The Energon Pub

I not planning to actually read any of these until comixology puts them on sale, so can someone give me one tiny plot detail based on the issue 2 preview? Does optimus prime or any of the transformers let ROM explain himself, or do they just fight with nothing being resolved? That's all I want to know.

ricemazter wrote:I not planning to actually read any of these until comixology puts them on sale, so can someone give me one tiny plot detail based on the issue 2 preview? Does optimus prime or any of the transformers let ROM explain himself, or do they just fight with nothing being resolved? That's all I want to know.

ROM and the Transformers that chased him only showed up in the first part of the story. They didn't do anything with it after like page 6 or 7, and that was just ROM getting knocked down and asked what he was doing

D-Maximus_Prime wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I not planning to actually read any of these until comixology puts them on sale, so can someone give me one tiny plot detail based on the issue 2 preview? Does optimus prime or any of the transformers let ROM explain himself, or do they just fight with nothing being resolved? That's all I want to know.

ROM and the Transformers that chased him only showed up in the first part of the story. They didn't do anything with it after like page 6 or 7, and that was just ROM getting knocked down and asked what he was doing

Repeatedly. Back and forth.

Dr Va'al wrote:

D-Maximus_Prime wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I not planning to actually read any of these until comixology puts them on sale, so can someone give me one tiny plot detail based on the issue 2 preview? Does optimus prime or any of the transformers let ROM explain himself, or do they just fight with nothing being resolved? That's all I want to know.

ROM and the Transformers that chased him only showed up in the first part of the story. They didn't do anything with it after like page 6 or 7, and that was just ROM getting knocked down and asked what he was doing

Repeatedly. Back and forth.

It was kinda embarrassing. Plus, Jazz really did like that arm

So, to expand on my earlier M.A.S.K. comment, the biggest thing that IDW has dropped the ball on, is making them just another branch of government/military. M.A.S.K. needs to be separate from that.

Part of the fun and enjoyment of the original cartoon, was watching these heroes up and leave their mundane day jobs, and race off to save the day. While some might say this is a silly and ridiculous thing to do, we are talking about a series that has an '80s Camaro that turns into a freaking fighter jet as one of its main drawing points. Realism was never necessary.

See, if M.A.S.K. is just a government branch, then they are no longer good guys fighting the good fight, they are just soldiers going where the government points them. We can hope that is toward the good fight, but sadly, we know that often it is not. M.A.S.K. needs to be run by a fabulously wealthy Trakker. White or black doesn't really matter, it just needs to be a secretive private entity. Doing what IDW is makes them no different than G.I. Joe. The book is still super young, and maybe they will head in the right direction down the road. We can only hope.

As a huge fan, I really want this franchise to make a comeback, and I'm going to cross my fingers and stick with it for the long haul, but my hopes are not high right now.

To say a positive, they are doing Miles Mayhem right. I'm actually very impressed with that part of this. It looks like Vanesa Warfield is heading in the right direction as well.

I guess time will tell.

Ironhidensh wrote:So, to expand on my earlier M.A.S.K. comment, the biggest thing that IDW has dropped the ball on, is making them just another branch of government/military. M.A.S.K. needs to be separate from that.

Part of the fun and enjoyment of the original cartoon, was watching these heroes up and leave their mundane day jobs, and race off to save the day. While some might say this is a silly and ridiculous thing to do, we are talking about a series that has an '80s Camaro that turns into a freaking fighter jet as one of its main drawing points. Realism was never necessary.

See, if M.A.S.K. is just a government branch, then they are no longer good guys fighting the good fight, they are just soldiers going where the government points them. We can hope that is toward the good fight, but sadly, we know that often it is not. M.A.S.K. needs to be run by a fabulously wealthy Trakker. White or black doesn't really matter, it just needs to be a secretive private entity. Doing what IDW is makes them no different than G.I. Joe. The book is still super young, and maybe they will head in the right direction down the road. We can only hope.

As a huge fan, I really want this franchise to make a comeback, and I'm going to cross my fingers and stick with it for the long haul, but my hopes are not high right now.

To say a positive, they are doing Miles Mayhem right. I'm actually very impressed with that part of this. It looks like Vanesa Warfield is heading in the right direction as well.

