Out Wednesday August 20, 2009

was really hoping there'd be a little more substance to this issue. was basically just another introductory issue. but seeing HIGHLIGHT to view:
psycho frenzy and devastator was pretty flippin sweet. hope issue 3 gets a little more involved instead of just the decepticons destroying new york and the humans freaking out

Well, it was mindless. But the art was pretty and was good fun. But yeah, I also hope that this picks up with some actual story some time soon.

So is Colonal Witwicky supposed to be Spike, Sparkplug or some new Witwicky? I dunno. Doesn't really matter.

I just enjoy seeing the Decepticons interact amongst one another.

Did you miss them calling him "Danny" at the party?

Anyway, an improvement over last issue, which admittedly isn't hard. The Frenzy scene was pretty nice. Otherwise, a tad on the shallow side.

Jaguars are not dogs, McCarthy.

Apparently I did. Whoops!

and i guess the writers are philadelphia eagles fans since they named the one guy "andy reid" who is the head coach of the eagles

Shane knows

apparantly Andy doesnt tho

yes, i rather did like the Frenzy scene, very visceral. The rest of it was...underwhelming. But yeah, it was better than last issue at the very least.

I never seen Megatron smile soo much ever.

I want it! Its not in my comci store yet.

It occurs to me, why the hell would Hook be doubting Frenzy's abilities? If Megatron Origin is to be believed, Hook was the one who modified Frenzy to fit in Soundwave in the first place!

This is Hook's first encounter with humans. Especially a army of humans with tanks and ballistics which the Decepticons deem a credible threat. So of course he would doubt if Frenzy is up to the task of dealing with HUNDREDS of tiny little meat creatures which they never have dealt with before in direct combat. Remember, before IDW decided to shift gears, the Decepticons dont get their hands dirty until very late in the game. This is the first direct overt action by the Decepticons showing their full might. They dont know how the humans will react.

Not much happened in the three page Transformer preview that was included but congrats to IDW on getting out their first issue of G.I. Joe.

After the first issue I'd said to myself, "Self, you know this comic was subpar, what with Cpl. Cliche's inspirational death and all, but you also know that in these trying times of decompressed storytelling sometimes you need to wait for a comic to build up a head of steam. This doesn't look like it can be a good series, but it might be entertaining enough. Give it til issue 2 before you bail."

Well that was dumb of me.

Col. "I live in a ridiculous mansion and yet still categorize anyone unlike me as elitist" Witwicky is terrible. As this comic would have it, the entire military is comprised of stock characters from direct-to-video action movies. There's barely any dialogue, and what we do get just drives home the point that all of this has been regurgitated from bad movies.

Frenzy's kind of neat, but nothing interesting is done with him. It's not enough to show us a scary villain. Comics are filled to the brim with scary villains. You have to have some purpose for them beyond a bitchin' splash page. Frenzy's only purpose is to show us that yes, the Decepticons really ARE bad guys, and to give us some more soldier-killin' porn. We didn't know how good we had it when it was all just terrorists pissing in the woods.

I liked it. It's giving us a human element, and it does feel like a movie. It does sort of have an "Independence Day" feel to it. This Witwicky might be similar to the Dreamwave one.

I was thinking that calling Ravage a dog was a deliberate joke. When I was a kid, and watched the G1 cartoon, I thought Ravage was a dog at the time. How would Ravage feel being called a dog? It sort of adds a certain dark comedy.

I feel that the story is progressing. Characterwise, more is happening on the human side. With this kind of pacing, I think it is going to make an excelent trade paperback (not so much as separate comics, because it takes so long to get the next issue). The first and second issues are very close together in time.

That's the only place "character" is happening.

Over forty pages into the story and the only new things we know about the Decepticons are Hook is a little unsure of humanity and Frenzy is crazy...and blue.

Both of which took place in the second issue.

I expect a little more from my $8 investment. I think I have the next issue or two already ordered but I'm not ordering any more. Not until/unless an actual Transformers story manages to find its way into the next ten issues.

Good lord, that was incredibly boring and bad. NOTHING HAPPENED. Stuff blew up, people died. For an entire issue. NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED.

