The Energon Pub

News Credits: 6 · Fri Nov 26, 2021 11:32 am

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I thought "The Pack" was a BW2 thing too... Dammit, Furman :lol:

News Credits: 462 · Sat Nov 27, 2021 12:26 am

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:#-o

...

I thought "The Pack" was a BW2 thing too... Dammit, Furman

Well, considering it was made up of characters from both Second and Neo, who were never all together in either show (as in, Second characters and Neo characters never interacted with each other, outside of Lio Convoy briefly guest-starring in three episodes of Neo, and some end credits cameos of Second characters in the final Neo episode)...

News Credits: 462 · Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:07 am

Holy SNAP!!!! :shock:

News Credits: 6 · Fri Dec 24, 2021 12:04 pm

Polar Claw!!!!

News Credits: 1 · Fri Dec 24, 2021 3:00 pm

Sweet. He's always been one of my favorite non-show characters.

News Credits: 6 · Fri Dec 24, 2021 3:11 pm

Well at least now we can tick his name off the list of vetoed characters.

News Credits: 1646 · Mon Dec 27, 2021 4:41 pm

Kinda surprised that the issue from last week offed 2 of the characters, I wasn't expecting that this early into the run, especially the one predacon casualty

News Credits: 462 · Mon Dec 27, 2021 7:25 pm

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Kinda surprised that the issue from last week offed 2 of the characters, I wasn't expecting that this early into the run, especially the one predacon casualty

Razorbeast darn well better not be dead!

News Credits: 6 · Tue Dec 28, 2021 5:18 pm

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Kinda surprised that the issue from last week offed 2 of the characters, I wasn't expecting that this early into the run, especially the one predacon casualty

This is what they should have done from the beginning. They've not been able to replicate the feel or characterisation of the show. So blazing their own path should have happened a lot sooner. That said.. Sigh

Yet again, Terrorsaur has all of his potential squandered. For the SECOND time :lol:

If only the fatalities had been Skold and Nyx, this series could have started to pick up a bit. On the one hand, unexpected bots have died. Which gives stakes that didn't really exist til now. On the other, the wrong ones did. That said, Terrorsaur was even more one-note in this than in the show. So it wasn't as much a loss.
But, since her introduction, I now have even lower an opinion of Skold than I do of Quickstrike at this point. Easily the worst Predacon to date.

Sabrblade wrote:Razorclaw(?) darn well better not be dead!

I thought for a moment, I missed another new character reveal

News Credits: 1646 · Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:58 pm

If anything, Skold's interactions with Razorbeast and Terrorsaur have actually made me like her more, and has helped define her a lot more. I think she was a proper addition and I'm glad she essentially made room for herself.

And Sabrblade, I think that guy is toast

News Credits: 462 · Tue Dec 28, 2021 7:09 pm

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Razorclaw(?) darn well better not be dead!

I thought for a moment, I missed another new character reveal

Been typing the name "Razorclaw" too much lately (working on an extreme overhaul to the Beast Era timeline on the Wiki) that it's become a habit to finish "Razor" with "claw". :oops:

News Credits: 10 · Wed Dec 29, 2021 6:51 pm

This issue had some ball bearings to it, and took me completely by surprise. Terrorsaur was always just Wish.com Starscream, just enough characterization for you to know him but not a completely boring blank slate like Scorponok, so he was the logical choice to off and show that anything can happen in this series. I can't wait to see how this arc concludes!

Oh, and I for one freaking love Skold now.

News Credits: 6 · Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:00 pm

Agreed. I think when they introduced Inferno, they realised the mistake that had been made with Scorponok. Ignoring the "colony" mentality, the rest of his characterisation should have been Scorponok. Instead he was just ..nothing noteworthy at all.

Terrorsaur was a discount SS, but he could have been more. Much as they greatly expanded Megatron in season two. If given a shot, I think Terrorsaur might have benefitted from the same.

As it stands here, neither Terrorsaur nor Skold are characters. They are tropes.

Regardless of the fact Snapper never made it into the show. I still read the dialogue in this book as if it were in the show. For the non-show characters that lacked distinct VO. I ask myself does it sound like it would have organically fit in the show? No, is my answer. Because of how generic it is. The only time the writers of the show modelled dialogue on archetypes was purposely, for Silverbolt.
Funnily enough, to emphasise my point, that's why Dinobot sounds just like Silverbolt in this book. Not for a meta reason, but in an unironic way.

News Credits: 462 · Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:45 pm

Wasn't expecting Optimus to be a fan of Muhammad Ali.

News Credits: 6 · Tue Feb 15, 2022 10:34 am

So issue #12 arrived today, hence the above. Part of the problem is that BW isn't the only comic on my pull list. It often arrives with Hulk and X-Men. Making the lesser quality of this glaringly apparent.

I may have mentioned this before, but I am going to stop reading the letter's page now. I used to enjoy reading such things in older comics. They present a genuine insight into the fandom of the day. I don't get that here. I initially thought it cherry picking. Now the vibe I'm getting is in-house shills. There are things said. Comparisons drawn between the show and comic that are not only objectively false. But subjectively too. I don't feel any authenticity or honesty from these "letters" at all. An impression I always felt with old comics and indeed, from the posts of this forum.

News Credits: 1350 · Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:45 am

To be fair, they aren't going to post anything that says bad things...I mean, why would/should they, especially messages thst are probably going to out-of-their-way antagonistic. I can certainly believe these letters are genuine looking at fan responses on Twitter.

