My thoughts on this were mostly the same as #1. Interesting plots happening but at slow pace. It seems The Rise's main goal is to get a rise out of the population. The colony worlds are mentioned, glad they're still a thing. Is The void a place? or was Rubble just referring to space? The scenery seemed a bit too blue da ba dee da ba daa Da ba dee da ba daa, da ba dee da ba daa. The buildings, ground and sky blend together so it doesnt seem as vibrant (With the exception of Wheeljack's workshop, I liked the warm orange interior that had.) Gears? Gears! The moon energon harvester looked pretty cool, though it could've used an extra panel or two to show it transforming Soundwave proves he can still look cool while doing absolutely nothing
There is more, thread got closed before I could hit submit on my last post, so here goes. There is no problem with different artstyles, what's important is that the art suites the script, because in comics art is literally half the story telling, and the first thing to make an impression. Nobody looks at a comic and first notices the text and then the art, it's always the other way around, which is why covers are always of a higher quality and more eye catching than the actual interior art. Here are some examples of different styles, some ugly and "bad" but still fitting for the book, since they help convey the story and emotion. You can see the old man panicking as his heart drops into his knees, while trying to save his composure. You can feel Swamp-Thing loosing his mind as he comprehends the fact that all he believed to know being a lie. You can see the anger rising. The King of Baghdad shows the King of Dreams how wonderful his city is, this sequence relies mainly on the art to convey to the reader how impressive the city is. Like these last two TF issues, just that here we actually get to see the beauty and the spectacle. On top of that Morpheus os shown to admire the city, which adds to the narrative that the city is beautiful, because even the King of Dreams appreciates its beauty. The art, and external and internal dialogue come together to sell the reader on the unnamed girl's defiance, on Sandman's realisation that he's helping to get his daughter killed. And guess what, all three of these examples represent art that I at first thought was ugly, however they aren't bad art. They are fantastic because they not only suite the story, but also support the script and help tell its story. Here the art and script work in perfect unison to convey the story and emotion. And that's the problem with this current TF comic, the script calls for the artwork to show us emotion, spectacle, and beauty but the artwork isn't doing that, it shows us a dead wasteland when the words speak of beauty, it shows us robots that are dead inside while discussing a murder and it shows us sterility when the script calls for life. And again, I am not bashing the artists, if you look at their body of work they can do way better, just not here. If it weren't for the colouring doing the heavy lifting the art wouldn't even be functional, save for the pages showing Optimus and Megatron meeting by the backup artist. If you removed the colours and text of each of the pages I posted, you would still be able to piece together what's going on. Not in this TF comic.
Uh. I don't really have much to add about Issue #2 that hasn't already been said. I didn't like it. However, I also remember that I hated hated HATED Infiltration so much when it came out, I stopped at issue 3 or so, and I didn't even give the IDW continuity a shot again until after I saw some of the designs in Escalation. I then read Escalation and Stormbringer, and I figured maybe this IDW continuity isn't so bad after all. And then, I read all six issues of Infiltration with knowledge of Stormbringer and Escalation, and I thought Infiltration was brilliant. The IDW 1.0 continuity had hooked me. Right now, this new continuity seems to have the worst of all worlds. It reminds me of Megatron: Origins (in a bad way). It neither shows nor tells. It's more like people just standing around giving exposition, but it's not even helpful exposition because we still don't know much of the history or culture of this version of Cybertron. It feels like every issue should have twice as many words. It reminds me of All Hail Megatron (in a bad way). IDW 2.0 seems to think it's a lot more epic than it really is, and the pace is languid. And, it reminds me of Infiltration in a way, in that it's a slow burn to start. Way too slow. But is it really moving slower than Infiltration? I'm willing to stick it out a few more issues. I keep thinking back on what a huge mistake it was to bail on Infiltration after a mere three issues because it didn't fit my preconceived notion of what Transformers should be about. Some stray thoughts: I don't like the art. I admit to being spoiled by Alex Milne and Don Figueroa, but...come on. All I ask for is to look at these drawings and be convinced that there's