Beast Wars: The Ascending #2 - reviews, spoilers

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:32 pm

Also posted on IDW...

Okay, issue 2, here we go...

Well, one page in and there's a pretty big splash from a familiar face, who true to form is banging on about the one thing that can stop him (there's always something, isn't there?) and sending Hook, Line and Si- er, Drancon, Elephorca and Rartorata to sort it out. Or rather Rartorata (that's a name I had to say out loud a few times to get right) goes to sort it out while the other two go and nursemaid "the vessel".

Back in Earth's past, the party's in full swing, with the Maximals on the back foot - at least until Teacher's Favourite shows up to stomp, kick, chomp and chew his way through the Predacon lines, though it appears to be but a temporary respite. Meanwhile Razorbeast decides to deal with Ravage by, er, tying him up, which predictably lasts for about half a page before old tall, grim and gruesome is back on his feet. It was thoughtful of Razorbeast to point out where the chronal displacers were stashed before leaving Ravage right next to them, wasn't it? Since that was the whole point of the Predacon assault (as explained last issue) it seems like a mistake to leave their leader tied up right next to his mission objective, but still, that doesn't matter because as soon as Ravage tries to use them...FOOM!

Actually there isn't a "FOOM!" sound effect here, as the scene works much better without one, but the upshot is pretty much the same, and Fangs gets the shock of his life, twice in quick succession. I think Ravage is really well written here - I had a lot of fun reading his lines from this scene out loud in a cod-Russian accent until the other people on the bus started looking at me. And though I don't think I'm a great fan of his TM2 incarnation (silver head? sabre teeth? hunchback? I dunno, something just isn't quite working for me) his final "WTF?" panel is great. Possibly it would have been better if Magsy's second speech bubble had slipped down into the white space on the right (for that matter, he could have kept the toes on his left foot and Ravage the tip of his right ear) but I'm totally quibbling over small details here.

So back to Cybertron and the introduction of another three characters, one of which shares his name with a character from The Gathering, one of which shares his name with a character from the TV show, and all three of them share their names with G1ers. At least it's realistic that not everyone has a unique designation, but it does bring up the question of how (besides context) the other 'bots keep track of which is which. I'm intrigued by the notion of Cybertronian surnames, like how Big Convoy and Lio Convoy have the same one (as do Optimus and Rodimus Prime) yet hardly anyone else seems to have one, or if they do they don't use it. Perhaps "Prowl" is a common surname like "Smith" instead of a common name like "Dave". Also weird how Oppy gets called both "Optimus" and "Prime" separately, yet no-one ever calls Magnus "Ultra", not even his close friends. I suppose it's the same as how Apache refers to Lio Convoy as "Lio" this issue, though I doubt many people call Big Convoy "Big", and any return to that "B.I.G." bollocks of Micromasters would be most unwelcome. Anyway, babbling and pointless meanderings aside he's the 'bot himself who the Imperium, as they are now known, wish to see. Apparently Cybertron's on the verge of turmoil and only Big himself (see? doesn't work, does it?) can save them from destruction. Or something, because he's far too busy checking out what appears to be a Cybertronian junkie who was killed by a vicious mob, though for reasons that presently escape me...I still can't work out whether they wanted his Angolmois or if they were vigilantes trying to clean the scourge of Angolmois users from the streets of Cybertron. Either way, leaving the Angolmois stash lying around for Big to find seems like odd behaviour. I did like Big Convoy's enormous gun, though.

And it seems the dead junkie was not the only one with a taste for the robo-crack. The "Vessel" also seems to find it kind of moreish, leading to some strange dialogue as his protositters try to placate him.

Next we see the Pack all done up in their more familiar beast modes arriving on Earth where Grimmy continues to kick butt, and Ravage silently contemplates his choices. Razorbeast's thrilled to see them, of course, and the tide now turns decisively against the Preds as the Pack make their presence felt. Some clunky dialogue from Apache (or B'Boom, whatever) and Mach Kick, but feh. When Razorbeast starts cheering about going home however, Ravage has to reveal himself (to at least seven gun barrels) and explain the plot to them all. Just as he's getting to the good bit, Rartorata shows up and infects our noble hero with rage. At least I think it was Rartorata, I flicked back a few pages to check and found that the Earth-based fish-bee-ninja fuzor whose name escapes me (Injector?) has a red head and this one's is purple. Flicking back further I found that Rartorata had a red head on Cybertron. Duh.

