Eh, that didn't come across like I wanted it to. I like new52 Batman well enough, especially Zero Year. I was trying to say that its a good thing that All Star Batman is a completely different book, and that Batman doesn't "feel" the same in the two books.

 

Yeah, it's a bit weird, although I did appreciate how all the Prowl stuff that was set up in the Coda got a pay-off here.

Working my way though the trade, I've now read the GI Joe and Star Trek instalments of Infestation and... they're also quite good. The GI Joe segment, especially, is pretty neat - they're trapped in an undersea base while the evil force (here in the form of a computer virus) turns all the systems against them. There are no zombies at all in that one, and it's just a very well done, claustrophobic, base-under-siege, tech-run-riot story.

The Trek episode treats the zombie curse as more like a virus for McCoy to cure in the nick of time, and overall it's quite a traditional Trek tale. There's the standard Trek preachy moralising (it's what's on the inside that counts), technobabble, sentient computers, shuttlecraft and tricorders.

It's almost strange then, that the Transformers section is so 'important', when the other two have far less in the way of consequences (unless you're a redshirt or a Cobra trooper, that is). Furthermore, the Transformers segment requires knowledge of previous stories (Spotlight Kup, the AHM Coda, Dead Furmanverse), whereas the other two patently don't.

My first thoughts were that the whole Kup thing was a cynical hook to get people reading the crossover, but considering the more low-key nature of these other two Infestation chapters, maybe I got that wrong.

 

To me, the Kup death felt out of place, and a bit frustrating, because the parts had been already laid out and nudged into motion in Roche's AHM Prowl story... and between Costa's take on Prowl, and Kup's death, it felt like one of the more exciting IDW stories to come along had just been thrown off the bus (and under the bus). To me, it was a perfect example of how continuity was being mismanaged at IDW... though of course, people are always more tolerant of shifts like that if they aren't that crazy about the continuity that's getting abandoned. I was getting a bit bored with Furman's larger mega-plot, and so I didn't take it so hard when IDW seemingly took a hard left away from that stuff.

Obviously, I believe that they are. More to the point, they are the most essential element of G1 Transformers. The are literally the foundational structure that both the comics and cartoon were built on. In that sense, I'd argue that it's not so subjective... which doesn't mean people can't have their personal preferences. Because Transformers was also a toy fiction, first and foremost, the bios were also intended as the basis for play scenarios enacted by kids, based on what toys they happened to have... so there's always a bit of room for variation and imagination.

So yeah, I don't mind new ideas in G1. But I think that they should at least be new ideas based on the old ideas, so it doesnt' just end up being an "in name only" situation.

For the most part, IDW handles this right... but they've had their missteps along the way, in terms of canonical fidelity... which doesn't necessarily mean that they are missteps in terms of overall quality.  

zmog

 

That's fair. I liked that Batman and Robin had a different feel to it versus the main Batman book a few years back, too.

 

Transformers Ongoing #7: All His Engines

1/5. ‘Engines’ implies motion; this story has none.

Say what you like about the silliness of Infestation, but at least it was brisk. In stark contrast, here is an issue in which pretty much nothing happens of note, unless you want to count a five-page dialogue scene between a bunch of soldiers, or the death of a couple of z-list Decepticons (Dreadwind and Quake).

I mentioned previously how simply referencing the past (with movie quotes, Furmanisms, in-jokes and homages) isn’t enough – such fan-service should always be in addition to a story, not a replacement for it. Here we open with scenes on a barren planet, with the Decepticons at each other’s throats due to the scarcity of Energon. This is something straight out of the cartoon episode “Five Faces of Darkness”, and it although it adds a little bit of familiarity to proceedings, it just doesn’t quite work.

For a start, I was under the impression that the Decepticons post-Dead Furmanverse were basically running roughshod all over the galaxy. The Autobots had been decimated, Megatron had won, and the war was basically over. Why then are the Decepticons here so low on energy? Haven’t they plundered thousands of worlds by now? It just strikes me as odd that the Decepticon forces here are so low on fuel.

