IDW has released the full 5 page preview for Transformers More Than Meets The Eye #35, due out this week in your local comic shop and digital apps. Check it out after the break!
Days of Deception begins with… PEACE AND HAPPINESS! To be honest, there’s not much we can say about this issue without giving away the life-changing events of last issue. What we can say is this: everything’s fine. There’s no conflict, no sadness, no angst. Why is this a problem?
Fallout
talking SUCKS.
SmellySteph
Loving this series .
SPLIT LIP
Talking's SO boring. It's not like words are important. As fans on an online forum we should know how utterly pointless words are.
SMOG
I glanced at it on the rack today when I went to pick up my comics. It actually touches on a few interesting subjects (for example, the galactic council's relationship with Cybertronians), but then quickly abandons them for a more conventional plotline.
In terms of ignoring Drift's development in MTMTE… I'm not sure we can accuse McCarthy of that (especially in these opening pages). MTMTE Drift is still just as earnest, just as skilled, and just as likely to think with his swords. The main difference is just that Roberts attached more nuance to Drift's spiritual sanctimony. From glancing at this issue, it looks like McCarthy does follow that up a bit… though maybe without as much critical distance.
The trades also look nicer on the shelf.
zmog
Anguirus
Ka-damn, that's a hell of a point-missing right there.
Isn't that just like us, to find the toy cameo more important than the words? At least in this issue we got plenty of both.
Murasame
I admit, at first I just downloaded the comics. But I bought everything as TPBs by now (starting with Furman's -ation series) and started reading MTMTE on comixology and still buy in addition the TPBs. While the comics certainly look good on my Xperia Z2 Tablet, it is great to read the TPB. The feel and smell is what you're not getting with digital! But I'm also missing the illuminated display on paper
Re-reading the comics as TPB is definitely fun
But what is really great when you're reading the original on comixology: Guided View. No more spoilers because you could see the whole page layout. I hated when I directly looked at the dramatic scene at first and had to force myself to read the story that comes before
Mirimus
Totally.
I came to MTMTE pretty late, and all I have and plan on getting are the trades. I only have the first two volumes (three and four will likely show up for Christmas), and I've slowly read and studied each so as not miss any detail, be it visual or plot.
payres
Full issue on Comixology now
US
https://www.comixology.com/Transfor…Eye-35-Days-of-Deception/digital-comic/162818
UK
https://www.comixology.co.uk/Transf…Eye-35-Days-of-Deception/digital-comic/162818
soundwaverulls
I really agree with this. A lot. It's bland but because it's trying to be. It's just another generic action hero doing a generic action sequence. If this had never been seen before, it'd be considered great. The problem isn't it's bad. Just that it's been done to death. I do understand the anger at McCarthy seemingly ignoring Drift's development in MTMTE but I'm sure if Drift's sent back to MTMTE, Roberts will work his way around what McCarthy does. If Drift isn't, just ignore Empire of Stone's existence.
SMOG
Oh no, I love having the hard copy. Curling up on the sofa and reading comics late at night are one of life's special pleasures.
Ideally, I'd have the trades, but then I'd miss out on the month-to-month pacing, and I can't bring myself to buy them twice.
That said, Milne's art (especially with Josh Burcham's colours) looked great in digital editions. It really brought out the subtle detail, and offset Milne/Roberts' tendency to really jam pack those pages.
zmog
Necromaster
Technically speaking, SMOG, you can use the Comixology website to read it, provided you get an account and have a credit/debit card at the ready.
Just puttin' that out there.
Unless you just want to have a physical copy, which is cool.
SMOG
Dang. I gotta wait for a primitive paper edition.
zmog
steamsixliner
MTMTE 35 is out on IBooks. Very interesting issue with several plot twists. Read it now!
SMOG
Haha… I knew someone would get in my grill about that. Didn't figure it would be you guys though.
It's not "outdated"… this is what comics and movies and TV is right now. Predictable, archetypic convention-driven genre fare. It's not "half assed shit"… it's generic shit (in the pure sense of that word). That's not great, but I don't believe for a second that it deserves the hyperbole that people love to dump on Drift-McCarthy.
Should we settle for bland? Not sure. On an individual basis, probably not. But I'm not going to waste my time going overboard railing against it either. I'm not invested in a Drift Miniseries. Easy pass.
And what do we even have so far… a fight scene where a wandering hero challenges three marauders threatening innocents, and (probably) beats them with skillz? Well, hey… let's send Japan a letter, and tell them their entire Chanbara genre sucks. Let's dump Westerns into the fire too. Frankly, I'm just seeing something generically iconic enough to read as a semiotic text for itself. It's zero-sum drama, but it sustains its own idiom. If it gets worse after a few more pages… well, I'll reserve judgement. If I read it. Which I may not bother with.
I wonder though… where is the line between something that tries to be nothing other than predictable, and succeeds at just that… and something that maybe fumbles for more, and ends up being facepalm-inducing?
Because for me that's the difference between say… the last Drift miniseries, and reading RID. After reading the Drift miniseries, all I could say was "meh". It wasn't good. It wasn't bad enough to be offensive either. Just meh. Maybe that's the benefit of not taking any risks.
RID… feels like the same level of writing, but with the addition of weak attempts to be somehow more than that. I could applaud its ambition, but it feels like it just makes its flaws even more obvious instead.
Dark Cybertron was just terrible, by any stretch. It reached out of the page and punched me in the face with badness.
Anyway, my point is that there's a difference between things that are offensively bad and things that are merely banal. Maybe we could respond appropriately, instead of living out the fanboy rage stereotypes that seem to follow Drift around just because.
zmog
MegaRoadbuster
Well, better way to put it is that the comic is no longer to your taste. Clear enough wordy comics aren't your thing. Doesn't make it bad.
artiepants
now THAT is funny, because that's exactly the same vibe from MTMTE. I can't believe how BAD this book has gotten. 5 pages (a full 1/4 of the book) of walking and talking about blah-blah-blah and then Energon Jetfire gets a cameo only to get blown apart.
it's just turned into such an absurd soap opera, i mean, i've felt that for a long, long time, but this really crystalizes it… (and this is coming from someone who thought LSOTW was one of the best TF stories in history, top 5 if not 3)
But the Bendisian/Claremontian/Sorkian overwrought dialogue married to the CONSTANT Ellis-lite idea dumping just seems such an annoying combination of pretentious and overly-cute ~ I should really stop reading these, they just irritate me.
(i'm a way bigger fan of Barber's "political thriller" take that feels more like it builds on the IDW TF world rather then just half-hazardly tossing out new "idea flotsam" all over the franchise)
but, hey, the art is great!
FruitBuyer
I refuse your assertion utterly because it is an insult to what the medium can achieve. There are lots of comics with lots of nuances and complexities without being an avenue for the writer to plan out their masturbatory fantasies.
McCarthy has proven himself to be a generic and mediocre writer. His interview has added arrogance and close-mindedness to his resume and these 5-pages continue that.
So technically, it's theoretically possible the rest of the issue could be amazing and fresh but there has been absolutely nothing to indicate that. I do not give writers a third-chance until they prove it to me with hard evidence.
TheOverlord
I see a movie Dreadwing….but in different colors…….I was almost happy for seekng more than just unicron trilogy characters
Autovolt 127
Oh NO…..ENERGON JETFIRE!!!!!!! ;_;
Goddammit Brainstorm is right.