IDW Transformers Drift: Empire of Stone #2 Full Preview

Optimizzy wrote:Still no name given on Megatron/Gigatron in the comic.

Second panel on the first page, Turmoil calls him Gigatron!

Va'al wrote:

Optimizzy wrote:Still no name given on Megatron/Gigatron in the comic.

Second panel on the first page, Turmoil calls him Gigatron!

Ah! I missed that! Thank you.

Good, now it's official.

Yeah. But this art makes it look way better than it is IMO.

Gigatron: "Muhahaha! With this hidden cache of Rock Lords at my beck and call, I shall conquer the UNIVERSE! What do you think of that, Deadlock?"

Drift: "I'm not Deadlo-"

Gigatron: "SILENCE!"

Synopsis
ONCE A DECEPTICON! DRIFT’s past comes back to haunt him, as RATCHET tries to drag him back to the Lost Light. But alone on a far-off world, DRIFT’s honor demands he stand his ground!



Story

You now, Drift - was Deadlock, but would rather not be reminded; was a Decepticon, see above; part of the Lost Light, then self-exiled; feels guilty about everything since pretty much forever, so heads off to be the Batman/Robin Hood of the galaxy. Why am I repeating this? We are not being allowed to forget what Drift's past is, nor his own guilt.



In this second issue, though, what I am left wondering is - will the retreading of Shane McCarthy's initial pitch, with the layers of characterisation given to Drift since All Hail Megatron, actually lead to something other than unspoken guilt, unreasonable bravado and a penchant for lost causes?



Don't get me wrong, there are some very good interactions in the issue, and some of characters have a fair deal of personal creation and minor development - but there is a constant feeling of something still missing in a series that is promising so much to start with, and already in the middle of its run.



I don't mind the dialogue, though I'd like to see more of it, and I like most of the characters that McCarthy is setting up in the miniseries, from the Stone whatevers to the Micromasters (mentioned in Windblade, too), the brief return of Turmoil and the magnificence of Gigatron. But it needs more to keep us in.


Art

Now, the art is great. It was good, if not entirely apt, when the team of Guido Guidi and Steve Baskerville were working together on ReGeneration One, but it's really good in this contemporary setting - there's a sense of grit, chunky big hulks of rock in the designs of the blockier types of characters we've encountered, and that's before we even see a Stone Army.



Of course, the feeling of dust, dirt and stone would not be complete without the magnificently painted work of JP Bove. If the bulk of the rocky art comes from the pencils and inks, the layer of grit and sand is definitely in the colours. And it's tasty grit with crunchy bits thrown in for good measure, and great lighting as the icing on top.



And Tom B. Long gives us a double-whammy this week, by showing his fingers in the fonting, lettering and sounding of the pages of McCarthy's script, and giving some gravitas to the dialogue where needed. The two covers are also quite a thing to look at, dealing with the duality of Drift's character in the main Guidi/Josh Burcham one, and his conscience in the Alex Milne/Josh Perez variant (thumbnail).


Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

Much like its preceding issue, Empire of Stone is taking its time to really kickstart its proper plot, and might get on the bad side of some readers used to the tighter stories of the two current ongoings. The stories that are there don't have more than some references, but the characters' different voices ad their interactions can, for some, make up for it.



On the visual side, we have a similar concentration of silent action sequences (and pretty good ones too) to the first issue in the miniseries, and probably something we should expect for the following two issues. Fortunately, the artistic team is magnificent at conveying the ruggedness of this side of the galaxy, and we can revel in the eye candy.

Nemesis Maximo wrote:I hope it is - I want McCarthy to make me like Drift.

That is exactly my feeling. I want to like this series, the writing, the characters. I want it to be impactful, I want it to relate back to the main story in MTMTE somehow meaningful.

So far, it's not doing it. But it hasn't screamed that it won't at all.

So, like Natalie Imbruglia, I am torn.

I have a question though, didn't spotlight: Night beat kinda hint that the micromasters were the creation of Jihaxus?

Ah but none of the Micromaster characters we've seen since have been small so maybe Jhiaxus was involved in down sizing the ones in Nightbeat.

I'm really enjoying this series despite my initial misgivings.

Va'al wrote:I believe the Windblade colony explanation sort of overrides that. As it overrides the 'Arcee is only non-male character'. Jhiaxus may as well have created *some*, but there are more out there that are 'naturally' occurring.

I think.

Truthflly, I think its more that after a few years, backgrond cameos get reused and we're reading into it too much.

The Gorlam Prime Micromasters were organic beings who evolved into mechanical ones, first through simple cyborg implants, and then outright living mechanical entities, and yes, that was through Jhaxius' intervention. Off the top of my head, the Gorlam Prime Micromasters were never named as individuals. The fandom "assumed" names becase Hey, that's who they looked like, but they were crowd filler, whereas the Micromasters we've met in story with names but at full scale, Fixit etc., are the actual Micromasters characters. And since I don't have Windblade handy, were the MM colony bots at fll scale or icro scale?

Also of note: There are plenty of Titan's jst laying around. Remember Prime plled one of them out of the time travellling planet, maybe what we saw in WIndblade wa a Titan on Gorlam Prime sleeping with its eyes open?

AHM proves that Shane can write much better stuff than this. The plot sucks, the dialogue sucks and the art is outdated. I am so tired of seeing Transformers covered with dents and dings. No one takes pride in their appearance anymore!