I guess time will tell.

As someone who's never had any experience with M.A.S.K.; to put it more simply, are you basically saying that IDW turned them from a superhero-esque unit to a government-controlled unit?

Kurona wrote:As someone who's never had any experience with M.A.S.K.; to put it more simply, are you basically saying that IDW turned them from a superhero-esque unit to a government-controlled unit?

It was kinda like Batman formed GI Joe and they could wear helmets that gave them superhero like powers. They were mechanics that sold gasoline fighting kooky villains that sold oil. Or something. But yeah, it has charm and character which so far hasn't been seen in the very little content for this newest iteration. Honestly, it feels like a very weird version of Suicide Squad so far.

The author is the same dude that did TF Deviations though so my hopes of it getting good don't really exist.

ScottyP wrote:

Kurona wrote:As someone who's never had any experience with M.A.S.K.; to put it more simply, are you basically saying that IDW turned them from a superhero-esque unit to a government-controlled unit?

It was kinda like Batman formed GI Joe and they could wear helmets that gave them superhero like powers. They were mechanics that sold gasoline fighting kooky villains that sold oil. Or something. But yeah, it has charm and character which so far hasn't been seen in the very little content for this newest iteration. Honestly, it feels like a very weird version of Suicide Squad so far.

The author is the same dude that did TF Deviations though so my hopes of it getting good don't really exist.

Oh, god, why did they keep him?

Revolution is atrocious.

I've reread the issues over and over again, and I just... argh. I hate to say this because IDW's Generation 1 continuity has so far been my favourite modern fiction. It hits all the right notes for me, it does something new and interesting and most the characters are compelling or relatable in some way (this mostly stands true for MTMTE, but ex-RiD has it's fair share of it as well).
Revolution is a confusing, whirling mess with a billion things happening at once yet nothing happening at all. All the conflict and misunderstanding is a forced contrivance because all the characters are dumbed down to make it happen; ROM should be explaining his side to the Autobots rather than randomly lashing out, the Autobots shouldn't be attacking him and labelling him a murderer right away without trying to understand him, G.I. Joe... christ, G.I. Joe are proving themselves to be the biggest lot of edgelords on the planet. I get where they're supposed to be coming from, but if IDW's intention is to get me into these characters and their comic, it's really not working because I expect some characters who are smarter and more forward-thinking than your average bayformer soldier. Everyone's so over-the-top angry and this is not something that would get me to read ANY of these comics. If this was my first experience with any of these franchises - and outside of Transformers, honestly, it really is - this is a huge turnoff. I'm really hoping the Thundercracker and Scavengers segments will be good, and Micronauts does give me some hope of a crossover done right; but otherwise I actually think this is worse than Combiner Wars so far. ... the comic, not the machinima; it's not that bad. But it's sure leaning on deplorable.

Oh yeah, and Scarlet's unfortunately reminding me of Arcee a LOT. A character that seems to be pushed purely for the reason of main-female-representative-of-the-franchise but they clearly don't know what to do with her so they just make her really angry and '''badass'''. I was pretty lenient on them doing this with Arcee since, well, most of her character's mess is a holdover from Furman's stuff - I sure as hell would have been stumped on what to do with her. But what's Scarlet's excuse? Was she this angry in the previous IDW GI Joe comics? Is this just her character in most GI Joe stuff? It's annoying. IDW have shown us they can have good female characters in Windblade and Nautica and Aileron and Chromia, so... it just aggrevates me even more when they default back to this "it's a strong female character because they're tough and angry!" nonsense. Maybe there's a lot more complexity to her, but first impressions count for a lot and these are not good first impressions.

uuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhh i hate being this angry in the morning. sorry. I just really can't get into this at all.

Actually? Nah. Know what? Let's get onto some POSITIVES here. It's a good day to hear some positives.

