I don't understand why IDW insists on having the Bee call the shots, it's against his bio. He's supposed to look up to the other Autobots, not give them orders.
I am so stoked about the return of sl's as long as they are included in the sequentially numbered idw collection. I'm also ready to see some earth even if the story takes place during the Costa era. I know I'm in the minority but I would still PERSOnally enjoy a brief revisit to a very different technologically and politically earth. Even if it was brief and used solely to bring verity- jimmy- and an aspect of hunter back onboard a ship of your choice. Roberts would be great for this and move the mythos forward. But until then- I can't wait to see tc again. Sl's rule.
I thought the team of Thundercracker and the deluxe Insecticons was an odd choice. It was probably Barber's only window to shoehorn Waspinator into a mostly G1 continuity. Thundercracker's characterization is off as usual. He's supposed to dislike creatures that can't fly, not spare them. I did get a kick out of the Decepticons thinking Thundercracker's sonic boom was meant to draw the Pork-Men out though.
^ I don't murder everything I dislike. I think there is enough wiggle room in his bio to have TC's beef with the Decepticons be "all the murdering." That said, I actually agree with you (the law of large numbers suggests unlikely events will occur with enough iterations) on BB, it feels a bit inexcusable to have him ordering around Jetfire millions of years before he was ever even on Earth. As I just mentioned in another thread, I'm rapidly running out of reasons to like IDW BB. The greatest disservice you can do to Bumblebee isn't taking away his voice or making him Hot Shot, it's making him unpleasant. Or generic high-ranking Autobot Number 706.
Humans and Pork-Men should be insignificant to Thundercracker like Rats and Roaches are to me. Now imagine if the Roaches were riding in little Tanks firing at me and the Rats were throwing off my aim... I'd be murdering the shit out of them.
Haven't had a chance to read it, but if Waspinator shows up then I need to buy it just to justify having more beast era figures with my Classics Decepticons. That seems unlikely, since Sky-Byte simply exists in this continuity and the only justification for him even being around is that he's been gone for a really long time and only recently returned to Cybertron now that the war is over. No explanation for his flying shark mode. Period. Waspinator is actually even easier if Barber wanted to include him, since he's had a vehicle-transforming body at least once or twice, and if Bumblebee can be a car and still be named after an insect that doesn't exist on Cybertron, then I don't see why Waspinator can't be a jet of some kind and also be named after an insect not native to Cybertron. Judging from the fact everybody is saying he's with the insecticons, that's actually pretty neat and maybe even gives hope for a new Classics-ish Waspinator in the toy line (because if fucking Drift could get a toy back when he was still useless during AHM, Waspinator deserves one because he's in the HoF)
Definitely meatier and better than the Orion Spotlight, and the inner dialogue seemed to have more of a point here than Barber's RID, but I agree with what other people said--this is an elaborate setup for Metroplex. We do get inside of Thundercracker's head though, which is nice. Also Bee shouldn't be leading the squad, and what's up with Nightbeat showing up so much? Is he going to return or something? I feel like his role in both comics could've been given to someone else. Chee's art is better here than in the BB miniseries, but it's a little too simplistic G1 for me. Don't get me wrong, I love G1 art, but guys like Guidi knock it out the park--the art here by contrast is a little... stale. Some scenes were nice though, like Metroplex rising out of the ground to meet Prime and Thundercracker warping with the ship. Why is Bee's chin as big as Jay Leno's? Lol, Metroplex totally pulled one of these: My job is done......... See ya! - YouTube
The writers have taken Thundercracker's original portrayal as not being committed to Megatron's ideals to it's logical conclusion: Proud Warrior Race Guy mad that his people are no longer a Proud Warrior Race. And yes, I just paraphrased tvTropes. And just for the lulz, you do know TC loves human culture as much as Jazz or Blaster are supposed to, right? edit: And lest I forget - Waspinator is hardly the first "non-G1" character to get retconned into G1, and not all of it was Barber/Roberts. At the minimum there's Lugnut, the Go-Bots (the Tonka version), and some of the movie-line but didn't appear in the movies characters. Oh, and Beast Wars IS G1.
