Read it.

Didn't really do it for me, I have to say.

For the first time on a Spotlight, I thought the story was too contrived, too banal. By the end, I was just happy that I didn't have to bear looking at Sixshot transform for the umpteenth time and blast something into smoke.

And the Reapers? A curious bunch with a interesting approach to life, and with a kickass looking leader in the Deathbringer, but why they were so powerful was not really that clear.

I felt this was some of Simon's weakest writing on IDW yet. Sixshot is made out to be the ultimate loner, and yet despite this, the entire issue focuses on his quest to locate his Terrorcon "friends" (who get zero characterization, by the way). I just couldn't come to terms with his motivation in this issue.

I think the message Simon was trying to relay was that, despite Sixshot's reputation and singular outlook on life, even he had an inner desire for companionship. But to me, this really took away from the "badness" aspect of Sixshot. Had he actually blasted the Terrorcons to dust, I think that might have made this reading redeemable in my view and truly made him intriguing in some way. By the end, he seemed no different than, say, Razorclaw and his pals, or Bludgeon and his lackeys.

A missed opportunity, IMO. I kind of felt the same way at the end of Stormbringer, when Razorclaw had a chance to destroy Cyberton and really shake up the mythos, but elected to stay his hand.

Artwise, I will say that Ruffolo exceeded my expectations. Though I don't think it was anything stellar, it was certainly acceptable. Unfortunately, Rob's greatest performance was not enough to rescue this tale from the grip of mediocrity.

A "D+" overall.

 

I liked it. But I didn't get what actually happened at the end? What was the point of him blasting and missing, then the comment, "Good thing I'm as good as I'm supposed to be" or whatever? Does it take skill to miss? Did I miss something?

 

Ditto.
Overall I liked the issue. But that part did seem a little out of wack.

 

This was better than I thought it was going to be. That's really mostly on the art, though. I'm not going to repeat the part about his work on MM. I am going to note the interior art was significantly better than the artist's cover artwork. I agree that the ball was dropped on the Terrorcons after the bombardment. I'm thinking that was probably originally intended as a 'frozen shock' thing, but that was beyond the artist's grasp.

The art is what ranks this as #3 of the 4 spotlight issues so far. The writing on this one is definitely at a low point here. As a spotlight issue, it does its job by showing off the title character, who has never gotten this much characterization before (in English anyway). It doesn't live up to the other issues in the Spotlight series, though. They've all had something that either ties together background plot elements or introduces ones to come (or both). This is just a hiccup to bring things into status quo.

Bringing some of his old cliches into the issue really didn't help Furman's writing. Deathbringer? One of his old G1 concepts that I didn't think flew well then. Even worse that it's doing the same thing now (twisted away from its original purpose with a psychotic reinterpretation of it). Much worse is bringing back something that was truly a cliche for him in the G1 days, non-TF characters that are more powerful than TFs that are built to wage wars against other powerful TFs. Death's Head was the first and most egregious example of this, but here it's these Reavers. It's not quite so bad here since it's established that the Reavers have at least been heard of by the Decepticons, but it's still bad nonetheless.

It does take skill to miss when you want it to be uncomfortably close without doing harm. The point of that, IMHO, and what seemed to be one of the better parts of the writing here, was that Sixshot was using it to emphasize a point (he obviously had to think about what he really felt and where he stood with the looking around part before-hand). His point was that they really were his comrades. Just not as much as they think they are.

Here's hoping Furman puts takes a little more time out of the writing of Escalation for the next one in the Spotlight series than he did for this one.

 

Yeah, although it was still fairly good, I thought this was the weakest of the Spotlights so far. Sixshot's constantly changing head proportions did bother me a bit, but overall the art was decent enough.
I wonder how exactly this will tie into the ongoing story, though? Will we see the Reapers again in the future, maybe on Earth? Hmmm...

 

For the first Spotlight I actually read (I have Hot Rod and Nightbeat but haven't gotten around to reading them, and I missed out on Shockwave), I thought this was decent. Not spectacular, but not terrible.

For starters, I liked the chance to actually get into Sixshot's head, considering his terrible track record in US Transformers fiction (one episode of Rebirth, an apparent art mistake in the Marvel series, and a brief cameo before Dreamwave folded). Granted, it was a lot of "I'm the best at what I do" and "I'm an abyss of lonliness and isolation", but hey, it was characterization.

The story was pretty simple (then again, it's only one issue), but it does have a "taste-of-things-to-come" air about it, with how Sixshot will affect the story in the future. Heck, for all we know, Furman might bring the Reapers back.

