Out Wednesday, February 16, 2011.

I think it's safe to say this little crossover will have ramifications down the road.

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Y'know, what with Kup being dead now and Jhiaxus being alive. What does that mean for Hardhead and Arcee?

On a less spoilery note...good lord, do the editors at least proofread these things?

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Unless, of course, the editor forgets Kup died.

Wait, did
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Kup "die" die, or just get trapped in the Dead Universe?

Cause if it's the latter,
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he could be back whenever he's needed. That place has more breakouts than Arkham Asylum.

Uh... did Andy Schmidt notice that they pretty much undid his Coda story? The Sweeps were built from bodies of Dead Universe guys, effectively replacing them, and here they all die, and Jhiaxus and some non-Sweepy looking silhouettes are one the other side of Galvatron's portal.

(And now I'm waiting for them to reveal that Nova Prime's elite soldiers were called the Decepticons, a name that fell out of use after his disappearance until Megatron co-opted it, and Scourge was the guy Nova used to kill his political enemies, thus explaining Starscream's comment in AHM as sarcastic rather than serious.)




(Yeah, that's going in the ol' personal canon.)

I was with it right up until...
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Jhiaxus out of freaking nowhere?

I doubt he noticed, but I don't mind too much. Odds are that Galvatron may have picked up a few more non-Sweep followers since the Coda story, and Jhiaxus was alive on Gorlam Prime (albeit getting his butt ripped apart by Arcee), so his working for Galvy isn't too terrible a stretch.

And I like that...wish I'd thought of it.

Isn't ol' Jhiaxus supposed to be just a head now? Maybe Arcee got bored playing football with him...

Someone should ask Furman to one day reveal how the story would have played out if it had been uncrammed and would have been in 6 issues + spotlights.

Hey, I'm not saying Jhiaxus being up and running is a problem (the Coda story was set on Gorlam Prime, it's no stretch at all to assume they went and took a look in that cave while they were there), just odd after Schmidt himself seemed to go out of his way to bring in Scourge and the Sweeps to replace the guys not from the movie as Galvatron's minions.

Well if things tie directly into Heart of Darkness, we will probably get some follow up on Jhihaxus and maybe Kup there. Overall I really enjoyed this two parter. Its a fun read with a silly concept, but then most any zombie-theme fiction is going to be silly somehow.

Poor Kup gets dragged into everything. I'm going to assume they won't end him like that, but it'll be interesting where the story does go from there. I honestly think it was a last saving grace to the whole mostly dropped Kup/Prowl angle.

Jhiaxus showing up did surprise me, hopefully they will touch on Arcee and Hardhead again. Hardhead/Nightbeat's little story was one of my favorite parts of the older stuff.

As Heart of Darkness will be done by the same writers, There is a good chance they will go into it. Knowing that, these issues feel partly like set up for the HoD miniseries and makes me actually eager to read it as they seem to be using continuity to tell their stories.

It was weird how one moment, Prowl and Ratchet(?) took Kup and even said "We have got you, don't worry" and a few panels later "Oh by the way, the zombies got Kup. My bad."

The exposition at the beginning was painfull, especially the very forced explanation of how Britt was able to fool Galvatron. Also... the Darkness gives such powers? It makes me even madder that Nova Prime was killed off in one panel with a shot to the back. Just his fight with OP should have lasted a half issue...

What is this Heart of Darkness mini? Who's writing it?

Once you are submerged within the Dead Universe, you can never truly die.

So I imagine Arcee and Jhiaxus have developed an itchy/scratchy relationship at this point.

Heart Of Darkness is a 5 part Miniseries staring Galvatron that starts next Month, done by the same writing team as Infestation.

Went ahead and picked up both #1 and #2 today at the LCS since it's just a two-parter, and I have no idea what IDW's planning for its TPB future (I doubt they'd make a 2-issue trade, and I don't want a trade of the whole of Infestation). It was pretty cool, if only for the great art, to see Drift show up, and to see some attempts made at further reconciling the current run with some of the Pre-AHM stuff (and Roche's "Everything in its Right Place). I didn't care for how obtuse the Autobots were being, and I wish it could been longer, if only to draw out/make Britt's deception more surprising/convincing. For example, if the Undermine alters the Transformers' perception of reality, why does she have to look like a cosplayer? Why can't she just look like a transformer?

I was going to pass on these, but I was going to buy Heart of Darkness unless it got terrible reviews, so I'm guessing these are a lead-in that I should probably buy, right?

