Transformers #17 Review (SPOILERS)

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:13 am

Hahahaa! Soundwave! Hahahaha!

Ahem, okay.

Gotta give props to Milne. He has never impressed me before, but these last two issues he has blown me away with his Figueroa-esque style. Where did he get this from?

So anyway, things get maybe a little more interesting plot wise, but trying to squeeze out an interesting story after 25 years that has humans as it's basis when it comes to Transformers is like, to quote John Candy, trying to play Pick-Up-Sticks with your butt cheeks. Ain't going to happen. (Unless you're the Beefster. Whose butt cheek-playing Pick-Up-Stick skills are the stuff of legend. You don't grab his ass, his ass grabs you!)

Anyway, if Costa were trapped in a cage with a bunch of hungry lions and the only way out would be to write a decent human-focused Transformers story where 1) humans must be the focus and 2) the Transformers can't leave Earth, I guess he does a pretty good job with what he's got.

But unless there's something about the way IDW treats their employees, this isn't the case. We are being willingly served up a full human-based platter here, and Costa is trying valiantly to make it palatable.

I just don't buy the spiel that humans are necessary to ground a TF story. If human-based stories were ever good, that time has come and gone with so many different renditions and takes on their involvement in the TF universe. After a cartoon that featured humans galore, the Marvel run which featured Buster Witwicky and family, Circuit Breaker (who at least had super powers and didn't just throw Malatov cocktails into the faces of Decepticons), the Mechanic, that loon Robot Master, the Space Knights, after DW which gave us that dude that was selling bots on the black market and ended up a statue, after Furman gave us Verity and pals along with the Machination and Skywatch, isn't it time to retire the humans and give us what we really want? For G.B. Blackrock's sake, let the human's rest in peace!

And what's the surest way to make sure a TF survives? Shoot em in the face! They're guaranteed to come back.

Hahahaha! Soundwave! Hahahaha!

Sorry. Loved that part.

And Jazz. Come on. It was nice to see a human fry for once, but make the shooter a bot we would believe would do such a thing, for crying out loud.

Oh, and mad props to the one responsible for that Soundwave/Magnus cover. I think that's the best cover I've seen from IDW in a long time.

Give it a "C+". Take the humans out and the plot would just be so much better. It just gets harder and harder to ignore them.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:09 pm

Yaya wrote:Anyway, if Costa were trapped in a cage with a bunch of hungry lions and the only way out would be to write a decent human-focused Transformers story where 1) humans must be the focus and 2) the Transformers can't leave Earth, I guess he does a pretty good job with what he's got.

Love this.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:08 pm

Preview for issue #18:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... disp=table

Can I just say that this looks awful?

Prime is running around behind the scenes, looking all Bayish, blabbering on like some movie cliche army leader.

Something about the way Costa writes the TFs really bugs me... it just seems so ******* self-important. Like he's sitting there watching every war movie in existence trying to make the Trans-*******-Formers sounds like Letters From Iwo Jima instead of a fun comic about robots shooting each other.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:18 pm

i'd love it if the comics sounded like Letters from Iwo Jima - it's a ****ing war. You sould like a cartoon fan!

However in war there is pathos and tragedy - here everyone is a muddy combo of cliched and pathetic.

And as usual - no clever twist - Jazz is just an idiot.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:55 pm

Best First wrote:You sould like a cartoon fan!

You sound like my farts in an echo chamber!

Eh, he's trying to make it sound like a real war movie. LSotW felt like an actual war movie, but it didn't feel like the writer was shouting "This is so profound!" the whole damn time.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:39 pm

Like they would admit you to an echo chamber.

I know what you mean man, you just came dangerously close to "why should they die, this is Transformers, its fun!" territory.

Prime sounds like a total diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.