Far as I'm concerned, this is on its way to being the worst TF comic since Dreamwave's first series, and that is pretty damn bad.

Even worse is that this is supposedly the followup to IDW's ongoing G1 story, which I've really enjoyed overall.

I'm not expecting much from issue 2.

Given that it's 12 issues, it's sorta expected to use 2, even 3 issues as set-up and intro's.

I'm missing how "blowing up s***" is set-up.

Not feeling this so far. The art is nice, it's fun to see the cons go and do their thing. Yet theres nothing substantial behind it and it's killing the story.

I thought this would go more into the kind of oppresive Dictator that Megatron is and what effect would his presence have on the human race. From how it's called Hail Megatron. I was kind of expecting something or other where earth actually becomes a Decepticon controlled world and we start to see more of the Decepticon political agenda, what the troops think of their leader and what effect would Megatron's rule have on humanity.

I mean you could easily have all these events happen and still have much more development then this. Sure the first issue kind of gives us an idea of why Meg's is looked up to by his troops. He lets them have free reign on inferior species and lets them have fun with it. Yet other than that we haven't gained much political understanding of the cons were just getting a story that tells us their bad guys. I was hoping for something a little deeper than this. Sure I guess that with the way Megatron is as a character theres too many parrallels to Saddam Husseing and Hitler. Yet I was more curious as to how they were going to handle him as an imposing figure of tyranny. What psychological effect would it have on the human race. Even though humans are inferior to drones the Decepticons love lording over inferiors and could protect their factories by using innocents as slaves. I would have loved to see how Megatron was going to manipulate the human race to his ends. Sure the cartoon had them use human slaves but I wanted to see something more oppressive with more depth to it. I can understand showing us how humanity falls and giving a story behind that but we could have gotten a bit more substance.

I was kinda hoping we'd left Godzilla-sized Devastator behind with DW...

And this is the new direction IDW wanted to take Transformers in to attract a new audience? I haven't got this issue yet but by going from the comments i can imagine a new reader would be bored and give up on the series after two issues.

All the lay fans at my local comic store seem to love AHM.

I'd say AHM does give the casual audience more of what they're looking for, because it's VERY like the film that has prompted them to go looking for the comics - heroic human military going up against giant alien robots in large-scale set-piece ooh-look-at-that battles, with more characterization on the former. I'm enjoying the book well enough, myself, because this is what I went in *expecting* of it.

I hated that so much. Someone amiably tells Witwicky that he owns a hybrid car, and Witwicky all but gaybashes him on the spot. Because apparently that's "looking down your nose" at real 'Merkins like him. Or something.

Is there really a market out there for splash images of Decepticons blowing up bridges and collapsing tunnels and killing thousands of people? Really? Didn't we get our fill of that in Prime Directive? Doesn't it sort of go without saying? It doesn't actually TELL us anything about the 'Cons, doesn't develop them in any way, and frankly it's not even necessary for the story. It's not new or meaningful, it's the very definition of gratuitous, and seeing people try to warp a children's property into an animated Apocalypse Now just skeeves me out, every bit as much as the people who insanely hypersexualize every female character in every franchise ever. Can we EVER stop seeing new material that panders to the lowest, cruelest, densest common denominator of this fandom, hur hur WHEELIE'S DEAD and all that?

I'm happy to give a bit of leeway here: it is a comic, and it's an effective to show that these aren't the bumbling fools from the cartoon. (well, in theory)
It lays the case out pretty clearly, these guys are a threat. With no Autobot resistance, they're running amok.
Provided it leads to something more.

I'm not all that enthused myself. Nothing really happened this issue. It's really just the bridge in the song that is issue #1. Witwicky's ridiculous but I was more ok with him than that other military guy. I 'm fine with the 'cons blowing stuff up. I mean really, stuff blew up in Devastation WITH the Autobots there as a buffer. With the Autobots gone why is it taking so long for the 'cons to do their thing?

I like it for the setup.

I know some people dislike the idea of 2 issues of cons blowing jive up as setup, but it still works.