However, what I did appreciate were the finer details of this scenario: Megatron is still recuperating, Shockwave, Soundwave and Bombshell are busy doing mysterious stuff, and Starscream (under the influence of the Matrix) is waltzing around like he owns the place. This means that the rank-and-file Decepticons are being left to their own devices, with very little power. Inevitably they turn on each other (hence Dreadwind’s death), but to Razorclaw that’s not such a bad thing – his feeling is that, with Decepticons killing each other, it will weed out the weakest elements of the army and leave only the strongest. Again, it wouldn’t be such a bad concept if we hadn’t already seen something like this on Garrus-9 in LSOTW. There – as here – Transformers were anarchically killing each other on a desolate world whist a powerful Decepticon looked on in amusement. Been there, done that.

Back on Earth, we get the talk scenes. I thought that by the end of the first ongoing arc, the Autobots and humans had settled all their differences, but apparently this tiresome détente between the two factions seems like it’s going to rumble on.

Back in All Hail Megatron, it seemed as though Daniel Witwicky had a bit of character; he lamented putting his son in danger, had a friendly chat with Kup about cy-gars. Now, though, it seems he’s had a bit of a personality transplant (not the first time Costa has done this), and he’s now a gruff, no-nonsense, won’t-listen-to-reason hardball. He’s J Jonah Jameson, and the Autobots are Spider-Man. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s stupid human characters in Transformers fiction (Forrest Forsythe back in the 80s is another example). Daniel is no longer a character, but a plot device, a barrier to be overcome. He’s basically Officer Logan from the Bill and Ted films.

We also get a bit of foreshadowing (references to a mysterious ‘Allenby’, who doesn’t sound like a very nice man), and we’re also introduced to the straight-laced ‘Sandra’ (who doesn’t get a surname or rank here), one of Spike’s military team who also questions Spike’s judgement (because of course, the moral centre of the human cast just has to be the female one).

One other thing I disliked in this story: the art. EJ Su is normally quite reliable, but for some reason all the Transformers here are covered in weird dark patches that make them look like something out of 101 Dalmatians. It’s a really weird stylistic choice and I don’t think it quite works.

Overall, this is dull and talky, more of a prologue or an issue zero than a full-on chapter in the new story arc. The only action we have is the tired Decepticon-on-Decepticon stuff, and the only intrigue we have here is humans acting stupid. Hopefully the next issue has a bit more substance to it.

 

Hmmm, don't get your hopes up too much mate, IIRC issue 8 was the issue that I hated most of all in this series. To be fair I probably didn't give it a totally fair shake as by that point barring LSOTW and one or two other one offs I'd hated all Idw's output for a couple of years by that point and perhaps over reacted to one of the most blatant examples of one of my personal by bears in any sci-fI.

Looking forward to your review though. I love all the call backs yo get in to stuff I've not thought about in years. This review has me about to go to alluc and watch some bill and ted!  

 

I found it odd that Darkwing would just abandon Dreadwind to his fate given how close they were as brothers in Stormbringer, just more ignorance of continuity I guess.

Next up, issue 8. ... Oh fuck, not this one. Not to spoil anything but it's a right turd.

 

Yep, from here on in I wouldn't be surprised if you give any issue a 1 to a 3.

Fortunately, this EJ Su's only issue on art, so you don't have to worry about seeing this style again.

And how fast have you found yourself reading these issues, cause we've found that we finish these in around five minutes, where as with the current comics(MTMTE in particular) we find ourselves taking up to 20 minutes to read a single issue.

Cause what would that tell about the quality of the comics?

 

Relevant. Just rereading the trades mtmte takes a lot longer than many comics. Not just because of dialogue. So much to pore over and absorb.