So overall I was pretty impressed with this issue. A lot of characters make things somewhat confusing, and I'm a bit disappointed that besides Magmatron and Ravage, few of the Predacons we've seen have been much more than cannon fodder. A lot of them get torn up pretty bad in this issue too, leaving me wondering if we are going to see half of them again. Torca's strangely absent for much of the battle, too. A couple of the easter eggs were also strange - Stampy chewing a carrot, fine, but standing on a zebra-skin rug? What's that all about?

Generally, though, pretty good. I'm enjoying it, and the carnage seems to be building, so I suspect great things are on the way. My main complaint is that the Preds are shouldering all the casualties so far. How about seeing a few Maxies getting diced once in a while? Oh, and Ravage saying "big bad" sounded wrong. Come on, he doesn't watch Buffy...

Predabot · Post by **Predabot** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:42 pm

Huh, so we've got another issue out, eh? Well, I'll be sure to watch my supplier in the next week or so, if it comes in.

Also, is the colourist doing any better in this issue than the last? I'm really feeling that IDW has done itself a non-favor by not continuing to team the Don up with Josh, because so far, from what I've seen of his stuff, this new guy doesn't have a PATCH on Josh's skills.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:03 pm

It's Josh this issue, 'nuff said

Post by **Best First** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:51 pm

Bmm, given Josh's colouring of Big Moss in the guide i wouldn't say he is infallible...

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:09 pm

Best First wrote:Bmm, given Josh's colouring of Big Moss in the guide i wouldn't say he is infallible...

eh? i never colored him in the guide

seems i been gettin miscredited left and right lately :P

only things i colored in the sourcebook#1 was B'boom and Bighorn
[and most definately NOT the cover]

:\

but that leads me to ask, what didnt you like about Bigmos' colors in the guide?
looked to me like kieran nailed it pretty good

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:14 am

Josh wrote:
Best First wrote:Bmm, given Josh's colouring of Big Moss in the guide i wouldn't say he is infallible...
eh? i never colored him in the guide

Are you suggesting that Besty is not infallible?

Burn the heretic!

*digs out sourcebook again*

...though having looked again at Bigmos in the guide, I can't really see what's wrong... Bit shiny, maybe, and the glowing eyes thing is a tad overdone, but otherwise he looks fine.

Post by **Best First** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:08 am

apols if it was miscredited.

but not to my tastes - glossy, garish. Not the best colour scheme anyway but thought the way it was handled made it worse. Then again the art looks like it has been overly blown up as well which probably doesn't help.

Glowing eyes... a trend that has been overdone since DW anyway IMO. Fortunately less so in Infiltra-Escala-Devasta-tion (all of which have elicited coloring whining i don't get).

Anyway, I am not actuallyusually one to comment on colouring to a massive extent mainly i am just not keen on comments of "its this guy so it must be good".

Unless its Geoff S, obviously.

But all of the current crop of newer creators are still growing so criticism is no bad thing.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:28 pm

I didn't like the colouring in Infiltration, I felt it was too flat in the Ark scenes and the fight between Megs and Screamer, but since Escalation, it's not been a problem at all.

I still don't get why Bigmos and Archadis got double-page spreads in the sourcebook though.

Post by **Best First** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:34 pm

yeah, while, say, Big Convoy gets one.

i think its this kind of misjudgement they have acknowledged tho.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:43 am

Would have been nice to see some of Don's Cybertronian modes too, while we're on the subject, but I suppose we get to see them in the regular comic...

Post by **Best First** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:46 pm

yeah, but not in the same manner as in a profile book. Frankly a book of Don Cybertronian modes would be a dream come true for me - across both BW and G1.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:59 pm

Yep. From War Within through Stormbringer and Beast Wars, that would be the absolute shiznit.

I think one of the reasons Spotlight Sixshot was such a turnoff for me was that all the characters looked exactly like their regular G1 incarnations - that's the difference between a jobbing artist and someone like Don who knows and understands the Transformers, and has sackloads of talent to boot. His Cybertronian Magmatron was probably the art highlight of The Gathering for me, and it's tragic that we never saw his altmode.

