Amph The Transformers. More than meets the eye!

Really? I found the last few issues with the Autobots and Americans fighting the Combaticons and North Koreans and Predacons and Chinese to be very good.

 

Really, I found them ponderous and boring at the best of times. And the last page of #12...yeah. Nothing good to say about that.

Indeed. My love of this mini mostly stems from that very fact.

Really? I've found each and every one of those ideas ridiculous (especially Spike taking out Scrapper; not only does this mean there's no chance we'll ever see Devastator again, but it was all done to hammer home a point that was obvious since the start: Spike doesn't like machines. Yeah. We got it the trillion times you mentioned it in the first six issues.)

As for the end of Animated...yeah, it was decent, but it was also rushed. You can tell by the fact that so many questions (Sari's origin, the fate of the Decepticon teams) were never addressed.

 

Yeah and I'd still say Scrapper will be back eventually so we'll see Devastator again. In comics death is only a year long holiday for characters. Just look at Ironhide.

 

I'd rather not, really. It's amazing that, out of all the slop Costa's done over the past year, that still stands out as the worst thing he's done. (Character assassinating Hot Rod comes a close second.)

 

With the shakey-cam and general lack of focus effects in the movies, I would think anyone using those models would be likely more effective. Considering the amount of time and effort put into the Maya models and the detail of them, I'd expect to any director (even Bay) to actually make the robots as visually accessable and fantastic as possible. Sadly, I can barely make out any detail in any of the fight scenes. No, it's not because I have vision problems--it's because of the way those movies look. So yes, even a cartoon is likely to seem better than the movies.
Of course, I haven't seen the cartoon, so grain of salt here.
On the other hand, the clone-wars cartoon is also much more effective than the prequel movies.

 

The vfx are pretty much the only thing that still draw me to the movies. I think for the most part the story and scripts have been crap. I do like to watch Michael Bay blow stuff up though, I think that is the best aspect of his directing style. I really have no desire to see a third one.

 

Ok introductory episode, wonder what the next three episodes will be like next week. Although, ouch, poor Cliffjumper. Not only is he killed, then he's brought back to as a zombie. Doesn't look like the "turn grey=dead" rule is in effect in this continuity. But then, did Optimus turn grey in RotF? I don't remember, but meh, haven't watched that movie much. I haven't read any spoilers, but was surprised to see Cliffjumper die especially after they had written a prequel comic that focused on how he got to earth. Although that's kind of a hint itself too (that they bothered to write a story about him before the series' start as he was going to die pretty quickly).

Cullen and Welker both do good jobs (of course), although yeah, I miss the old G1 cartoon's Megatron voice... but with all the obvious resemblance to the movie, I can see why he's going more for live-action movie Megatron than the cartoon (no matter how awesome that would sound).

Not bad action, still getting used to the style, just hope they don't stick too close to the movies. While the movies are probably one of the more well known Transformers, just hope they don't follow the movies' poor quality. Take for instance the title of the third movie (assuming it doesn't change, but not sure why they'd ever use a title like that in the first place).

And yeah, I haven't liked the direction they've taken Hot Rod's character. Then again, I haven't really liked the direction they've taken most of the characters recently. Up until Revelation, Hot Rod was at least competent (like his first question for example), and now we're reduced to... well, continuity between even just AHM and the current series is kind of odd, much less with the earlier IDW works. Exactly how important was the Matrix again?

I almost miss the Spotlight comics, but then, those Spotlights often hinted at a larger plot, and not sure where things are going (there's Ironhide on Cybertron, the Decepticons, and who knows where the earth storyline will lead). Although by now I think I'd appreciate more standalone issues too. Its not like they can run out of any characters anytime soon.

 

It wasn't, at least not till Shane decided to make it important by revealing that Megs had it in AHM, which was probably supposed to be all dramatic and stuff, but like most of his story, ended up falling flat on its face.

 

In IDW, it was originally a worker revolt gone too far.

In AHM, it was retconned into being about the Matrix. See why I don't like what's happened lately?

 

Prime was good. I liked the more successful use of the movieverse inspirations, while making the bots more distinctive than gun metal gray blobs, and the Animated and G1 influences mixed in. Starscream, Megatron, Bulkhead, Ratchet, even the Japanese foreign exchange student, are pretty much straight out of Animated. I'm interested to see where this one is going.

I hope that Cliffjumper is somehow restored, because frankly... to hire the Rock to do his voice and then give him like 4 lines and kill him seems a waste of money.

Also... UNICRON!

 

Actually, it makes too much sense to me. After all, Dwayne Johnson is a rather famous actor (don't laugh; he is when compared to the vast majority of Prime's voice cast), and having him on the show on a full time basis really wouldn't make sense.

