build them into stronger characters. Prowl, T-Cracker, lots of other stuff. And then the beauty of a Roche or Roberts taking REALLY unused characters who have barely even a bio (remember a lot of the later G1 or G2 bios forwent CHARACTER traits for almost exclusively technical data) is that THOSE toys can have much more added to them. Even then, when you look at Pyro, Roche specifically uses his resemblance to Prime. It's not totally blank. Roberts does some amazing things with a character like

Spoiler

Tailgate, whose bio said he was prone to tall tales, and he gives it a fabulous context

.

So Costa basically treating them as interchangeable automatons is that much more frustrating, when literally just the toy bios give you an entire world.