IDW G5 #1

[CoffeeHorse]

I'm going to try individual threads this time. Non-spoiler discussion can go in the main G5 thread.

I finally got to read this one.

I don't know what to think yet. It's too early to tell if they know what they're doing with the writing yet, thanks to the inability of comics to tell a story in one issue anymore. It's definitely more dense than what IDW does with Transformers these days. This isn't three scenes with miles and miles of dialog. I guess that's why they got to keep this license.

The characters are fine for a first try. Only Izzy seems noticeably off to me, but at least it's in a way that they put some thought into. They've noticed that she's the only unicorn in the group and they are trying to do something with it. I want to see oblivious happy corgi Izzy but I'll give this a chance since there seems to be a plan. I do really appreciate that they're attempting a proper 'show, don't tell' approach to her feelings here instead of having her vocalize a full encyclopedia entry about it. God I hate IDW's Transformers.

But the best thing here is the art. It is an absolute unqualified success. They pulled off a balancing act here. It generally looks like the G4 comic, but the designs are recognizably G5, not G4, and nothing about that is jarring. That has to be tricky. We'll see if other artists can keep this up but so far I'm impressed.

Just don't blow the writing, please. I want to believe.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

Don't know what was wrong with MY thread *pouts*

But, yeah, I mostly agree. This was a solid start, and the artwork is pretty fun. Honestly, my biggest problem is...I've been spoiled by the next few months worth of solicitations, so I'm already looking forward to issue #3 more than #2. But, that's MY problem, that's not the writers fault. And, really, the cliffhanger we got in this issue is plenty interesting.

As for Izzy...she's been a *little* different in just about ALL the mediums. Probably the most noticeably different of the Mane 5. Everyone seems to have a slightly different take on her.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Um.... maybe we can use your thread as a catch-all for comic discussion, since the title isn't issue-specific. Or I can merge this one.

Izzy is too pure. I think most writers just don't know how to live in her world. If we felt that kind of happiness we would quickly ask ourselves "What's the catch?" She is happiness without that kind of doubt.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

*LOL* Either way is fine with me. I don't know if we want to go with a catch-all thread for the comics or individual issue threads. I kind of feel like there probably won't be a LOT of people commenting on the comics, since I think there's like...four or five of us actually reading the IDW comics. If that's the case, I think a catch-all thread works better.

But, I WAS thinking about putting solicitations spoilers in that same thread, just to get it out of General. (In spoiler tags, obviously). Do we want to keep individual issue discussions and solicitations spoilers in separate threads, or do we want to group them together? Otherwise, I don't think there's going to be too much else to talk about for the IDW comics, as it's own thread. I'll leave it up to everyone else.



And I think part of the problem with the changing characterization is...Hasbro literally decided to release everything Pony in the same week. The comic, the game, and (basically) the pilot of the new show. Which would have been BRILLIANT, if they had marketed it AT ALL, but I don't think they did ANYWHERE. But, it also means everyone's working on everything all at the same time, and no one can see what everyone else is doing or compare notes.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Individual threads could help if a sixth person decides to join us and needs to do some catching up. Maybe we could do it by story arc rather than by each individual issue.


You're probably right. Last time around IDW had years of show to reference before attempting to write the characters. This time they had one movie, and that can't have helped much with Pipp and Zipp. There's not even legacy versions of these characters they could look at for hints. Hasbro introduced a complete clean slate of characters and hoped the different teams would somehow get it all right.

Hasbro's internal character profiles must be pretty good, because nobody's gotten it completely wrong yet. Izzy's just off here and there.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

Individual arcs could work. Thing is...if spoilers are right, that might be tricky, since this story arc might more or less last all year. But there are places to break it up. We might have to play it by ear.


And you're probably right about those character profiles. Because, Zipp has a thing for detective and mystery stuff in basically EVERYTHING. Although, I think maybe the other media interpreted that in a different way than Make Your Mark's version. Everything else feels a little more "Sherlock Holmes" while MYM feels more like "Indiana Jones" if that makes any sense.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

It would be very surprising if there aren't clean breaking points for trades. Kudos to IDW for making us wonder what we're in for, I suppose.


It's possible Zipp is supposed to have different detective hats for different mysteries. A basic whodunit doesn't call for Indiana Jones, but Zipp isn't going to say "Not my department." She's still going to do the job.

There was also those remarkably accurate tech specs stat sheets Hasbro put out online. I wonder how serious those were. It might have just been a marketing person having fun, but I wonder if the stats came straight from Hasbro's internal profiles. They had Zipp as the sneakiest of the bunch while Izzy is in fact medium sneaky.