 

Yep, you've got that right. During Furman's run both groups had large facilities spread out over the galaxy. During AHM the Decepticons were victorious and the Autobots lost all their resources because one small group on Earth lost (with the excuse that a low ranking Autobot had codes that could deactivate all the Autobots defenses).

Now, after the few Decepticons on Earth lost single battle and retreated, all the Decepticons throughout the galaxy have suddenly lost all their facilities and are squandering over a few scraps of energon. There's might be some logic in this, but it escapes me...

Thanks to Costa I switched from buying loose comics at a local store to just ordering the trade online. Saves me quite a bit of money actually.

But the reason was exactly as you described. You wait a month for the next issue and five minutes later you've read it. And I usually read comics at least three times: a quick first read, a second more thorough read and a third to appreciate all the fine art details combined with the story. With the Ongoing this took me less than 15 minutes per issue total. There's a whole lot of nothingness, page splashes with nothing happening or being said, or pages of multiple, very similar panels with very minimal dialogue.

God, if only there had been a good editor on this title... A good editor would've brought almost every issue back to a few pages. (Maybe I should get of my arse, scan all these comics and do some editing myself.)

 

That's why I decided to drop Marvel's new Star Wars comics as soon as they came out, each one was getting so short that when I finished I was fuming at wasting £2.49 on a brief comic when I could have just bought another issue of MTMTE instead. XD

Same, when Ryan started the Costa era and went by reviewing each issue I was reading the issues of volume 1 individually too, but noticing how short each one was, I couldn't carry on, I felt the need to just down each volume in one sitting instead. Didn't improve the quality but it made me more forgiving to this era in terms of pacing because it just went by quickly.

 

I actually liked this issue, relatively speaking.

In the broad strokes, it makes no sense. It bears the marks of a plot being hustled along, even if the logic behind it is not really supported by earlier material in the series - though Costa's All Hail Megatron Coda story about Starscream would be the lead-in, and establishes (if not justifies) the abject defeat of the Decepticons at this point.

However, I did like the smaller details and character bits. The pacing didn't bother me, since it was clear that this was an issue on a particular motif.

I also quite liked the art... simultaneously bleak and colourful. It's not EJ Su's usual high-detail style, but it follows a bit from his Spotlight Prowl style, streamlined for a faster, more deco-esque result.

And yet... some of the things I liked about this issue are moot in retrospect, because what it delivered at the time it was released was some faint glimmer of interesting developments on the Decepticon side. This is the second time Costa has noted Razorclaw as a viable challenger for Starsceam's leadership role, and his sit-back-and-watch, survival of the fittest style seemed to be an interesting fit for his character. It feels like there's blood in the air, so at the time, I looked forward to where it was going next.

Unfortunately, none of this comes to anything, really. It's all smoke and false promise. Costa never really capitalizes on the groundwork that gets laid here, so in the end, the issue is a bit disappointing to me.

zmog

 

Yeah, that's one thing you can definitely say about MTMTE... they may be on the talky side, but the issues feel substantial... like something you want to actually sit down and read, rather than breeze through.

During what I consider to be the high-point of MTMTE, I could drop 40 minutes on an issue easy, just drinking in the dialogue and Milne's densely-packed artwork.

zmog

 

Transformers Ongoing #8: Scrapper

1/5. I admire the intent, but the execution has two fundamental problems

Despite the title, this is basically Spotlight: Spike. It attempts to give us a real look inside the mind of the character, who he is, and what he’s all about. Considering Spike has been pretty much unlikeable since his very first appearance, I was willing to give this issue a chance to change my mind about him. Maybe if we could get under his skin, find out what drives him, we could understand him a little better.

Fundamental problem number 1 is that Spike is a walking stereotype: cocksure military fly-boy, your typical alpha male. As such, it’s hard to add nuance and depth to a character who is, essentially, a cipher. His background is just what we would expect it would be: grew up chopping logs in the back garden and getting into fights at school. It reads like a million other literary and television characters, and it just impounds cliché by adding even more layers of cliché.