If they didn't get any nice messages at all, it'd just be easier to not do a letters page full stop.

News Credits: 6 · Tue Feb 15, 2022 3:37 pm

I've also been reading the new[est] Fantastic Four run by Dan Slott. For the most part it has been average at best. Their letters page is surprisingly mixed. Marvel aren't afraid of printing negative reaction. In fact the response was quite dismissive. There is honesty in balance.

This letters page, in contrast, makes me glad the Transformers license is leaving IDW.

News Credits: 462 · Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:59 am

And, we're back to the Winston Chan art for this month's issue.

While the entire premise for this issue was very predictable, it caught me off guard a few times with some surprises I honestly did not see coming. By the third panel of the second page, I felt I had this comic figured out, what the big twist was gonna be. But, nope. Instead I got a few actual curveballs thrown at me.

Plus, CatSCAN! I was totally not expecting him to appear in this series! An obscure BotCon character from the early 2000s? That got me all giddy seeing him show up!

And while this one did end on a "To be continued...", it felt more like a done-in-one that serves as a prologue for things to come instead of an incomplete part of a multi-parter, so I enjoyed it much more for that. Probably the most enjoyable issue since Razorbeast's debut.

Next month... POLAR CLAW!!!

News Credits: 1646 · Mon Mar 07, 2022 7:47 pm

Glad we finally got some more of Cheetor. Kinda fun to have him as a hot shot athlete

News Credits: 6 · Wed Mar 09, 2022 4:37 pm

The art, as mentioned, was a plus this issue.

The cons:
1)Cheetor's voice. Definitely couldn't hear Ian Corlett through these lines. The constant "captain" made me think of TNG Data, not the youngest member of the Axalon.
2) This interpretation of the Vok. We've gone from a beyond good and evil ambiguity, established in the show. To outright evil schemers? Also the Cybertron stuff was so lame and generic. It could have been lifted panels from MTMTE/LL. Through the dreams etc, Cheetor was always hinted at being something more than he appeared. Not just a Blurr stand-in.

News Credits: 6 · Sun Apr 24, 2022 4:55 am

Ok, ignoring the now, moustache twirling Vok. Alongside the reversion back to the atrocious art that even manages to make Waspinator's altmode ambiguous. The two new character reveals, intrigued me. The implication behind them will bug me next issue with it's origin, I'm sure. But I liked how Polar Claw and Sableback appeared and were utilised here.

News Credits: 10 · Sun Apr 24, 2022 4:58 am

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Ok, ignoring the now, moustache twirling Vok. Alongside the reversion back to the atrocious art that even manages to make Waspinator's altmode ambiguous. The two new character reveals, intrigued me. The implication behind them will bug me next issue with it's origin, I'm sure. But I liked how Polar Claw and Sableback appeared and were utilised here.

Waspinator looks like Invader Zim in this panel.

News Credits: 6 · Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:02 am

JazZeke wrote:Waspinator looks like Invader Zim in this panel.

Yep, that's it!

News Credits: 462 · Sun Apr 24, 2022 11:20 am

I just read the annual. Three standalone stories written by guest authors and drawn by guest artists.

While the first is definitely set between issues #9 and #10 (since Terrorsaur is still alive while Blackarachnia is with the Preds), I can only guess that the second take places between #12 and #13 since it's implied by the start of #13 that some time and more battles have passed in between those two. As for the third, the writer confirmed on Twitter that it is set immediately after #14.

We get another new character in the first story (but who hasn't shown up in the main issues), and the annual contains a four-page preview of issue #16... despite #15 having not been released yet.

And, with this preview, the annual declares that it is Part 1 of the comic's two-part finale, confirming that #17 will be the final issue (most likely due to IDW's losing the Transformers license by the end of this year). 'Twas a short-lived run, but at least Burnham and Burcham get to end it on their terms (something not a lot of people in their position get to do in cases like this).

On a different note, I think I may have a guess as to who it was that Hasbro vetoed in Razorbeast's role, but I'll wait until the last three issues come out before saying who, just in case this person ever shows up before the end and potentially proves me wrong.

News Credits: 1646 · Sun Apr 24, 2022 1:55 pm

Sabrblade wrote:I just read the annual. Three standalone stories written by guest authors and drawn by guest artists.

While the first is definitely set between issues #9 and #10 (since Terrorsaur is still alive while Blackarachnia is with the Preds), I can only guess that the second take places between #12 and #13 since it's implied by the start of #13 that some time and more battles have passed in between those two. As for the third, the writer confirmed on Twitter that it is set immediately after #14.

We get another new character in the first story (but who hasn't shown up in the main issues), and the annual contains a four-page preview of issue #16... despite #15 having not been released yet.

And, with this preview, the annual declares that it is Part 1 of the comic's two-part finale, confirming that #17 will be the final issue (most likely due to IDW's losing the Transformers license by the end of this year). 'Twas a short-lived run, but at least Burnham and Burcham get to end it on their terms (something not a lot of people in their position get to do in cases like this).

On a different note, I think I may have a guess as to who it was that Hasbro vetoed in Razorbeast's role, but I'll wait until the last three issues come out before saying who, just in case this person ever shows up before the end and potentially proves me wrong.

I think the funniest thing about the annual is that Skold now has a higher kill count than almost all the beast warriors across both factions, and one could argue a higher maximal and higher predacon kill count than most as well