Transformers #12 out Wednesday, October 13, 2010.

Got it, read it, and aside from an odd quibble here and there, this is probably the best issue Costa's done thus far for the Ongoing.

HIGHLIGHT to view:
...but I hope to Primus that Bumblebee isn't really dead.

So, next month, we revisit Hot Rod and Starscream. That ain't going well...

That was one hell of a gun.

Another Transformer stealing Megatron's shtick?

I find it infinitely more likely that the guy was using a human-built, Cybertronian-based firearm rather than using a Decepticon. Just saying.

I just took it as being Megatron himself... but for the life of me I cant remember what happened to Megatron after AHM.

Still recuperating, last we saw him.

Yeah, this issue was actually pretty good. Stuff actually happens for once! Almost too much, since we get some abrupt pace changes (the nuclear bomb is exploded off-screen, we get a "week later" shift). But given how glacial the pace has been before, it's a welcome change.

I'm sure we'll find out more about that gun later on... because yeah, right now it's hard to believe a random person would have access to that technology. (Even Spike was still using a huge gun to kill Scrapper back in issue 8).

Just got the issue. Much, much improved on the rest of Costa's run. The International Incident storyline finally started feeling paced like a semi-decent comic. Hope it continues into the next arc of the ongoing, which looks promising from the preview image (HIGHLIGHT to view:
Even if Starscream still looks really goofy with the Matrix as a pendant)

also, in the scenes at the end don't two of the humans HIGHLIGHT to view:
The ones who shoots Bumblebee with the funky gun and teh guy who supports him heavily resemble the pre-Transformer Nebulan models from Marvel's Headmasters mini-series? Specifically Arcana and Stylor, or am I high on Energon again?

Got it, read it.

Just one thing to say:

Get the Transformers franchise away from Costa, FAST, before he ruins it any further.

This comic is going in the exact direction other mainstream comics at DC and Marvel went, and exactly why I stopped reading them. I want to read about the epic struggle of giant robots, about costumed superheroes saving Earth from cosmic threats, about the fight for the rights of mutants. NOT about the political affairs of the USA, turned into hyperboles... Seriously, even Hungarian politics is boring, but American politics and political views are even more boring (only two parties, talk about reduction) and your sacred "War on Terror" does not become more interesting by putting Predacons into China and Combaticons into Korea.

Just stop it, and give the reigns back to Furman or Roche/Roberts, or hire someone who has shown that he/she can good write sci-fi comics on a long-term basis. Not another newbie with a few comics under his belt, like Shane was.

Did Bumblebee *really* need to view the scene in South Korea and risk being exposed?

Prowl was relaying the info to him, what more could Bumblebee do by actually seeing it? Even after seeing it, it didn't really help them.


And where was Sandra's motivation for betrayal? We didn't see any of it in a previous issue did we even with the knowledge now that she betrayed them. Will we see her again? Probably not.

Sandra was shown to be increasingly uncomfortable about the Skywatch-Autobot teaming, so it didn't just come out of thin air. No one's gonna be happy about it, mind, but this wasn't just sudden.

This was a good issue. The gun that the human used was likely just TF tech, but part of me hopes that it was Browning.

Yeah, its been building to her doing something like this for awhile.

I do hope Bee isn't dead, and at this point I think that the gunman was a plant. I doubt its a Decepticon, and the only way to get a weapon like that is from an agency like Skywatch.

The gun is Treadshot, who survived Last Stand of the Wreckers and stowed away with the Autobot survivors who went to Earth. Because a human weapon causing more damage to a Cybertronian than Cybertronian weapons yet again would just be stupid. Right?

Well it's either a Cybertronian, or it's a major turning point in the subplot of humans reverse engineering Cybertronian weaponry and whether or not they'll use it wisely.

My prediction is that it's a Decepticon secretly providing this group with weapons.

I think the comic could have benefited from a bit more attention on Sandra. Yes, her betrayal doesn't completely come out of the blue, but her motives are barely touched upon. This is a problem that in a way holds true for the entire series. It deals with a lot of interesting elements, but handles it so fast, it never touches upon anything long enough to make it really interesting. There is barely any suspense. Take the atomic bomb, for instance. It's mentioned, fired, and dealt with in the space of mere pages. It's the greatest weapon of mass destruction mankind has ever invented, arguably the most horrific implement of war ever to be used in battle, and it's barely a threat here. In All Hail Megatron, at least, there was some build-up to the release of the bomb, some sense of foreboding, the sentiment that it was something terrible to happen. Even the old Marvel comics used it to give the story a dramatic threat in a small group of humans and Autobots struggling to prevent it. There, the decision not to fire the bomb was a symbol of hope.

The atomic bomb is a terrible weapon of mass destruction, with horrible concequences. Ever read "Barefoot Gen"? It's a wonderful manga series dealing unflinchingly and in great detail with the results of a nuclear strike, during and after. To see such a horrible thing be reduced to "fire ze missiles!" is not just a great shame - it's shameful.

This pretty much sums up all of my problems with the ongoing. It hooks me in with these cool ideas, but then leaps away before we get to the meat of any of it. Pretty much the only instance of visibly building on a neat concept is with Thundercracker, and as a result it's probably been the best part of the series so far.

The Ongoing does gets better with every issue, but I wish we'd see more of that type of progression.

You know what strikes me as interesting? For much of going; I hear complaints that it "goes to slow" "Needs to put more into each issue." We get an issue that does that, and what do I hear? "It's going to fast!" "Costa needs to spread out events more and focus on them!"

It`s not a matter of pacing, it`s a matter of exploring the ideas that are set up. The problem was still just as prevalent when people were complaining about the story moving slowly. I have a feeling that it`s a symptom of having to juggle an enormous cast.

Then again, I think 12 was the best issue yet.

Whether its too little or too much, improper pacing is still a valid complaint. A writer who goes from one extreme to the other still deserves to be criticised for not finding a middle ground.

But this is common with several writer's four issue mini-series. They start off slow and is still slow by the third issue then the fourth issue tries to cram too much in that some important plot details are lost or quickly skimmed over.

I think "pacing" is a pretty broad term with a lot of different meanings. If you take it to mean how much is going on in each panel and how the panels follow each other, the pace has been fine for both #11 and 12. A nice improvement over some of the earlier ones. Conversations aren't dragged out unneccesarily over too many pages anymore and I hope Costa keeps it up. But for the rest, it is not so much a case of too much happening in one issue as one of too many different big events taking place without those being given enough depth and attention. You could take any one of those, expand them and still have as much going on in the issue as is the case now. The difference would be that there would be more focus on one event (and thereby making it more interesting) instead of dealing with a great range of events at the same time, but only barely touching on each of them. I suppose you could call it quality over quantity.

This is the same sort of reasoning IDW used in regards to art. Dreamwave had a rigid house style, and that was a bad thing. Therefore, letting artists draw whatever they want with zero oversight MUST be a good thing.

Simply put, the opposite extreme of a 'bad' thing isn't automatically a 'good' thing.

To be totally fair, it should be noted as positive that an effort is made to change the pace. It just seems to have been overshot.