1) This is in continuity with the -ation series. The cons grew more and more audacious as the series went on. Megatron broke his own rules of infiltration to engage in a more direct/openly visible conflict. This is the next step. Not only has Megatron grown more audacious, he doesn't care anymore. He's walking the streets blowing jive up, laughing while he does so. And without the bots around, who is seriously go into stop him?

Esp. if he's heard about Prime's condition. Having no rival could be emboldening him too.

2) This is "All Hail" Megatron. They need to conquer the planet somehow. I'd prefer to see it. The first issue was the decepticon/reveal and the beginning of the mayhem. This issue was the battle. If the story doesn't move on past the first half of issue 3, then it will be too long. There's been nice progression thus far.

This is an era of decompressed comics. We rarely ever get a lot of story for our cash (I'm a Marvel fan, that's especially true for them).

3) It isn't making a children's property into something overly mature, it's just trying to capture the movie feel. The movie was more mature and captured the attention of children and adults alike. TFs started o die down in the Cybertron/Classics era around where I live. After the movie, kids were swarming the toy aisle for tfs.

The thing is, Independence Day is a movie. It has special effects and explosions and Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. It could have a weak script, because the script was only there to prop up everything else that was going on.

This is an exponentially worse script than Independence Day. This is a Sci-Fi Channel movie. I do watch those sometimes, but they're free.

Yeah, I thought that was the entire point of the "one year later" schtick. I figured we'd see the initial Decepticon assault briefly, in flashbacks, because we've seen it many times.

But they're still attacking New York.

If the same pace holds they'll be able to conquer about six cities before the miniseries is over.

I think the point of what the Decepticons are doing is to cow Earth into submission.

Destroy one of the planet's greatest cities easily. Repel all military assaults from the United States handily and cripple their military.

Watch how quickly the world now surrenders.

Quickly? Are we reading the same comic?

Let's start a pool. I say surrender happens... issue 6?

After two whole issues, the Decepticons' basic opening strategy shouldn't be something we have to *guess* about. There doesn't seem to be any great mystery about it; we just *haven't been told yet* because the story, apparently, has nowhere important to get to.

Maybe I'll pick up the TPB when all's said and done, but I believe I can safely, if sadly, drop this title from my buy list.

Hey, it worked in Kaon. Or...did it...?

I've really enjoyed the fast-paced, action-movie feel of these past two issues. It's a marked departure from Furman's style, but the great art and exciting action (To me), as well as dialogue and character interactions I find enjoyable work for me. Seeing the Cons interact in various ways, I just find fun, and the overall book reads well for me. I'm liking the idea of the mix of some Furman books, some McCarthy stories, and Mowry's work; variety is fun.

I should note that I didn't have significant conceptual problems with Dreamwave's first mini, which I see cited sometimes in AHM discussions; I just felt the dialogue was a bit clunky, and, well, Pat Lee drew it, and there you go. This feels like the same sort of "Decepticons attack a city" scenario done right. Looking forward to seeing what happens with this human cast; hope we follow them through to the conclusion of the story, since Andy and Danny are pretty likable to me thus far. IDW's seriously like the first purveyor of Transformer media (Before Animated) where I've given a damn about the humans. Well, I did like old G.B. Blackrock, to be fair.

One thing in particular that I enjoyed: putting Devastor really VERY quickly into the mix instead of saving him as a final resort. Seriously, it always bugged the heck of me how villains would always wait until the last minute to bring out the most powerful bad guy.

The modified explanation of Frenzy's abilities was pretty awesome as well; much creepier than mere sonic waves. Even if the Constructicon had encountered Frenzy before, though (Since he modified them to fit inside Soundwave), I could see anyone with any common sense questioning whether one Con could go up against a human army. That flicker of doubt was honestly a favorite moment; nice to see them not always wrapped up in their own sense of invincibility.

True.

Though really, the situation is different.

In Kaon, it was rebellion against an oppressive force.

Here, the Decepticons are holding all the cards. Thanks to Soundwave, any missiles are useless agains them (even nukes, so long as they have guidance systems). They can tear through infantry easily.

And now they're taking out civvies and trapping them. 22 million hostages is a LOT.

