Thanks to Chris Ryall:

http://issuu.com/idwpublishing/docs/transf...ewMode=magazine

http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.p...cfb0e18748e0804

Another good preview. No fighting or any action but I enjoy seeing this side of the Transformers society too. I'll be looking forward to reading this one next week.

I also appreciate the amount of references. My only problem with this issue is that Whirl's friends were generics. I think it would have had more of an impact if they were recognisable. Whirl himself so far in these flashbacks could have been just another generic but because we know who he later becomes, it has an impact to the scene that a generic couldn't have matched. I think I'd have used members of Squadron X as Whirl's friends. That would have been interesting even if we don't see these guys again. We can just imagine the ramifications it would have had.

SO MUCH MATERIAL, and just in a preview! This is classic comic pacing right here, and Furman should be taking notes for #81. I kept bracing with each next-page click, afraid it would be over.

This isn't the first Prime's-inner-turmoil story we've gotten, but so far I'm calling it the best. His musings about what to do with Megatron get right to the heart of what the TF conflict is about (as we've seen in the debates over his movie incarnation's actions). His conversation with Rodimus about the Matrix was awesome, and I love how his younger self is basically Optimus Vimes.

Captain Orion Pax here is giving me a definite Commissioner Gordon vibe, and, well, that's just all kinds of awesome! After reading this, I'd love to see an Optimus Prime: Origin maxi-series written by James Roberts. Seriously, this guy is giving the ongoing a much needed shot in the arm. It's gone from being a book that felt like a painful chore to read to something I can't wait to pick up the new issue of! Man, 2012 can't get here soon enough so we can have him writing one of the ongoings on a regular basis!

I already love pre-war Optimus Prime as Serpcio more than gladiator champion, dock worker, data archivist, or science head.

I love it. More is told and happens in ONE page about pre-war cybertron then in most of Megatron Origins, let alone Costa's flashbacks.

I almost squeed when they mentioned the Matrix Flame. Finally someone remembers that great concept! Also, I'd love to see in the final release what's written on Orion Pax's medals and trophies. (And the mention of a stuffed Nebulan... ugh, looks like some pre-war Cybertronians were as bad as G2 Jhiaxus's troops).

*squee*

Nova Prime pretty much inferred that already to be honest.

But this reads very well, despite my slight misgivings on Prime getting yet another origin.

Phazer

AND it's out!

Please don't forget spoiler tags!

.....it is?

I got a phone call from my comic shop yesterday telling me that it was out, so yeah, it's probably out.

Crap! Now I gotta hit the comic store!

Holy awesome storytelling Batman!

I weep for Whirl's kneecap.

Read it on the train home tonight; fantastic stuff, maybe not quite at the (admittedly dizzying) heights of #22, but I love what Roberts is doing with the flashbacks. It's the most intriguing and compelling take on the start of the war I've seen and yet manages to spotlight Op and Megs perfectly. It gives them a fascinating dynamic and begs the question "what might have been". It's almost unbearably tragic.

HIGHLIGHT to view:
I know they didn't do much, but I do feel kind of sad for Wheelarch and Springarm. Loved those designs.

The art deserves some praise as well; I was almost tempted to pick up the Milne sketchbook along with this, which is not something I would have expected to say a few months back.

So is it back to Costa in 2 weeks? I had been thinking of just picking up the Roberts issues but the present day plot points are interesting enough here that I might be back for #24 if that's the only way of getting the story.

Wow, just... Wow.

I really can't think of much in the huge bredth of Transformers fiction that approaches the emotional jagged edge of these last two issues. In nearly 30 years we've only had a very small handful of stories as powerfull and heart wrenching as these two.

What Prime goes through this issue just really tore at me. The murder and destruction brought down on him and his friends so casually. How he fights back is in the tradition of the best "Die Hard" style action movie and when he bursts into the Senate through all it's guards, in that state, THAT is why he's Optimus Prime.

I could ramble on about the awesome parts of this issue and how it works for Megs and Prime and their relationship for a very long time, I have so much I could gush and dissect I kinda don't wanna get started, but EVERYONE, just go read it!

The one thing I do want to call out here is about a secondary character, Whirl. I wasn't quite sure what to make of him last issue. Not that he's ever been used enough to develop a personality in story before, but still I wasn't sure how the Bot we saw last issue fit in with the death-taunting crazy-fighter described in his tech spec. But now... Assuming he was telling the truth about not asking for what happened and not having wanted it... Well if anything is going to turn a borderline case like him into a death-courting madman whose life doesn't matter to him I think feeling responsible for what was done to his fellow officers because of him this issue could pretty well do it. Makes me wonder where he is in the present day after being let go by the Wreckers for being trouble? Wouldn't be terrible surprised to see he'd been in and out of institutions since these events honestly.

