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I don't know how popular this opinion is, but I freaking love this series. It's the first time I've been interested in the comics since 'Til All Are One. Skold has easily become one of my favorite characters, and the use of original, toy-only, or Japanese exclusive designs makes the series visually interesting. If I had to make one gripe, it's that I wish we got more--also, I despise Winston Chan's art style. His designs just don't work for me.

Eagerly awaiting the finale!

Issue #15 and it's the Winston Chan art again.

In addition to the two newcomers from last issue, we get three more, for a total of five new faces.

The Vok have their biggest role to play here yet, and we really do get a better fix on their distinct personalities. Like the cartoon Vok, their experiment with the planet has been upset by the Maximals and Predacons and, in their arrogance, they seek to do away with the interlopers once and for all. and yet, Both Pakak and Tikaani still remain curious and intrigued by new possibilities offered by said interlopers, while Tonrar remains his usual hostile self, wanting the Maximals and Predacons disposed of immediately. But, Pakak and Tikaani are scientists above all else and, in their hubris, await to see what unfolds in the next few final issues, much to Tonrar's endless frustration over the experiment's continued contamination.

Tigerhawk7109 wrote:I don't know how popular this opinion is, but I freaking love this series. It's the first time I've been interested in the comics since 'Til All Are One. Skold has easily become one of my favorite characters,

Sabrblade wrote:The Vok have their biggest role to play here yet, and we really do get a better fix on their distinct personalities. Like the cartoon Vok, their experiment with the planet has been upset by the Maximals and Predacons and, in their arrogance, they seek to do away with the interlopers once and for all.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Tigerhawk7109 wrote:I don't know how popular this opinion is, but I freaking love this series. It's the first time I've been interested in the comics since 'Til All Are One. Skold has easily become one of my favorite characters,

Sabrblade wrote:The Vok have their biggest role to play here yet, and we really do get a better fix on their distinct personalities. Like the cartoon Vok, their experiment with the planet has been upset by the Maximals and Predacons and, in their arrogance, they seek to do away with the interlopers once and for all.

Guess everyone has opinions

No matter how bizarre...

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No matter how bizarre...

Tarantulas put it best:

"The Vok? A simple name for so arrogant a race."

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No matter how bizarre...

Tarantulas put it best:

"The Vok? A simple name for so arrogant a race."

For the strong arm tactics of using Tigerhawk, sure. But not for anything they did in Season One.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No matter how bizarre...

Tarantulas put it best:

"The Vok? A simple name for so arrogant a race."

For the strong arm tactics of using Tigerhawk, sure. But not for anything they did in Season One.

"It is too late. You and your enemies have already contaminated the project. The harm has been done. That which does not become part of the one—shall become void."
"No—wait! We can fix whatever damage was done."
"We are not interested. The experiment will be sterilized."
"You can't do that! There are living creatures here. You, with all your power—even you have no right!"

Believing their judgment to be all that matters and basically playing god with an entire planet and all its inhabitants? That's not just arrogance, that's hubris.

Sabrblade wrote:"It is too late. You and your enemies have already contaminated the project. The harm has been done. That which does not become part of the one—shall become void."
"No—wait! We can fix whatever damage was done."
"We are not interested. The experiment will be sterilized."
"You can't do that! There are living creatures here. You, with all your power—even you have no right!"

Believing their judgment to be all that matters and basically playing god with an entire planet and all its inhabitants? That's not just arrogance, that's hubris.

Technically, at that point, it was their planet. There was no indication otherwise. They may have made it, purely for experimentation.

If you had a science project and someone interfered with it. It is your decision to start over.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:"It is too late. You and your enemies have already contaminated the project. The harm has been done. That which does not become part of the one—shall become void."
"No—wait! We can fix whatever damage was done."
"We are not interested. The experiment will be sterilized."
"You can't do that! There are living creatures here. You, with all your power—even you have no right!"

Believing their judgment to be all that matters and basically playing god with an entire planet and all its inhabitants? That's not just arrogance, that's hubris.

Technically, at that point, it was their planet. There was no indication otherwise. They may have made it, purely for experimentation.

If you had a science project and someone interfered with it. It is your decision to start over.

By the time of "The Low Road", we knew it was Earth. Africa and Europe were clearly visible from orbit.

They may have put some devices on the planet to conduct some nebulous experiment on it, but the planet itself was not their personal property. For them to believe that they have any claim to it as such is nothing short of arrogant folly.