If the US military can't beat this, are they really gonna use nukes on their own citizens? I mean, to some extent these are the 'cons I've always wanted - actually using humans as meat sheilds and bargaining chips.

It's the same reason I loved it when Animated Megs had Sumdac strapped to his chest as a shield. Totally useless as far as armor goes - but psychologically?

On the other hand, the US has very old policies regarding negotiating with terrorists in public.

Sneaky, under the table stuff, maybe, but outright "we give" seems unlikely.

THIS. This is exactly why IDW decided to move in this direction. And if Suspsy's experience is indicative of the broader reaction, it's working.

I'm of two minds about it: I don't really like it, but if bringing in lay fans is needed to keep the comic afloat, well, it's better than no comic, I suppose.

I liked it, but I am waiting for something more to happen, I just keep telling myself that it's twelve issues, they have time for a lot more and to speed it up if they want.

I rather like that it made me think of the movie, but with the G1 Cons.

Hm, The Machination are supposedly shut down, huh? No way that's true.

Hey Devastator! So they must have learned to combine sometime in the year from Monstructor. But holy cow! Look at the size of the cars and boats at his feet! I didn't even notice the first time reading.

Did... did I just read a Transformers comic that featured a re-imagined version of Daniel Witwicky as a hard-ass, liberal-hating, gung-ho military guy? And played this character perfectly straight, without a hint of irony or as a joke of any kind, as though we the audience are expected to embrace and root for him? Seriously? Seriously?!

But... hybrid cars!

IDW have actually created a Daniel Witwicky that's worse than the cartoons version. I am astonished. Seriously, he comes across as such an arsehole it's unbelievable.

I was looking forward to all this storyline for months, but this is just, well, totally disappointing. It's just so totally devoid of any depth, and it just doesn't work with the previous series.

The whole thing just feels off. The fact that the cons are perfectly fine with this ridiculous strategy of randomly attacking a city is just jarring, given we just saw in Devastation that they were all so upset with Megatron breaking their cover and phase systems that they went behind his back to revive Starscream to stop him.

The fact they suddenly have Gestalt tech, something that has been handled as an apocalyptic scenario up until now, is suddenly treated as perfectly normal.

There's been no mention of their facsimiles. We know they have high level military and political figures replaced all over the world, yet they're not using them. Hell, there was a presidential candidate that was heavily hinted at as being one Surely that'd be helpful in making sure any overt conquest would be as easy and shambolicly countered as possible. I mean we might see this come into play later, but so far nothing.

I can see why this comic came to be. Capitalising on the movies success by aping it's cool battle scenes makes sense. and I do think it was something that the comic could have done with incorporating more of. But their was so much more that made the movie work, the humour, the mystery, and the sheer fondness for the concept that was evident throughout.

This is all the movies flashy scenes of carnage, with none of the love, humour, build up and genuinely likeable characters, and none of the things that had made the comic up until now the best thought out and most realistically set up universe we'd ever had.

Bit surprised about all the hate for old Dan Witwicky. He's just your rough, liberal-hating colonel stereotype. Sure he's an ass, but those kinda people are out there you know. The downed pilot is the guy everybody is supposed to root for (and who's playing the traditional Spike role), Witwicky not as much.

Still liking Shane's dialog and the Frenzy scene was nice. The Decepticons taking out the bridge and the tunnels again showing these guys are pretty bad when there's nobody to stop them. That said, I'm now 2 issues into this, and it really is time for things to pick up a little. The way things are setup now, I can't imagine issue 3 being anything more then the Decepticons taking on colonel Dan's forces in NY. After 2 issues of already seeing Megs & co take on the military, that doesn't really excite me.

I don't have too many issues with Furman's stuff not being incorporated here. It is what it is. Not a complete reboot, but hardly a continuation with just a different writer either. I rather see this, then to completely start over myself.

Yep, I have a perverse fondness for jerk characters (He's even got the toothpick!), so old Danny-boy appeals as a character despite my not identifying with him personally. I also approve of killing off the "cool guy" pilot dude in the first issue (Accomplishing NOTHING as a sacrifice. ) and then following Andy, who seems like much more a nice guy who realizes his limitations, as opposed to being stuck with the really gung-ho "Yee-haw" fellow for the series.

