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Two Afterburners as well.

 

Didn't the second Prowl end up changing his name or something?

In regards to the

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new Dinobot, I'm assuming she'll get the Trypticon goop purged from her system like the Dinobots did, but now she's "had a taste of being a monster" or some such and assumes a bestial alt mode to hang out with the Dinobots. If we ever get a sane Grimlock reunited with the Dinobots, I'm betting she'll be a point of contention. While I'm not huge on here Hun-Gurrr/Sinnertwin-esque alt mode, that Dead Space-ass face splitting transformation is pretty cool.

I also really can't express how happy I am to see Trypticon again.

 

Barricade and Bludgeon felt a bit wasted, but Bludgeon less so as he's definitely coming back from that (maybe resembling his pretender form moreso? could this be a setup for more of the pretenders to get monster forms?).

I enjoyed a look into Slug's mind. I don't mind the other Dinobots coming off a bit flat, I've always felt that that was a bit of their character, they're all muscle and only guys like Grimlock have the muscle AND brains needed to actually lead. The dinobots without a leader are basically force without direction and it takes someone like Grimlock, and now Slug to lead them.

The Torchbearers sure were there... They felt rather out of place. I don't mind their inclusion, in fact, if anything, I wish they'd done more.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, even if some parts left me wanting more and other parts felt unneeded.

 

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Pretty surprised about now we have a Dinobot that's named Strafe since we also have a Dinobot in AOE which is also named Strafe. Wonder if that was an intentional reference to the AOE Dinobot of the same name and if so will this mean we could see Scorn and Slash later on in IDW?

 

Should I wait or buy it now.

 

We already have Skar and Paddles, so bring on Strafe, Slash, and Scorn.

One thing that was interesting to me is we see Slag (never Slug) willfully killing unborn sparks (pretty heinous) and begin to go through a little bit of emotional growth (a little). Even more so, we see Swoop - the one Dinobot so ready to claim the moral high ground - implicated in just as many crimes as the others. Also, Swoop, of all 'bots, is ready to take the money and run rather than do the right thing. And the Dinobots still don't do the right thing. There is no reason for them to go into exile, except to protect Caminus.

All of this (minor) character growth makes me wonder about Grimlock and the Dinobots. When Grims wakes up in Maximum Dinobots, he is already processing his guilt and he gets to stew for a while at Garrus-9. In essence, he takes the wrap for the Dinobots because Minimus Ambus has warrants out for the other guys at the same time (indicating they'd already crossed a line 10000 years ago). Given the other four have had years to process not only Grimlock's wrongs against them, but also their own guilt, I wonder if we are seeing the laying of a foundation for a reunion of the Autobot bad boys.

It would be interesting to see Swoop have to swallow his pride over how he more or less told Grimlock to shove it in MD, given we've now seen he and the other Dinobots implicated in worse crimes.

 

I thought that. Maybe it's deliberate. Anyways, I LOVED this comic. Just perfect TF goodness.

 

Livio's art and his inability to color anything brightly enough to make it look like it isn't trying to put me into depression muddles up yet another story that could have been more interesting if turned into a longer book that didn't shove off it's more interesting characters and concepts so impatiently, or tried to make itself shorter and more vague and was just pushed as a Spotlight:Slug one-off; which it was really- none of the other Dinobots got much face time.

Next to some truncated fight scenes and some start-somewhere/go-nowhere dialogue (did anyone else feel like Barricade's dialogue just before coming face-to-face with Bludgeon was lifted straight from a flavorless 90's manga translation?), this whole book felt like it would have been more interesting if it didn't live a page at a time and shoe-horn in the external conflict. The internal conflict was laid on overly-thick enough as is.

I can only assume the hotspot of sparks on the last few pages is related to the one Pax and his crew were also guarding in/near the same location back in the 30's of MtMtE, but it's baffling how it either survived so long without anyone doing anything with it until recently, or how Bludgeon's hi-and-bye near-cameo of an appearance in the story managed to make him the antagonist of the story.

It felt like $7.99 worth of a misleading non-event that didn't deliver on the concept of redeeming any of these jaded characters (read: Slug, since, again, none of the other Dinobots ever had the time of day) either in action or thinking. Unless, apparently, the "redemption" is...

