She and Spike can get drummed out of the service and live in a hard-bitten alcholic slump together, until some big event that those fatcats in Washington can't handle comes along, and then their old CO will have to find them at their cabin retreat in the High Sierras, or their pit-fighting ring in Thailand or wherever, and say "It was wrong what they did to you... but your country needs you again!"... and... well, you know how this movie goes... That's my point. He's gone from a berserker to... a guy whose principle weapon is only good for annoying dogs. Like, literally. Yeah, this. Costa's big weakness was not being able to write Transformers (and assuming that a douchebag like Spike was actually likeable to readers). Barber's weaknesses seem to become all the more apparent when he's trying to write HUMANS. OMG! I understand now!! The weird dialogue flubs... the bizarre character motivations... the contrived twists..! There IS no Barber!! THE ENTIRE RID RUN HAS BEEN ONE OF THUNDERCRACKER'S SCRIPTS!!! Stop baiting me. Only if there were some directly incriminating evidence in this imminent free-for-all that actually tied the EDC to an alliance with Cybertronians. Which is unlikely, since all that's going to make the news is a bunch of disaster footage. And since the Decepticons, whether they are in vehicle mode or not, are initiating hostilities INSIDE a civilian population center, I'd say the EDC can consider that alliance null and void right now. It's not exactly clever and discreet... but sometimes the quickest distance between two points is a straight line, after all. Not like that ever works for him anyway. Not on Earth, at the very least. zmog
The more I think about this issue, the angrier I get. And then I look for any out, any way to explain what this is, and then I see things like this and irrationally get my hopes up because MAN WHAT IF THIS WERE TRUE, and then it all made sense and we danced in a circle. But, I mean, I don't think so.
Well, instead of complaining about Kup like I was going to, I realized how much I hate myself and wanted to point some things out. Pg. 18 has a Bobby from King of the Hill Cameo, while 22 has cameos of Kelly from the other RID, and wait for it... Homer Simpson.
I hate to hurt the franchise, but I'm tired of sanctioning bad writing. People always say "vote with your wallet, instead of ranting online" so here I go! Email has been sent to my comic shop. Series dropped. Done. If I ever get morbidly curious, I can browse it on the rack or download it illegally. If it gets any better, I can just pick up a trade. But at least I'll be buying it on merit, rather than on a vague unkept promise of merit. In the meantime, now I can afford an extra shawarma platter each month. Okay, not even. But I'm sure it adds up. zmog
We'll miss the rants, though. Thusly a thoughtfully articulate voice of reason draws silent. (but for good reason shawarma's are yummyummy) I give it one more issue to see where it's headed.
Whoa. Its been a while, so I have to ask... did you wind up dropping any Ongoing-era titles? I'm not trying to goad you or anything, I'm just curious. Because I feel like after Wreckers, up until the Death of Optimus Prime, it was just you and me staring at each other in here.
Well I've been enjoying the series so far. The new Galvatron and Soundwave alt-modes are good to see. Also the finale was epic.
I'm not saying he should have just stood there and let the guy shoot Bumblebee, but he ran right into a situation that it looked like Bumblebee had a good chance of taking control of and ending peacefully, and after being told not to; he could have waited and seen what happened. Of course, that story wasn't exactly an example of top penmanship, so...
heh... thanks, but I'll still be around on the MTMTE threads. And if Windblade goes anywhere, I might get behind that eventually. Awwwww... like old war buddies. Nope... I rode out the Ongoing the whole way. I vowed each month that I would drop it, and then I got too lazy to actually call my comic shop, and decided to wait out the next issue... and... well, you know how that played out. In fairness, it did get better near the very end. And I'm glad I didn't miss Chaos Theory (which was a virtual paradigm shift). BUT... it was remembering the experience of the Ongoing, and more recently the shitstorm that was Dark Cybertron, that actually sharpened my resolve this time. Whenever I think back on those books, it's always with a sense of irritation that I put down all that money on them, for so little return... and now they're clutternig up my comics shelf... and I wish I'd just gone ahead and dropped them. So yeah... it's not like Barber is the worst of the worst. It's just that I've been burned before, and lately Barber has been more misses than hits for me. I'm not satisfied, so for a change I'm going to be proactive this time. zmog
Yeah... really there are so many other Autobot who would have been a better choice than Jazz. Cliffjumper, Sideswipe, Roadbuster, Blades, Brawn... but hey, I'm glad Barber is doing something with it at all.
