Transformers vs. Visionaries #2

Discussion in 'Transformers Comics Discussion' started by Great Genesic Rayserver, Feb 8, 2018.

  1. Great Genesic Rayserver

    Great Genesic Rayserver Well-Known Member

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    This came out yesterday and yet there was no thread for it. Guess no one cares for this thing, huh? Anyways, I wasn't quite feeling the last issue, but when the Laser Gorilla started fighting the Laser Dolphin-corn, then it got good. Genuinely kinda enjoying this series now, the Prysmos political civil war is interesting enough. Still miffed that Kup's dead.
     
  2. NoiseMaker

    NoiseMaker Well-Known Member

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    Did it? Awesome... I'll check back in later when I've been able to read it!
     
  3. Transmit Him

    Transmit Him Well-Known Member

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    I found it pretty underwhelming.
    Not much at all to the story. Doesn't seem to line up with First Strike. Most of the Visionaries are unrecognisable to their pre-existing characters (especially Ectar and Lexor, who could be anyone) and the Transformers sound off. Making the totem animals arbitrarily a bit alien seems entirely pointless given you've already got conveniently human aliens in the main cast (the ordinary earth animals could just be the mythical creatures of Prysmos, given the expanded universe connects Prysmos to Earth through Cybertron). Having the totem forms appear through the staffs is part of Mags' "streamlining" but it makes the chest panels (well, pec panels now) entirely pointless. If you really wanted to "streamline" it, why bother with the staffs at all? It's unclear how/why Witterquick has super-speed if none of the old staff summon powers exist. This is MASK all over again.

    The art's still the best thing about this, though faction-coded colour palettes for the Visionaries (all the Spectral knights wear mostly blue) is a bit dull en masse.
     
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  4. Great Genesic Rayserver

    Great Genesic Rayserver Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, there seems to be a gap between First Strike and TF vs Vis, as it seems a whole city's worth of people just got onto an alien planet somehow, with no real explanation how they got there. Hopefully the TPB fixes that. Also, I don't really care for the inconsistencies with the old series because I never actually saw the old series, so there may be a bias there or something, but I also much prefer these new designs, especially the armours.
     
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  5. Predakwon

    Predakwon ...Green Lantern's light!

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    Want to like, but it's terrible for me.
     
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  6. Great Genesic Rayserver

    Great Genesic Rayserver Well-Known Member

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    That's understandable, because a big chunk of it's prologue seems to missing.
     
  7. ultramagnus1

    ultramagnus1 Well-Known Member

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    Picked it up but can't make myself read it. Lol

    My LCS had it in my stash so I'll read it but no I'm not in the humor yetb
     
  8. mapatel

    mapatel Well-Known Member

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    Is this part of the actual transformers timeline? All this first strike, revolutionaries stuff and now this is getting hard to track. Also, Kup sure seems to have A LOT
    bad luck here.
     
  9. Haywired

    Haywired Hakunamatatacon

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    Yes, it's an official part of IDW Transformers continuity. And thank goodness only IDW.
     
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  10. Omegashark18

    Omegashark18 Combaticon turned Autobot

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    I still don’t feel this is terrible, contradictions with First Strike aside. Cause once you read something like MASK, everything else in this continuity is better by default.

    It was good for the Visionaries to get most of the panel time in this issue, helps show that this is their story too.
     
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  11. Great Genesic Rayserver

    Great Genesic Rayserver Well-Known Member

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    Never read IDW MASK, how was it so awful?
     
  12. Omegashark18

    Omegashark18 Combaticon turned Autobot

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    Stereotype one dimensional characters, bad dialogue, contradictory writing from issue to issue, and the art became unbearable the last several issues.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
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  13. Splendic

    Splendic bleep blorp

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    I read the first issue of this series hoping for an actual 'ending' to the mediocre event, 'First Strike,' and to keep up with what's happening on Cybertron. And the first issue was ok. It probably helped that I had almost no idea what was going on, so I was at least a little intrigued by some of the mystery.

    Reading the second issue was proof that I'll never give a crap about the Visionaries as characters or concepts, and the book has almost zero Transformers in it. Sure there's a big threat to Cybertron and a few fan favorite bots, but as a Transformers fan, there's nothing else on offer in this book for me. This is a Visionaries book with TF guest stars.

    So I guess I'll have to find out what happens to Cybertron on the Wiki from here on out. :audible eye rolling:
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
  14. gregles

    gregles quintesson

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    Even though it would make no sense at all I kind of want Rodimus to show up just to see his reaction to everyone using the word magic all the time.

    As for the issue I was cautiously intrigued and optimistic to read this as it wasn’t written by barber and I was hoping that the presence of a different writer might signal an end to barbers tyranny through predictable writing and give us a new fresh and different writing style but sadly this reads nearly exactly the same as a barber crossover comic.

