The Energon Pub

Loved the art and colouring in both! EJ Su is awesome as always, I love Nick Roche's style but, honestly, for me the stand out was James Raiz! I LOVE how he's made them look so gritty and banged up with really dark shadowing and rivets and whatnot.

I found the story in Spotlight: Jazz a little... flowery (??). I don't know, it just had a certain cheese factor for me that I couldn't get over. But that was only in parts of it.

Max Dinos is going great guns! Though, for some reason, I thought it was meant to be 12 issues? Did I mishear? *shrug* Either way, I'm hanging for the next issue!

lowman_x wrote:Loved the art and colouring in both! EJ Su is awesome as always, I love Nick Roche's style but, honestly, for me the stand out was James Raiz! I LOVE how he's made them look so gritty and banged up with really dark shadowing and rivets and whatnot.

I found the story in Spotlight: Jazz a little... flowery (??). I don't know, it just had a certain cheese factor for me that I couldn't get over. But that was only in parts of it.

Max Dinos is going great guns! Though, for some reason, I thought it was meant to be 12 issues? Did I mishear? *shrug* Either way, I'm hanging for the next issue!

Spotlight Jazz- It was okay, as you said, a bit bright and flowery, but that's kind of what Jazz wanted so... it fit. Like how they nailed Tracks as Commander Wax and Shine or something like that. I like Tracks, but I have never really liked his overall character's vanity. Too much like Sunstreaker is supposed to be. Art was decent, but the Predacons were just wimps. AS Megatron's elite, they make Megatron look bad.

Max Dinos- I am not really enjoying this much anymore either. I want the dinos to be destructive, strong, and not as intelligent. It's nice to see them have some intelligence, but the brute force lost in the tradefoff I don't like. Also, didn't like how Sunstreaker/Hunter just assumed that they could waltz in and pretend to be a HM clone. Duh???

And Skorponok is pretty good at being sneaky for as big as he is, and his one shot kills... Sludge went down way too easily. He should bust Shockwave up pretty good. Hot Rod just makes me want to cry. Somebody CR him already...

I read 'em, but I don't enjoy them like I did. Maybe because they aren't using many of my favorite characters as main leads, or supporting mains, but I just kind of feel meh about the whole thing now that '-tion' is over.

As I analyze, I wonder if it is the inconsistancy in the art that bugs me the most, and makes these not enjoyable.

Anyway, I did kind of like seeing Snarl get some lines, and being thoughtful, even though I thought he was being a bit too deep and eloquent.

Overall, IDW does not have me hooked like they used too. I guess that's what you do if you are smart though, you start a habit with something a person HAS to have, then you can slowly decrease the quality of the product because they are hooked and now in the habit of using/doing that thing, and you know they will have a hard time leaving no matter what you do.

Tigertracks24, I agree with you on quite a few points about MD#4. I liked the nice clean art that Nick Roche had brought to the series. You could tell who was who. James art is the "dirty" style and in at least two panels I could not tell who was who or where one bot started and the other left off. It was the straightforward story that got me hooked back in infiltration with the nice clean art. I lost interest with the Dead Universe, but came back for Max Dino's.

Last issue there was 5 different kinds of speech bubbles and 3 different fonts used on one page! It made things very confusing. There is a huge difference when Mowry letters the issues.

I was disappointed that Grimlock called in Monsterbots, where was this battle that we were going to look forward to at the end of the last issue? I couldn't figure out what the Monsterbots actually did other than somehow get the Dinobots onto their ship. I had never encountered a Monsterbot before and there was no character development for any of these bots. (Same for Dead Universe characters).

So, a picture of the Monsterbots would be a group of retarded bots (both for their alt forms and the way they act) that hang out together and like to fight decepticons. Grimlock called on them and equivocates himself with them. Grimlock went down quite a few notches in my book there. The rest of the Dinobots are way too wishy-washy and are just big and dumb. Why wouldn't Grimlock send in a report to his higher authorities that he was stuck on Earth with the rest of his team? What was his background that he was some kind of renegade? Where did that come from. In one issue is said he was a renegade, where and why was that? Lots of stuff missing from these books.

Scorpanok decides to come out and deal with the Dinobots (where are the Monsterbots? Are they there and just drawn poorly?). So Skorps shoots one and the Dinobots just ignore him? What is up with that?

What issue did Soundwave get locked in Tape Recorder form? How did the kid get him?

Hot Rod - I am with you, tired of looking at him. I thought his flaming last issue was a cop out way to get him out of the situation. Just like the magic 8 ball in the spotlight. Let him go off-line already.

I wanted to know what happened to Starscream and Ore 13. I would have preferred to follow that story than the Dead Universe which seemed to end with things being just too easily solved. The big bad's didn't get a chance to be big and bad.

I am glad this series will be over in two weeks. I felt this issue was being pushed to fill gaps with that other follow on series.