Had it transpired that Spike was a straight-A student who suffered a personality change after a bad trip, I could get behind that, because it would be interesting and novel. But no, what we get is what we would expect. His dad taught him archery, he had a troubled childhood, and every once in a while he needs to ‘let off steam’ by beating someone in a fight. All we’re missing is the scene where he scores the winning touchdown in the high school football game and the bit where the cops arrest him for engaging in an illegal street race, only for his daddy to use his influence to get him out of trouble.

In most of the other spotlights we learnt a bit more about a character, something that would surprise us. I appreciate Costa taking time out of the main story to give more depth to this most two dimensional of characters, but all he’s done is simply bury Spike under a plethora of ‘jock’ stereotypes.

One of the few things that’s actually interesting and surprising about all of this, is the way in which Spike runs his Skywatch unit. Instead of being a by-the-numbers commanding officer with an elite squadron of soldiers under his command, he instead leads a bunch of similarly-minded types who are allowed to brawl with each other in the mess hall simply for teh lolz. It’s almost as if Costa saw how popular Last Stand of the Wreckers was, and decided to ape the “undisciplined soldiers who are allowed to do what they like” trope. Whilst it works for a crew of alien robots who are feared and revered across the galaxy, it’s a bit odd going in that same direction when you’re writing about the US Military.

Fundamental problem number 2: Costa is seemingly on a one-man mission to emasculate the Transformers; to turn our favourite robots into weak nobodies. Not content with having the Decepticons on Earth picked off one-by-one by Skywatch, having Hot Rod act extremely stupidly, turning the off-world Decepticons into a rag-tag bunch of squabblers and making Thundercracker start idolising humans, he now gives us a scene in which Spike (armed only with a home-made spray he cobbled together from his kitchen) is able to kill the Constructicon Scrapper so easily.

I realise the Earthbound Decepticons are low on fuel (for some reason. Whatever happened to Ore-13?), but in losing a duel with an unarmed human it just makes the Transformers look so rubbish. These are supposed to be amongst the mightiest beings in the galaxy – masters of disguise, robots who have been at war for millennia, invading and destroying entire planets. And yet a single human with a bottle of Pledge is able to take out a Decepticon with ease? I just don’t buy it. At all.

And I know it happens in a lot of movies, but in real life, construction workers don’t just leave a bunch of steel girders dangling in midair like that before clocking off for the night. Spike manages to defeat Scrapper because he lucks out that Bob the Construction Worker wasn’t following health and safety procedures.

Decepticons should have in-built scanners and sensors and stuff. How has the war gone on for so long when you get simpletons like Scrapper standing under a payload of steel bars like Wile E. Coyote?

I know Costa admitted that he struggled to get a handle on writing for Transformers, but it’s like he’s treating them disdain, making bots like Hot Rod and Scrapper act so utterly stupid it’s mind-blowing. I can accept that all Transformers have their weaknesses and foibles, but Costa seems hell-bent on turning them into fools. If I wanted my fiction to espouse the notion that humans are the greatest, I’d go and watch Star Trek. But this is Transformers, and I want to see them as the stars of the show, not the bumbling guest cast.

Infestation may have been a light romp, but it least it showed us Galvatron wielding the Heart of Darkness and Kup making his sacrifice. Just like in that story, I want my Transformers to be the protagonists, making things happen, being proactive, instead of just lamely pottering about waiting for the next storyline to kick in.

The sooner Megatron recuperates and heads down to Earth for another showdown with Prime, the better. In the meantime, it looks like we have more Fun With Gruff Generals, Spike being Spike, and Transformers sitting on their hands to look forward to.

 

You must be thinking of some other alien robot species.  

Spoiler

Like the Stentarians
.  

I think that's why no one likes what was going on and were just waiting for the "real" plot to pick back up.

 

Yep, one of the worst issues of IDW's run without a doubt. And only solidified this version of Spike as a not well written character.

