Since there's no official thread yet. I'll put this here for now:

Wow. Again.

Damn you Rodgers for only putting this book out once a month. That. Is. Not. Often. Enough.


My thoughts on issue # 3 commentary track style:

Warning. Lots of obtuse, half-explained, and random SPOILERS

Page 1.
- Wow, I didn't expect to get more Shock and Ore ever. So this is a nice surprise. It's interesting to have confirmed that they were Prowl's agents (and apparently have a history with him) and that they were there to track, not destroy. Ore REALLY blew that mission. (Heh, literally.)
- Also interesting Shock's response to being the single Duobot strongly suggests to me that their gimmick was the reverse of the Duocons, who were two vehicles in one robot. These comments combined with their linked individual name structure (vs the Duocons) strongly suggests to me that the Duobots are instead 2 robots combining to one vehicle. Does that make sense?

Page2.
- Ouch.
-Subline, cancelled.

Page 3.
-The traditional rhyme is EXACTLY what I love to see in Transformers comics. Exactly the sort of thing I would add back (many years ago) when I'd do fanfic. Roberts is a writer SO after my own heart with TFs it's hard not suspect that I've died and am dreaming this book in heaven.
- Rodimus's response here is one of the most perfect moments in a TF comic ever. THAT is Rod. (The rest of the issue confirms Roberts s understands him perfectly.)
- Hey, Xaaron's onboard. Did we know that?

Page 4.
-Heh, if you look close, Animus seems to be complaining that he has to bunk with Whirl. And poor Tailgate is trying to get anyone to notice him.
-The bromance between Chromedome and Eject is rather fun.

Page 5.
- I keep wanting to connect every spooky thing Roberts name drops to Bomb-Burst darn it. I know that's silly, and new concepts are awesome, it's just I so want someone to use him well someday.
- And we're suddenly on Cybertronian version of Fringe. Which I'm totally cool with. Love Fringe.

-Page 6.
- Rossum's Trinity. see my comment on the rhyme above. So cool. Combined with Prime this was our week for TF bio-medical info dump. Awesome.
-Grumpy Ratchet rocks. He can know more than everyone and be a dismissive dick to Drift for ever as far as I'm concerned.
- Chromedome's special power is perfect. It fits who he is perfectly. (The Wolverine-y snikt moment was nice too.) I really hope we see him become a Headmaster someday because it seems like it would be right up his alley. I also already wanted a toy of him BEFORE this, darn it...
-Now we know why Prowl "needed" him.
-Notice that he promised Rewind to stop doing this...

Page 7.
- Love the way the memories are rendered. Wish the Corpse was maybe a tad less generic but being basically a ghoul it works fine.

Page 8
- Hmmm. Hoist isn't rooming with Grapple? (Who is that by the way?)
-Tailgate is so earnest. Wonder if he and Cyc really will room together. Heh.

Page 9
- I love you Swerve.
-Blurr was (or wanted to be) a musician! Would love to see Barber pick up on that and use it as a background detail in RiD.
- Love Swerve's self awareness. And that nickname Sooo belongs on the wiki.
- I think the Lost Light just got herself a "Ten Forward" and a heck of a bartender.

Page 10
- Like the interplay here. And this really a good explanation for why Skids is free to be not quite the Skids of his bio. It's a good in story reason for Roberts to be able to play him outside his usual academic box.
- Holy Scrap, I didn't notice he's STILL holding the gun that he had some sort of mental block about last issue. I don't think he knows it's there. Something is up there!

Page 11
-So Eject screams in worry, catches CD despite his size, and cradles his head in his lap while berating him over the first thing he ever said to him? ...maybe "Bromance" was... one letter too long...?
-"Okay, that's 'Bad.' Important safety tip. Thanks, Chromedome."
-Rodimus, you pompous hot shot. I love how he's so smugly sure it's him here.

Page 12
- Aww, Animus has... had a neat design. (Thought he was gonna be Groundbreaker at first.)
- Never go near Whirl's quarters... Noted.

Page 13.
- I like that Roberts has Whirl hang a lampshade on Trailbreaker's usefulness. I hope he gets some more spotlights as a character down the line.

Page 14.
- Poor Rung and his poor models.
- Brightest spark on board huh? Interesting.

Page 15.
- Love the image of the two sitting side by side here. Just a great visual
- So does is flashback establish Sideswipe and Sunstreaker as the officers who arrested Impactor and Megaton?
-Woo, WWI Grimlock.
- For someone who's been very vocal about not being a Con,Cyclonus tells a kinda once sided story. Me thinks he doth protest too much?

