Is Termagax derived from termagant?

 

One bad thing is that, between the various previews at various sites, I feel like I already read most of the issue.

I was expecting it to feel less like the previous continuity, but I guess time will tell. I’m glad they’re not restricting themselves to using just the Siege toy characters plus Bee and Windblade. However, the book does hit one of my all time comic book pet peeves...

Spoiler

killing a character to advance the story. Every character is someone’s favorite. To rob that character’s fans of any hope of a story with them is just wrong. At least Brainstorm had a lot of story in the last continuity. I’d have been more upset if they offed someone like Doubleheader, Vroom, or a Euro G1 guy. Or a G2 character.

 

considering the inherent nature of the character, it is possible for him to come back in the long term, notice what part of his body is still intact  

 

But surely, if this is going to be the event that kickstarts a war, from a narrative point of view he has to stay dead.

One of the issues with ‘old’ IDW is that characters would be written out (Ironhide and Sunstreaker, for example), only to be resurrected shortly afterwards. It just cheapened the original deaths, retrospectively lessening their impact.

No, for this death to have any meaning, it has to be permanent. If characters can come back from being shot in the face, how can we ever trust another death in this comic ever again?

[victim] should be the death that sparks it all. The Uncle Ben, the Laura Palmer, the family of the Punisher. Barring flashbacks, I hope we never see him alive in this continuity.

 

but hes not shot in the face, and the possibility of him coming back doesnt mean he will come back, and if he does it doesnt have to be immediate. and regardless of if he stays dead, intent to murder would still rock the utopian society

 

Yeah but if this is the big death they kickstarts the war, they totally can’t bring him back.

Edit: ninja’d!

Edit again: true, but I really doubt it.

 

Sorry, I have a memory like a sieve - okay then, he wasn’t shot in the face, my mistake.

But consider this: the death is the instigating moment, the first step on the road to war. He’s the Cybertronian equivalent of Archduke Ferdinand. If there was even the slightest possibility that he could be resurrected, you’re essentially undermining the cause of the entire war for the sake of bringing back a popular character.

To build a conflict out of that murder... for me, it’s got to be a ‘proper’, permanent death.

 

Spoiler

Issue #2, page 1.

BRAINSTORM: Yo wat up.
BUMBLEBEE: Brainstorm! But we thought you were ...
BRAINSTORM: *laughs* Oh that? Heavens, no, that was a clone of me I just made and then murdered in order to prove a point about moral complexity. Is it a murder if *I'm* still here? I tell you, Bumbles, it's going to mean BIG things for our society going forward.
BUMBLEBEE: ...
BRAINSTORM: I've also brought back Archduke Ferdinand.

 

oh trust me, i get that. im just saying that if the setup is a utopian, non voilent and peaceful society then intent to murder would still have relatively the same impact as a murder. i honestly dont think he will come back, at least not anytime soon, but the way he got killed leaves a loophole for his return, thats all im saying

 

Felt good to purchase a Transformers comic again.

I'm curious to know what Megatron's beef is in this continuity that kicks everything off. Hopefully it's legitimate.

As far as [redacted] staying dead, he should. For the sake of consequences, and also, Transformers has a huuuuuge roster, many characters still haven't gotten much fiction at all. If you need someone to fill a cast slot, you've got more than enough names to pull through.

Only criticism so far, and it's a tiny one, just use our own time scale. Maybe it's immersion breaking. But when you're tossing around cycles and mega-cycles, I'm expecting the Beast Wars equivilant and the way they're used in the book was like a speed bump for my brain.

 

I must say, in regards to the victim of the murder:

Spoiler

I thought it would be a Decepticon that would be murdered, unless Brainstrom is one in this continuity. Interesting decision to kill him regardless. Now the new mystery is what's Bumblebee's involvement in this incident...

And while I would like to see him come back, I don't him being absent for a long period of time. Now, for the death to be permanent? Hmm...I can see why, especially if he is the trigger to the war, but I doubt this murder alone will be the reason. It'll properly just cause more friction between the two sides.

In regards to the artist, Angel Hernandez, who drew the majority of the pages in issue 1, is going be the co-artist for the next four issues. I like the art, but the facial expressions could be a bit better.

 

If you're interested in what the critics have to say about this issue:
Transformers #1 Reviews (2019) at ComicBookRoundUp.com

Based on 8 reviews (so far):

 

Okay, new continuity! Really excited to start a new continuity at the same time as everyone else!

