Out December 17 2008. Let it rip!

Wow...didn't think I'd be the first to comment about this.

Not much here, honestly - a bit of cleanup from the end of the Mission City battle, some stuff with Sector Seven and a reminder of where everyone is following the movie and the Reign of Starscream series. Mostly setup.

Still, I'm eager to see where it goes from here.

Aww, Dispensor didn't last very long. Though he did get a shot off at Sam. I would've thought a soda can to the base of the skull would've done more damage than that...

A lot of easter eggs.


Ironhide blows up his G1 self.
Prime hauls his G1 trailer..
.. and is his Hologram supposed to be Peter Cullen?
Robert Epp's(I think it's his) cell phone is Highline 1070.

And are the semis that they load the dead decepticon on supposed to be based on the prototype Battle Convoy?

Never be as enthused about this as Maximum Dinobots, but still a pretty solid read. Feels more substantial than any given issue of AHM at least.

I expect great things down the line from Chris Mowry. And Milne's humans actually look like humans for once!

I agree with your points. I enjoy AHM, but a lot happened in this issue, which is exactly the opposite of what I've come to expect from the main IDW-verse comics (save Dinobots #1). Milne's art Has really improved - especially the humans. Granted, they still don't look like the actors they're supposed to portraty, but it's infinitely better than his humans in the movie adaptation. And the "Y-box" was a really funny touch. Props to Milne for that. I do wish he'd get over the DW-esque "let's cram in a whole bunch of G1 easter eggs" mentality, though.

The story was interesting, too. I like how it wasn't a straight sequel to Reign of Starscream, but rather served as a intermeshed side-story. You don't need to have read RoS to understand this issue, but it helps. Also interesting is that the entirety of RoS happens in the span of this one issue. And having him with all the self-inflicted ceremonial scarring at the end was an interesting touch.

I really hope that we see good things from Wreckage. On one hand, I want him to rebel against his human captors, but on the other, I can see him having a bone to pick with Starscream since he left him for dead.

Good issue overall, and I wasn't necessarily expecting that.

I think I'm going to like this more than the other movie related comics. We'll see where it goes from here but the first issue seems interesting.
I find the G1 easter eggs didn't feel out f place (well maybe the G1 trailer....)
Overall a good read, not much happened but a lot was covered.

A very enjoyable read. And I agree that Mowry should be getting more writing stuff to do. What happened to Spotlight: Cosmos?

I imagine that's still coming. We weren't given any indication that it would be this year, I don't think. And in any case, even Max Dinos was moved back in the release schedule a bit. I get the impression from reading the Q and As on the IDW boards that they're working on a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily seen by the public fully yet.

*cough*Therewasanicecreamtruckatoponeofthejunkpiles*cough*

Excellent issue. Looks like they're keeping the quality of RoSS for this series. Can't wait for Issue 2.

Also Defiance.

here's hoping we get a kick ass remold of the starscream toy with his ceremonial scars.

hug that noise, I'm expecting a full-on new leader class mold for Starscream. If it happens to come with or get repainted/remolded to includ said self-inflicted ceremonial scarring, great.

So, any appearances by my favouritest movie bot ever, Landmine?

Something tells me either Jetfire or Wreckage might be "The Fallen".

I liked how Mowry managed to nail down the personalities and speech mannerisms of the movie characters. Macho Ironhide showing off his firepower, Lennox' sarcasm, Sam being often nervous and angsty and yelling, Ratchet's scientific approach to everything... Best line of the issue: "I want you BOTH. No, not in that kind of way." (Simmons)

Would have helped if the following lines had been placed in a separate word ballon, though.

Art... well, it's still Milne, but he did improve as compared to the Movie Adaptation. Hardly a panel where you had to look twice to understand what was going on (though I still say it wouldn't hurt if Milne used different line thickness), and the humans more or less resembled their screen counterparts. Mikaela was a pretty convincing Megan Fox, Sam looked more or less like Shia, Lennox varied from panel to panel, and the only real letdowns were Epps and Simmons.

Generally a good read.

I'm liking it so far. Sad that they killed X-Bot and Dewbot. They also seem to have rearranged the events of the end of the movie a little. This shows that Starscream left Earth for Mars right after the fight, then he does the events of Reign of Starscream, comes back a month later, and they still havn't dumped the bodies of the dead Decepticons in the ocean. In the movie the leaving for mars occured after the dumping of the bodies.

I'm not sure I understand Wreckage. Did they kill him pre-movie, recover the body, then return him to life with the Allspark energy or what?

Working based on my somewhat faulty memories of Reign of Starscream and the prequel material, I think these are the rough timelines.

Starscream - Battle of Mission City, return to Hoover to retrieve Frenzy, takes Salazar, leaves Earth for Mars (killing Salazar), leaves Mars for Cybertron, does all those odds and ends, then returns to Earth's solar system and starts the ceremonial carving.

Wreckage - Arrives on Earth with other Decepticons, gets trashed, comes into S7 custody, gets repaired, (for some reason) aids them with research regarding Transformers and possibly the creation of new TFs (Landmine, Salvage, Longarm, and perhaps others), and is taken offline and hidden away so as not to interfere with the plot.