Post by **Best First** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 1:17 pm

or three modes, presumably...

it bugs me slightly - i am operating on the assumption that there are design sketches for each of these guys out there somewhere, and its a shame not to have seen them.

Conversely Guido's design sketches were a nice addition to the Galvy spotlight.

Predabot · Post by **Predabot** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 4:18 pm

Metal Vendetta wrote:It's Josh this issue, 'nuff said

Actually, you're it's not. The credits says he did the colours on the cover ( like last issue), but the internals are done by Mark Bristow with assistants..?

Oh well, it's a bit better in places I must say.

Hnn.. a bit bothered by the new origin that Furman is apparently weaving for Shokaract, but I suppose the basics for creating him are quite similar, and the other Shokaract that will conquer all of cybertron and many, many more planets does exist in a far-flung possible future in an alternate universe.

With the way that TF: Universe and such have woven together how the TF Multiverse works, I see no reason why their can't be several Shokaracts.

Also: that there Grimmers still got the.. "touch", yes? Quite a grim touch..

Post by **Best First** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:45 am

Ok, just read this, and it really rattled along.

i think it suffers a bit from assumed knowledge - this angolmois stuff for example - i don't generally want to be googling things after i read a comic to get the background, but other than that i really enjoyed it.

Manchester Devil · Post by **Manchester Devil** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:28 pm

The first thing I'd noticed as I read the comic was the colouring was improved over the first issue.

Shame about Razorbeast.

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:44 pm

This whole Unicron's essence powering up TFs at the expense of making them go insane thing kinda explains why Galvatron turned into a babbling idiot in the cartoon, no?

Is it just me, or Grimlock seems to have picked up some, erm... cannibalistic habits since G1/G2?

Something that bugged me is that the Maximals keep saying they are overwhelmed and losing, while the art shows us the Preds falling like flies with minimum Max casualties (I only saw Airhammer buying it). Deaths are yet handled a bit like Waspinator's - after all, Grimlock seems to bite off the whole upper body of Iguanus, and yet he appears later alive though missing most of his skin.

Ikard's useage was a fun cameo, as in BW2, here too he plays the role of the messenger. Also, you gotta wonder how many of the Maximals/Predacons were created after the great war, as Ikard seems to be genuinely freaked out by the dead body.

Another funny scene was Lioconvoy trying to scare Iguanus and Drill Bit in lion mode, and getting a simple "Meh" as response. Since disguise is not a really important factor in this era, I guess alt. modes are chosen for the same reason Grimlock did it in Spotlight Shockwave, shielding and advanced combat skills/fear factor.

All in all, I really liked it, Ravage and Razorbeast were handled top-notch, Stampy has "I'm going to get killed off by the end of this series" written on his forehead, Lio/Big Convoy and the Imperium were interesting and such was the whole anglomois plot. I wonder though, is Unicron religious, as he seems to always choose three heralds (Galvy, Scourge, Cyclonus - Hook, Line, Sinker).

Btw, EMWEE - here's the difference between Rataorta and Injector, though for me the green glowing eyes and stinger made it easy to tell them apart.

http://www.tfu.info/1998/Predacon/Injector/injector.htm

http://www.tfu.info/1999/Blendtron/Rart ... orarta.htm

Basically, the Blentron one has grey legs/lower body while Injector has black ones... But Don seems to draw Injector more like the toy, and Ratorarta is more organic-looking, similar to how he makes Apache and B'Boom look different.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:16 pm

Is it just me, or Grimlock seems to have picked up some, erm... cannibalistic habits since G1/G2?

He's been hanging out with Ultimate Hulk and League's Hyde.

Decent issue. Utter mayhem, stuff blowing up, lots of animated-movie style cavalry calls and etc. Not the most highbrow TF comic ever, but a slugfest is always fun.[/quote]

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:30 pm

Thought it was ok. Enjoyed The Gathering much more though. Some people complained that there were too many characters in that but I didn't mind - in fact I was looking forward to seeing more of them in this new volume. Instead they've gone and doubled what was already a hefty cast! Feeling a bit lost.