Orion Pax Spotlight Discussion (spoilers)

Discussion in 'Transformers Comics Discussion' started by CZ Hazard, Dec 11, 2012.

  1. CZ Hazard

    CZ Hazard @DiabraveSid

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    In stores tomorrow, I read it today.

    VERY GOOD.

    Just what I expect from James Roberts.

    I won't give too much away as it isn't fair on others, but once people have read it, come back and chat.

    All I will say is Rack.

    And Ruin.
     
  2. Yggdrasil

    Yggdrasil Banned

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    I never cared for the Spotlights nor did I find them fun or interesting..

    But this one I'm really hyped about! Come on wednesday!
     
  3. YoungPrime

    YoungPrime Herald Of Primus

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    Glad the Spotlights are back..Can't wait till Wednesday.
     
  4. Bass X0

    Bass X0 Captain Commando

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    Didn't fix anything. Gave us an origin story of sorts to Rack n Ruin and Bludgeon.

    I expected a larger tie in to Spotlight Blurr. Seems like there should be a part two that does tie in to Spotlight Blurr and that this was part one. Does anyone know if these new Spotlights tell a connecting story or if they are standalone like previous ones usually were?



    And we should all wear face-plates from now on. They serve a purpose.
     
  5. Napalm

    Napalm Drinking About Robots TFW2005 Supporter

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    That was ace. Roberts writes Pax as a proper legend in waiting, his proto-Prime shenanigans are bloody awesome fun.
     
  6. Sideswipe80

    Sideswipe80 Well-Known Member

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    I love Optimus but find this Spotlight unnecessary.
     
  7. Nez Pierce

    Nez Pierce @evildanish

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    Zeta got a real makeover since the last time I saw him. He and Unicron must have the same haberdasher.
    Silly Pax antics mixed with a little gravitas. Felt like fluff to me, but amusing fluff.
     
  8. MechaV

    MechaV Not as bad as you think.

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    Y'know, Killmaster.

    With the wand!

    ...so who's the third brother of Rack and Ruin?
     
  9. Kraken

    Kraken Is a vegiesaurus, Lex. Veteran

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    This was brilliant. Fun and frolics with Pax :D 

    I love how rough and ready Roberts Pax is, truly a hero and inspirational leader in the making and not someone who's being followed purely because he bears the Matrix. Great to see Alpha Trion and Nightbeat, although it seemed a strange mission for a supersleuth, I'm surprised Roller didn't go with them instead. As ever with JR there was some lovely world building and background expansion going on.

    Only thing I'm slightly disappointed with was that we were promised startling revelations that would have major repurcusions for the ongoings that weren't really forthcoming, unless Ratchets spell as a prisoner is going to have an effect soon.

    Who is Megatrons new favourite who has a thing about combiners? I immediately thought of Shockwave, but was Bludgeon into that as well? Is that where Ambulon came from?
     
  10. Torque

    Torque The WORDSMITH

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    ^ they meant Shockwave for sure.
     
  11. Digilaut

    Digilaut Well-Known Member

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    Bought it, read it...ehh..not that great.

    Still full of the smart Roberts humor and worldbuilding, but the art was pretty bad, which took me out of the story greatly. Also feel there was no real resolution or anything, but I think that's often the case with these Spotlights - just small, condensed stories.

    Last page looked totally awkward, lol.


    edit: by the way, I was under the impression Metroplex was not called Metroplex before the events of Autocracy? And that people weren't even sure he existed? And here we have Alpha Trion going 'oh yeah we totally went on an adventure yeeaaaars ago' and then we have multiple people calling him Metroplex. Huh?

    Yeah, he now looks like he did in Autocracy: terrible. The difference between how he looked at the end of Shadowplay and in Autocracy is so huge, it's hard to believe it's actually the same guy.
    (Or how anyone could ever think he would be on the side of 'good').

    Yikes.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2012
  12. Kaijumaster

    Kaijumaster 335

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    more a attempt to fix the "whoops" of Pax having Optimus body in 'Chaos Theroy' than anything, but it wasn't bad.
     
  13. Anguirus

    Anguirus Well-Known Member

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    Yeah that's a snafu. Funny, considering that we got this whole cute out-of-body story to explain an uninteresting flub.

    Best part of this issue was Alpha Trion, one of whose super-powers apparently is dodging Warner Brothers lawsuits. Pax was cool as usual but his design + the art was just a cascade of ugliness that the story wouldn't let me ignore.

    What I do like is that they are clearly tying into Spotlight Thundercracker, though this will apparently compound the Metroplex error. Anyway, nice to see the character as Bludgeon's lieutenant and I daresay...conscience? Sadly, IDW Bludgeon has been written consistently since Stormbringer...that is to say, dull. Seeing pre-war Thunderwing would have been a lot more interesting.

    Zeta Prime's design slapped into these cartoony panels was just hysterical.

    Nightbeat deserves better than to be Alpha's lame straight man and to be drawn like an Earth SUV, of all things.
     
  14. Wadeledge

    Wadeledge Wrecker

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    Nightbeat can't remember Rack & Ruin's triplet's name...