I'm the first to engage in counter-criticism, of unrealistic expectations and the like, but I'm the first-first-first to applaud when we don't spend money out of a sense of obligation. To be a fan of something is not to exist in a state of co-dependence. In short, good for you SMOG. I'll do you one further and suggest that no one should even remotely feel guilty for dropping any comic title that's not satisfying, let alone one of three in one franchise. You aren't doing anyone any harm. Now if I could just convince people not to "subscribe" to Transformers toys they don't like either. Don't buy any otherwise-pointless thing that's not going to bring you joy.
"...Or we, the army of these United Steaks of America -- whatever, we'll have to blast you to the afterspark!" I'll admit it, I LOL'd. I liked that Thundercracker in addition to writing winning scripts also plays RTS games. And that was about it. I'm left feeling like I don't understand this fictional universe: Why no one has called Fairborne a Whambulance. Why Galvatron is even there. Why the Decepticons are even there. Why the EDF would even think about forming any kind of alliance with any Cybertronian. Why Prime's solution is to punch it. Why anyone cares about the damn dog. It was funny as Thundercrackers 'pal' in the intro issue, now it's already tiresome. Why Prime has no plan at all and is surprised to see that he doesn't get a warm welcome. (Well, then again, I've always thought IDW Prime was a pompous jackass who was still an example of why the Prime Lineage is a bad idea) Why Prowl thinks forming Devastator is anything but stupid. I didn't use question marks in that list because honestly, I don't really care that much. I'll keep reading it, for now at least.
ill let you guys know when it consistently picks up. see you in a year i think optimus hasn't been right in the head since his almost death in all hail megatron. once upon a time he knew that war was hell and had no mercy to his enemies. anyone threatening the life of him or his friends were acceptable targets. then after he was brought back to health in all hail megatron, he started to believe all life is precious and should be preserved. someone tell optimus that that kinda thinking during war can get more people killed then saved. maybe he had it wrong all along and is better off as a diplomat than a warrior
So, if I read the issue right... 1. Prowl bitched that everyone thought he was such a tool that no one noticed when he was taken over by the cons and yet his big plan is to destroy the EDF/Con alliance by becoming Devastator and scaring the crap out of world. Does he really want to screw with Prime that bad? 2. All of Jazz's past Special Ops skill and coolness are once again nerfed on Earth where he seem less competent than Swerve. 3. Prime has no strategy for dealing with the humans and is so taken aback by them joining with the Cons that all he can do effectively is retreat? 4. Humans can now create primitive cybertronian life. 5. IDW now has a human character that's written with an even worse personality than Spike. (I didn't think that was Possible.) To make her even worse, her back story is just ******ed. She apparently hates all Transformers for attacking her world and making her care about a Banker so much that she is willing to turn her back on all of her principals to join the Military to fight them. Then when she finally confronts the cons, she believes their BS and works with them to take out the Autobots because they now have Megatron as a member? 6. The Military seems to be as ******ed and trusting as Fairborn. 7. Gavatron is the new Con leader except all he seemingly wants to do is pick fights. Meanwhile, Soundwave seems to be the one leading, negotiating and keeping Galvatron on a short leash. Did I miss anything? I was really just amazed by how poorly this story is being written. How can they think stories like this is gonna keep people buying the book? I can only hope that things pick up when we get the next story arc. (cause I can't see how it can get much worse.)
Wow....just....just wow. Barber shit the bed BIG! Like....holy shit this is insanely awful. The plot makes no goddamn sense, and it's only created by the simple fact that every character in this is a fucking idiot. I don't know where to even fucking start. Fist of is Barber human? I mean does he LIVE on the same planet as the rest of us? Like is IDW a space station somewhere around Jupiter where the writers have to live cut off from Earth or something? I mean the humans don't act like humans! It's like Barber wants to write the Transformers as a super intelligent alien race but he can't so to make them look super intelligent he makes all humans into pants on head ******s? Like Marissa is almost as horrible as Spike and will probably end up worse than him. She's a complete boneheaded idiot, with attention span of a gold-fish and a world-view of a 9 year old. The whole "occupy Wall-Street deal was TERRIBLE." Marissa doesn't come off as some peace/equality hippy she comes of as those annoying hipsters that go to all protest because "it's the cool thing to do YOU CAN'T KEEP ME DOWN SOCIETY....what are we protesting again?" that doesn't understand ANYTHING about that protest. Like what the dude kad a 40K$ suit? What is it made out of fucking gold? And she hates him for it? It's like hating a fucking doctor because he makes money and not treating you for free. It's not the