And even if they did have some form of ownership to it, to blow up the entire planet when only a tiny, miniscule portion of it had been messed with? And most of which were only artificial aspects placed there by the Vok in the first place (instead of being anything that was actually integral to the nature of the planet)? Sheer slaggin' hubris.

No one within the story would classify it as Earth until after the Quantum Surge in Season Two.

The difference is context. What experiments they were performing? And to what end?? The Maximals and Predacons never knew that. How they corrupted the Vok research. Nor did they even try to find out.

The ambiguous, beyond good and evil nature of the Vok was the selling point (to me, at least). The mystery is what defined them. Which is why giving the Hip, Hop Vok individual personalities and outright evil machinations. Misses the original point of what The Other were, to the Beast Wars.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No one within the story would classify it as Earth until after the Quantum Surge in Season Two.

Irrelevent. We knew it was Earth. We knew they were full of themselves to think so highly of themselves that they could possibly have any claim to a whole planet that wasn't there's to claim. That was ludicrous of them.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The difference is context. What experiments they were performing? And to what end?? The Maximals and Predacons never knew that. How they corrupted the Vok research. Nor did they even try to find out.

They did try to figure things out. In "Law of the Jungle", the Maximals went looking for any more alien devices to try to better understand them. But they didn't find any, and the ones they'd already found were so ambiguous that they had no way of figuring out what their deal was.

And when they finally made first contact with said aliens, they were giving no chance or choice to ever understand better them because the Vok were all "You are lesser beings. Maggots to us. We have arbitrarily decided that you are incapable of understanding us, so we're just gonna wipe out all of you and the entire planet instead of trying to open a proper communication with you because we say so. The fact that we are even talking to you right now at all is beneath us. Good-die and good riddance!"

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The ambiguous, beyond good and evil nature of the Vok was the selling point (to me, at least). The mystery is what defined them. Which is why giving the Hip, Hop Vok individual personalities and outright evil machinations. Misses the original point of what The Other were, to the Beast Wars.

What "evil machinations"? What they've been doing thus far in the comic is no less enigmatic than their cartoon counterparts' experiment. We know nothing about the nature of they're experiment with the planet, just as we knew nothing about it in either the cartoon or any of its tie-ins. The experiment itself is the one thing no writer has ever been willing to elaborate on, and still haven't done so even in this comic. Hwck, not even Bob and Larry, the guys who came up with the Vok in the first place, knew what their deal was. All we really know about the Vok in the comic that wasn't also true of their cartoon counterparts is that these three have names and that one of them is always angry. The other two are just as blank slates as the cartoon Vok.

If any Vok have truly "evil machinations", it's the Japanese Vok, not these nobodies.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No one within the story would classify it as Earth until after the Quantum Surge in Season Two.

Irrelevent. We knew it was Earth. We knew they were full of themselves to think so highly of themselves that they could possibly have any claim to a whole planet that wasn't there's to claim. That was ludicrous of them.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The difference is context. What experiments they were performing? And to what end?? The Maximals and Predacons never knew that. How they corrupted the Vok research. Nor did they even try to find out.

They did try to figure things out. In "Law of the Jungle", the Maximals went looking for any more alien devices to try to better understand them. But they didn't find any, and the ones they'd already found were so ambiguous that they had no way of figuring out what their deal was.

And when they finally made first contact with said aliens, they were giving no chance or choice to ever understand better them because the Vok were all "You are lesser beings. Maggots to us. We have arbitrarily decided that you are incapable of understanding us, so we're just gonna wipe out all of you and the entire planet instead of trying to open a proper communication with you because we say so. The fact that we are even talking to you right now at all is beneath us. Good-die and good riddance!"

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The ambiguous, beyond good and evil nature of the Vok was the selling point (to me, at least). The mystery is what defined them. Which is why giving the Hip, Hop Vok individual personalities and outright evil machinations. Misses the original point of what The Other were, to the Beast Wars.

What "evil machinations"? What they've been doing thus far in the comic is no less enigmatic than their cartoon counterparts' experiment. We know nothing about the nature of they're experiment with the planet, just as we knew nothing about it in either the cartoon or any of its tie-ins. The experiment itself is the one thing no writer has ever been willing to elaborate on, and still haven't done so even in this comic. Hwck, not even Bob and Larry, the guys who came up with the Vok in the first place, knew what their deal was. All we really know about the Vok in the comic that wasn't also true of their cartoon counterparts is that these three have names and that one of them is always angry. The other two are just as blank slates as the cartoon Vok.

If any Vok have truly "evil machinations", it's the Japanese Vok, not these nobodies.