At least, that's how I think it goes.

Yes, but this countradicts the events order of the movie's ending, unless you reorder them slightly, because the movie showed the Decepticons getting dumped BEFORE Starscream left Earth. In the comics he's already returning from Earth, after being away a month, and they are getting ready to dump the bodies in the ocean.

Also, I'm not sure that Sector 7 made Longarm, Salvage and company on purpose. It looks like the made Landmine. Then they took the cars that were nearby the the destruction of the Allspark into custody. Maybe they figured there was some residual allspark energy in them they could activate?

Why exactly does every small little snippet at the end of the movie have to be in the exact chronological order?

Especially...

How long does it take them to dump the Decepticons' remains in the ocean? Days? Weeks?

How long did Starscream remain on Earth before deciding to flee to outer space?

I guess it doesn't, I'm just pointing out that they contradict the order shown. The movie has them dump the bodies then Starscream leaves. The comic says Starscream leaves, then a month later he comes back and they dump the bodies.

So technically all the events of "Reign of Starscream" and "Alliance" all take place during the final scenes of the first film. It's not a sequal to the first film or prequal to the second, it's all happening DURING the first movie, since we havn't even arrived at the body dumping scene yet.

In my opinion, the last part of the first movie (post-battle, before the credits) are bits of information to close out the first movie. What is happening in Alliance is I'm trying to explain WHY those events happened. You can't stage a major operation like dumping dead alien robots into the ocean within a week, nor shut down a shadow faction of the government. Starscream takes off into space for reasons then, that were unknown. He's back now, but you'll find out what happens to him in Issue #2 to see why he leaves like that. The short amount of time that everything happens in for the first two or three issues, are to help close that chapter and set up things for the next one. So it's best to look at it as "these things happened during this span of time" and it will (hopefully) make more sense as it goes along.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Good or bad, it's very important to me.

-Chris

Just keep doing what you're doing, after reading RoSS I look forward to every installment you write.

And Alex has come along very nicely as an artist.

I figure that eventually we will be having events in the comics that will take place AFTER the film, but so far, it's all be before or during the film. Might be nice to recut my personal copy of the film to make things happen in chroniligical order, and then place the events that happen off camera from the comic series.

The story is very good so far, just trying to keep the whole timeline straight.

Heck, we still havn't gotten to the events of the toy tech specs, where Optimus Prime travels to Mars to follow the Decepticons! I hope that happens in the comics somehow.

Hey, no problem, glad to give it. Any time one of the creators visits a board and talks to us common folk is a joy, and I certainly don't mind it.

Thanks, Dr Syn. I can look at your avatar all day, too... classic. I hope that people enjoy Alliance and Defiance. The restraints are a bit more this time around than they were with RoS, but I've tried to put as much as possible into both series. One thing that I did find challenging was the four-issue format. That was a lot harder to write with than I had thought.

And yes, Alex is doing a great job. It's been great working with him on these books. And Josh Perez is simply amazing. I love that guy.

That's great to hear. I'm definitely someone that enjoys talking with the community as much as I can. It gets a bit difficult at times due to my schedule and personal obligations, etc., but when at all possible, I do enjoy a good conversation. I'll hopefully be able to do a Q&A about both series soon. We'll see what the bosses say, though.

There isn't a specific chain of events in the movie's end. The end has a lot of jump cutting and short wrapup scenes with no reference to the scenes prior.

For all we know, the bodies could have been dumped months later nothing explicitly implies otherwise. The shot of SS returning to cybertron was after the credits...ie a bonus/cut scene. Given that, it could fit anywhere in the film or after the film. It could be him returning to Cybertron prior to Reign of Starscream or it could be him returning after the bodies were dumped/after the events of Reign of Starscream.

The other end scenes aren't specific either. Sam/Mikaela kissing on a cliff? Could be anytime. That scene depends on nothing other than the fact they are a couple. So anytime after mission city.

etc...

After the battle for mission city, it is just a series of isolated scenes. There's no reason or way to come up with an actual timeline.

That said, it's a comic. Stuff gets overlooked sometimes. Suspend your disbelief.

Guys, chill, no one was complaining about the comic. I was just pointing out the differences. I'm trying to keep an accurate timeline on a web site, and it has to be altered from what is based solely on watching the film to fit the comic version of events. I know there is no reason to think the events of the movie happen in a specific order, except for the fact that they are shown to us in that order. I'm sorta weird about timelines. I have been known to take movies that jump back and forth in the timeline and re-cut them to show things chronologically. Like Highlander, or TV series like Angel or Firefly. It ends up making a whole new film if yopu recut the scenes in order.

More to the point about the plot though, anyone else hoping Epps phone turns out to he Highline 1070, and helps him?



The G1 trailer was cool, but it would have been even better if Optimus and Ironhide decided to sneak out of Mission City by changing to their First Strike and Offroad colors too. Just so those toys could make a cameo, plus then we'd have G1 Optimus colors and trailer together.



Of course every true TF fan loved the Peter Cullen cameo as Optimus' driver. Should have been done in the first movie, or they could have used him as the driver of the truck he scanned.

Same for me too. I was never particularly interested in the movie universe really until RoSS.