maybe Onslaught is missing Swindle's presence more than merely as a component of Bruticus. Swindle has a way of knowing the low life in an area and brokering deals to get energy and materials.

at the end of the day I haven't really been following any of the comics since LSOTW finished. Read Ironhide and it's ok but I don't think that unless the Ongoing stops trying to emulate the movie it's never going to be as well received as the -ation series or Wreckers were.

 

Cool! Thanks for clearing that up Guido!

 

My first impression of issue #10 wasn't entirely positive. Skywatch's fumbling at the start came across as something I wouldn't expect from a covert organization. It was amusing, but didn't seem all that believable.
But my guess is that Costa was going for a lighter tone here and trying to liven up the action with some humor, and looked at in that light the story works far better.

I guess I come into any given issue with certain expectations about how the characters should behave, but no one is locked into one constant pattern of behavior. There's always room for the occasional incident where someone strays outside the expected norms. This doesn't mean accepting completely out of character behavior, but it does mean examining just whether or not something is really out of character or not.

Which leads me to Onslaught. I expected him to be playing the North Korean dictator for a fool and to have some plan for using and discarding him. But that's not the case... he's pretty much stuck at the moment because el dictator has control of Energon production. And Onslaught not only can't figure out a way to gain control of the facility, he'd rather lounge around and relax. Is it out of character? No, I'd say that it's really not, it's just not what I'd expect him to do. But even Onslaught has to get some downtime from time to time, right?

The fight sequence was well plotted. The Autobots and Skywatch had their one-two-three punch lined up... surprise attack, hit 'em with Skywatch and them have Broadside attack from the sea. The Combaticons just turn out to be too tough, particularly Vortex who comes across as a very able fighter in the air. Bonus points for the use of Smokescreen and Broadside, as well as bringing Jazz along, even if he didn't do much.

And Bumblebee's trying to recruit Thundercracker. Should be interesting.

Overall: Disappointed at first because I expected certain things from certain characters and didn't get them. But what we did get isn't unreasonable, with the possible exception of Spike and company's ineptitude. This was definitely a case where the usual second or third read-through of the issue put things in a different perspective.

 

The war is "over", that would have been a weird thing to do also with LSOTW story being told at the same time as the ongoing. There would be no real way to establish the

Spoiler

Elite Guard.

Especialy with Springer

Spoiler

"down" and faceless.

The

Spoiler

Elite Guard

has always been a pre-war kind'a thing.

LOL!

 

Wow, thanks for clearing that up, Guido!

*ahem*

Last Stand of the Wreckers.

 

Don't worry about him. He's already expressed his dislike of LSOTW for being "about a bunch of nobodies without character".

Character, of course, meaning "being plucked straight from the G1 cartoon".

 

It was alright. The mix of designs is kind of annoying - half of the Autobots are drawn almost Sunbow simple (Jetfire, Ratchet, Cliffjumper), the other half are drawn in the more complex style seen in the early Ongoing (Prime, Bee, Thundercracker - nominal Autobot for now).

Their plan of attack was kind of dumb - drive around them shooting in vehicle mode and hope desperately that Vortex doesn't get airborne, and if he does plan B is have a scientist engage him in air to air combat.

Was nice to see Broadside again, and with an earth mode to boot!

To be honest my main issue is that

Spoiler

I don't see how they're going to work the Predacons into the next issue without them just like blatantly showing up in the middle of the battle for no reason

Oh, and come on Hasbro, give us a toy of that EJ Su seeker design already. It's fucking sexy

 

I think you used the wrong code there for spoiler.

 

I got to read this issue and its okay. You guys pretty much cover of what is going on.

 

Don't really see how their plan sucked.

They couldn't transform unless they wanted their cover to be blown and basically be deactivated. So they had to pose as suped-up Skywatch vehicles.

At this point I also think Jetfire is the only airborne Autobot on earth right now, so he was probably their last ditch-effort if Vortex was able to take off.

 

Wait, isn't Broadside a Triple-Changer? I though one of his other modes was a jet:

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/thumb/d/df/DW_G1Broadside.jpg/300px-DW_G1Broadside.jpg

 

They've got both Broadside and Silverbolt (who was mentioned as an option to intercept Magnus' shuttle when it was coming in to land in #2) on Earth.

 

Hot Spot and Streetwise were seen to be on Earth in issues 1 and 2. Wouldn't that mean that the other three Protectobots would be available, including Blades?

 

Also Sandstorm. He never did get offworld when Hot Rod jacked Magnus' ship.

So what we're all getting at is the fact that the Autobots have multiple fliers, some of which are far better warriors than their giant research scientist.

- Coeloptera

 

Vehicles that all just happened to be the exact same group of vehicles people know by now are the Autobots. I think that's the stupid part.

 

But vehicles that are supposedly captured and under Skywatch's control. And that message sticks; that Skywatch is effective and proactive against the robot menace just as long as the Autobots don't transform and show free will.

 

Hey guys, I might have missed that bit of info, but why did they change the movie style faces back to normal after the first few issues?

 

The POTUS stilled called any Cybertronians WMDs.

My objection still stands. There is no way the public is so dumb that they wouldn't guess that the US deployed Cybertronians to fight Best Korea's Cybertronians, in direct contradiction to what the POTUS just said.

The mission should be an utter political fiasco, but I'm not sure how much that will even come up in a more general sense.

- Coeloptera

 

Because the "movie style" faces were ugly and unpopular? That would be my guess. I don't know many people that enjoyed that aspect of the earlier ongoing comics. Those faces were hideous.