Sabrblade, what was the origin the Transformers Legends manga gave the Vok again? At least as far as the Japanese continuity is concerned.

ZeroWolf wrote:Sabrblade, what was the origin the Transformers Legends manga gave the Vok again? At least as far as the Japanese continuity is concerned.

The Selects manga revealed that they were an evolved form of an ancient evil known as the Specters, dark entities of pure unabashedly-murderous evil born from the shadows casted by the light of the seven Matrices wielded by the Primus Vanguard. When the vanguard attempted to obliterate the Specters once and for all by using their Matrices to shine a light so bright that it leaves no shadow at all (as wel as merging seven universes into a single new one in the process), the Specters survived the eradication by evolving into a new lifeform, the Vok, much to Primus's horror.

In the Legends manga, the two Vok who merged with Tarantulas were revealed to have not only survived their apparent deaths but that they had each actually evolved further into the malevolent Dark Nova. They used imagery of Unicron in both the Beast Wars and the Return of Convoy fiction to instill fear in the Transformers, and sought to destroy them so that the Beast Wars will never happen, thereby allowing their experiment with prehistoric Earth to be left untampered with.

In a sense, these retcons have usurped Unicron into making the Vok the ultimate evil enemy of both Primus and the Transformers (while Unicron himself is now "just some guy") for the Japanese continuity.

Sabrblade wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Sabrblade, what was the origin the Transformers Legends manga gave the Vok again? At least as far as the Japanese continuity is concerned.

The Selects manga revealed that they were an evolved form of an ancient evil known as the Specters, dark entities of pure unabashedly-murderous evil born from the shadows casted by the light of the seven Matrices wielded by the Primus Vanguard. When the vanguard attempted to obliterate the Specters once and for all by using their Matrices to shine a light so bright that it leaves no shadow at all (as wel as merging seven universes into a single new one in the process), the Specters survived the eradication by evolving into a new lifeform, the Vok, much to Primus's horror.

In the Legends manga, the two Vok who merged with Tarantulas were revealed to have not only survived their apparent deaths but that they had each actually evolved further into the malevolent Dark Nova. They used imagery of Unicron in both the Beast Wars and the Return of Convoy fiction to instill fear in the Transformers, and sought to destroy them so that the Beast Wars will never happen, thereby allowing their experiment with prehistoric Earth to be left untampered with.

In a sense, these retcons have usurped Unicron into making the Vok the ultimate evil enemy of both Primus and the Transformers (while Unicron himself is now "just some guy") for the Japanese continuity.

Ah thanks, I remembered they were connected to one of the Japanese villains.

ZeroWolf wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Sabrblade, what was the origin the Transformers Legends manga gave the Vok again? At least as far as the Japanese continuity is concerned.

The Selects manga revealed that they were an evolved form of an ancient evil known as the Specters, dark entities of pure unabashedly-murderous evil born from the shadows casted by the light of the seven Matrices wielded by the Primus Vanguard. When the vanguard attempted to obliterate the Specters once and for all by using their Matrices to shine a light so bright that it leaves no shadow at all (as wel as merging seven universes into a single new one in the process), the Specters survived the eradication by evolving into a new lifeform, the Vok, much to Primus's horror.

In the Legends manga, the two Vok who merged with Tarantulas were revealed to have not only survived their apparent deaths but that they had each actually evolved further into the malevolent Dark Nova. They used imagery of Unicron in both the Beast Wars and the Return of Convoy fiction to instill fear in the Transformers, and sought to destroy them so that the Beast Wars will never happen, thereby allowing their experiment with prehistoric Earth to be left untampered with.

In a sense, these retcons have usurped Unicron into making the Vok the ultimate evil enemy of both Primus and the Transformers (while Unicron himself is now "just some guy") for the Japanese continuity.

Ah thanks, I remembered they were connected to one of the Japanese villains.

Yeah, if anything, the Japanese Vok are the leasted nuanced version and, funnily enough, are like the polar opposite of how Simon Furman made the Vok repenting servants of Primus and guardians who watched over his Grand Plan (as a means of atonement for their time as the destructive Swarm) in the Primeval Dawn comics.

The one real opportunity the Maximals had to talk with the Vok was with Tigerhawk's debut episode. Although the exchange never happened. It would have been interesting if it did. Would the Vok have offered the Maximals a way off the planet? I could see that.

Also, as an aside. Looking into the Vok Emissary brought up a little Botcon 2014 tidbit, I didn't know:

Gen1 Predaking - from TM2 Tigerhawk

Unrealised figure. Even a digibash of what they were going for, would have been cool to see.