First off. Micronauts. My word, if there was ever a bright spot in a dark and gloomy day. Micronauts was a fantastic comic and absolutely an example of how to do the crossover right. To sum it up briefly:-
-It included entertaining action which made sense considering the context and backstory and showed us what these characters could do in a fight
-It introduced us to their characters naturally in a way that made them feel likeable and made me want to learn more about them
-The way they came to be in this crossover event and the big tie-in at the end spoiler spoiler felt like a natural progression of events for the group to go through
-Leading off of the next point somewhat; rather than being shoehorned into this new shared universe, it takes advantage of established elements and uses them to improve upon the story and overall mythos rather than being limited by said shared universe
-The villain is entertaining and cheesy yet you can already feel some sympathy for his goals
-It told me enough about the universe and characters yet held back enough to make me want to read the rest of the comics in this series
Like, my god. It's almost as if when you make a good story with likeable characters and a natural progression of events, you get people interested and get people to like this new comic. No joke, if Revolution was just a crossover of Micronauts and Transformers I would be all over it 10/10. Without giving any spoilers they tied it in to the established universe very cleverly while still giving us something new and fresh; I'm absolutely in love with it so far. And the one they're crossing over with is Windblade? This likeable crew of characters is meeting up with an equally likeable female character who's a diplomat, a peacemaker and who's entire character is based around talking and making peace with other long-lost civilisations? THAT sounds great! THAT sounds like something I wanna read! I am really hoping it's a team-up with some entertaining interactions rather than whatever forced battle the Autobots vs GI Joe turned out to be. The Micronauts part of the crossover is turning out to be incredible so far

And the other positive point... eeeh, it's less a positive point and more one of understanding. While I'm really hating Revolution so far - Micronauts aside; seriously, read Micronauts right now - it... doesn't feel like it's bad because no effort went into it. Like it was an executive decision that didn't understand what people wanted. Rather it feels like some sort of labour of love; some well-intentioned fans of these series who wanted to do something awesome and bring them all together in some ultimate universe of great team-ups and diversity and all around fun. But then they had no clue how to do it and hastily ended up writing something really generic and disappointing.
This is what it feels like to me. Like someone had a really great idea and was really excited to do it but fell short at executing it. I can't say I feel rage at the guys behind this; just... a lot of pity, honestly.

Maybe that sounds extremely sappy but I dunno. That's the feeling I get.
... but hey, at least Micronauts is great!

That nailed it. I can't agree more with the analysis of the good and bad parts of this crossover to date. The reach exceeds its grasp just a little too much.

What they are trying to cram into aproxamitly two months should have been spread out over a year or more.

This week's news from IDW Publishing, after their relatively busy week and weekend post-NYCC comes in the form of a full preview for the crossover main series Revolution, on its third issue out of five! Find out more about the Microverse, the Thirteen Primes, Ore-13, and MASK below, and head back here later this week for a review.

Revolution #3 (of 5)—SPOTLIGHT
Cullen Bunn & John Barber (w) • Fico Ossio (a) • Tradd Moore (c)
THEY CAME FROM MICROSPACE! What terror reaches through the tendrils of entropy into our universe—and why does ROM want to kill it? Meanwhile, M.A.S.K.’s MATT TRAKKER makes a startling discovery about the TRANSFORMERS—but will G.I. JOE’s SCARLETT believe him?
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Bullet points:
Variant cover by Ken Christiansen, part of a 13-part connected cover!

I'll admit I haven't read any of the issues yet, but from the previews and the general conversation it seems to me like this is a partial retread of the transformers arc right before all hail Optimus.

Transformers show up on Earth for some reason. Humans don't like it. Human military outfit (EDC there, G.I. Joe here) want to stop the transformers from doing whatever while a morally ambiguous human ostensibly allied with the military (Blackrock there, Mayhem here) wants to kidnap and take apart transformers for reasons. Said reasons involve making better weapons out of the transformers (combiner zombies and other devices there, not sure yet here). Certain humans in the military start realizing that transformers are people too, and that all the imprisonment and vivisection probably isn't the best plan (Marissa Faireborne there, M.A.S.K and maybe Scarlet here).

This time around, though, the Micronauts and ROM are running all over the place. Heck, Skywarp and Thundercracker decided to switch places, with one of them seeking asylum/help from the humans. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't read any of it, but that really seems to be where Revolution is going with all of this.

ricemazter wrote:I'll admit I haven't read any of the issues yet, but from the previews and the general conversation it seems to me like this is a partial retread of the transformers arc right before all hail Optimus.