    It looked nice with all the animals fighting and all that but it felt like nothing was at stake with these fights and come to think of it the whole ‘threat ‘ of this story arc feels hallow considering how it will all be wrapped up by Unicron time.

    I know nothing about the visionaries but they seem pretty easily grouped into goodies and baddies with hardly a memorable personality between the two of them. Hopefully this can improve throughout the story but it doesn’t bode well so far.
     
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  15. MGX

    MGX Well-Known Member

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    A Visionary not using the magic from their Power Staffs is like a Transformer who doesn't transform. The spells from the staffs and animal totems were reflections of their personalities, all displayed when trying to compete for that magic. Grief...they miss the point. It's frustrating to see an old property so grossly misunderstood. If they are out to potentially sell NuVisionaries toys, they are doing a terrible job of it.

    At least they started to turn into their totems. I wonder if it'll ever be explained why do they even have totems.

    I'm not sure how Witterquick has super speed without his spell poem from his staff.
     
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  16. Transmit Him

    Transmit Him Well-Known Member

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    It's "streamlining" apparently. Visaggio thinks it would be just too complicated for characters to have totems and staff powers (and then gives Witterquick super-speed anyway). I think it'd be perfectly easy to put across for a competent writer who actually gave a damn. It's like saying that Trailbreaker shouldn't have forcefields because he's already able to turn into a truck and it would be too confusing to have both.
     
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  17. Focksbot

    Focksbot Skeleton Detective

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    Absolute arse. I've gone from being excited for this series, to being disappointed, to thinking I could dash off a better job myself in no time.

    • Two issues in, and the series fails to establish how their powers work. Why does Witterquick have super-speed all the time? Doesn't that make him easily the most powerful character? And what's the deal with their staffs? It looks like they're leaping through them like hoops in order to change from animal back to humanoid, but ... not the other way round?
    • No personalities whatsoever. Standard goodies and baddies. Darkling Lords are indistinguishable, except for some nonsensical exposition for Cindarr. Spectral Knights likewise, except Witterquick is lippy, and Arzon a quibbler. What's the point in introducing such a large cast all at once if you're going to do nothing with any of them?
    • Come on - the people of Prysmos accept a bunch of guys called the 'Darkling Lords' as their saviours? When they were previously the bad guys, led by a chap called 'Darkstorm'? This is as bad as Megatron's Master Plan.
    • Apparently they could have just trashed the shield generators at any time??
    • Leoric's plan is to fight the Darkling Lords in the open, where it endangers civilians? When he knows that Merklynn is the big threat, and the boss of the whole operation, and has personally betrayed him to boot?

    What a shambles. The art was very good in places though.
     
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  18. MGX

    MGX Well-Known Member

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    STAR Comics did it better in the late 80's. Their personalities are tied to their powers and totems.

    The End ..
     
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  19. optimusmegas

    optimusmegas Target-Power-Titan-Prime-Battle-Master

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    i see all of you quote the same thing but i'm trying to figure out where you're getting this from.....where does it say that witterquick has natural superspeed all the time? he's only shown doing anything fast during the fight. who's to say he didn't do the poem or activated magic before he engaged in a fight...i mean that's what i'd do...you get your advantage going in not give the guy the chance to stop you. two issues in he's only fast there. so where are you all getting him having superspeed at all times?

    and how would activating his magic to give him superspeed any different from him always having superspeed? is it the idea it's not magic related the issue?
     
  20. Focksbot

    Focksbot Skeleton Detective

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    1) They don't use their staffs or their spell-poems to activate special powers, as they do in the show. Instead, they use them to activate their animal totems. There's no indication anywhere of how else Witterquick might be able to activate his superspeed.

    2) In the original show, Witterquick's lightspeed ability was one use only, travelling to a single destination, and it involved him being 'carried' by (or taking the form of) a spectral humanoid creature with winged ears. It was more of a teleport. Whatever this is, it's clearly not the same thing.

    3) He certainly uses it extremely casually.

    It's possible that he needs to do something specific to activate this power and that it has limitations, but the book gives us no indication of that - it makes almost no effort to set up the rules for magic use so that we can understand the stakes in the fight. Why can't Arzon just change into a hawk and fly away? What use is Witterquick's cheetah totem if he's got a separate power for going even faster than a cheetah?

    Compare this to the first episode of the cartoon, when Merklynn makes it absolutely clear that they can use their animal totems at any time, but that in their animal forms they may lose control, while their more versatile power staffs are single-use only, and need to be recharged by a visit to his magic pool. From that point on, you know that whenever Witterquick uses lightspeed, or Arzon calls on the bearer of knowledge, that's their *only* shot for the immediate future.
     
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