Also, also. He had a third "vehicle" mode. Involving the wheels on his wings

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The ambiguous, beyond good and evil nature of the Vok was the selling point (to me, at least). The mystery is what defined them. Which is why giving the Hip, Hop Vok individual personalities and outright evil machinations. Misses the original point of what The Other were, to the Beast Wars.

What "evil machinations"? What they've been doing thus far in the comic is no less enigmatic than their cartoon counterparts' experiment. We know nothing about the nature of they're experiment with the planet, just as we knew nothing about it in either the cartoon or any of its tie-ins. The experiment itself is the one thing no writer has ever been willing to elaborate on, and still haven't done so even in this comic. Hwck, not even Bob and Larry, the guys who came up with the Vok in the first place, knew what their deal was. All we really know about the Vok in the comic that wasn't also true of their cartoon counterparts is that these three have names and that one of them is always angry. The other two are just as blank slates as the cartoon Vok.

If any Vok have truly "evil machinations", it's the Japanese Vok, not these nobodies.

Issue #13 painted them in a more evil light than the show ever did.

I never saw the show versions as 'blank slates' either. They were simply completely alien. Right down to how they interacted with the physical plane, when they killed Tarantulas (semantics aside).

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The one real opportunity the Maximals had to talk with the Vok was with Tigerhawk's debut episode. Although the exchange never happened. It would have been interesting if it did. Would the Vok have offered the Maximals a way off the planet? I could see that.

And even then, they refused to listen to Optimus again, because of their arrogant single-mindedness.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Also, as an aside. Looking into the Vok Emissary brought up a little Botcon 2014 tidbit, I didn't know:

Gen1 Predaking - from TM2 Tigerhawk

Unrealised figure. Even a digibash of what they were going for, would have been cool to see.

I was there. It was the Tigerhawk toy in yellow, orange, and black. Similar colors to the 2009 Razorclaw toy.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Issue #13 painted them in a more evil light than the show ever did.

How?

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I never saw the show versions as 'blank slates' either. They were simply completely alien. Right down to how they interacted with the physical plane, when they killed Tarantulas (semantics aside).

Their interactions with the physical plane in the comic are no different. They exist on a separate plane of existence and use proxy vessels and simulacrums to interact with the physical and even mental planes.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The one real opportunity the Maximals had to talk with the Vok was with Tigerhawk's debut episode. Although the exchange never happened. It would have been interesting if it did. Would the Vok have offered the Maximals a way off the planet? I could see that.

And even then, they refused to listen to Optimus again, because of their arrogant single-mindedness.

As I said, that episode was them at their most arrogant. Thinking that by sending Tigerhawk they could brute force an end to the war.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Also, as an aside. Looking into the Vok Emissary brought up a little Botcon 2014 tidbit, I didn't know:

Gen1 Predaking - from TM2 Tigerhawk

Unrealised figure. Even a digibash of what they were going for, would have been cool to see.

I was there. It was the Tigerhawk toy in yellow, orange, and black. Similar colors to the 2009 Razorclaw toy.

Fascinating. I was intrigued reading about it. How this aesthetic would look on Tigerhawk...

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Issue #13 painted them in a more evil light than the show ever did.

How?

The entire exchange between Cheetor read as very antagonistic. In the show, they might have been conceited, when talking to Primal. But there was never a malicious edge to it.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Also, as an aside. Looking into the Vok Emissary brought up a little Botcon 2014 tidbit, I didn't know:

Gen1 Predaking - from TM2 Tigerhawk

Unrealised figure. Even a digibash of what they were going for, would have been cool to see.

I was there. It was the Tigerhawk toy in yellow, orange, and black. Similar colors to the 2009 Razorclaw toy.

Fascinating. I was intrigued reading about it. How this aesthetic would look on Tigerhawk...

If memory serves, it was mostly yellow for the tiger parts, orange for the bird feathers and helmet, and black for all the robot details.

In fact, Fun Pub tried multiple times to use the Tigerhawk mold. In addition to Predaking, they considered it for Megatron in an unrealized Shattered Glass Beast Wars set for 2011, along with other vintage Beast Wars molds. This most likely didn't happen because of the molds being so old and unavailable.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Issue #13 painted them in a more evil light than the show ever did.

How?

The entire exchange between Cheetor read as very antagonistic. In the show, they might have been conceited, when talking to Primal. But there was never a malicious edge to it.

Looking back over that issue, only the one panel of the Vok-Blurr raising his hands looks malicious (a fault of the artist more than the storytelling), but the dialogue throughout the issue is open to interpretation. I read it all in Blu Mankuma's stoic Vok-Unicron voice and it fit throughout.

