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ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Why can they not have physical presence and holomatters at once?

Dr Va'al wrote:

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Why can they not have physical presence and holomatters at once?

You might be on to something especially considering the belt buckles and similar color schemes.

What's funny is that at one point their was a gijoe subline called Dino hunters.

I need someone from across the pond to explain the Alex and Dennis reference. Snooker? What's a snooker? Pls to help this damn Yankee understand the joke

ScottyP wrote:I need someone from across the pond to explain the Alex and Dennis reference. Snooker? What's a snooker? Pls to help this damn Yankee understand the joke

Snooker is pool. Billiards. This thing,



Though even I don't know what Alex and Dennis is. Sounds familiar, mind...

Kurona wrote:

ScottyP wrote:I need someone from across the pond to explain the Alex and Dennis reference. Snooker? What's a snooker? Pls to help this damn Yankee understand the joke

Snooker is pool. Billiards. This thing,

Though even I don't know what Alex and Dennis is. Sounds familiar, mind...

So from the Alex Higgins Wikipedia, there's this little gem:

Higgins drank alcohol and smoked during tournaments, as did many of his contemporaries. A volatile personality got him into frequent fights and arguments, both on and off the snooker table. One of the most serious of these clashes was when he head-butted a tournament official at the UK championship in 1986. This led to his being fined £12,000 and banned from five tournaments.[32] He was convicted of assault and criminal damage, and fined £250 by a court.[33] Another came at the 1990 World Championship; after losing his first-round match to Steve James, he punched tournament official Colin Randle in the abdomen, before the start of a press conference at which he announced his retirement. This, added to his having threatened to have fellow player and compatriot Dennis Taylor shot, led to a ban for the whole of the following season.

But now the puns are popping out too.

"Pool our resources"

"I really don't know what tricks Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor can bring to the table"

Hee hee

The final issue of IDW Publishing's crossover event, creating a shared Hasbro universe, hits retailers (online and physical) this week, and we have a full preview to share on our front page! Check out the beginning of the end of a new beginning for Transformers, MASK, ROM, GI Joe, Micronauts and Earth/Microspace/The Universe below, and head back for a review later this week.

Revolution #5 (of 5)
Cullen Bunn & John Barber (w) • Fico Ossio (a) • Tradd Moore (c)
LAST STAND IN AUTOBOT CITY! It’s all come to this—TRANSFORMERS vs. ROM vs. MICRONAUTS vs. G.I. JOE vs. M.A.S.K. vs. the ultimate evil! The futures of Earth, Cybertron, and the Microverse will all be changed forever by the decisions made this day.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Bullet points:
A universe of characters is born through REVOLUTION!
Not a reboot! Not a relaunch!
The TRANSFORMERS forever changed!
The return of G.I. JOE!
The MICRONAUTS in our universe!
Written by the writers of MICRONAUTS and TRANSFORMERS!
Illustrated by burgeoning superstar Fico Ossio!
Variant covers by Ken Christiansen, Guido Guidi, and Art Baltazar!

Transform everyone inside you for a pow-wow. Well, at least he's thinking creatively

I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

I've only been reading the main book, plus a couple of the tie-ins.

Reading this preview, I realize I have no freaking clue who half the people fighting are.

Nik Hero wrote:I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

Nope.

I need to update this but I'm waiting for MTMTE Rev to come out (next week I guess?) See the bottom of this post:
the-transformers-idwverse-a-chronology-t105238s25.php#p1828104

Worth noting, that's just my take on it. Many of the one-shots stand alone as being able to occur just about anytime before 5 and after 1. Mostly.

ScottyP wrote:

Nik Hero wrote:I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

Nope.

I need to update this but I'm waiting for MTMTE Rev to come out (next week I guess?) See the bottom of this post:
the-transformers-idwverse-a-chronology-t105238s25.php#p1828104

Worth noting, that's just my take on it. Many of the one-shots stand alone as being able to occur just about anytime before 5 and after 1. Mostly.

It's kinda funny that the last issue titled More Than Meets The Eye comes out only a week before Lost Light coming out.