a living creature (so to speak) on the page. In my opinion, the art fails at that. The only facial expressions are dull surprise. The art feels inert. Again, just my opinion, but I don't think (for example) Andrew Wildman's art is all that great........but he does a fantastic job selling you that these are living creatures with emotions. Wildman's style isn't my favorite, but he absolutely has a good sense of composition, and he does a great job telling a story that matches the script. The writing in IDW 2.0 is trying to tell us that Cybertron is a hustling, bustling metropolis, but it looks just as dead as the dead Cybertron that we saw in Stormbringer and All Hail Megatron. Who knows. Maybe the writing would come to life with Milne as the artist, but the sub-par writing isn't being done any favors by such crude drawings that lack emotion. Stylistically, the art kind of reminds me of a pale imitation of Sara Pitre-Durocher, but some kind of alternate-reality version of Sara who mostly draws people standing straight up and having blank facial expressions. I don't like the writing. The only character who has any personality is Wheeljack. I don't care about the murder mystery. The victim isn't interesting because we never got to know him. The investigation isn't interesting because Bumblebee is boring and kind of a hypocrite, Rubble isn't interesting, and Chromia and Prowl's good cop/bad cop relationship isn't interesting. It really feels like we're jumping in on the middle of a story. As in, Issue 1 really seems like it should have been issue 3. We still don't have basic facts, such as: WHAT EXACTLY IS AN "Autobot" in this continuity? Are they police? Are they a gang? A political party? In what sense is Megatron a senator? Is Cybertron a democracy? Is it a dictatorship? I got excited when I heard the IDW 2.0 continuity described as a "Year One" style Transformer continuity, but this isn't "Year One." Batman: Year One told the story of a whole year in Batman's life in 4 issues. In Issue 1 alone, we covered Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham, Jim Gordon's family life, the rotten state of Gotham (its people and the buildings), and we saw Batman's first (unsuccessful) attempt at fighting criminals. Who knows. It's possible that IDW 2.0 is a carefully-plotted masterpiece but the first few issues are on shaky ground because of the new team trying to find its voice, and maybe 12 months from now we'll all be gushing with praise for how amazing it ended up being. And, it's possible that this new continuity really doesn't get any better than this, and we're witnessing a train wreck of a comic along the liens of Megatron: Origins. Who knows.
Yup this is a slow burn, but it will ne slightly faster than Infiltration I suspect. Since we're getting two issues a month. I'm of the opinion that you can't really judge a comic's story before issue 3, but in this case it might be issue 6, since it looks like what would be told in one issue is being spread over two.
I was thinking about this and wondering whether it’s the first time we’ve had only one series running at a time. Even back in the days of Infiltration you had the main series with spotlights alongside it. I really think that format could help this series as well.
It’s to close to g1 idw. Out of the gate there where to many things in the story that reminded me of the old continuity. Having the story start out so slow doesn’t help. Some opening event might have helped. As far as the art so far. I don’t see me buying a page of this at tfcon
As much as it pains some people, good and evil will always be popular, and is in no way limited to children's stories. There is a reason why WWII is the biggest attraction, history-wise, when it comes to wars. The fact that manga/manhua/manhwa is much more popular than comics in the West isn't just because of better value and quality, but because they tend to embrace this concept better than Marvel or D.C. That is what they're complaining about though. You can have an over-arching theme, but the individual issues need to be able to understood for anyone who picks up the copy, and has to pull them in. Comics are not novels or movies, and you have to pace them differently. The problem is that many writers today are trying to make comics work like they are the same. You mean besides Marvel?
Overshadowed by loud and rabid fan following on internet forums and tumblr, yes. In terms of actual sales... Not necessarily. TAAO flopped, but it was doomed to flop with two TF series already in existence. OP and MTME/LL sales were on pair. For all the loud praise making the author believing his own hype... It didn't have impact in terms of actual copies sold and I think part of it was also because a lot of "fans" were downloading it illegally. Lasting impact of the series might be heavily overrated. The time will show. Anyway, the new continuity is obviously written for the trades. I feel like it's pointless to spend and read anything but the trades for this.