I would love to see Grimlock, Skorpanok or one of the other Dinobots just killed off. Hot Rod could go too.

AHM totally turned me off to IDW works, so with the next issue, I am done with their comics for an indefinate period of time.

Energon wrote:T
What issue did Soundwave get locked in Tape Recorder form? How did the kid get him?

Spotlight Soundwave. At the end when he was ruining Bludgeon's Ore-13 plans on Earth, one of the Pretenders shot him with a alt mode lock cannon I believe, and his energy levels were too low, along with an explosion basically putting him off line, so with these factors he was not able to transform, and was bought by that kid in a collectibles/antiques store.

Good points about the Monsterbots. They are supposed to be social outcasts from their G1 bios I believe. Scary to the other bots for sure. The only one that seemed to do any talking was Repugnus, and I really like the other two much better.

We did differ in how we saw the Dinobots. You still see them as pretty much dumb and strong--I think--, and I see them more like intelligent and repressed, and less powerful than they are supposed to be.

I really want more bad-assery with my dinos, not more thinking...

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Energon wrote:T
What issue did Soundwave get locked in Tape Recorder form? How did the kid get him?

Spotlight Soundwave. At the end when he was ruining Bludgeon's Ore-13 plans on Earth, one of the Pretenders shot him with a alt mode lock cannon I believe, and his energy levels were too low, along with an explosion basically putting him off line, so with these factors he was not able to transform, and was bought by that kid in a collectibles/antiques store.

Good points about the Monsterbots. They are supposed to be social outcasts from their G1 bios I believe. Scary to the other bots for sure. The only one that seemed to do any talking was Repugnus, and I really like the other two much better.

We did differ in how we saw the Dinobots. You still see them as pretty much dumb and strong--I think--, and I see them more like intelligent and repressed, and less powerful than they are supposed to be.

I really want more bad-assery with my dinos, not more thinking...

I thought I had gone back and bought all the spotlights. Guess I missed that one.

I always thought the dinobots were dumb and just muscle except for Grimlock whom I thought was smarter. He is the one that went down some notches. The dino's did seem to take too much damage. I hope that next issue there is another battle where the dinos kick some butt.

Energon wrote:Tigertracks24, I agree with you on quite a few points about MD#4. I liked the nice clean art that Nick Roche had brought to the series. You could tell who was who. James art is the "dirty" style and in at least two panels I could not tell who was who or where one bot started and the other left off. It was the straightforward story that got me hooked back in infiltration with the nice clean art. I lost interest with the Dead Universe, but came back for Max Dino's.

Last issue there was 5 different kinds of speech bubbles and 3 different fonts used on one page! It made things very confusing. There is a huge difference when Mowry letters the issues.

I was disappointed that Grimlock called in Monsterbots, where was this battle that we were going to look forward to at the end of the last issue? I couldn't figure out what the Monsterbots actually did other than somehow get the Dinobots onto their ship. I had never encountered a Monsterbot before and there was no character development for any of these bots. (Same for Dead Universe characters).

So, a picture of the Monsterbots would be a group of retarded bots (both for their alt forms and the way they act) that hang out together and like to fight decepticons. Grimlock called on them and equivocates himself with them. Grimlock went down quite a few notches in my book there. The rest of the Dinobots are way too wishy-washy and are just big and dumb. Why wouldn't Grimlock send in a report to his higher authorities that he was stuck on Earth with the rest of his team? What was his background that he was some kind of renegade? Where did that come from. In one issue is said he was a renegade, where and why was that? Lots of stuff missing from these books.

Scorpanok decides to come out and deal with the Dinobots (where are the Monsterbots? Are they there and just drawn poorly?). So Skorps shoots one and the Dinobots just ignore him? What is up with that?

What issue did Soundwave get locked in Tape Recorder form? How did the kid get him?

Hot Rod - I am with you, tired of looking at him. I thought his flaming last issue was a cop out way to get him out of the situation. Just like the magic 8 ball in the spotlight. Let him go off-line already.

I wanted to know what happened to Starscream and Ore 13. I would have preferred to follow that story than the Dead Universe which seemed to end with things being just too easily solved. The big bad's didn't get a chance to be big and bad.

I am glad this series will be over in two weeks. I felt this issue was being pushed to fill gaps with that other follow on series.

I would love to see Grimlock, Skorpanok or one of the other Dinobots just killed off. Hot Rod could go too.

AHM totally turned me off to IDW works, so with the next issue, I am done with their comics for an indefinate period of time.

Overall, it seems to me that IDW are cutting corners all over the place with the TF stuff. Revelations and the Dead Universe was meant to be 2 issues longer than it was but they cut back on that. From what I understand it's because of the gradual fall in sales (and that's why they got in SHane McCarthy to do All Hail Megatron... which I don't think has paid off like they were hoping). I think that that scenario is probably caused a lot by the global financial problems and all that jazz.