- chronic moping except for maybe the last page where it's alluded to being a temporary fix
- yelling the name of a character that you met twice and didn't like as he blew up
- not killing babies a second time
- wandering off into irresponsibility again while leaving an unarmed Camien alone in the wastes of foreign Cybertron surrounded by god-knows-what other monstrosities at a distance of what looked to be at least a mile and a day away from closest non-violent civilization.

The "Batman Begins" notion of being an asshole so others aren't assholes doesn't make you not an asshole. I don't really see what was solved by the entire trip.

 

That was a pretty awesome story, with shades of RAMBO 4 and MAD MAX.

The Dinobots pretty much have trouble adjusting to a no-war era, like most soldiers do, and so are hired as muscle to transport a precious cargo to safety. Like a Western, they are attacked by the "lawful" (note the commas) and lawless, and they take some hard hits before they pull it off.

The art is good enough, and the characters are well characterized: the idealists (the good), the villains (the bad) and the cynics (the ugly) play their parts well, and while the villains don't get enough depth they serve their place as a parallel to the cynics, who at least get some sense of salvation and gain from the adventure.

I really liked the movie concepts adjusted in this story:

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Barricade is now a seriously legit police officer in this, when he was just a Decepticon with a police car mode before. We hardly knew him, but he deserves to appear in another story.
Strafe was a pretty cool combo of the G1 Technobot and the AOE Dinobot. And she makes a pretty interesting character in her own right: someone pure who becomes tainted, but learns to live with it.

All in all, it was a good and enjoyable tale.

 

Not bad, though it was more Spotlight:Slug than anything else.

Kinda liked how a Camien was able to stand against Bludgeon who was always presented as a walking murderhouse with a sword. Makes sense with Camien martial culture so focused on blades and duels. They may be worse soldiers than Cybertronians, but they should be better duellist than Cybertronians.

I don't feel cheated on money, nor I have a buyer's regret.

Though it was an action tale composed entirely of Hollywood tropes. Totally.

 

I seriously figured just from reading two headed beast it was just a reuse of AOE Strafe. Though figuring there are other two headed Dinosaur/Dragons characters already I'm glad to see that there is a possibility for a mostly dinosaur made combiner. If all else we'll just fake that Strafe here is a mutant/space Dinosaur alt mode to have her fit in with the others. So what would each Dinobot take a position of to fit in a scramble city retool of the terrorcons?

I would see Strafe either as being a sinnertwin/Hungurr remold so either torso or limb. (Please be the latter hasbro)
Slug, Snarl, Swoop, all as limbs.
Sludge could only work as a torso given his size as the largest dinobot; Grimlock withstanding seeing as he would be a great torso to homage a cancel scramble city set.
So who can see most of these being extensive retools out of Terrorcons/Predacons when given enough effort.

 

I enjoyed the book

 

So is it just me or are a lot of ex-cons hooking up with Camians? Kinda want to see a Camian convert over to Soundwave's style of Decepticon. Maybe a good way to bring in Nightbird?

So going by summery

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Strafe's new alt-mode really isn't any kind of Dinosaur? Shame. I hope that changes, because there are still tons of cool dinos that could be done. A Therinzosuar would be neat, what with the giant claws.

 

Aggh, *neither* local comic store got copies! Gonna have to wait on joining in with all of you. ;_;

 

No. It's more like

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she crawls around on all fours, her neck grows and her head splits into two half-heads. It's a very lazy and disappointing design that looks more like a Clive Barker movie monster than a transformer character.

 

I don't want to derail the thread, as I was just making an observation, but... In all honesty, I'd say yes, it is bad to have a knee-jerk reaction to any introduction to a new female character based on some imagined, neurotic paranoia that they only exist to "pander" towards a specific audience.

I'd argue that that particular type of mindset is not only misinformed, but actually unhealthy.

I'm a little disappointed Strafe isn't a pterodactyl... Maybe one day she'll make it to Earth and adopt it as her new mode. Even if she's not a flier, her two-headed alt mode must at least be inspired by the movie character.

 

Y'know, she could have meant that the existence of a two-headed dino-monster was pandering to movie fans. Knee-jerk reactions can go both ways.  

Back on topic... I haven't half missed Bludgeon.  

 

Amazing how he went from being a big threat for the bigger bads of the universe to being knocked on his ass by a no-name character's debut fight, eh? Whatta nerf.

 

He'll be back on his feet. My favourite skull-faced dickhead can't be kept down.