So so far I'm really digging Rubble's character. Having him as this new, naive Cybertronian who knows practically nothing about the world just like ourselves reading this issue. Bumblebee seems to be pretty competent in this series from the get go (So like where he was towards the end of 2009 and in RiD Season 1) and that's one of my favorite incarnations of him. Windblade I'm not too impressed by, but to be fair we don't really know a lot about her yet. I'm liking the dynamic of Orion and Megatron both being senators in this continuity as opposed to cop and poet in the old continuity or archivist and gladiator in the Aligned continuity. Makes Megatron feel a lot more...composed and formal, I guess? I prefer this ind of Megatron over just straight tyrant Megatron.

The art is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand environments look absolutely stunning and beautiful, but as one person mentioned earlier, characters aren't expressive enough. Previous artists like Lawrence, Roche, Milne, and Pitre-DeRoucher had no problem with that, but for the most part here, the character's faces don't really match how they sound like they're feeling.

On to more story stuff, I'm digging the idea of the Decepticons starting as the "Ascenticons" this time. The name really fits with their theme of seemingly wanting equal rights (I think?) on Cybertron. Makes me wonder what the Autobots role in Cybertron is. On top of that, it's refreshing to see Cybertron as a utopia for once pre-war and not something like the Functionist planet it was in the original continuity.

And finally onto the murder victim...

Spoiler

I'm not that upset over Brainstorm being killed off. He had a great arc in the original series, and I think with his death, this might be IDW's way of saying that lesser known characters might be getting the spotlight (for now) in this series instead of big players like Rodimus, Cyclonus, Ratchet and so on.

So overall a pretty good start to this series! Looking forward to where it's gonna go! 8.5/10

 

Cyclonus is making an appearance though, in issue 8. But I get your point.

IDW’s New Transformers Comic Series: Malkova Cover Art - Transformers News - TFW2005

 

Gotta say I absolutely love it so far!

Spoiler

Rubble is charming and adorable, Sassy Bumblebee is great, Megatron is a total chode but Prime is there to balance it out, and I don't mind what happened to Brainstorm. It's "writing a reboot" 101: kill off someone beloved in the previous continuity to emphasize how REAL things are gonna get in the new one. I miss him already but there wasn't much else to do with him after how prominent he was in Lost Light/MTMTE so I say let it ride!

Besides, his head is intact, right?   I don't WANT him to come back but a few years down the road when they need to do something weird to revive reader interest they have plenty of excuses here.

 

Spoiler

Are we 10000% certain Brainy bought it? The damage looks superficial to me and the fading colors could just be shadows from where Brainy's lying. Plus, Rubble feels written as a redshirt to me.

 

I hope his grievances develop over time and he actually struggles with his decisions a little bit. He had the habit of going from 0-100 in most other continuities.

 

Not a bad first issue, though there isn't much that's unfamiliar or unexpected. I'd like to have seen more innovation and more twists, but maybe a very back to basics approach was thought to be the best at this point.

 

Honestly, who does Ruckley think he's fooling with that Ascenticon flag?

 

Those monkey things were sick, but aside from the worldbuilding this was a pretty weak start.

None of the characters interest me thus far (Rubble included). I think the story expects us to forgive this because it expects us to already know enough about Optimus and Bee. Which we do, but it really feels like all of these characters could have been replaced with anyone else and nothing would have been lost. Ironically, the most character we see is in descriptions of Prowl and Brainstorm, who we don't even get to meet to make our own judgements as readers. I said this in the previews, but there's a lot of tell don't show in this first issue already. And in spite of this, not a lot of what we'rebeing told is very substantive. We don't get to know Megatron's reasons for starting his ascenticons, nor why Optimus has taken the stance he has. What made the IDW dynamic realistic was that both Optimus and Megatron agreed that there needed to be change, but that their methods were going to be different in accomplishing this change. Here, Optimus barely seems willing to hear Megatron out, because Cybertron seems perfect. And on that note, it's almost strange how the fact that Cybertron is a utopia is being enforced in this issue alone.

I dunno, compare this story to the first issue of MTMTE and you'll see what I mean about this issue lacking substance. In the first issue of mtmte we are introduced to about 80% of the cast, and learn something about each of them. Ratchet describes his goal to find a successor, Cyclonus misses Cybertron, Tailgate gets out of the ground, Prowl needs Chromedome on Cybertron, etc. And that doesn't even include the rest of the cast. Here we have say six characters introduced, and we barely have a grasp on any of their personalities. I mean, Rubble is the wide-eyed audience insert, but we've seen a more developed version of this in Tailgate and even Animated Optimus. Optimus and Megatron are Senators that disagree on something, but we don't see what that is. Ironhide is just an aide, lacking the gruff exterior we should be familiar with. Windblade and Bumblebee used to work together, though neither have anything to really set them apart in their mannerisms or tone. And though Bumblebee leaving the security services seeds a future plot point, it's just not as interesting as Chromedome having special talents, the message from the future, or Whirl massacring sweeps.