I should mention in particular that I enjoyed the progression from the jets shooting at the helicopters, to following the helicopter as it descended in flames, to its exploding near Andy and then our following him at street-level on the next page. That was a really smooth sequence. (It was also neat to see the guy who saves them's head in the window (In shadow) when Andy saves the girl. (I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the same guy; he was in a media store, they went around the alley behind it, and then he saved them and took them into the storeroom with DVDs and such.) Andy being on fire from the molotov cocktail, too...nice attention to detail.

I'm hoping that Dan Witwicky is being set-up to be killed. It kind of goes with the name, these days.

Read it over. Kinda liked it, but it still has its problem, especially in conjunction with issue #1. If THIS issue was the first issue (plus the scene with Prime being near-dead), I think we'd be off to a much better start. It's still the 'Cons blowing stuff up, but there's a bit of start here with some plotlines that you can see will go somewhere.

I'm also surprised at the hate for Witwicky. He's a hardass but doesn't seem like much of an bunghole. The two guys he picks on are the CIA agent who's uptight about secret information and some namby-pamby guy at a party. Big deal (and it wasn't really that much of a dress-down either... the guy at the party says he's into cars and then talks about the GPS navigator. I'm not into cars myself but have a lot of friends who are, and trust me, as soon as that random guy said that, I was already thinking what Witwicky was!)

Still, this story REALLY needs to ramp up plot-wise. I don't care about humans. I'm into Transformers for the robots, not random humans.

What I'd really like is something like the War World (from G2) to back the Cons up in space... It does make me wonder what support ships Megatron could have in orbit... Are there other Cons attacking in different places? Do they really need a lot of troops? Previous infiltration units on other worlds make it seem like they don't. It depends on what phase they are in I guess.

It's hard to say. Besides cases where the Universal Weapon named Sixshot was involved, we only really saw Phase Six on Varas Centralus with the Wreckers attacking a siege bunker. And that sort of harkens back to the joke about Fire on the Mountain -- "The Crystal of Power allows me to reign down pain and destruction on all of my enemies . . . providing they travel to South America and stand at the base of this mountain!" In the traditional Phase structure, there had to be more to it than sitting in a siege bunker and defending against attackers. Still, Focus On... made it seem like the Decepticon cast would basically be just the guys we've seen so far in New York, give or take.

Everything we've seen of the phase system so far indicates the Decepticons manipulate species into wiping themselves out, then they only need step in at the end to clean up any left over’s and harvest the planets resources unopposed. You see this with their use of facsimiles in the governments and military of several nations, being used to start conflicts and rabble rouse amongst civilians. Also disguising themselves as different countries military vehicles and publicly attacking instillations in other countries.

So yeah, alot more than sitting around in a bunker. And a far better and more sensible idea than randomly attacking a city in person. And I'm sure it's been stated that this strategy is standard procedure even without the Autobots being on the same planet trying to stop them.

I was also thinking about any ships the cons would have. At the moment you would assume at least 3, The original infiltration units, Megatrons, and what the Constructicons and Insecticons came in. Also possible Soundwaves if it didn't get destroyed by Bludgeon, or fall out of orbit, and maybe Sixshots, since Ratbat turned up at the same time and likely wasn't transported in sixshot, so maybe 5 or even more.

That's alot of orbital bombardments they could be performing. I mean if they're going with the no subtlety 'You have no chance against us puny humans!' approach, then laying waste to all their military bases and leaders from space would speed things up massively. And we know at least one Decepticon ship was capable of single-handedly destroying Cybertron, and Grimlocks ship blasted the area around the Dynobots and Shockwave enough to cause a massive volcanic eruption in Spotlight: Shockwave, so it's reasonable to assume they have the capacity.

Rereading it again last night, I did notice that it was the President himself that asked for Daniel, and as it looked like a Facsimile was heading for the white house, maybe the Decepticons arranged for the worst person possible to be put in charge of countering them. Would also explain why a colonel was in charge of fighting them and not a general.