Full Preview & Interview with IDW First Strike #1 Writers Mairghread Scott, David Rodriguez #HasbroFirstStrike

Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Prowl4 wrote:Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Sorry, Broseph. Must hurt, my proud-standing sugarloaf, to see her name remind you that you, my pal, are baffled to the point that you - o dudemeister - feel the need to comment everytime. Such a toll it must take, my dude.

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Sorry, Broseph. Must hurt, my proud-standing sugarloaf, to see her name remind you that you, my pal, are baffled to the point that you - o dudemeister - feel the need to comment everytime. Such a toll it must take, my dude.

Cool story needs more dragonstorms and gick.

Prowl4 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Sorry, Broseph. Must hurt, my proud-standing sugarloaf, to see her name remind you that you, my pal, are baffled to the point that you - o dudemeister - feel the need to comment everytime. Such a toll it must take, my dude.

Cool story needs more dragonstorms and gick.

My pal! Using some Irish on the boards, stud? Yay for linguistic diversity, dudeicus!
Thank you once again, tiger, for some excellent contributions to the discussion.

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Sorry, Broseph. Must hurt, my proud-standing sugarloaf, to see her name remind you that you, my pal, are baffled to the point that you - o dudemeister - feel the need to comment everytime. Such a toll it must take, my dude.

Cool story needs more dragonstorms and gick.

My pal! Using some Irish on the boards, stud? Yay for linguistic diversity, dudeicus!
Thank you once again, tiger, for some excellent contributions to the discussion.

Thanks for being a fan of my cac. I know a fan when I see one and you're a fan

Not a true fan - we have a thread for that.

Ain't comics swell! GI Joe on Cybertron, huh? What next? Transforming robots?!

Prowl4 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Sorry, Broseph. Must hurt, my proud-standing sugarloaf, to see her name remind you that you, my pal, are baffled to the point that you - o dudemeister - feel the need to comment everytime. Such a toll it must take, my dude.

Cool story needs more dragonstorms and gick.

My pal! Using some Irish on the boards, stud? Yay for linguistic diversity, dudeicus!
Thank you once again, tiger, for some excellent contributions to the discussion.

Thanks for being a fan of my cac. I know a fan when I see one and you're a fan

I feel like someone got drunk someone during this exchange...

Also, I absolutely love Skywarp's tag. Priceless. Absolutely priceless.

Va'al wrote:Not a true fan - we have a thread for that.

Ain't comics swell! GI Joe on Cybertron, huh? What next? Transforming robots?!

You're definitely a true fan. If this was ppv you'd be subscribed kid.

Nexus Knight wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Prowl4 wrote:Baffling how mairghread scott continues to get work. Awful writer.

Sorry, Broseph. Must hurt, my proud-standing sugarloaf, to see her name remind you that you, my pal, are baffled to the point that you - o dudemeister - feel the need to comment everytime. Such a toll it must take, my dude.

Cool story needs more dragonstorms and gick.

My pal! Using some Irish on the boards, stud? Yay for linguistic diversity, dudeicus!
Thank you once again, tiger, for some excellent contributions to the discussion.

Thanks for being a fan of my cac. I know a fan when I see one and you're a fan

I feel like someone got drunk someone during this exchange...

Also, I absolutely love Skywarp's tag. Priceless. Absolutely priceless.

I love my fans.

Va'al wrote:Ain't comics swell! GI Joe on Cybertron, huh? What next? Transforming robots?!

You're right, Va'al! Comics are swell. I cannot wait to read First Strike. It looks really good.

In case anyone needs a refresher on the Hasbro Universe events/needs to catch up on a title you didn't read, Action and Adventure just released a special First Strike Primer podcast. Perfect for anyone curious about any titles they haven't read. http://hasbrouniverse.libsyn.com/bonus- ... -to-strike

Synopsis
The crossover of the year is here! Earth is finally ready to officially join the Cybertronian Council of Worlds and appoint their first representative to the Council. Too bad the ceremony is interrupted by a massive explosion and the forces of COBRA! Now it’s up to Scarlett, Optimus Prime, G.I. Joe and the Autobots to save two worlds!




Story

It begins. For a long while now IDW Publishing and the comics media mill have been promoting the first full crossover (since Revolution, anyway) for the various Hasbro properties licensed to the comics world: this is where we start, with issue #1, by Mairghread Scott and David A. Rodriguez - which also contains an additional story - The Origins of Evil, Part One: Redcliffe Club, written by John Barber. I'll talk more about this below, in summary.