Speaking of which, I thought the Reapers were an interesting concept. Some of the designs were neat, but I would have liked to learn a little bit more about them. All I really learned is that they are aliens and dangerous.

As for the art, Rob Ruffolo has come a long way since Micromasters, but that panel with the Terrorcons standing around as if nothing was going on as Sixshot was about to shoot at them really bothered me too.

 

I liked it. Sixshot is actually very scary here as a weapon of mass destruction as opposed to the honorable ninja who befriends Daniel in Headmasters.

The Reapers remind me a little too much of X-Men Reevers. Or it could just be the simliar names.

I agree with Fosterlager on his ranking of the Spotlights so far.

 

That and they're all batsh*t insane enough to think that trying to stop war by utterly destroying anything thats worth fighting for is somehow a good thing.....

Personally i thought it was OK, the only bit I really didn't like was the afforementioned Terrorcons being threatened with destruction and reacting by doing absolutely nothing at all, they may not be the TF universes greatest geniuses, given their characterisation they really should have done something other than just stand there.

 

Oh yeah. *smacks forehead* That's what I get for not looking through the book a second time when writing my review. They are pretty damn crazy.

 

Robs art was nice. His coloring was beautiful. Sadly, the story was pretty bland. Also I didn't like how this was basically a 22 page comic that seemed like it had to stretch out 11 or less pages of script material. Worst Spotlight yet, based solely on the writing.

 

Is it just me or would six shot be much more menacing with some sort of color change. Its hard to take him too seriously with that silly color scheme.

 

For me, I enjoyed the art, as I do agree Ruffalo has improved a great deal since Micromasters. But, I think what bothered in this issue was that I didn't quite get the point in the end when Sixshot didn't join the Reapers with him intentionally missing the Terrorcons. And maybe, perhaps it's because I simply did not recognize the Reapers, nor do I think I got a good understanding as to "how dangerous" they supposedly were. For example, are they a threat to the whole universe? To both Autobots and Decepticons?

Overall, although I liked the issue as a whole, I'm unsure of how this spotlight fits with the grand scheme of things in IDW's TF universe (or how it even relates to Infiltration/Escalation at the moment).

 

Yeah, I thought that was pretty freakin' cool. Great idea and I hope to see them in the future. Maybe they come to Earth....

But other than that, I have to agree with everyone else. Rob's art is much better, but it couldn't save a rather bland story.

 

From what I gathered, they're a danger to most of the universe because of their sheer power (I mean, six or so of them leveled a PLANET? Wow), although less of one to the Transformers because the TFs are so abnormally powerful for a race.
Also, Sixshot explained near the end that the reason he didn't join the Reapers was because his Decepticon alliance "still meant at least something to him", so he isn't exactly ready to abandon his allies just yet.

 

i liked the story but dislike the art. i think the arts very poor, technique wise, despite the colors making it more palatable. really, really bad character poses.

cant say i much care for the bad guys tho, despite the deathbringer reference. but the script was pretty neat in places.

 

Pretty good, but $4 good? Most definitely no.

Kudos to Rob for improving his art so much, though.

 

Hmm yeah... on re-reading it is a bit bland, that and given that Sixshot actaully has fairly normal-seeming manerisms and internal monologe (things like him calling the reapers "Chilling"): all that "I am the abyss" stuff comes across less cold hearted killer and more Goth kid.

 

I was not terribly keen on the art in this Spotlight. All the Decepticons appear to be suffering from "Tiny-Face Syndrome" especially Sixshot, which appears Ruffolo's style. I also noticed some of Sixshot's alt. modes don't look quite right, well specifically his tank mode; the offset turret on page 2, and again the turret is off-centre on page 21 with one barrel short than the other.

The Terrorcons barely seem to move when they reappear, they stand there impassively even when Sixshot is seemingly going to attack them and they're in the exact same position afterwards. The bird bad guy seems to hover in place on page 17.

The Reapers don't especially seem that menacing, a bird!?, a jellyfish!?, a "poor-man's" Warpath!?, a druid!?. I expected something a little more sinister and mysterious, plus the name "Reapers" is a bit overused.

The story seemed a little contrived to me, especially the end where, in his inner monologue, realises he has some loyalty to the 'Cons and "the odd individual - or group - still stir empathy, of a sort". At this point Sixshot could've hugged the Terrorcons and said "I love you guys", because it seemed to be totally at odds to how he's portayed at the beginning.

On a sidenote, it's interesting to see cameos of Ransack, Treadshot, and Squawkbox(?). It's possible that it's Wingspan or Pounce in the background on the same page aswell.

Definitely my least favourite of the first four Spotlights.

Just my 1.05 pence.