doctor's fault the health care system is fucked, the SYSTEM is fucked. Marissa comes off as one of those "idealist" that doesn't have a fucking clue of the world. And how did she go from THAT to being in charge of EDF in like 5 years? What kind of ******ed military IS EDF when a bloody kid fresh out of high-school can LEAD THE EARTH DEFENSE FUCKING FORCE?! To make matters worse SHE SAW SOUNDWAVE KILLING HUMANS! Rumble went on a big killing spree with his drills in AHM but now she's a-ok with him working with him?!??! And Galvatron , who looks like a reformatted Megatron (I mean come on in a non-******ed universe everyone who knew of Megatron and who saw Galvatron would probably think "Is this Megatron 2.0?") goes on and on and on how he's going to MURDER EVERYONE. And him and Soundwave are somehow a GOOD IDEA TO TEAM UP WITH while the Autobots are the bad guys because JAZZ KILLED ONE HUMAN?!?!?!?! And the fucking dog. FUCK THE STUPID DOG! It was a cute gimmick in the last issue but the more I see it the more I wish that Galvatron would just step on it and be done with it, it's completely annoying and every line of dialogue with it was clunky and stupid. And then we have Trhundercracker. Boy did Barber fuck up Thundercracker. The whole scrip writing/dog thing was cute but he's literally making him into a giant robot neckbeard and it's annoying. THAT'S NOT WHY WE LOVE THUNDERCRACKED! WE loved him because of his crude understatement of humanity that he somehow loves not because he's a couch potatoe! Optimus is ******ed. Like seriously Marvel level "IMMA KILL MUHSELF OVER VIDYA GAEMS!" ******ed. I mean his way of dealing with the whole situation was what exactly? Call out humans on their ******ed bullshit, punch everything, see that's not working out, run and go "I HOPE PROWL HAS A PLAN!" Brilliant leadership Optimus, just brilliant! And Prowl is a moron as usual to the point that I don't even want to talk about it. Jazz is on the other hand a bumbling moron that can't even shoot the fucking gun without it going everywhere. Don't you have WEAPON TRAINING in Autobot Special-Ops? And if Kup was a Pokemon his name would be "Lad". While I'm on the rant FUCK Jetfire's R2D2 rip-off. Fuck it all the way back to the 70's! It's annoying, stupid, illogical, doesn't work and it wasn't funny even when the R2D2 did it. The whole thing feels like Barber wants to be Roberts but fails horribly to understand what makes Roberts Roberts and end up making a horrible knock-off. Griffith's art wasn't that great either. Marissa looks like a shape-snifter her head literally has different proportions and complexion from panel to panel. Maybe that's why she's acting like a moron she's actually an alien! He had a few really good shots like the Constructicon close up and the Devastator scene but it was just bland. There's so so much WRONG with this issue that I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting half of it as I'm typing this. The only good thing I can say about this issue is that Perez and Lafuente are colour gods, that Guido once again proves that he's the master of Earth stories for being one of the only artist that can both draw humans and Transformers and that Cahill's pulling out the best art of his career. Uuuuuuuuuuurgh. Fuck this issue. I'm giving it 3 more issues and if doesn't get better down the shitter this series goes.
I'm not sure I've seen this much hate on an issue of IDW Transformers since Spike murdered Scrapper with a handful of kitchen products. Wow. And really, it's not like this is the worst issue ever. I wouldn't even say it's Barber's worst... but there is just such a concentration of smaller problems... things that maybe we would have overlooked or let slide if they were the only complaints on a given issue. But all of this in one issue, at the outset of a new storyline? And on the heels of Dark Cybertron, which was a 6-month incoherent mess? Nope. We're not having it. Me, I've just reached my limit for Barber's really simplistic portrayal of characters. It pains me. It's too bad, because otherwise it might have been interesting to see this mix of characters in action, and we've been wanting to get back to Thundercracker for a while. Griffith's art is not totally in the zone, but it's still pretty solid. The colours however, are giving me Dreamwave flashbacks for some reason... (which isn't a good thing, in my books). zmog
For me I've been giving Barber a hard time over on Cybertron, but at the same time at least as balant, unsophisticated, unsubtle as it all was, at least for a good 75% of the run all of it had a semi-logical cause and effect story that kept going with characters that while simplistic at least weren't as annoying and the overall story at least didn't hinge on everyone being stupid. But this issue is like an accumulation of EVERYTHING wrong with his writing. It was like a tour guide of "see this shit? This is why RID isn't popular" I think this is making it worse. I mean Dark cybertron was shit, even most of Robert's material was shit and getting something as confusing, illogical and stupid as DC was immediately after it was finished just drives me over the edge. Colours were the ONLY good thing about DW's run for me so I generally love that they are going in that direction. Sure they lack originality and uniqueness of say Josh's MTMTE style but they are not bad. And are certainly better than anything I've seen from the big 2 in recent years.