The first thing to note is that, due to IDW scheduling issues, this beginning of a brave new world in the Hasbro Universe is actually spoiling at least one of the series that lead up to it (Revolutionaries, in case you were curious), and probably needs a little more context from both Optimus Prime and GI Joe to actually reach the starting point we're at.



That is obviously no fault of the writers, and what they do offer in terms of plot is actually a satisfying approach to a crossover: easing in the various factions, with GI Joe and Transformers taking the first brunt, rather than crashing all of the properties at once. The villains of the piece are set up, and the coda story does some more to attempt round-off the major players on this side too, if briefly so.



The better part of the story though, and the only one that can be fairly judged this far, is most definitely how the various characters are built up and interact with each other - Skywarp and Scarlett's Joes are clearly the stand-outs here - something that a recent interview had probably clarified, at least for me. We'll have to see how the wider game is played, now that the initial set-up has begun.


Art

Max Dunbar is at the helm here for the issue - and I can't help but wonder why the art doesn't feel up to his usual standards. There's nothing horribly wrong, but something in the designs for the Transformers in particular, especially on profile shots, and every other odd panel just don't line up with his usually stellar work on Micronauts. Perhaps a tighter deadline for the big event?

Similar issues can be held up to Netho Diaz (pencils) and Walden Wong (inks), though I wonder whether having lines and inks applied to the main story, and leave the back-up to a single artist may in fact be a solution to the problem. Again, it's not bad, it's just not overly consistent, and I can it putting readers off.



In terms of colours, Ander Zarate - Dunbar's partner in crime on Micronauts - is doing well to bring some of the sheen of Till All Are One for Cybertron, but perhaps uses a little too much lighting on the faces of the characters, and Scarlett suffers the most in close-ups and wider shots alike.

Similarly for David Garcia Cruz on the Barber-coda, some of the colours used on the heavier lines makes jawlines and facial features a little too flat at times (Baron Ironblood in particular), something that seems to happen with these books with a regular frequency.



Veteran on robotic lettering Tom B. Long takes on this issue too, and the captions that some find irritating in other books are actually the best solution (and placement) in an event like this trying to attract new readers - and there's a pretty spiffy Kachoom to marvel at, too, before a BUDDABUDDABUDDA.

Covers? There are many. The one spotlighted in the thumbnail is the variant from Sara Pitre Durocher, showing the robot side of the event from a crowd perspective - as most of the other artists chose the character spotlights instead. You can view them all in our Comics Database, as usual, and choose your favourite.

Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

Much like the case of Revolution, the visuals do not shine kindly on the artists involved, as all of the people working on here are usually a pleasure to see on the page. The pressure of the event, the scheduling issues, editorial shortstaffing - I am most definitely giving the benefit of the doubt to all involved for the first issue, but I can see this heading in a similar direction to the previous project, in terms of art, meaning that creators will feel much better when the five issues are over.



As for the story, however, there are no real complaints from me so far. The issue is most definitely a GI Joe story set-up, that just happens to use the setting of Cybertron - and that is not a bad thing! Easing into a crossover is a much better plan than expected, and I am glad this approach was taken. I am definitely interested to see how the other franchises will be brought in, at this stage, and that's the best outcome that could've happened, really.

Better than I thought it'd be, which is a pleasant surprise.

Does it seem super obvious to anyone else that Baron Ironblood isn't Colton, but Chameleon posing as him? It's the only way I can explain Spike being all "hurr-durr gotta help these Cybertronians" without discounting that as a failure in writing.

ScottyP wrote:Does it seem super obvious to anyone else that Baron Ironblood isn't Colton, but Chameleon posing as him? It's the only way I can explain Spike being all "hurr-durr gotta help these Cybertronians" without discounting that as a failure in writing.

But Chameleon is a Joe.

ScottyP wrote:Does it seem super obvious to anyone else that Baron Ironblood isn't Colton, but Chameleon posing as him? It's the only way I can explain Spike being all "hurr-durr gotta help these Cybertronians" without discounting that as a failure in writing.

Someone didn't read issue zero that revealed Joe Colton is alive and is working with a cobra to be all xenophobic.

And yeah, Cameleon is a GI Joe and present in the comic.

I like the issue. I'm just reading revoltionaries and the TF books but I followed it fine.

^ You're both missing my point by a mile. Randomhero missed it by, well, like, didn't even get in the same orbit All good though, typing on my phone in between meetings so some brevity is in order.

I'll spell it out more carefully this time.