Anyway most of that is speculation cause I've always liked Whirl design wise.

Back to Costa next issue is hard to face after this bounty, but at least he's working with Roberts for Chaos IIRC, right? So hopefully that lifts us at least a little way towards this level.

-ZacWilliam, wondering who the White Senator at the end was. Traditionally that would be a role for Alpha Trion but he didn,t have any design clues that leaned me that way...

I just re-read this issue. Hot damn, this was impressive.

I doubt very much that Chaos will do anything to properly top this, but nonetheless, I'm looking forward to what comes next.

Finished it a bit ago, this was amazing. This is what Transformers fiction can be, and sadly isn't.

Exactly! Transformers has always had so much potential, and just as it seems to get the treatment it needs to become what it can be, the license is lost or another writer comes in and smashes it back into Sunbow land.

But since issue 19 the ongoing has been building up to the bona fide epic this franchise has always hinted at, and while I haven't read issue 23 yet, it seems to be even better that 22 by what some are saying.

I think that these 2 issues, along with the assist Roberts is doing with Chaos, are meant to set us up for James book next year, where the type of story telling issues 22 and 23 have offered becomes monthly.

Basically, for the next 8 issues (24-31) Costa and Roberts are co-writers on the even-numbered issues and Costa is solo on the odd-numbered ones. After that is #125 co-written by Roberts and John Barber, followed by Roberts and Barber each getting their own series.

Arrghh! Local comic shop didn't get it!!!

I'm sure Chaos will be pretty interesting and all, but still I can't tell you how much I wish we could skip the next 4 months. Just throw it out and let James start his run already.

ZacWilliam, the fact that he's co-writting at least half of Chaos is the only thing making the comming 1/4 of a year wait berable.

So I need to get 24, 26, 28, and 30.

Gotcha.

This issue was incredible. If the stories were this good I'd happily buy the series every month.

...and I will be Roberts.

1/3 of a year, actually, the ongoing's coming out twice a month until December, and then gets replaced by the two new ongoings in January.

(People have speculated that Chaos was going to be a standalone miniseries, and 'The Last Story on Earth' featured in the odd-numbered issues was just going to be the story in the ongoing published alongside it.)

I do wonder if we're ever going to get a postscript with Optimus and Whirl.

It doesn't seem like they'd really get along.

Man, I hate issuu.com... They tweaked their viewer and now I can't read the preview on FireFox OR Internet Explorer.

Here's the preview on a normal site.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=9456

Much like #22, I really enjoyed this issue. James Roberts' writing is fantastic. This is pretty much the first time I've really been excited for Transformers comics since LSOTW.

Yeah, THAT'S a story I really want to see Roberts do. How Whirl got to join the Autobots under Prime. Hell, these issues really make me want to see them do a 'War Within' type series, examining more about how the Autobots came to be and expanding further on the Decepticon's origins.

Okay, then I'm going to ask again: What counts as spoilers in a thread like this? To my mind, if you go into a thread about a specific issue or episode, you should expect all the material to be on the table. I suppose spoiler-protection would be nice for people who just want to see folks' general reactions before deciding whether to buy/watch it, but how long should we keep using the tags as conversations go on? Maybe just the first page? Or until a half-dozen or so spoiler-protected posts have appeared? I'd love to comply, but I want to understand the rules first.


I would be completely happy if one of the two new ongoings was exactly that. My only reservation there would be that if too much got tied together between the early-war and present-day situations, the four-million-year distance between the two would seem even more outlandish than it inherently is. I wish Roberts hadn't injected it; it's the one blemish on his awesome contribution to the IDW-G1verse's foundation.

Thoughts overall: It was a good issue, but not as good as #22. It met my expectations, though, since heroes are always a little less interesting than villains. I think most of the great moments were in the preview, though there were still some other good bits, like when Optimus ripped off his own exhaust pipe and used it as a shiv. But his badass intrusion into the senate followed by a startlingly well-crafted speech were over the top; they ruined something I'd been enjoying about these flashbacks, which was Optimus and Megatron's mundanity. Megatron was just a crazy working-class nobody who wrote manifestos, and Optimus was a desk-jockey cop with minor authority getting pushed around by well-connected bullies. I wasn't ready to see Optimus successfully fight through the security of the highest corridors of power and deliver an erudite screed against great injustices. The only part of that scene I liked was when he was getting dragged away and had to struggle just to ask Megatron's three succinctly awesome questions. I expected more to be made of them in the present-day scene that followed, since the office of Autobot commander does not naturally satisfy any of them. It was only Optimus's personal decision to abdicate that injected a bit of that democratic spirit into the process four million years later. And even now it hasn't exactly been codified.