 

Definitely one of the worst issues from the IDW universe, if it weren't for the Bumblebee mini-series or the New Avengers crossover I'd rank this as the worst one, it's just a waste of time with it's only positive element being how brief it is. And god does the art grow more inconsistent with Spike changing hair styles in the span of one issue. Having said all of that, the events shown in this issue bare major consequences later on. Yes, not only is this issue crap, it's also sort of essential.

Not to sort of hype things up (There's nothing to really hype up in the Costa era except for that one special thing) but the next story arc after this was much more enjoyable/tolerable for me to sit through, if only because it felt like an unabashed episode of the old G1 cartoon.

 

Just wait till international incident (or Costa rapes the combaticons) if you hated how dumb the TFs have been made to look so far!

In my less charitable moments I've thought that some authors create characters like spike cos it's who they secretly wish they were like (God only knows why in this instance) but are actually VERY far from it. His role in the entire just doesn't make any sense to me otherwise at times. I'm probably being unfair though and after my initial annoyance died down with how much I disliked Idw's output (bar LSOTW) at the time I thought I might be pushing a bit in this instance.

 

The notorious Spike vs Scrapper issue. Honestly, I think anything above 0/5 is giving it too much credit.

 

Transformers Ongoing #9: International Incident, Part 1: The Land Ironclads

3/5 Better, although still flawed.

This is one of those comics that’s a bit hard to review. It comes hot on the heels of an absolute stinker of an issue, and by comparison with #8, this marks a distinct uplift in quality. But intellectually I look at it and I can find a few things I don’t like about the comic and I think to myself – is it actually worth a three out of five, or does it only look good by comparison because the previous issue was so poor?

Well, lets’ get the negatives out of the way first. The comic opens with eight full pages of the Combaticons (well, three of them, anyway) blowing stuff up. Whilst it’s nice to see the Transformers looking powerful and all-conquering again, this is something that could have been established in two or three pages rather than a third of the entire comic. The art here is great, and it works on a visceral level, but ultimately it goes on for far too long, seemingly because this story had to take up x amount of issues to fill the subsequent trade.

Next problem. Bumblebee states that the humans “provided a ship for Springer’s people”. Hey what now?! Humans have the capability to build spaceships? When did that happen? Also: how did Springer and company get to Earth in the first place? Presumably in ships? Why then would they not use their own ships to leave the planet? In just one line, Costa (and his lazy editors) display such contempt for previous continuity, it’s almost unbelievably inept.

Also, the guy in charge of photoshopping all the faction logos onto the various Transformers was having a very bad day when this comic was being put together.

On the plus side, I must admit that I did like a lot of what we were seeing here. Considering Spike’s internal monologue last issue about hating machines, and his crazy attack on Scrapper, he’s downright friendly with the Autobots this issue, and indeed plots to go against the President’s orders by sending the Autobots into battle.

I also appreciated how Costa is happy to use a real-world country (in this case, North Korea). It does help to ground the story a little bit more. I have to say, I’m not a fan of using fake countries in fiction (I believe I mentioned this before when Furman used ‘Brasnya’ in Escalation), so this was something I think worked well. Plus, with confirmation that Korea was also affected by Megatron’s invasion, it reinforces the fact that the scale of the occupation was truly worldwide (in AHM we only got a brief view of life outside the USA during the attack).

Overall though, I like the fact that this issue seems to be heading somewhere. It feels as though it has purpose, direction. The Decepticons attack, the Autobots make preparations to go out and stop them. It’s like the first act of one of the old Sunbow episodes, and it worked for me on that level. Indeed, with Sunbow-style character models being used for all the Transformers here, it definitely added to the cartoony feel of the whole thing. This is far from the level of Last Stand of the Wreckers, but if this story ends up as a solid, turn-your-brain-off action/adventure, I won’t be too disappointed with that. It seems the plot is just about to take off; hopefully the subsequent issues in this arc will deliver on the promise of the opening instalment.