Thank you so much for this! Please let me know when you update your list.

ScottyP wrote:

Nik Hero wrote:I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

Nope.

I need to update this but I'm waiting for MTMTE Rev to come out (next week I guess?) See the bottom of this post:
the-transformers-idwverse-a-chronology-t105238s25.php#p1828104

Worth noting, that's just my take on it. Many of the one-shots stand alone as being able to occur just about anytime before 5 and after 1. Mostly.

IDW are a fantastic company. They produced, and have produced (Locke & Key!!) some brilliant titles.

The one area they fail at is crossovers. I've yet to read a IDW crossover and enjoy it.

This did not change. From the announcement of the project my thought was "what's the point?". And that question remains, aside from introducing new titles (which is generally all crossovers are for), I cannot see a point to this series.

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

Dr Va'al wrote:

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Why can they not have physical presence and holomatters at once?

You might be on to something especially considering the belt buckles and similar color schemes.

You know, I'm hoping MP3 turns out to be a holomatter avatar as well.

I'm basing this off the nearly military acronym name (MP3 instead of MP5, seemingly anachronistic knowledge of technology (offering to get cables to transfer the video off the kid's phone) and that he comes with his own mission ready hardware: the action van.

I'm wondering if MP3 will turn out to be the blind date...

The final tie-in book for the IDW Publishing multi-franchise crossover, definitely not decided by Hasbro, hits the shelves - digital and physical - next week, and we have the full preview to share with you all. Check it out below, and prepare yourselves for the comic, its review coming after the release, and the inevitable discussion in the Energon Pub!

Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye: Revolution #1
James Roberts & Nick Roche (w) • Alex Milne (a & c)
A DATE WTH DESTINY! After years of doing very little, Krok, Crankcase, Fulcrum, Spinister, and Misfire think they can wriggle out of anything—but not even they can avoid a heavily-promoted multi-franchise crossover. It’s the Scavengers Versus Your Childhood in a story that exposes all other art for the sham it is.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Bullet points:
What will the universe’s worst DECEPTICONS make of the world’s greatest crossover?
One last dance with the your favorite DECEPTICONS before LOST LIGHT begins next month!
The entire creative team that launched MTMTE returns!
Variant cover by Ken Christansen, part of a 13-part connected cover! Connects with all 13 Revolution issues and one-shots!

Synopsis
LAST STAND IN AUTOBOT CITY! It’s all come to this—TRANSFORMERS vs. ROM vs. MICRONAUTS vs. G.I. JOE vs. M.A.S.K. vs. the ultimate evil! The futures of Earth, Cybertron, and the Microverse will all be changed forever by the decisions made this day.



Story

Here we are, the final issue of the core storyline for IDW's Revolution. The end of this stretch of the road. The final chance to prove that this could lead somewhere, and do so well. By the timing of this review, you can probably guess how much it lived up to that, really. But let's proceed with order, and constructively, shall we?



First, a recap. Karza has allied himself with the Dire Wraiths to save his universe, then merged with them, and realised that he's about to destroy two universes for the price of one. Everyone else decides to stop him. Humans (G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K.) are still not happy that aliens are doing things on their territory. Miles Mayhem keeps being evil but maybe not but maybe yes.



The good things, writing wise: there are some good interactions, especially when it comes to established group dynamics like between the Transformers or between the Joes, and the Micronauts still have a better edge. Windblade digging at Optimus is always a treat. There is some sort of organic fitting in of the different factions at play, and yes as a crossover it does create a common starting point for stories from here.



On the other hand, personally, ROM has brought nothing to this whole event (sure, it started because of him, but the character is nothing much at all compared to others), both MASK and GI Joe are used very oddly given their potential, and fans of the latter in particular may feel a little under-catered for. Where not having a fixed villain could've been good ground for interesting stories, it fell short of using the various 'antagonists'. But more below on the follow-up.