Plus, since it's all inside Cheetor's mind, one could make the argument that everything seen is shown through his perception, meaning he would interpret the Vok as threatening to him, just like how his cartoon counterpart freaked out in utter terrified horror upon seeing one of the Vok in his mind back in "Other Victories".

Also, you have to keep in mind that there is a big difference between the cartoon and comic in what role the Vok play in each story:

In the show, the Vok had a largely inactive presence. They put all these devices on Earth for some experiment and then go away, leaving their experiment alone to happen on its own while they're off doing who knows what elsewhere, only periodically checking in on it from afar. And it's only when the Maximals and Predacons start touching their stuff (the Standing Stones) that the Vok really start to take notice that something has interfered with their experiment. And only when the intruders start breaking their stuff (the flying island) do the Vok decide to get involved more directly.

In the comic, the Vok instead have an active presence. They have an experiment going on with whatever planet this is, and don't just go away. They remain on the planet to personally conduct their experiment themselves. The Maximals and Predacons arrive while they are still there. And thus, they take a more immediate notice of the intruders and become (or rather, one of the does) even more riled up about these foreign elements interfering with their work. It's only through the curiosity and intrigue over the newcomers displayed by the other two that the three initially refrain from taking more direct action against them, treating the Maximals and Predacons more like test subjects while continuing to play god with the planet that they see as theirs (like in the cartoon). And only when the Predacons' destructive behavior upsets their experiment even more do they finally decide to really do something about both them and Maximals, viewing both factions of Cybertronians as lesser beings and equally problematic to their goals (also like in the cartoon).

So much of the dialogue in this series I simply can't read in the voices of the show. The Vok, Dinobot etc

Which when it comes to a licensed property, in my opinion is a failing of the writer. But as is apparent, Burnham being a "fan" of the show was clearly an exaggeration. Breezing over series cliff notes is about as knowledgeable as he appears to be. Which is why I hope, whoever gets the Transformers license in the future. Keeps the creative team of this book far away from anything Beast Wars related.

Sabrblade wrote:If memory serves, it was mostly yellow for the tiger parts, orange for the bird feathers and helmet, and black for all the robot details.

In fact, Fun Pub tried multiple times to use the Tigerhawk mold. In addition to Predaking, they considered it for Megatron in an unrealized Shattered Glass Beast Wars set for 2011, along with other vintage Beast Wars molds. This most likely didn't happen because of the molds being so old and unavailable.

Interesting. So that's where the Green Ramulus factors in!? A Shattered Glass version. I certainly would have bought him and SG Waspinator... and the Bugly redeco of Jetstorm.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Interesting. So that's where the Green Ramulus factors in!? A Shattered Glass version. I certainly would have bought him and SG Waspinator... and the Bugly redeco of Jetstorm.

It would have been an attempt to get the Hasbro Employee Store-exclusive Ramulus out to the public, since it never made it out the first time.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Interesting. So that's where the Green Ramulus factors in!? A Shattered Glass version. I certainly would have bought him and SG Waspinator... and the Bugly redeco of Jetstorm.

It would have been an attempt to get the Hasbro Employee Store-exclusive Ramulus out to the public, since it never made it out the first time.

As we said in the BW toy thread. It is incredible how much effort went into Ramulus' releases. Considering he hasn't featured prominently in any media since. Very cool design though.

Some of the ideas in issue 16 have merit. It's a pity the dialogue and art let it down. Again.

Ideally, as next issue is the last. I'd love a CG rendered panel at the end of the book. Season One Primal waking up with a start from a CR chamber. Bemoaning a terrible dream he just had...

The opening splash page to issue 17 is almost as obnoxious as the cameo BW army that was used at the end of IDWverse. Fun to see how many more designs can be butchered in such a short amount of time though.

One noted thing that always grinds my gears, is when a lesser thing makes fun of a better thing. The Hip, Hop Vok "joke" about a doomsday weapon in the moon. Supposedly a wink to the audience ala the Planet Buster. It didn't land. Especially considering the alternate used in this book looks ridiculous, in comparison.

This seems like something I've said before. But the goodwill of the last issue is undone here. The Vok are outright evil. Missing the whole point of them being "The Other". But I am tired of repeating the objective failings of this book.

Ultimately, I'm glad it is over. Glad I can give away the last few issues and never have to bother with this again. Hopefully, where ever the Transformers (and Beast Wars, by extension) license ends up. None of the "creative" team of this book darken this IP ever again. 4/10