Sorry I meant IDW Transformers series specifically- there’s always been two or more ‘bits’ right? Although I will admit I am ignorant of what other comics producers do! So Spotlight is a format used elsewhere huh? I think it’s a really good tool to use, especially as I feel the characterisation is falling flat in this series *so far*. Spotlights would lighten the burden on the main title of having to quickly establish all the characterisation as well as the plot in the first few issues.
Yeah Spotlights would be good. Furman introduced them as a necessity, because they only wanted two mini series a year at the time, six issues of the tion and a separate thing (Stormbringer/ Beast Wars). Because Beast Wars took the spot of the backup series Furman needed something else to introduce plot threads because six issues a year wasn't enough for the complex multi plot thread series he and IDW wanted. So the Spotlight series was born, the early issues even had numbering showing that they were indeed part of the ongoing series. I would say they should bring them back, because we need them now more than ever. As for other publishers using them, yes and no. Spotlights are essentially one shots focused on a single character, which usually isn't needed by other publishers since there each character usually has their own ongoing. So it's rare to have a single issue dedicated to a character outside of an ongoing. It works best for TF since we have so many characters here that are each basically designed to be someone's favourite, but won't get to really shine in the main series without grinding the whole story to a halt. Now a question since I was out of the loop in regards to idw TF, because I dropped everything like a hot potato when they introduced the "Revolutions" retcon. What is TAAO?
Till All Are One, 12 issue series where Starscream finally gets the leadership position he always wanted. I really enjoyed it. Did TAAO actually flop? I remember looking at sales at the time it was ending and it seemed relatively on par with MTMTE/Op. Slightly less sales, but still close to the others? These were digital copies, though, and perhaps print sales were different. (Which is another perhaps unrelated problem, the comic industry is still set up to count print copies as their measurement of success or failure, while completely ignoring that many people are buying digital now. Like me- there isn't a comic book shop anywhere near me so digital is the only way to go. (Though if I really love the story I will eventually buy the graphic novel in physical form)).
Um ... yeah. It's the biggest armed conflict in history, generated truckloads of new technology and archival footage, and a different outcome would have meant we'd now be living in a completely different world. Crediting continued interest in it to 'good versus evil' is a bit of a stretch.
I think there was a big problem with the way Furman/IDW did their early spotlights though - using them to deliver vital plot points was one of many things IDW did to make it less likely a casual reader would be able to follow the continuity. Spotlights should augment a main narrative without driving it - add another dimension to secondary or tertiary characters, say, but I don't think it's a good idea to rely on them to fill in holes missing from the main book.
Agreed. I meant get the spotlights to flesh out some of the character work that it tentatively seems the main book won’t be able to. The main book could then drive through plot. Obviously ideally the main book would do both- and maybe still will- but the signs don’t look good from my perspective at present.
Uh well I disagree. I think Rumble is impressed with the Wilds of Cybertron. Its obvious that Brainstorms lab is isolated in a rural area. The city is on the horizon. But even the wilderness has wonders. But there are cities, that we haven't explored yet. And though they showed us a tease of the moon doing its thing. I took the focus on the bots to mean that the process was beyond illustration.
You’re right about the trades. Again, the gushing praise came from some printed magazines and then a lot more from the internet. Maybe that is why it felt like towards the end that IDW was only focused on LL. The other stuff happening - particularly all the Hasbro mandates - happened in the other series, and JR was (mostly) left alone. About the only shoehorned thing I can think of was the Protectabots, and even that was minor.
While the Allies weren’t always the best examples of shining paragons, and Stalin was a downright dastardly example of a human, it’s really hard to argue against “good vs evil” in the Second World War, especially from an Western Allies vs the Axis perspective. Let’s not forget or whitewash the staggering scale and genuinely depraved evils perpetuated before, during, and after the war.