 

The Transformers War for Cybertron novel Exodus actually already sorta used that idea for Dark Energon- that it was Unicron related, although there it wasn't used to make zombies (or create random mutations). It was more like a dark, addictive enhancement drug, which gave the Decepticons the edge to really start pushing the Autobots, at least for battles where there was a sufficient supply- when it ran out, the Decepticons who used it really weakened. Of course, we see some of that too already (probably) with what Megatron does at the end of part 2. The novel's plot was slightly mixed up at a few points, but I still liked it simply for the huge amounts of references it made to most Transformers continuities.

With the Unicron reference, I'm curious to see how much other Transformers lore they'll go into. The novel and the game are sorta loosely related to this cartoon (hence all of them using Dark Energon), and the novel had one of the original Thirteen. Animated had a surprising amount of cameos and references to other continuities, especially in the third season (and I hear there were even more in the Almanacs, which I've gotta find one day).

The "ground-bridge" tech (aside from the silly sounding name) actually reminds me a bit of how they got around in Robots in Disguise. I also kind of like that they do have an official government liaison already- not like Cybertron where only the spunky kids know with an MiB watching for a dozen episodes.

I liked Cliffjumper, but they could go either way. He's sorta big, so they might only have him for the pilot, but it might not be impossible to keep him for longer. But after everything Cliffjumper went through (dying, zombie, then being sliced in multiple pieces), not sure he could come back... especially without a magical Allspark Key, although I half-expect an Optimus zombie eventually- he has to die at one point or another, of course. Another reason is that Cliffjumper is probably mostly a... redeco (?) of the Bumblebee model, so no need to keep him around for too long. I don't mind, but they might want to avoid that. Too bad as he had a lot of personality, more than silent Bumblebee (not that again). Although unlike the movies I can actually tell what's happening. During the movies I can barely tell which one is Optimus because he's red, just about everybody else is black/grey/silver at best, so when they're fighting its all a blur.

And yeah, I know what the Matrix was supposed to be after AHM, though it was hinted at during Revelation with Nova Prime. That it was just suddenly introduced as the starting point of the war, Starscream claims leadership with it (but has no idea otherwise), then after Hotrod finds the 'cons and gets the Matrix back, Megatron suddenly shows up, repaired (which made about as much sense as Optimus finally being repaired during AHM, despite their supposedly low supplies), blasts him and then tosses Hotrod and Matrix all into space. Boy, that sure was important, huh? It might eventually lead to Rodimus Prime, but given how much of a jerk he's been lately (and the mocking use of that term already), I'm not expecting much help even if that did happen.

 

Even if that were true, it most certainly wouldn't be on a long term basis.

Yeah, it is. So much so that the people who did Beast Wars II and Neo beat the WFC/Exodus/Prime people to it by over a decade.

If you ask me, the whole scenario with Hot Rod seems less like a means of introducing Rodimus Prime and more like an obvious set up to the Vector rip-off known as Infestation, more proof (as if any were truly needed) that IDW has no clue what to do with the franchise and is flinging stuff to the wall, seeing what sticks, and making stories out of that.

 

Just to clarify Kup was the one who claimed that the war was started because of the Matrix. The same Kup who a few issues before was completely freaking nuts. Do we really need to accept everything he says as 100% true? I mean couldn't the other Autobots simply be nodding and going "Sure Kup whatever you say." that's at least how I retconned that issue.

 

But why does it need a retcon when we sorta had an explanation for the war in the first place? Megatron Origin was a pretty crappy series from what I hear and from what I vaguely remember from glancing through the TPB, but still, it was a set-up. Then the Matrix is introduced, and we see Megatron gloating over it in AHM. Then Starscream ends up in charge because of it. And after all of that, Megatron just tosses it out into space? Well, Transformers continuity has often been quite convoluted, but even by TF standards the comics are running circles around each other to try and fit, and usually failing.

And not sure what set-up you're referring to, but then I haven't kept up with comic news (short of another Wreckers series, I doubt I'd care that much).

By the way, the Wreckers TPB has a little extra short story that adds even more depth to the mini-series, so again, its recommended.

And if you're going to blame someone, blame Prowl, since he's possibly feeding Kup his lines .

While the -tion series wasn't the best written, the Stages infiltration protocol was different from the norm, but then most of it was abandoned during the AHM soft reboot. And then even after AHM the series doesn't seem to know where its going. They're setting up stuff on earth, but things are moving slowly. Sure, there's always the next Autobot vs. Decepticon fight, but that can't last forever.

 

Well if Prowl is feeding Kup lines maybe he's going all 1984 on the Autobots, "We've always been at war because of the Matrix."

 

The thing about Megatron: Origin is that it was developed while Dreamwave had the license, and was meant to be the counterpart to War Within, which was, essentially, Optimus' story. When Dreamwave went under, it obviously didn't get printed.

 

Well, the third new Transformers episode aired today. The story's not bad, at least as long as you completely ignore WfC and Exodus. And yay, they explained why earth has energon deposits lying around! So nice to have an explanation rather than just conveniently have glowing crystals lying around that no one's ever noticed. Although I know the idea was used during IDW's earlier run, but still, nice to see an explanation.