So I read it and I don't see why it could possibly be divisive...

*Why would it be Divisive to imply that Arcee's story predates any other story in the IDW universe.

*Why would it be divisive to give an explanation of Fem-bots that ignores the fact we've already seen OTHER fembots in the IDW-verse?

*Why would it be divisive to write a book called "Spotlight: Arcee" thats less about Arcee and more about Furman itroducing YET ANOTHER plot involving Jiahxus when he's already got half a dozen other hanging plot threads.

Really great art......and I don't see what could possibly be wrong with this story.

 

I gotta go pick this up!

 

Read it and had to scratch my head on ths one. One one hand it was nice to see so many new characters getting a shot in the book, but the story had less to do about telling us a story about the spotlight character and more about advancing earlier plot threads.

The big shocker at the end has us believing that Jiahxus, on a whim, decided to gather up a bunch of bots and make them female. So that means that every IDW TF Fembot was once a guy. Wow. No wonder he writes Arcee as being bat-slag crazy.

 

The colorists did a fairly good job. It was muddy, but nowhere near the level of Megatron: Origin. I was actually able to tell Milne's characters apart from the background.

Making Fortress Maximus a prison warden was awesome, as was the whole concept behind the prison itself. Everything with Arcee, though...eck. She reeks of "Mary Sue" qualities even if she is an established character. I did kinda like Milne's redesign, particularly the unhinging jaw. The "BLAARRRGH JHIAXUS!!1!" stuff got old fast, though.

And her motivation for hating him? A sex change? I dunno whether to laugh or cry.

 

Definately not impressed with this one. The art and coloring were good, and it was nice to see so many new (for IDW) characters, but Arcee as a badass just isn't a good read. Robo sex change= lose in this book! 


On a good note though, they show the cover for the Grimlock(YAYYYY) and Mirage Spotlights both listed as due in March.

 

I must say I liked seeing some advancement in the story no matter how small. What with Monstructor finally falling into Deceptiocon hands because COME ON it was only a matter of time. I'm amused more then anything else over the explanation of fembots. Pissed off transexuals? Okay Furman okay. I am a little curious is to what the difference between the genders when it comes to this sensory input. I wonder if that'll ever be explained.

 

Jhiaxus got it wrong. They are only supposed to be periodically crazy, not all the time crazy. Cybertron has lunar cycles, right?

Good story, but Arcee only gets one panel of backstory and the rest of the time is crazy vengeful Valkerie. I would have liked to have seen her experimented on in place of her capture by Ultra Magnus. Hopefully she's the one that can find Nova Prime and I would have liked to have seen her accompanied by someone, perhaps the Wreckers or Ultra Magnus. Interaction with others is how we'll find out more about her.

Nice use of the Combaticons, but it's weird they aren't under Megatron's command. A lot of Decepticons aren't. He oughtta crack down on that.

 

Okay, so with all these things going on with Earth we are now going to focus on Jhiaxus and Monstructor?

I have been on board with the way IDW has been telling this tale, but I have considerable investment in the story involving Earth.
I don't feel like anything there has come to a conclusion and now there is another tangent -this time Jhiaxus.

He may be working for Nova\Nemesis Prime so maybe this is not a completely new tangent, but it certainly was out of character for Optimus Prime to leave Earth to the whims of the Decepticons and the Reapers because of a prison break.

This take on Arcee was certainly different.
Of all the IDW characters she is certainly among the most reinvented.

Did Jhiaxus bring her online as a female, or did he induce a cybernetic sex change? It's not clearly stated.
And, even though we may have already seen other female robots in the Megatron: Origin series (IIRC), Arcee states that she was the first -not that she was the only one.

Negative:
-It seems every IDW book has to have one speech bubble assigned to the wrong character.
Arcee says "No!" but it clearly seems like the line shoud go to Magnus.

Positive:
-Great artwork with good colors
-It was cool to see so many cameos by the Action Masters
-The Combaticons have matching colors.
-The design sketches at the end of the book. I love them -keep them coming IDW
-Fortress Maximus appears to have an alt mode that makes sense.

 

Of course we don't know what exactly Jhiaxus did to her. For all we know he experimented on her while she was online. Not to mention the radical change to one's structure. Besides, while be experimented on she saw how batshit crazy he was and decided to find him and kill all his other experiments before he did something horrible to Cybertron.

 

Maybe she's pissed about being dumped, not being made into a girl.

 

Wait... Arcee used to be a guy?

 

So basically, Furman has become the Chris Claremont of Transformers.

 

Well that pretty much cinches it, Furman's a hack. A sick one apparently. Robo-transvestites. WTF is wrong with someone to write Transformers like that? And here I thought his obsession with Grimlock was bad enough.

 

The way I interpreted it was that the Transformers were genderless but then Jhiaxus introduced genders. I was thinking that he made it to where Arcee gives off a signal that causes other Transformers to process her as a "her".

Or that's how I'm thinking of this because the guy robot to girl robot is odd.

 

I thought this was supposed to be the definitive answer to fembots, then he goes and pulls the transgender angle. Like that makes the arguments any better. At least his original idea in the marvel comics made sense, but to force sex change operations as torture on them is not the answer I was thinking he would take. Aside from that issue, the comic introduced some of my favorite characters into this universe. Overall, this is the first issue in this universe that I have had a problem with in characterization.

 

Quoted for being absolutely hilarious!! 

 

From what is said in Devastation #5, it sounds like Optimus isn't so concerned with the actual prison break, rather who got out. As he told Prowl if "certain recent... inmates end up in enemy hands" they'd have "catastrophic fallout". I assume that's in reference to Monstructor who is currently the only Gestalt in the IDW-verse and if the Decepticons get their hands on him... Well it's enough of a reason for Optimus to let Earth go.

Unfortunately, my comic book store was out of this Spotlight issue when I got there (grumble).

 

The book was kind of hard to make sense, but had lots of cool action. I liked the "We aim to maim" part.