Spike doesn't like Transformers. Not a bit. This is long established. Due to this, it struck me as odd that he's going with the flow so easily, while on Cybertron no less. It seems like one of those things where, for Ironblood's "First Strike" to work, he'd need some help from the team assigned to this Cybertronian mission. Spike is a complete prick who'd totally help with that sort of thing, but he's also the kind of prick that'd want some dramatic subterfuge. Thus, he conspires with another team member. Who do we not see from that team? Hi-Tech, Mainframe, and Chameleon. One of these is a shape shifter. So is Zartan, if you like that better, and it gives a connection to the MASK book.

Anyhow, I think Chameleon is the most telling absence because of Flint's presence. She's been close to him at almost all times since their introduction in Optimus Prime. Odd that she's not there at a critical moment for Flint's Joe squad.

Then there's Scarlett strongly suggesting something's up with "Joe Colton", thinking he may be under someone's control. He dead. This is some crafty shapeshifter work, probably outside the realm of wraith magic this time. Maybe.

Finally, Mercy Gale and Storm Shadow got cooperative pretty quickly, and some of Gale's dialogue suggests she sees through this facade being put up.

Of course, I could be wrong and this is just some dumb stuff and FS 0 wasn't a magician's misdirection like I think it is. If this doesn't go any deeper than what's on the surface, I'm disappointed in the lack of creativity.

ScottyP wrote:^ You're both missing my point by a mile. Randomhero missed it by, well, like, didn't even get in the same orbit All good though, typing on my phone in between meetings so some brevity is in order.

I'll spell it out more carefully this time.

Spike doesn't like Transformers. Not a bit. This is long established. Due to this, it struck me as odd that he's going with the flow so easily, while on Cybertron no less. It seems like one of those things where, for Ironblood's "First Strike" to work, he'd need some help from the team assigned to this Cybertronian mission. Spike is a complete prick who'd totally help with that sort of thing, but he's also the kind of prick that'd want some dramatic subterfuge. Thus, he conspires with another team member. Who do we not see from that team? Hi-Tech, Mainframe, and Chameleon. One of these is a shape shifter. So is Zartan, if you like that better, and it gives a connection to the MASK book.

Anyhow, I think Chameleon is the most telling absence because of Flint's presence. She's been close to him at almost all times since their introduction in Optimus Prime. Odd that she's not there at a critical moment for Flint's Joe squad.

Then there's Scarlett strongly suggesting something's up with "Joe Colton", thinking he may be under someone's control. He dead. This is some crafty shapeshifter work, probably outside the realm of wraith magic this time. Maybe.

Finally, Mercy Gale and Storm Shadow got cooperative pretty quickly, and some of Gale's dialogue suggests she sees through this facade being put up.

Of course, I could be wrong and this is just some dumb stuff and FS 0 wasn't a magician's misdirection like I think it is. If this doesn't go any deeper than what's on the surface, I'm disappointed in the lack of creativity.

Sorry, Scotty, but I think you're reaching for something that isn't there. Colton is Baron Ironblood. Now I'm not necessarily a fan of that idea, but there's really nothing to suggest he's being mind controlled. He thinks the Transformers are going to destroy humanity and so he's taking premature action to ensure that doesn't happen. Also, if Chameleon working for Cobra kinda invalidates her arc from back in Cobra. I think Scarlett suggesting something is wrong with Colton is her wishing that her father figure won't do this horrible thing. Also, the flashback with Dr. X takes place after the Action Man mini, where Storm Shadow was already working for Dr. X.

As for my thoughts on this issue, I liked it. Of course, it would have been better if I could've read Revolutionaries #8 first. But I liked that it felt more toned down than Revolution. This honestly feels more like a Transformers/Joe crossover than something that brings the entire universe together. We'll see if that remains true throughout the event or not.

I also loved the backup story. It makes me wonder how long Colton has actually been Ironblood. Assuming that First Strike #0 takes place sometime before Revolution and Colton wasn't active as Ironblood before that, that makes Ironblood a very recent villain and also puts the events of the Action Man mini IMMEDIATELY before Revolution.

Daniel Adkins wrote:Sorry, Scotty, but I think you're reaching for something that isn't there. Colton is Baron Ironblood.

You're proobably right about that

Daniel Adkins wrote:Now I'm not necessarily a fan of that idea

This is why. I share a similar feeling, I'm also not a fan of it. It feels cheap? Is that the word I'm looking for? Something about it rings hollow and I'm grasping at straws wanting it to be more.