I wonder where Tyrest is and what Optimus's plan is when it comes to delivering Megatron vs. investigating Galvatron. It seems like a ridiculous idea to bring a prisoner like Megatron along while they confront Galvy, but on the other hand they might consider the greater danger to be leaving Galvy unmolested for however long the Tyrest detour would take.

If Optimus was surprised to learn that the Matrix creates life, then how were new Transformers ordinarily created? Has that ever been addressed in the IDW-G1verse? Reading that bit of dialogue made me think about how the station of Primehood could be treated in pre-war society, and the image occurred to me of the Prime as the brood mother, a completely nonmilitary role dedicated only to creation and sustenance. I don't think it fits at all with what we've seen of this universe, but it's a concept I would like to see explored somewhere. It's the only way I can really rationalize how a society dependent on Matrix-based reproduction would work.

I love the statue of Aligned Prima in the Senate chamber. It reminded me how very similar this new backstory is to what was presented in the Exodus novel.

Prime and Megatron sort of agree on what needs to be done at the beginning, but eventually go separate ways. Prime delivers grand speech in the Senate hall, winds up inspiring somebody to give him the Matrix. The whole "caste" thing is the same, too, but that was there already, from Megatron Origins.

I wonder if these similarities were Roberts' decision, or something Hasbro thought was important, keeping their early war origins mostly the same from story to story. Consolidation.

I always kind of take all pre-Cybertronian stories as viewed through an unknown historian or "source" subject...

A lot of same elements, same basic structure, told different ways according to the historian or "source" subject.

That's great, but your personal canon doesn't really address my question.

something i been wondering myself [especially since the art we saw for the Robots In Disguise ongoing uses WFC designs]


like its turning into some alternate take of the Prime-verse @___@

Awesome issue. A determinied and pissed Orion Pax is an unstoppable force, the Senate isn't a unified cadre of evil, Sentinel wasn't hardheaded just to be hardheaded, and the overall worldbuilding was much better than we usually get.

I guess the hoverchair times are over for Sunstreaker. I'd like to see some future coverage of him concerning what happened in AHM though. A good deep convo between Prime and blast from the past Ironhide would be nice too.

Boy, they sure found some extra parts easily. Wonder if that means Bumblebee's done with the cane too.

I think you missed the point. Ratchet specifically says that he was carrying the Matrix when he examined Sunstreaker and then whoops he's suddenly all fixed. Neat gadget. IE- the matrix did it.


-ZacWilliam, whether the Matrix gave Ratchet the guidance to get him working without replacement parts or if it literally healed SS magically...

Maaaaaan, I hope not. Uniformity is boring. To my eyes, the fact that the TF multiverse has long had the capacity for wildly different continuities is a feature, not a bug. But your analysis is disturbingly plausible, and it fits with Hasbro's stated new attitude.

Poor Bumblebee. Misses out on the miracle healing, his leadership is pretty much a joke even to Prime, he gets left behind with a skeleton crew on Earth...

Sooo hugging good. I'm finding myself unable to express how much I enjoyed this issue. Dare I suggest this is some of the best TF fiction we've ever gotten?

Awesome issue. Easily as good as #22. Will be hard to get back to Costa after this...

Some highlights:

- Prime's trophies. Check what's written on them, looks like he excelled in all his fields. Quite like a certain young cadet in Animated...
- 'Stuffed Nebulan'... yuck, gross. And kinda makes you wonder, just HOW advanced the TFs have been, for how long - they were capable of space travel when Nebulans were still a primitive species, and Nebulos is quite an advanced world in Spotlight Ultra Magnus.
- Man, Megs was not kidding when he said the senate was corrupt. I mean, what they did here... pure evil.
- 'I hate faceplates'... classic.
- Triple M? Pre-actionmasters as a terrorist organization?
- 'Matrix Flame' revisited! Blaster as a newscaster... I wonder who the other guy is on the line.
- Primus and other gods? Now that is interesting stuff...
- It says a LOT about Optimus/Orion that after all this, Whirl ended up being on HIS team, and in his elite commandos, no less. Granted, it didn't seem like he wanted this massacre to happen, but it all happened because of him...
- So, Orion Pax was the first to use an Action Master vehicle?
- Liked how James re-visited the friendship between Prime and Ratchet, haven't seen that much since Marvel G1 (and well, Animated, but different characters there).
- 'Freedom is the right of all civilized beings.' I am reminded of Animal Farm there... "...but some animals are more equal".
- Xaaron Legal Agency? Now I want a mini-series starring the bots on his office.
- Awesome origin for the word Autobots.
- The ending was perfect, totally in character for Optimus, and an incredible resolution and testament to the "freedom is the right of all sentient beings" motto. And Megatron's choice did not surprise me. See Bayformer Prime? You have a thing or two to learn, here.
- And the 'Creation' Matrix. I am kinda thinking that Cybertron is a stagnant society at this point, no new TFs are created, and the elite would like the masses to think that way.