At least it's only two issues.

I found these two issues too short. The Kup aspect was interesting but it was just over way too soon. I didn't feel anything for the situation at hand.

Not even talking about the whole Infestation plot since I know there's more issues for that, its just that the two part Transformers story lacks substance for a Transformers comic.

As its done by the same guys and also stars Galvatron I think there is decent chance of these at least being referenced.

It's odd how the IDW blurb about HoD says Galvatron is a raving lunatic. He certainly wasn't one in these issues.

Also... anyone else thinks it was not only a stupid idea but also a time paradox to teleport Britt and the zombies to the beginning of time in the Dead Universe? They are immortal and don't require food, so this would mean that when Galvatron and Nova Prime entered the Dead Universe the first time, they'd have been 'welcomed' by an army of the undead there. Thus, the whole timeline would have been changed as I can also assume Britt would have found and used the Darkness while in there. Heck, what's to stop her from leaving the place the same way Galvatron did? All in all, a stupid ending.

Not necessarily. Entering the Dead Universe turns the living into a form of undead. What would happen to something undead if it entered?

Also, beginning of time = Big Bang. What could survive that?

I fear that the implication is that this is what made the dead universe "dead".

I was thinking the exact same thing as BB Shockwave, but I guess we don't know enough about the Dead Universe, maybe it'll make them alive again and they'll die becoming the Darkness or fuel for the Heart of Darkness.

Maybe Infestation 2 will show what happened to them when it's over.

Poor Kup, felt bad for him going through that again, but I guess Prowl's "repairs" also saved them all.

I'm honestly a little disappointed Drift didn't do anything, I expected at least one page of him cutting up zombies.

I noticed originally the DU bots all had red eyes, but here they all have yellow eyes, which I think I like more, it makes them seem more neutral since they existed from before factions.

I'm very interested in who is behind the portal on the last page, especially how Jhiaxus got his body away from Arcee. But I wonder if we'll see Hardhead again.


-Edit- I was going to question the Roman zombie on page 10, then remembered where they are.

I must say I don't like Nick's "cartoony-bendy" art here. I loved his art in Spotlight Kup's "normal moments" and in the main comics and LSTOW, but here he seems to have gone really overboard.

One thing this comic was good for, is eliciting interest from people. I mean, we can at least discuss this and debate the "what happened?" moments! There is not much to discuss about the ongoing...

Yeah, Drift did not do anything at all. And I'd have loved a scene (as someone suggested) where Optimus Prime looks at Drift suspiciously, then whispers to Prowl "Since WHEN do you know about this guy's existence, Prowl? Have him checked out just to be sure..."

Nick tends to step up or down the cartoony depending on the story's requirements. For example, Spotlight: Hot Rod, being a hokey action movie rescue type story, was more cartoony than the more serious Spotlight: Kup.

I guess here he's trying to tell us we really shouldn't be taking this story seriously.

I also think he must have had some discussions with the author. I bet the whole Kup zombie-flashback was Nick's idea...

Well, assuming the Dead Universe is a Universe, it's bound to be a pretty big place. Ships passing in the endless void of space, and all that.

It is a separate universe, only opening to the real one in certain places, like the anomaly in the Benzuli Expanse. And who cares how big it is, they have thrown back the zombies to the beginning of it, thus they have all the time they need to cross it.

Oh really, I had missed it. I really don't know any kinda information about this. So, I really thanks for it. I will definitely catch this show online.

This is not a show, but a comic...

And I guess this is our favourite spammer's newest account.

What's so great about posting non-sensical spam comments in the comic section? And why just the comic section, hmm?

I don't think this is spam so much as someone from a country where English isn't the predominant language.

Just saying.

I apologize, I have encountered olivia on other threads since then, she is obviously not the spambot. IT's just that she registered a day ago and was replying to the first posts of the topics, something that our insistent spammer who has been plagueing the Comic topics for months has done before, I thought it was the guy's newest attempt.

I find myself forced to do the same - I just looked at her other posts, and she said she was from Canada. Granted, there's a fair chunk of Canada where English isn't the predominant language, but still, I expect any misunderstandings and awkward phrasing on her part is as much due to age as they are to whatever language she was raised in. Thankfully, this is the sort of thing that can be taken care of with time.

Er..."her" posts are all pretty clearly auto-generated responses to keywords. The question is really just why she hasn't started advertising anything yet.