Page 16
-TURBOFOXES!!! I knew it had to happen some day! Figures Roberts would be the one. Ok, they're just drawn as the usual sort of robotic foxes, which isn't really surprising (I still like my design better ) but it's just really great to see the first ever mentioned Cybertronic fauna get its first visual depiction. I feel like the Bestiary should host a celebration or something.

Page 17
- Ok, Roberts? Seriously. Stop having Chromedome hack into my brain and write this book just for me. It's getting embarrassing and I have no way to repay you!
- That was for making the already PERFECT idea of a shared Scrounge-Rung mold somehow, impossibly, MORE perfect still. Hasbro? Pleeeeeeeaaaaassssseeee!!!!

Page 18.
- Everything you ever need to know about Brainstorm in one page.

Page 19, 20, 21
- Remember when I said Roberts understood Rod PERFECTY? This here. That IS Rodimus again. To a friggin T.
- Drift needs a Rodimus fan-girl t-shirt sooo badly.

Page 22
- Eat your heart out Luke Skywalker!
- This isn't 1986's Hot Rod and Magnus dynamic.
- Woof. Tailgate... Do you know whereof you speak? Is it a purposefull decision or just his naïveté and earnestness again? Probably. It DOES fit his classic bio for him to be pro-revolutionary. He has none of the cultural context for why he's about to make a whole shipload of enemies. Poor guy. That's a great last second bomb to drop.


Damn that was awesome. If this book was weekly the wait for the next part would be TOO LONG, darn it. Can't wait for more and to see where we go from here.


-ZacWilliam, *Roberts could write a TF book and I'd... What? He already did? Then we need another one!

So good. So very good.

"My nickname was 'shut the hell up'" and "How bad is it, on a scale of one to Megatron" had me in stitches.

Good lord I love this series.

Please review/discuss the issue here.

A note: I think we now have more interesting revelations about a group of NAILs in this book (They were keeping a Sparkeater locked in their engine room and feeding it turbofoxes) than we've gotten in RiD so far.

It'd be amazing if that book actually deals with whatever group of morons/psychopaths/cultists whatever used to own this ship. That'd be some nice interconnectivity.

I feel like they'd likely be the type to cause truble.


-ZacWilliam, for that matter I think Prowl and BB should be investigating them anyway, since the ship did blow up and all...

I think Whirl calling Trailbreaker a "one-trick pony" was my favorite bit.

Guess whatever's in Brainstorm's case is pretty hardcore if it wards off Sparkeaters.

I don't think it did. I think he got lucky because Rung was the "Brightest Spark" as mentioned earlier and it decided to chase the Lobster Diner rather than stop for tuna fish.


-ZacWilliam, also, Brainstorm tries to block his body with the thing to save himself. Either it's innert or he's not as smart as he likes to think.

Brainstorm's briefcase is pretty much a classic MacGuffin. It drives the plot, and it's almost cooler the less you explain it.

I moved your post Zac

I don't think it's driven anything yet. It really hasn't mattered at all in anything it was mentioned during. It's just been a recurring "Gag" of sorts so far. Or a thread to pick up later.


-ZacWilliam, it definately has the potential to BE a MacGuffin somewhere down the line though.

Ridiculously good comic. Again. My favorite part is probably still seeing Tailgate requiring the help of others to move around safely. I get the feeling that one day he won't have anyone around to transport him and something really, really bad will happen to him. Again.

Oh, and I loved Rodimus ignoring Magnus' feedback on his leadership skills there. It seems his arrogance is really starting to get out of hand. What happened to the Rodimus that would do anything to prevent a bot on his team from becoming a casualty??

An altogether delicious series gets sweeter with every bite.

Except... for some of the garbled narration about the Sparkeater. This isn't a "parasite" - it's an active predator. It chases you down, claws you open, and eats you until you die.

Working on the Cybertonic Bestiary for so long I couldn't let the first canonical visual appearence of the Turbofoxes go uncelebrated. So I did Milne's design up quick, best as I could decifer it from stairing intently at mangled corpses in a single panel.

http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?s...5266&st=100


-ZacWilliam, will always have a soft spot for his Turbofox look, but it's great to see them officially after 28 years or so

The parasite could be controlling the mangled corpse. If they could destroy the body without hitting the volatile sparks, the sparkeater proper could have to migrate hosts or die.