    It's RUNG!
     
  15. Stryker055

    Stryker055 Trying my best here!

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    But... but... but...

    No... it makes too much sense...
     
  16. dunerunner123

    dunerunner123 Optipottamus prime

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    It was okay, not as great as I thought it would be but it wasnt too bad.

    I hate to say I wasn't a fan of the art, Nightbeat looked green in most panels and Pax's vehicle mode was ridiculous for his robot body. As for the characters, The decepticons that appeared were the highlight for me. Nightbeats role felt sort of useless, I was happy to see him there but in general there wasnt much he said that really came off as Nightbeats personality besides "Alright, we get it, you know stuff". his role could have been given to Ironhide or even Roller. or maybe I just wasn't paying much attention to him.

    Alpha trion was neat to have along for the ride as well however I seem to enjoy Costas Asshole Trion a bit more over the constant religious quotes Alpha trion here.

    Rack and ruins roles were unexpected, the removal of their face masks was even more unexpected not to mention Racks handsome face contrasting to Ruins ugly one. as for the dead triplet, I couldn't help but think Rung. Rack Ruin Rung. I dunno, probably not.

    Thundercracker was a great surprise and I love how he show his discontent to Bludgeons plan of sending the ship into a populated area. It is also neat to see Pax and Bludgeon meeting and how it hopefully might be linked to Bludgeon and Optimus' meetings in Robots in disguise.
    I hope we get to see sometime soon if anything Bludgeon did affected Ratchet in any way, mainly because I felt like there wasn't much else to expand on besides the meanings of the faction symbols. I found the idea of a "first face" to be very interesting.

    Sadly I felt that the ending seemed a little. Awkward. Actually I don't know how to describe the ending it just felt sort of out of place, I have no idea if it was supposed to be awesome or sad or funny or anything. It was just such a strange thing for Pax to do I mean I know he missed his faceplate but he almost acted like his faceplate was a childs soother to him or something. Perhaps it would have worked better if Shockwave gave him the faceplate after his old one broke off in chaos theory, Or even told him that he thought Pax's faceplate was his best feature or something. Anyways Pax slapping a random piece of metal on his face didn't strike me as much as it probably should have but meh.

    Anyways it wasn't the best spotlight but it was an alright one. I am looking forward to Thundercrackers spotlight however and I will be looking forward to see Bumblebee and Thundercrackers history that was only mentioned in costas run. Hopefully the art will be better though.
     
  17. DrTraveler

    DrTraveler Wheeljack, Wheeljack, Wheeljack

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    I suspect strongly that this spotlight is far more important than the first reading let on.

    That said, this felt like it was smoothing over the continuity issues autocracy had while indulging in a light action story.
     
  18. Anguirus

    Anguirus Well-Known Member

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    Except it made them worse.

    -The more we see Zeta act relatively normal, the more jarring it is to compare him with the madman from Autocracy. The moment we got with him in Shadowplay was poignant and left much to the imagination, here it seems like Pax is buddies with a friendly neighborhood Sith Lord for no reason.
    -Optimus Prime re-named Metroplex in Autocracy. That was kind of a big moment, that. Tough to miss.
    -The moral ambiguity surrounding the Decepticons that was present in "Shadowplay" AND Autocracy is more or less gone here, in the interim. Megatron's already slaughtering dissenters, as usual Thundercracker is the only non-mass-murderer, and the 'cons are negotiating with Zeta directly and distinguishing "grunts" like Rack and Ruin...hard to put my finger on this but it feels different. I guess this is sometime after Origin where the gladiators and the mobs from "Shadowplay" are organized into a military, but in Autocracy the Decepticons still feel and act very paramilitary/terrorist. Most importantly of all, Zeta treats them that way, whereas here he legitimizes them with a prisoner exchange. Frankly THAT one only makes sense if Zeta already wants Pax dead and it's another layer of conning.

    It also doesn't solve the only real continuity issue from Autocracy...that vaguely-defined good guy Zeta was now a psycho...because it just presents him as just some guy, it doesn't show him accomplishing much of anything. Autocracy Zeta was a retcon but it's better than what we had before, so there's no need for Roberts to "fix" it. I guess it also talks a bit more about the nature of Metroplex but as I said, it kind of just confuses the whole thing more.
     
  19. ORIO

    ORIO Team Sentinel Prime Moderator News Staff

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    Fun read. I dug.
     
  20. Jalaguy

    Jalaguy has no known physical weaknesses

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    With regards to the Acroplex/Metroplex thing, I'm guessing it's either a case of not wanting to confuse people by calling him a name from a 7 month-old digital-only comic and then having to slap a lengthy editor's note into the panel, or Acroplex was only ever the name for the city which nobody realised was actually a guy, and when Optimus was drawn to him in Autocracy, he was all "oh hey, this is totally that guy I talked with A3 about - this isn't Acroplex, this is METROPLEX!" I mean, given that we've effectively had it confirmed that he's a Metrotitan, it'd be kind of weird if his original name wasn't Metroplex.