Transformers show up on Earth for some reason. Humans don't like it. Human military outfit (EDC there, G.I. Joe here) want to stop the transformers from doing whatever while a morally ambiguous human ostensibly allied with the military (Blackrock there, Mayhem here) wants to kidnap and take apart transformers for reasons. Said reasons involve making better weapons out of the transformers (combiner zombies and other devices there, not sure yet here). Certain humans in the military start realizing that transformers are people too, and that all the imprisonment and vivisection probably isn't the best plan (Marissa Faireborne there, M.A.S.K and maybe Scarlet here).

This time around, though, the Micronauts and ROM are running all over the place. Heck, Skywarp and Thundercracker decided to switch places, with one of them seeking asylum/help from the humans. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't read any of it, but that really seems to be where Revolution is going with all of this.

It's... somewhat accurate, but Micronauts haven't been shown to take part yet and ROM essentially escalated animosity between human and transformer.
Also it's a lot less interesting, to be quite frank. Say what you will about ex-RiD from the end of CW to the start of TR (and I really wouldn't blame you for saying some very bad things about it), but it at least did have some interesting and complex things about it; some mysteries in the background and some build-up going on. Revolution is... almost insultingly basic. The humans don't like the aliens and are being manipulated into such a thing by a bad guy. The aliens get framed accidentally by another alien. Now all three of those do not like each other and want to kill each other because of a misunderstanding but will clearly all team up to defeat the real bad guy.
There's just no substance here. No depth. The period between CW and TR at least had something interesting going on even if it didn't interest you, but this is just... dull.

Yeah, I'm not feeling it at all. What I will say is that I like ROM so far from his own book. In Revolution, not so much. Not at all sure what to make of MASK though, and that's the one I had high hopes for. They ain't a band of do-gooders with awesome tech. They're a black ops military unit under Mayhem's command with awesome tech derived from Cybertronian mechabiology. (Which is the only good thing thus far. An explanation as to how they created the tech is a solid, sensible take on the matter.)

Micronauts is also pretty solid and ties in the whole Cybertronian thing into their background and mythos into an interesting and sensible way.

To me, Micronauts is the best of the franchises that has been re-hashed and brought into Revolution. They make much sense than the others and they have a good backstory tying them in.

Big Grim wrote:Yeah, I'm not feeling it at all. What I will say is that I like ROM so far from his own book. In Revolution, not so much. Not at all sure what to make of MASK though, and that's the one I had high hopes for. They ain't a band of do-gooders with awesome tech. They're a black ops military unit under Mayhem's command with awesome tech derived from Cybertronian mechabiology. (Which is the only good thing thus far. An explanation as to how they created the tech is a solid, sensible take on the matter.)

"Cybertronian mechabiology".

So I guess this means that the MASK base mechanic can't do repairs on the vehicles because the parts aren't parts anymore... they're organs

1984forever wrote:

Big Grim wrote:Yeah, I'm not feeling it at all. What I will say is that I like ROM so far from his own book. In Revolution, not so much. Not at all sure what to make of MASK though, and that's the one I had high hopes for. They ain't a band of do-gooders with awesome tech. They're a black ops military unit under Mayhem's command with awesome tech derived from Cybertronian mechabiology. (Which is the only good thing thus far. An explanation as to how they created the tech is a solid, sensible take on the matter.)

"Cybertronian mechabiology".

So I guess this means that the MASK base mechanic can't do repairs on the vehicles because the parts aren't parts anymore... they're organs

No, but they are based on Blitzwing's ability to switch between 2 modes. The comics already showed that in this universe you can build your own Transformer without necessarily require "biology" instead of "technology" with the Thrust/Ramjet clones being indicators of that.

Courtesy, as is customary by now, of iTunes, we have a three page preview of the upcoming Transformers one-shot that directly ties in with the IDW Revolution crossover event! You can check out the pages belowm and head back in a couple weeks for more.

THUNDERCRACKER AND BUSTER SAVE THE WORLD! A DECEPTICON who wants to be a screenwriter. A dog who wants to, I don’t know, eat stuff and chase squirrels or whatever dogs want to do. A White House under siege by DIRE WRAITHS. And the phone call that brings them all together.