The only thing I did not like... well, Milne. Not his art - it's perfect, he really worked well. But his designs. When he draws characters others have designed (Orion, Impactor, Whirl, Megatron) it's fine. But his generics... are simple, not "transformery" enough for me. They often don't look like they could transform at all, just look at the senators or some of the thugs Sentinel sent. I have the same problem keeping track of who is who as in the Drift series, except here thankfully, they use more colors then just red-white-black.
The only part of the story I did not like was Prime's allusion (though I am maybe just reading into it) of natural TF death. I'm iffy on the subject. In pretty much all previous TF media (save the stuff with the Ancient Autobot Overlord in Marvel UK annuals) TFs are said to be practically immortal when it comes to natural causes of death, and I prefer my TFs that way.

I am wondering who the senator who bailed Orion is. His design reminds me of Cybertron Evac, actually.



To be fair to Whirl, all he did was rough up a prisoner (considering he ended up working for Impactor, the guy who trashed his buddies, and considering what Impactor later did to his prisoners (while Whirl stood by), well... you see the trend). He even tells Prime that he never intended for this to happen, and actually warns Prime not to touch him for Prime's sake. (I guess it doesn't help that we cannot tell whether he has a change of heart or feel sorry, considering Whirl cannot have any facial expressions... )

Every Optimus toy with shortened stacks suddenly became 500 times more awesome.

Edit: Is it just me, or is the little feller reporting to Sentinel colored like Ironfist?

One thing I'm not sure about from this issue - we just got it rammed into us that Hot Rod Is The Chosen One (although Roberts is at least not crass enough to use those exact words), since he gets a euphoric sense from bonding with the Matrix, while Op was in agony when the Matrix was put in his retrofitted chamber. HR's devolved too much since Furman to really like the idea (and even then, while he was fairly high-ranking, he wasn't exactly Big Boss material).

I'm so with you on that.

I'm not willing to believe Hasbro's that controlling yet though: I'm chalking it up to a coincidence for now.

I disagree. Its history.

Rewriting the Transformers history just to be different than how we know it would be like rewriting our own history just to be different than how we know it.



You want a different history to Transformers then there's Animated, Prime and the movieverse where a completely alternate history is welcomed and desired.

I think I agree with this to some extent. But there is a the fact that Exodus/WFC is 'Prime' backstory, so adapting that heavily to G1 technically makes it so that we've got the same origins for two different universes.

Exactly. If Roberts had written the Optimus flashbacks in a way that was less Aligned-y, he wouldn't have been "rewriting" anything. IDW-G1's history had a blank area, and he filled it. Now, if he happened to like the WfC take and decided to port it over to this universe, that's cool. But if this was Hasbro extending the dictates of the Binder of Revelation outside the WfC/Prime continuity, then that's not so cool with me. That would be... pre-rewriting things, if you follow. I say IDW-G1's history should be developed on its own terms, and any similarities to other universes should be purely at the whim of the authors.

But, as I said before, I fear my attitude isn't in line with Hasbro's. When Archer said he foresaw "most Hasbro Transformers projects connected to this modern continuity in the coming decade," he might not have meant just WfC, Prime, and related series to come. He might've meant that any time anyone working on any TF project wants to flesh out a backstory, the BoR will be the default reference. Hopefully this isn't the case - I don't think the TFCC comic has shown signs of Aligned-ification, for instance - but time will tell.

Something I've been thinking about, and not sure if this is an established IDW-verse idea, but are they hinting that transforming is somehow unnatural? An add-on or modification to the Cybertronian species?

The reason I ask is the mention of the no-alt-mode faction at the start of the issue, and Rodimus saying that only once in a million transformations does it go perfectly smoothly. Doesn't it seem odd that something that's meant to be part of their basic biology (wrong word, I know) would be... uncomfortable?

I know, some aspects of the human body that are natural are also uncomfortable at times, but I just found that both of these moments in this issue jumped out at me...

Also, Matrix Flame! *Squeeeee!*

Maybe the Monoform Movement is their version of vegans.

I found it weird, because in the IDW books, Hot Rod wasn't conscious, or even alive when he was bonded with the Matrix, and when he woke up with it in his chest, he didn't act at all like it was described here.