spoilers abound, read on at your own risk. story: a lot better than #1, but still by no means great. the story sets up a vendetta sideswipe has against demolishor for killing his squad, and can be summed up as sideswipe learning not to overkill, and to distinguish himself better from the enemy (something the art has trouble doing). he's portrayed as erratic and hot-headed as he smashes thru civilians in pursuit of the enemy. movie sideswipe this is not, as RoTF SS was more slick, cool, and cocky. the only real cockiness this SS exhibits is towards ironhide whom he calls old timer. been there done that, hot-head eventually relearns to take advice from his mentor. my main gripes with the story and mini-series are the following: 1. the miniseries doesn't seem to be going anywhere as a whole--we know what came before, we know what came after, and the writers seem to think that what's in the middle is inconsequential (this was def the case with #1); and 2. for a series whose purpose is to flesh out characters, we've gotten 0 to very cliched/flat development. also, in this issue, prime was VERY much out of character saying they'd bring SS down the hard way if he couldn't be reasoned with. but those negatives aside, i couldn't help enjoy the action, and smile at furman's repeated phrases on pp 16-17: "get out of my way", "just stay out of my way!", "stay out of it!" but action and furmanisms do not a good story make: 1.5/5 from me. art: i know libeskind will disagree with me, but i'm still finding the art pretty atrocious. i think some of the action was captured better here than in #1, especially when it comes to the vehicle chases (pp 10-13, top of page 17)-- very bay-esque. but when it comes to humans and bots, no good. on page 7, ironhide looks like a thumb with a face painted on it, and is the bumper really supposed to be that big? humans faces are fat, and protoforms are indistinguishable from each other on page 9. bots are not clean, crisp, and metallic, but dull, poorly expressioned, and indistinguishable (where does ironhide stop and SS begin in the last panel on 22?). another 1.5/5, but only b/c of the nice action scenes. i'm starting to wonder if i should pick up the remaining issues or use that money on late saturday night falaffels in downtown nyc. what does everyone else think?
This is the character development for him we should have got in ROTF. A rouge on the line between Autobot and Decepticon who thinks he can do everything himself.
Completely!!!!! I think he could have been the star of ROTF, rather than a glance. Him and Jolt got so screwed.
Question: Is tales of the fallen just 1 shot issues about 1 character, or are they all going to be tied in? And, there are 6 issues, right?
Jolt=YES! I would love to see him get a TOTF issue. I love his toy's bio of him being sort of a distraction/scout. He NEEDS his own issue, to also eexplain why he showed up out of nowhere.
For the most part 1-shot issues, though apparently the one about Ravage is going to tie in to the upcoming Movie miniseries, Transformers: Nefarious.
This was a solid read. Nice balance of action and characterization, this format works much better than tales of the allspark giving more room to a single story. And it was great to see Demolisher and Sideswipe beyond their short appearance in the movie. The art isn't as sharp as issue 1 bug I like this guys style, realism works well with the movie designs.
MUCH better in terms of art and story. They art is still very stylized but I think Carlos has found a nice style with this issue that works better than last issue. Although the Cybertronian forms look weird as hell.