As to the Dynobots being renegades it's (sorta) explained in Spotlight: Shockwave.

It is meant to be filling in a gap between the -ation series and AHM.

I think, as much as I really like Simon's writing, that he started to lose people when he moved into the quasi-spiritual Dead Universe story. When it was about the war, attrition, routs, battles, resources, etc then it seemed more... real.

I'm probably going to get the last issue of Max Dinos and give IDW the flick which will take my comic collecting down to zilch.

I really enjoyed MD since it is moving towards a great conclusion, unlike All Hail.. which just hasn't left me with any belief in its conclusion or set-up.

Re Energon
The idea that the Dino/Dynobots are Renegades stems from Spotlight Grimlock, Skorponok tried to use the fact that they were listed with Ultra Magnus as renegades as a tool to recruit Grimlock.
After they had gone AWOL its Magnus who cleans up as shown in his Spotlight, and Arcees, so what he does in issue 5 is quite intriguing to me...

The story was solid, and the last issue is exciting me, with the potential Magnus/Soundwave/Skorponok/Dinobots/Shockwave conflict to be wrapped up, or placed into the next arc.

Jazz; the Jason Bourne of Autobots

I really enjoyed these two issues.

Spotlight: Jazz was the typical war time story to keep morale up. It provided a forum to show how much of a badass Jazz is. He is really part Jason Bourne but he also part John McClane and part John Shaft.

I enjoyed the escalation of MD #4. I cant blame Hunter for what he did. I really dont know what he was supposed to do at that point.

I do have a couple of questions. Why are the Mosterbots still outcasts? The last time we saw Repugnus his spark was imprisoned on Garrus-9. He had to have been released in good standing unless the other Monsterbots were wanted he should have rejoined them.

Im calling it here first.....Spotlight: Repugnus....make it happen.

Also, why was Shockwave just hiding in a cave? Wasnt he given 24 hours to deal with Scorponok or else boom? He just happened to be chillin right where Ravage and Laserbeak took Soundwave?

I understand the rest of the Dinobots animosity toward Grimlock. Much of what they have done has been out him and he has seemingly took them for granted. I dont think Sludge is dead and gone. Starscream took Megatron's fusion cannon at point blank range (Infiltraton) and was able to survive because of the CR chamber.

One thing MD #4 really shows is that the Autobot and Decepticon symbols are the bonding symbols that they were in previous continuities. Ive less set trippin from LA street gangs. Why did Soundwave have to tell Soundwave to make Ravage and Laserbeak stand down? It seems as though the only thing really keeping the Decepticons together is the fear of Megatron and that seems to be waning.

I was so very glad to have actual artists back on board in IDW comics. Su's work in Jazz was top notch, Jazz was meant to be a distracting "pick me up" story, which it did just fine with.

For Megatron's elite unit, the Predacon's bar Razorclaw are rather stupid, running into a (rather obvious) trap, and generally getting their tails handed to them.
Of course this is all because of Razorclaw's honour code.

Max Dino's 4 was the best read of any of the comics the be released in the past 2 weeks, it contains characters not caricatures.

IDW Grimlock is a warrior who cannot let go of anything that has hurt his pride, and the Dinobots, while recognising Grimlock's errors, and know his hot headedness is going to get them killed, still follow. These aren't your dumb G1 Dinobots.

Scorponok has been a decent adversary, he is clever and sneaky, but I doubt he can topple both Magnus and Shockwave. What Shockwave wanted with Soundwave I am not sure (perhaps the removal of the bomb implanted in Shockwave?) but I am certain that the last issue of Max Dino's will be very intensive. Furman was left with a bit too much to squeeze into 5 issues.

So tell me, why would Sunstreaker want all humans killed when Hunter seems to save his life?

Jazz was a mediocre story, not too bad but not too good, it fits in the AHM-verse well. I agree on the fact that the predacons were a bit dumb in it. I also missed Kup and the dinobots from the story...


But Maximum Dinobots was a hellofa good story! I felt that Grimlock wanted to waste no time to let Skorponok collect his forces, and attack right away (the five dinos should have been enough to take Scorponok down). Calling in the monsterbots was a necessary step from him, to get a flycapable ship and some backup; but why the monsterbots didn't jump from the plane to fight, I got no idea.
There were many points in this issue that reminded me of the Marvel comics: when Hunter plugged out Sunstreakers head, it reminded me of the comic when Buster took the matrix from Optimus, and thought Hunter would do something similar, either give the Sunstreaker head its consciousness back, or take the rest of Streakers personality; the ending, how Shockwave is floating above Scorp, it is just like when they fough in New York back then... and simply, the drawing style.

Hmm, Shockwave's bomb must be activated by some kind of signal. If Shockwave can get Soundwave back to normal he could block the bomb's signal allowing him some more time to get himself out of his situation.