That was a very odd read imo. Why is Bludgeon suddenly a bizarre triple changer? What was the point of the Deluxe Insecticons and Waspinator? Why is Bumblebee ordering Jetfire around and why are those three teamed up in the first place? It's nice that TC was having doubts about the Decepticon cause back then, but it felt like his monologue was just a jumbled collection of cliches.
Barber said that we'll be seeing what Thundercracer has been up to in current time in Spotligh Bumblebee. FUCK and I was not planing on getting that!
I think he was saying that we'd get more on why TC didn't go back to Cybertron with everyone else--Spotlight: BB takes place in the past, so I'm not sure how it could show what TC's been up to in the present unless there's a flash-foward scene with him at the end or something.
Yeah, so far this round of Spotlights has been pretty flat. I was looking forward to this one, but the story felt very bland, very self-contained and a bit too neatly tied up. Thundercracker's monologue was pretty dull... it's like every single other monologue that Barber writes. There's no real sense of different voice behind the characters, and half the time it's just belabouring the same points over and over again. It's a narrative technique that feels arbitrary here, adding nothing much to the storytelling. The characterizations were off too... Bumblebee's leadership role (which is not to say that he hasn't always had a reasonable rank as an Intelligence operative, but it feels WAY out of synch with his normal portrayal, and in that sense, generic. The art was... ok. I think it was technically alright (though I preferred the style of Chee's stuff in his Bumblebee miniseries... maybe that was the inker?). However, I was pretty annoyed at the flat-out laziness of the alt-modes. Blitzwing has clearly turned into an Earth tank, the Insecticons are all CLEARLY conventional bugs. Bludgeon is apparently a flying tank. If you're going to do a story set in the past, writers should realize that these sorts of details DO matter to fans. In the end, I don't feel like this story brings us any other valuable information. I don't feel like Thundercracker has been rounded out any further than he was before, and I don't think the Metroplex situation has been enriched any further, beyond his being a colossal plot device justifying a fairly generic story. So yeah. Meh. zmog
If I were the sort of person who posted gifs, I would post that Citizen Kane applause gif. You have to get that right, it really takes me out of the story when it isn't right. I know you can say "ha ha trivial" but it's actually not, it goes to the core of what the Transformers are and why they make sense (in-story anyway). You can't just throw up your hands, draw some toys and say "anything goes," because you'll lose all semblance of verisimilitude. PS this is something Transformers Prime didn't learn till they got to fucking Smokescreen. I CAN SEE YOUR EARTH MODE KIBBLE EVERYONE. Beast Wars didn't have nearly the same level of technology to work with and they still found ways to make it clear that the 'bots were different on Cybertron.
Everything about these new Spotlights is dull. Dull stories, dull dialogue, dull art... even Roberts' issue was dull. Think Imma drop this series for now unless I hear good things about an issue, though I'm still interested in Roche's Megs Spotlight.
Yeah, that's kind of annoying. I actually don't really mind if artists want to draw Bee as a VW in one story, then a Camaro in the other (although I don't like the idea that Transformers can simply scan new stuff on the fly, a la movieverse, I just see this as a bit of artistic freedom) but it really grinds my gears when the artist draws Cybertronian modes as just Earth modes. I understand there's no time (and you probably don't get paid) to come up with an entire new look for the character, but come on: it doesn't take that much effort to replace some glaring Earth parts (such as tires, treads, headlights) with some nondescript 'Cybertronian' parts. You'd think that with over 25 years of Transformers, drawn and rendered in various styles, you'd be able to download some inspirational examples fast if you don't know how to draw a car that is not a Sedan.
Spotlight Bumblebee is set between the end of the Costa ongoing and RiD, so it is sorta "the present." At least compared to these other Spotlights.
You sure? I got the impression it takes place during Costa's run, not after. The solict mentions the Autobots going after a bunch of Cons on Earth, even though most were on Cybertron at that time. Then again, the solict also does mention "escape from Earth." Hmm.