Reasons why Thundercracker is my favorite seeker part.... some large number

Y'know, it's a real lesson in context when Marissa Faireborn is now the most sensible and logical person in the room.

Also, HOORAY for the return of our favorite part-time screenwriter!

Finally, back to the good characters! Been meaning to see how Thundercracker's been dealing with the whole being an autobot thing. And Soundwave allying with them. And Revolution in general.

And it's nice to see Faireborn too! I was getting a bit sick of GI Joe in Revolution. Faireborn's at least fun. Not my favourite, but I like her.


AND they're fighting against dire wraiths? Suppose Revolution can be redeemed yet. Partly. In some parts.

Synopsis
THEY CAME FROM MICROSPACE! What terror reaches through the tendrils of entropy into our universe—and why does ROM want to kill it? Meanwhile, M.A.S.K.’s MATT TRAKKER makes a startling discovery about the TRANSFORMERS—but will G.I. JOE’s SCARLETT believe him?



Story

Is this review a week late? Yes, yes it is, my apologies. I'm sure that whoever was wanting to read the third issue in the core story of Revolution has done so already - if you're a fan of any of the other franchises involved, make sure to check Tigertrack's guide to who this book might appeal to here - but nonetheless, we have a series to follow, a rep to maintain, and finally a spare afternoon to catch up!



And, admittedly, there's not that much more that can be said as we hectically stumble across the midpoint in the story, really. There was some brief discussion at Seibertron HQ, and the points raised are essentially the same as for the previous two issues: a lot of new material, a lot of old material reused, not enough space, time, or any other dimension to allow it to fit properly.



If, on one side, the Micronauts are finally close to finding out the much larger world out there - i.e. here - the fact that they are now part of that wider universe also waters down the charm that the title had kept while operating more or less on its own. They have yet to properly interact with the rest of the IDWverse, but I'm dreading what might happen at this point.



The biggest sore note in Barber and Bunn's script, I'm sorry to say, is still GI Joe - and in particular, Scarlett. They have been proven incompetent, non-existing, pointless, replaceable, and the result? They're all angry, or sassy, or mouthy, or angry caricatures of the already tropey ensemble that they risk to be given the nature of their original characterisation.

Art

Much like the previous two issues, Fico Ossio's art has some wildly swinging reactions, in terms of consistency, in terms of clarity, in terms of getting the newly developed designs (which I still like!) to shine on the page instead of just making them flashier and bolder. Again, it's a shame, because the style can really work if taken at a slower pace and more neutral layouts.



Similarly on the colours: Sebastian Cheng does some excellent work with lighting, and shades of different colours according to light sources, environments, characters and adding some sheen and chrome where it really can work - but I can't help but feel that sometimes it's just a little too vibrant, tripping into flashy for flash's sake.



I also still have nothing else to add to the stellar work - that follows suit from the previous two comments - that Tom B. Long does on the lettering, not only following the visual narrative, but helping out with character and voice establishing too. And as for the covers, there are at least 8 variants (the thumbnailed one by Brandon Easton), and they're all worth a look, for sure! Make sure to check them out where you can.


Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

As I said above, I have very little to add to previous comments that staff have made about the book, in the previous two reviews. If anything, we now have virtually all players on board for the ride, so it can only move forwards from here - with the final two issues, somehow. A lot of story, a lot of characters, a lot of patience to keep up with something that is not as engaging as it really wants to and deserves to be.



I am actually going to say, though, that one of our comics readers on staff made an extremely good comment on the boards, and I'll use it to close off this review. Kurona, take it away:

it feels like some sort of labour of love; some well-intentioned fans of these series who wanted to do something awesome and bring them all together in some ultimate universe of great team-ups and diversity and all around fun. But then they had no clue how to do it and hastily ended up writing something really generic and disappointing.

This is what it feels like to me. Like someone had a really great idea and was really excited to do it but fell short at executing it. I can't say I feel rage at the guys behind this; just... a lot of pity, honestly.

Gotta say, I feel the same way as Kurona. I just hope that when this unholy mess is done with, the TFs can go back to normal with Optimus Prime, Lost Light and TAAO continuing on their original courses and quietly ignore the "Revolution".