AHM # 15 preview

Nick Roche swoops in to salvage the day!

Superb interaction between Springer and Prowl. This makes even MORE excited for the Wreckers mini too.

Ah, the robo-stogie will finally be explained...

God bless Nick Roche. That is all.

Awesome!

Omnomnomnomnom

Nick Roche art and writing makes me a happy Wingus. Nice to see more shades of grey from Springer, maybe even a sliver of Animated Sentinel Prime-esque behavior. And a bit of Wily Old Buzzard Xaaron in Prowl, too.

I like the explanation for Kup's recovery, though I can't help but dread that the 'cigar' is gonna be something that's essential to keeping Kup stable or something.

That'll be it. Kup's mind in a cigar, controlling a lifeless transtector.

CIGAR ON!

I still think he's sucking on one of Outback's severed fingers.

Excited!!!

"If you wanna stick your hand near his mouth to take it, you go right ahead"

Well...the Kup story looks good and we've finally got some post-AHM acknowledgement of the Pretender process!

Here's hoping the Perceptor story is at least half as good as this preview.

Yes. These five pages appeal more to us than the whole of McCarthy's AHM issues did.

We're given continuity, explanations, characterisation and some nice references. Maybe a bit heavy on the exposition but thats to be forgiven seeing as he's only got eleven pages to work in and so much to say while catering to us fans who have read the earlier comics and the newcomers who haven't.

Roche may overtake Furman as my favorite all-time writer for Transformers. He's already very close.


Also, THIS is how I want IDW's G1 Transformers comics to be drawn. I cannot find fault with anything in these five pages. No ridiculous redesigns, no movie style realism or robotic faces. Just a fun cartoon style comic thats well drawn. Sorry Don but if the movie style if your current preferred style then please stick to the movie comics where it'll be welcome.

I WANT!!!!!

At last, a comic with the words "All Hail Megatron" in the title that may be GOOD!

The only thing that makes me have another question is where exactly Prowl lines up with all of this (since he was seemingly by Prime's side all the time) but the year-long gap between the end of Revelation and All Hail Megatron was so sprasely filled its not that hard to imagine he took some time off for a jaunt to Kimia before the trap was sprung.

But yeah, definitely agree with everything else said here. Looks great. Roche really has a handle on these characters and how to make them interesting. This is Prowl at his best, IMO.

Arggh... Nick, he HAD to put in a Furmanism... XD

This is about the Wreckers! It would have been awkward if there wasn't one!

At least it segued into an actual sentence.

i like how Prowl said "Springerism"

a nice little jab i think? lol
well done Nick

cant wait to read the rest and i'm even more excited for the Wreckers series!

Got dat right!

I am incredibly happy to have just read new IDW work that was actually, genuinely good. I've so, SO, missed that feeling, and the big grin on my face I used to have more often than not reading a new comic.

The art, the humour, the fact that it not only acknowledges continuity, but seamlessly works it into the narrative, the spot on characterisation and character interaction, the use of non 84 and movie characters when they're the most logical character to use, and the fact that it's Brainstorm, who is awesome, and acknowledging the fact that that damn pacifier is both ridiculous and out of place on a robot, and needs to damned well be given an explanation, it' all just fantastic, and I actually want to buy this comic. If the Perceptor half sucks I may cut it out, and send it to IDW with a photo of me glaring disapprovingly, but this is already the single best bit of Transformers fiction since Animated ended.

I am so pleased.

I'd love to see him try to segue '"Got to-"*kboom*' into a full sentence.

Just have Warpath say it.

What he said.

Yep, unequivocally great stuff; will make the upcoming "week of Hell" at work (At least 13 papers to process through the system) easier to get through.

It's definitely a bit on the Mr. Exposition infodumpy side, but there's some nice angles on Springer and Prowl in there nonetheless. And whoohoo for Brainstorm!

And the art... Roche art never gets old. Ever. *drools*

Hey, we gotta get the "...wait, what the?" moments from AHM out of the way before we can move on with this continuity.

I'm with everyone. It's about time we got something good from IDW.

Expository dialog or not, Jeysie, at least it flowed seamlessly in a conversation... and didn't have the characters constantly cut each other off mid-sentence, either!


And hey, gorgeous art! Nick is really great at making his robots expressive.

I'm not saying it was bad by any stretch. Plus I have to give Roche props for being the only writer so far seemingly actually buying into the task of reconciling continuity.

He also seems to be the only artist outside Guido Guidi that's remembering that these robots are supposed to be expressive. Meanwhile, Don goes in the total opposite direction for God knows what reason...

Nick Roche is my new lord and savior.

What about EJ?

My thoughts exactly.

I was considering no longer collecting TF comics but this story is good..

I'm going to have to buy this issue just for the Kup story.

Maybe Nick Roche should be given an ongoing.

His got wreckers. Which is looking to be so trouser shatteringly good that you may not wear pants ever again

Not to mention he's giving love to those characters who have been completely ignored in the past. I still can't get over the fact that he's using Ironfist of all people! Now that is quite awesome in itself.

Su was good with the characters' bodies, but his faces often looked a bit flat and samey. (His humans are still far and away the best out of all of IDW's artists, though, IMHO.)

Yeah you can't top EJ's humans. Guido's are second best. I never liked Nick's humans all that much (they're a little strange to me), but his robots are always great.

Randy

Finally able to put another comic in the bag with the poo-fest that was AHM 1.

Can't wait.

Nick Roche is the future of this franchise, and the future looks good.

His dialogue although exposition-heavy fits Prowl's character perfectly, Springer was of course, spot on too. The little nuances in character movements and their expressions, laden with continuity, funny/intriguing/clever, excellent use of periphery characters...

Simply outstanding. Bravo!

Yes. A million times yes. A kajillion times yes.

I'm really hoping IDW keeps expanding his role in TF fiction because he's a one-man trouser-shattering awesome machine.

I'm continuously baffled as to why IDW felt the need to fetch Shane "I made Riddler metrosexual!" McCarthy or Mike Costa for the main Transformers title when Nick was standing right there ready to deliver all the goods in terms of art AND story.

Office politics are more influential than actual quality, methinks.

If we switched off between Furman, Mowry, and Roche, I could live as a happy fangirl.

*cough*

Blarg.

Does this mean we all need to start a fund to get Nick Roche on a trip to the United States so he can get drunk with Ryall and be given charge of the next direction of Transformers that way?

XD Yes, I remember that particular forum thread... :3

Ticking Prowl off will never get old. Never.

That preview is like good old times, fun and interesting while moving the story along. Prowl and Springer get distinct personalities without it being eye-rollingly obvious, and Prowl's internal narrative has a ton of neat details ("Springerism", heh). I really wish there were more comic writers out there who were fans of Transformers, or at least really familiar with them - it makes a big difference in how the characters are written, though I can't really explain how exactly.

I hope Nick Roche gets to work on the ongoing somehow, though I'd imagine trying to write and draw it would kill him.

I don't remember Grimlock ever getting physical with Prowl. The most Grimlock ever did was poke Prowl in the chest. Their arguments were always vocal rather than violent.

From what I've read of their interactions, it always seemed more like Grim was... Kind of hanging it over Prowl's head. That Prowl might be smarter, but Grim was bigger and tougher and could reduce him to metal shavings, so Grim just defied him because what're you gonna do about it? It was never 'Is this a sound course of action' but 'Will this piss off Prowl?'

Plus that period where he outranked him, to boot.

Anyone notice the image of a hand reflected on the windscreen of Kup's chest on the cover?

I wonder what that could symbolise.

Kup's old body's hand against the windscreen of his new Pretender shell.

ouch lol