Out Wednesday August 27, 2008.

Not too shabby. Although Milne's pencils become uber-confusing when the crowd rushes the "stage", what with all the spiky movie designs around.

Starscream's handling of Dreadwing was pretty satisfying. Mowry's proved himself to be a pretty decent writer. Wouldn't have minded being stuck with HIM for 12 issues...

SPOILERS
It didn't end quite the way I expected or hoped, but at least it wasn't a Dreamwave Fiasco of an Ending. A servicable, but unremarkable conclusion.

I can't beleive they HIGHLIGHT to view:
KILLED ELITA-1. That was pretty darned harsh. 

I was hoping they'd set up more for Destiny, but they really didn't. Gah, I can't beleive I have to wait till December for more Movie Fiction Fix.

I enjoyed it. Twas fun reading. Milne's art was confusing at times, but not as far as confusing as his Megatron Origin stuff and nowhere near as half-ass as his work on the Movie Adapt. I guess I'm just happy there's a TF story set in the movie continuity that isn't utter toss.

* with Fwiffo*

HIGHLIGHT to view:
BUT! Through the magic of FANFICTION, for those of us who love that pairing, she can be saved! YES! JUST LIKE JAZZ!!

*cough* Sorry, first week of semester is making me go off kilter for the time being. I put it under the spoiler tag just to be a little safe.

Ramjet and Thundercracker look awesome.

I really need a toy of Ramjet in that form now...

Aren't they just Protoform Starscream with new heads?

Thundercracker using the "incorrect" prototype head, while Ramjet gets a "G1 style" "cone"?

Hey, at least HIGHLIGHT to view:
Jazz still functioning (wait, is that really even a spoiler anymore?) is semi-official.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

I'm more excited that movie arcee is a bad ass, than i am about anything else in tflam2

I thought Thundercracker was more or less Protoform Starscream with a Voyager Thundercracker/Target G1 Starscream head.

I can't believe they killed off all those characters.

Did Divebomb survive?

Who was that Decepticon who spotted the Sniper?

There was reference deactivated "crew" on the Nemesis? Perhaps some Decepticons in stasis? Or just more drones?

Nice 1986 movie reference with "I still function"... "Wanna bet!"

Sorta leaves the end so that it will fit nicely into the next movie without any real changes. Starscream is alone again and setting his sights on Earth. Everyone else is either dead or back on Cybertron.

I'm interested by Mowry's statement that Destiny will tie into the sequel more closely than this one, as he has access to the script. (Yeah, not buying Bay's "Everything is false"...although it amuses the heck outta me. ). Anyhoo, this was a satisfying story arc overall; nice to see Starscream called on his hubris after a couple issues of his contemplating whether or not he could turn into a Megatron-like figure, and yet not really cowed at the end despite having learned his lesson to a certain degree.

I dunno, maybe I'm just a sadist, but I like seeing known characters who couldn't fit into the overall story to a huge extent blown away, as opposed to generic guys. That way when I look at the figures on my shelf, I can think "Hey, I know what he did! ...he died! Oh well, he did something at least; it happens in war.." Besides, this was probably the only official story the Movie repaints would appear in, so I much liked seeing them even at the cost of their pathetic little lives, particularly because they were redesigned neatly. They weren't all slaughtered, anyway. And I enjoyed the movie 'verse as a whole being fleshed out with those additional characters, in any event. Thought that was handled better than in Beast Wars; sure, there were a lot of 'em here, but Mowry broke them up into smaller groups as opposed to having everyone participate in every battle.

I'm staying spoiler-free for TF2 (Just like TF1!), so I dunno if Arcee is going to be it (Plans for her in Transformers 1 aside), but after this storyline, I'd welcome her addition.

Arcee, Dreadwing, Thundercracker, Ramjet and Sideswipe have all won themselves much more prominent places on my movie shelf and more playtime thanks to the book.

No Sideswipe in this book, or in the Movie toyline. You probably meant Cliffjumper.

I haven't read this, but I saw the Autobot crews consisting of all the redecos. Are there any movie-verse toys that didn't show up in this book? Fracture, maybe?

Yeah Ramjet and Thundercracker are protoform screamers but they actually had jet modes and yeah Cracker is the original head.

Either way I really want a protoform with the original head as Thundercracker and I really like ramjet he even had the downwards wings.

Yes, I think movie toys not yet in fiction include Big Daddy, the Cybertron Jefire redeco, Fracture, Reverb, Gunbarrel, Mudflap, Backtrack, Inferno's Mini-Con Langarm, several of the "Real Gear", Evac, Incinerator and Overcast. Any others?

Add to thst Dropkick, who has only appeared on the covers for this series.

Unless he was always off panel, crying...

Whups, yeah. I immediately adjusted to Bumblebee being a Camaro, and yet when I think red sportscar Autobot, "Sideswipe" is the first thing that always comes to mind. Heheh. (Who knows, others might think of Rapido...)

This is one of the better IDW offerings. Question Smokescreen in the book is he getting a toy?

Already has one, that's why he's in the book. Redeco of Fast Action Battlers Jazz.

http://tfu.info/2008/Autobot/FABSmokescreen/smokescreen.htm

After sitting through Ben Yee forcing her down our throats and into "Games of Deception", this made me very happy.

Dreadwing's betrayal should have had some underlying build-up throughout the issues leading up to this one (unless I've forgotten about them, I'll have to go back and read them to see if there are any hints to this). But its a good mini-series. Easily the best comic to come out of the movie universe. Its not perfect, there are some coloring/art issues throughout.

Issue #3, page 18. When Starscream arrives back on Cybertron. Note the dialogue in the 1st panel between Ramjet and Dreadwing.