Due out Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Rather good. Milne's art is clearer than it has ever been, but Perez's coloring still is a tad too dark. Still, Mowry does good Transformers, yes he does. He needs to write for the main universe.

Where they been hiding Chris Mowry? In plain sight no doubt. Boy can definitely write good stuff. I agree that the art was still a bit dark, but otherwise this was a right good issue. Liked Starscream's disciplining of Crankcase.

I am somewhat annoyed that they killed off all of Arcee's team of non-movie Movie toyline characters last issue just to team her up with a different group of the same in this one. Seems to have no point beyond "hey, let's see how many of these guys we can fit into five issues!"

I love this series. LOVE. IT.

I would have to say that this Starscream is, by far, my favorite interpretation of Starscream ever. And all the cameos - ELITA FREAKING 1 - just make it all the better.

However, I really, really, REALLY hope they do something more with Wreckage chatting up the humans like that. I want a Spotlight, Wreckage now.

Yes. That Wreckage bit was VERY interesting indeed...

I really hope Mowry plays it up.

And for that matter, it also begs a couple questions:

1. Where is Wreckage now?
2. Did Wreckage KNOW that Megatron was in S7's basement frozen?

Argh. I really appreciate Milne redesigning these guys to fit the Movie aesthetic, but did Elita HAVE to have her G1 head? That kinda killed it dead right there for me.

I thought it was kinda cool.  Stickler for toy accuracy, are ya Walky?  

A stickler for not having everything be as fanwanky as possible, yeah.

I liked her head design - it's unique to Elita.

Truly the best thing to come out from IDW set in the movie verse. I wasn't particularly excited for this comic before I read the first issue but I've been enjoying each of the four issues so far. I only hope that #5 isn't rushed like so many other previous mini series but then those other mini-series were written by Furman - good conclusions and proper pacing don't seem to be his strong point. But there doesn't seem to be a strong storyline running through, more like "Starscream is in charge and this is what happens" type thing.

Anyway, the comic isn't perfect though. While the style does suit the movie verse, I do tend to find that it can be too dark or unclear. I can't even tell who the ones who stayed behind are supposed to be. I think the large one at the back is Wingblade (forgot he had a toy for a moment; I thought he was a brand new character then I remembered the Cybertron Wingsaber repaint), Elita-1 is to his left (her G1 head doesn't bother me as its really not that clear), Breakaway in front of him and the small one at the front is Skyblast. I don't know who the large one at the front is.

I love the Cybertronian redesigns - especially for the repaints from previous lines. They really fit in to the movie verse aesthetic, something I had doubts about them doing so before this comic. Shame the art isn't that clear - maybe the tpb will have character design sheets as the bonus material.



I'm fine with that. Arcee is the main character of the Autobots here, the rest of the Autobots are fun cameos to show off oppression and death - ultimately expendable in that respect (and I mean 'fun' as in spotting a toy that you have in a comic). Its not like both teams meet up and renact the battle scenes of the beast wars comics. One small team or another small team, they're not important characters but yeah, just fun cameos without making things too crowded.

If Fracture isn't in the next issue then I'm going to be disappointed.

Elita-1 isn't one of the "ones who stayed behind" group at the base, she's one of the prisoners at the cube. I'm not sure who the guy to Wingblade's left is. Strongarm, maybe? The large one at the front is Inferno, I think.




It's just too contrived. Here's Arcee leading an assault team of her fellow non-movie toyline characters... whoops! They're all dead! Okay, now here's Arcee leading another assault team of different non-movie toyline characters!

I'd rather have seen her operating on her own this issue, or maybe just with one or two others. Keep Clocker and Crosshairs, but leave the rest of them out of it.

yeah, i just realised when i read it a second time a few moments ago. i only recieved it in the post today.



Well, it seems in the movie verse that if you're an Autobot, you're most vulnerable when you're alone so she had to find another team quickly. and the same goes for the others. so i don't really see a problem with it - and it gives some guys a place in the movie verse which they wouldn't have got if it weren't for this comic. sure, i would like to have seen the story spread over six issues to give the lesser seen guys some more characterisation but that didn't happen.

i just don't think empty space in the background is a good substitute for a cameo of a toy only character. these background characters only purpose is to show the reader that there's a team of them even though the focus is on one particular member.


I think the ones that stayed behind on that page are Inferno, Breakaway, Armorhide, Skyblast and Wingblade.

I only bought RoS #1. When it basically wasted the entire issue re-telling events of the movie, I decided the series must have nothing important to do or say, and dropped it. People are now praising it, but lemme get this straight. The story so far is:

1) Starscream flies to Mars
2) Some Autobots attack him.
3) Some more Autobots attack him.

Is there more to it than that, or was I right to save my $12 and counting?

The story so far is more like: Starscream retrieves Frenzy's remains from Hoover Dam to recover data he collected from S7's files on the Allspark. He then flies to a Decepticon ship parked on Mars, where he studies this data and devises a way to duplicate the Allspark. Arcee and a team of Autobots locate the ship on Mars and attack, but everyone except Arcee gets wiped out. The ship heads back to Cybertron, with Arcee secretly hitching a ride. There Starscream proceeds with his plan to create a new Allspark, which involves the use of several captured Autobots first as slave labor to construct a new cube, then strapping them to it to presumably be used as some sort of sacrifices. Arcee hooks up with another group of Autobots and they prepare to launch a rescue mission.

There's also a bit of a background story thread involving Sector Seven, who have a seemingly co-operative Wreckage in their custody, and their apparent attempts at creating and/or controlling new TFs such as Landmine.

Definitely still diggin this. Some problems, but overall very good, especially for Movie stuff. I still hate the designs though. The big splash page of Autobots did nothing for me, simply because I can't identify any of them without looking at a Movie toy list and thinking hard about which is which. Not good.

I'm a bit worried that issue 5 will just be the Autobots destroying the Cube and putting Starscream back at square one, but maybe that's to be expected having to leave ROTF free to do what it wants.

There's still another five-issue mini, Destiny, coming out between now and Revenge of the Fallen, which Mowry evidently wrote with a copy of the script available for persual; judging from one interview, it seems from an interview that plot threads from this current series will carry over into Destiny, for instance HIGHLIGHT to view:
The S7 Transformer project.

I loved seeing all of those non-Movie toy characters in action, particularly since I have pretty much all of them and like how I can now appreciate them beyond their decos as "Hey, it's that guy who died in issue____" (Best decos on some of those molds yet, I feel, but that's me liking military color schemes.) The only one I couldn't identify quickly was the dude on the front left in the splash page that reveals Wing Blade et al. Inferno?

I thought it was Inferno as well, but based on the preview of issue 5 Mowry posted at the IDW boards, he appears to be Armorhide.