I need a Skids and Rung and Swerve and Tailgate like now. And maybe a BiS Cyclonus to skeleton up.

I loved Tailgate's body language when he made his confession to Ratchet. And Skids's description of Magnus's punishment for insubordination. What was Skids going to say if Swerve did listen to music? And Rung had time to gather his collection before take off. That was nice for him.

I didn't take that from the art at all. I thought it looked like a corpse for the same reason that vampires, zombies, and the Frankenstein monster look like corpses - because it's a freaky occult monster.

It's a possibility is all.

The tentacles make me think there was some kind of creature infesting the body...

I cannot believe this issue was EVEN BETTER than the last two combined. Here's hoping that increased sales per issue due to comixology will spur IDW to promote this series to twice monthly status. While having both this and RID every month is nice, I'm debating holding out for RID trades after this past issue. Apparently IDW supplying hardcopies (even pre-ordered copies) on time is a recent issue for some of you, but for me it's been an issue circa Escalation and it only worsened as time progressed.

Are comixology issues unreadable after a certain amount of time, though? The first issue I bought from there was Death of Optimus Prime and I realized about a month ago I could no longer read it and despite it being in my archive I was asked to repurchase. O_o

On the topic of this issue though, like many of you I'm absolutely loving how Roberts is delving deep into Cybertronian mythos and culture, which you would THINK would show up more often in RID, actually being set on Cybertron. As for Swerve, I'm feeling more and more like he's being set up for an Ironfist-esque fate. First he's lovable in that obnoxiously hilarious way, and now his conversation with Skids makes me feel as though he feels very empty inside, as people who act like him often are. Damn, Roberts. Just damn.

And as for Rodimus... I wonder how long he'll be gimped out like that... But it's hilarious how he's so chuffed by his strategy succeeding that he seems proud of his gimp-ification.

I can read older issues purchased on Comixology just fine. Maybe it's your device on which you saved them?

The tentacles make me think there was some kind of creature infesting the body...

Anyway, Magnus gets best line. "His name was Blip."

The tentacles make me think there was some kind of creature infesting the body...

Anyway, Magnus gets best line. "His real name was Blip."

Is the Egyptian scenario he outlined really a million miles from the "Nail" position in RiD?

And why DID the Autobots - a name we're now told Optimus effectively coined per "Chaos Theory" when he denounced the Senate - use the insignia of Sentinel/the Senate's force anyway? NOT the way to indicate you're breaking from their position...

I've been using comixology since the Chaos storyline, and I've never had a problem like that, I'm reading old issues fine. The only problem I've had is #23 missing a page, which I'm still communicating with comixology to resolve.

Jaw-Droppingly Good.

What SHOULD happen is that it'll ask you if you want to buy it, click 'yes', then it'll say that you've already purchased this item, would you like to download it again for free.

That has worked a few times for me, but I do know someone who tried this and had it fail.

So I can't guarantee it as a fix, other than to say that it worked for me.

"How bad is it on a scale of 1 to Megatron"

Classic

This issue was also Milne's best work, I think. I had to double check to make sure it was him.

Milne sure is doing his damnedest to draw these in nearly Nick-style. I dig it.

Having been a certified Milne-hater for a very long time I too have to credit him for really starting to pull his stuff together now. This issue certainly showed a lot more of Milne's own style in it -- but the storytelling was good, the art was generally good. And things were pretty expressive and well-framed, in general.

His composition, character poses and designs have improved massively. All credit to him for really shocking my socks.

--Andrew S.

Milne's improvement is really making me wonder what happened. One could attribute his poor work for DW as part of their "house style" but that wouldn't explain Megatron: Origin. Maybe he just really sat down and spent some time improving himself. Hats off to him.

Not much to say in terms of a review; another good issue. Most people touched on my points. One thing I would just like to point out though is how Roberts does a good job of using the entire cast and uses the story telling elements as a good way to set up character moments. One could imagine Costa, writing the same plot, would have Rodimus send everyone away and then have Rodimus and company deal with the Sparkeater. Instead, Roberts uses it as an excuse to pair up everyone and get some good character moments between some of the odd couples. Good stuff.

I think having better immediate examples to look at than Pat Lee probably helped.

I just realized that this is the first comic I've read in ages that is pretty much self contained from issue to issue. There's an underlying storyline, but each issue has a definite start, middle, and end. Very refreshing in the age of "write for the trade paperback".