Art

From the visual side of things, I have defended Fico Ossio's work previously, as there are some good ways of depicting humans, and giving that more organic feel to some robotic designs - more appropriate for MASK and ROM than Transformers, I felt, and better executed overall - but in this issue in particular, a lot of flash covered the undermining problems of the 'too much together' elements of the series.



And if that was true for the layouts and linework, the colours did not help make things clearer either. Mind you, I am not saying that Sebastian Cheng did not do a good job, but rather that the colours do not clarify what the art is trying to do, opting instead for a DC or Marvel-style visually punchy style with shaky substance beneath the technicolor smoke.



Similarly, and unfortunately, the lettering could only do so much: with this still being an event trying to draw in new readers, Tom B. Long was asked to fit in name tags and Budiansky pretty much the entire issue, making the most of the space available - not an enviable task, and not one that leads to a result that makes things any clearer either.

The covers, I have to say, are excellent: Tradd Moore and Felipe Sobreiro with the cartoon classic, Ken Christiansen with a part of his composite patchwork, Adam Riches and James Biggie with their signature toy and promo art respectively, Brandon Peterson's take on superenergised Karza, Art Baltazar suggesting the Aw Yeah! issue coming in the new year, Guido Guidi's excellent G2/I Joe mashup (thumbnailed) - and the oddly chosen John Byrne art, with Len O'Grady on colours.

Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

Really, all in all? It was a bit of a mess. The suggested schedule was not helpful, nor accurate, to follow the event in a linear fashion - and the tie-ins were decidedly much better, to varying degrees, than the core story itself - and the events happening within the issues were either too stretched out to begin with, or too condensed towards the end as was the case for this last book, visually and script-wise. It was confusing, or negligible, and just ..sort of happened. And looked inconsistent while happening.



As we've said in previous reviews, it's really a shame: all the series going into this were written by people who actually believed in the books and their characters, from Ryall to Easton to Barber to Bunn, but somewhere along the line, the idea of making a comic book EVENT proves one of IDW's missing achievements, especially one acting as a shared universe catalyst as Revolution was meant to be.

That said, it does not detract from the stories that come out of this, with Revolutionaries sounding like Revolution done right (now that it's out of the way), Till All Are One and Micronauts working on a wider scale, MASK, ROM, and GI Joe continuing the Earth-based sides of the plot, and Optimus Prime sort of shoving people around to sneak in between everyone.

I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

ricemazter wrote:I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

Yes.

Randomhero wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

Yes.

But, for me, entirely undermined by how this is done.

The Dire Wraiths are the major antagonist of the event, along with Mayhem and Karza at different points, but they've been used badly by the writers, both here and in the ROM comics themselves. It just doesn't feel developed as a storyline - whereas both Mayhem and Karza have more of a motive, better of a motive, and better rounding all over.

Dr Va'al wrote:

Randomhero wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

Yes.

But, for me, entirely undermined by how this is done.

The Dire Wraiths are the major antagonist of the event, along with Mayhem and Karza at different points, but they've been used badly by the writers, both here and in the ROM comics themselves. It just doesn't feel developed as a storyline - whereas both Mayhem and Karza have more of a motive, better of a motive, and better rounding all over.

At the risk of asking spoiler questions how is the topic broached? I'm honestly not interested in revolution enough to read it right now.

Why was this ever a thing?


Crossovers should never under any circumstance be canon or at the very least should of been built up on but I don't think any of this other junk from other things I never cared about were ever in IDW before this.

Deadput wrote:Why was this ever a thing?


Crossovers should never under any circumstance be canon or at the very least should of been built up on but I don't think any of this other junk from other things I never cared about were ever in IDW before this.

There have been crossovers done before in all kinds of fiction that weren't built up and yet still turned out to be pretty good. For example, Power Rangers did their crossovers that way for years and most (but certainly not all) of theirs turned out pretty well.

I gave up a couple issues in. I'm not fond of IDW's Transformers comics to begin with but the crossover got me interested so I checked it out. And well.. nope. Don't like.

I'm finding DC's He-Man/ThunderCats to be a far more enjoyable 80s crossover so far.