I think it's boring.

 

TF vs GI Joe is very challenging, and you definitely need a sense of humor about things to accept it.

The art looks like a cross between a 3rd grader, a 1980s pack-in comic where the art didn't matter, and someone who wants to be as wacky as Jack Kirby's later sci-fi material.

I loathe the use of intentionally faux-weathered (faux-pulp?) backgrounds for the whole page, I think it's a pretentious move that reeks of hipsterism.

The writing is by someone who has only a slightly-beyond-surface-level understanding of the properties, he wants to get it more, but a lot of it feels like material that doesn't get Transformers as much as it does the Marvel GI Joe comics. It's not only unafraid to go off the rails, but it's encouraged to do so and does it constantly.

That said, it is pretty much the opposite of decompressed comics which is fascinating, you get a very big story in each book PLUS a creators' commentary for each page afterwards.

There are ideas you simply couldn't see anywhere else, some are very dark, very nasty and ugly.

Once you get past the ridiculous art style, there are some panels that are very impressive to the point of being artistic within their constraints. There are other panels that fall flat trying to be important but it's easy to move beyond them.

Each issue definitely feels like someone playing with toys and going utterly wild with their imagination.

There's a cohesive, galactic-scale story going on yet only a few scant personal beats per page, so you don't get bogged down in a lot of character-building or even world-building, but at the same time you also don't connect as well with some characters.

I find it both terrible and readable at the same time. While I initially enjoyed reading the commentaries, I've found I don't make time for them anymore, I intend to but just don't get around to it.

 

That is a valid and insightful response to something I haven't seen others bother to comment on, but personally, I love the faux aging for atmosphere. It comes really close to what a lot of $1 bin 1970s comics in my collection look like.

 

I've been completely ignoring this book because I was simply not interested in a "pointless" crossover series but now I'm sold. I'm excited. I like goofy, strange and stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously. I'm glad someone posted this question.

 

Tried reading the first issue but lost interest cause I was confused, also I hate the artwork. There is better crossovers out there.

 

It's it's own thing, which is an awesome sort of weirdness not really like much else, except maybe some of Jack Kirby's stuff at his weirdest. It'd fit in well with the New Gods over at DC.

The Transformers are treated as more alien than they're ever treated, almost like figures of myth. Everything, GI Joe and Transformer, is larger than life.


The artwork is a weird type of stylized you may love or hate- make no mistake, it takes a lot of skill to do what the artist does, and there is some *very* effective specific pages, but, again, you may hate it.

What Anguirus said-

It's very popular among critics looking for a weird and unusual comic, which it most definitely is.

Which is a lot different than fans who are mostly used to normal TF comics and are huge into MtM, fRiD, Windblade, and such.

And neither view is wrong.

 

The wider comics world is a scary place. I know - I've been there. And for reasons I can't explain, I keep going back.

 

I always describe it as a comic book version of the sort of tale you would have probably made up as a kid let loose in a bedroom with the entire cast of the two franchises (except you're not a kid, you're a guy on an acid trip). There really appears to be no logical "plot", almost every page could just stand alone as a rather trippy poster of 80s nostalgia. If you were not a GI Joe fan you will miss about 50% of the references.

If I was limited in which books to read I would choose RiD and MTMTE over this one but I'm not and I always enjoy the change of pace TFvsGIJ provides.

 

Depends on how much you like Jack Kirby.

 

Given how many plots points are skipped over in some issues, Scioli's scripts must be massive. I have no doubt, take issue 8 for example, that in the script the Snake Eye's subplot and Optimus Prime vs Megs fight was probably huge in detail.

He has 20 pages and doesn't seem to want to compromise what he's written so he's gonna figure a way to get it all in regardless. Which if you see what he's doing it's pretty fucking genius, but it can confuse or annoy the reader a lot.

It's easy to be of two minds when thinking about this comic. You can love it for everything it does and you can hate it for everything it does.

 

Thank you. May I ask, did you grow up on pulp-paper comics or were they always bargain bin purchases? I suppose it makes sense to want to open that premise up, it clearly worked for you, but I grew up at the end of comics on pulp paper and the artists never wanted to be stuck using it, it was always a massive limitation. I could see doing it as a gimmick in a single issue, especially like in that issue where they needed something super bright on the page so that section didn't get it, but a whole series seems challenging. That said, this is a throwback series.

I think it's unfair to say there's no plot, there's massive amounts of plot shoehorned into every panel, it's very compressed plotting.