That's why several years ago I used to feel people criticized artistic talent too roughly. Fine most of the criticisms with Pat Lee didn't boil over. But Milne proves what I meant.

I saw some of the critiquing back then as too harshly dismissive of a lot of artists and writers. I mean people should be criticized so they know what to improve about their work. But I feel it's wrong to be far too harshly dismissive. People can improve if they tackle the stuff their having problems with. Art is about practice and learning to work on improving the stuff your not good with.


To base people's creative ability solely on ingrained talent is wrong.



And, yes I'm greatly impressed by milne's work here.



The IDw universes take is so awesome. I want to see Megatron origin done a bit better with some of the stuff added in from the current books. I like the gundamish anime influence that Milne lightly puts into transformers. And, I'm really glad to see his art improve.



I really wish Don would practice his humans more. I've always have been Unsatisfied with them.

Interesting line from Ratchet on the last page. "I don't know how I missed that before." I'm wondering if his hands aren't the only thing failing him now.

Reading through it again, I really hope Tailgate means what he says. I don't want the writers to chicken out and have him think the Decepticons were the 'good guys' or something along those lines. I've always hated fake cliffhangers like that. It's killing me that we have 2 more weeks to wait. I'm passing the time catching up on the old IDW stuff and their Ghostbusters ongoing, which is amazing.

Does he even know which side is which?

Cyclonus wasn't very clear on that.

I don't think Tailgate will ultimately BE a Decepticon but I figure it'll be an ongoing thing as he learns more about the two sides.

It's very possible Tailgate doesn't know which is which. Cyclonus doesn't attach a name to either description on panel. I bet Ratchet tries to clarify with him, and then they send TG to Rung for analysis and TG just gets frustrated that everyone thinks they have to correct him.

Heh, I'm absolutely fine with Cyclonus thinking the cons were more in the right.

It makes sense with his mercurial temperament and how he uses Cybertron as a security blanket.

His viewpoint seems to be that the autobots allowed a corrupt senate to rule. Instead of collaborating with the freedom fighting revolutionaries.

Considering this Cyclonuses rabid patriotism he's an easy target for Megatron's political manipulations. And the events in infestation give credit to Cyclonus thinking the Autobots are no worse than cons.

So, about that shocker ending, can we expect Tailgate repainting himself black and taking the name Wipe-Out?

Would be a nice story idea if the crew stumbled upon an out-of-fuel Trypticon floating in space, and had to actually save him from alien marauders. Or better yet, find pirates using the Con as their ship... Later on Tailgate could become his 'little buddy'. After all, Trypticon's bio always indicated he is not very fond of war, he just continues 'cause that's what he was built to do.




Indeed, I thought the same. And what they say about them indicates they have some form of a spark, too. They looked really nice. Now, give us some petro-rabbits!
Though I wonder why one of them was impaled on Drift's sword, considering they have been dead already...

I liked how James also delves into how Hot Rod's need to always be in the spotlight and save the day can take a darker turn. He really risked Rung's life there... Although I still applaud his ingenious idea on stopping the thing.

A pity about Animus. I liked his design. And I like how even such one-shot characters get some depth. Seeing Shock mourn Ore (or the other way around? I forget too...) was touchning.
And guess we know now whom Prowl was talking to in Death of Optimus Prime. Question is, though... was Ore's death really due to him standing too near the engine when trying to place the tracer? Or maybe someone pushed him into it, like Hot Rod did with the Sparkeater? Hmmm... here is a mystery, and Nightbeat is dead. Bummer.

After re-reading the TPB, now I discovered a LOT of things in the "flashbacks" (they couldn't have them, they weren't there!) Cyclonus and Tailgate have while talking about the past -that have either happened since then, in issues #9-10, or were implied to have happened... and some that WILL happen.

- Sentinel Prime is trying to extrac the Matrix from Nominus - and next to him we see... Black Shadow (?!?)
- Megatron with a HUGE sniper rifle, plugged into some outside power source... Hmm, maybe an assassination attempt against Sentinel?
- Prowl under "Sherma's Bridge", with Sherma's corpse
- Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and someone I do not recognise, are trying to restrain Impactor.
- Starscream is just about to execute a kneeling Proteus.
- A ship leaves a building that has just exploded, in the foreground we see Grimlock departing (hmm, Tarn did hint that Grimmy was a Con at some point in the past).

Interesting points, all said.