RID #4 (Spoliers)

Post by **Best First** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:24 am

Jesus - body count or what?

Prowl is the hero of his own story i.e basically the bad guy - i don't see how any of this can end well for him and he is already pretty unredeemable in my eyes. Not sure how i feel about this - his actions aren't as fun as they were when scripted by Roche or Roberts for some reason.

Dirge is becoming an interesting bit part player.

Bumblebee is rubbish

The chip scene seemed to be drawn to suggest it may not be fatal - would find that a bit of a cop out.

Enjoying overall but a bit of a mixed bag.

Jack Cade · Post by **Jack Cade** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 11:12 am

Agree with BF. For some reason, the last time I feel we saw 'real' Prowl was MTMTE#1. Everything since seems to have been a descent into brute cop territory. The problem is nothing he does seems *intelligent* anymore. Decisive, yes. Cunning? Far from it.

Here's what I posted on IDW.

I've read this three or four times now and I'm not really 'feeling' it. I have similar misgivings to those I had last issue: it's frustrating, because there are really good elements to Barber's plot, and I'm a big fan of IDW's Prowl and Arcee (as well as a little bit fond of Blurr) so I should have really enjoyed it, but I was constantly distracted by things that bugged me. For example:

STORY:

Where are Starscream and Bumblebee having this argument at the beginning? It looks like it's in front of the 'public', a flash-back to issue 2, but at the same time, why wouldn't an address like that be properly planned out?

Prowl having to drag Dirge along with him to track Bombshell seems incredibly contrived. They really couldn't have detached the cerebro shell, or had Wheeljack transmit Prowl directions from base camp? This way they risk Bombshell knowing, through Dirge, that Prowl is on his way, not to mention the obvious danger of Dirge being turned against them (which seemed to surprise Prowl, for some reason).

What was stopping Blurr hightailing it when he was confronted with six Decepticons all brandishing guns? Remember the Ongoing #3? Sprint-starts are his speciality, and for all he knew, he was about to be shot.

Prowl dragging an inert Dirge behind him in car form?? Seriously? Like that wouldn't slow him down immensely, as well as amounting to horrific physical abuse.

Prowl's 'rationale' for killing Bombshell is that he doesn't believe Bombshell will ever give them information under interrogation. But what about one of the Constructicons? Wouldn't you want to keep at least one alive to grill them for what they know? He's convinced he's uncovered a Decepticon conspiracy, yet he seems to be entirely unconcerned about losing out on the prospect of finding out who's in charge.

Why would Prowl bring Arcee along in the first place? She's his secret assassin. He's handling a murder case which Wheeljack, Blurr and others are aware of - if the next stage is to track down a suspect, why not bring Warpath, Sideswipe or any of the inumerable Autobot soldiers who must be at his disposal? What if Bombshell had surrendered? Then his secret would be out. Either he was always planning to kill Bombshell and any other Decepticon witnesses - which is nuts, even for Barber's Prowl - or ... or I don't know what.

I'm also bothered by the deaths, though not for quite the same reason as HdE. My problem is that we never really knew where the Constructicons stood, what their position in the hierarchy was. Didn't one of them seem to be on Starscream's side a couple of issues ago? Ratbat's death made sense, but it bothers me that other Decepticons are being disappeared before we even get a sense of the command structure or politicking of the Decepticons internally. Where's Razorclaw in all this? Who's backing up Starscream, or trying to win favour with him, now he's found a route into power?

I like that Barber has gone for a properly episodic format rather than long, drawn-out arcs - I really do - but I think the last two issues have suffered from a shortage of space to build things up before knocking them down, so to speak. We really should have spent more time with the Decepticons. They'd be a credible threat, as well as a potentially more sympathetic, if we had some idea of what their different reactions were, rather than them being treated like a sort of outlaw biker gang for Prowl and co. to rough up.

ART:

Prowl's head design is looking for and more like Magneto's helmet. Just look at the top left of page 21!

Why does Blurr have a cast and a sort of bolt-on plaster? Surely it's been established that Transformers don't just 'heal' - they need to visit CR chambers or medics. The idea that he rests up and bits of his metal will grow back in a week seems somewhat ill thought through to me.

The last page is, alas, a bit of a dud. Both Prowl and Bumblebee's expressions are completely vacant.

Starscream's 'politician' pose is over-egged. How anyone can take him seriously when he's stood with his arms out like that I don't know.

Griffiths is still generally good, but as with the story, something about this issue feels squished in - like he needed more time for some of the panels

Oh, and while I'm here, what's going on with the title? 'Devisive'? Is that a portmanteau of 'device' and 'decisive' or a misspelling of 'divisive'?

I got another one - why would Bombshell murder a Decepticon who didn't agree with him when he has the power of mind control??

Oh, oh, also - Arcee left one of her swords *in* Ratbat. Mixmaster would have seen it, as would other Decepticons. Wouldn't they be able to put two and two together when they saw Arcee wielding the other sword?

And why does Prowl keep saying Ratbat's death 'compromised' him? He more or less ordered it. He seemed to accept it as the only possibly outcome at the end of issue 2. What's compromised him is the terrible hash he's made of explaining it away!

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 3:00 pm

ThisthisTHIS, JC. I was trying to find the best way to say what I thought of the issue. Because if nothing else, RiD still provides food for thought, still tries to present a unique situation, etc. But this month and last month it's fallen far behind MTMTE.

I'll admit I zoned out as soon as Prowl cited Spike Witwicky as motivation for anything, anywhere. By the end of the comic, Prowl's lost some of his interest because he's just getting clumsy. Executing lots of Decepticons. For what? Where is his proof that this goes beyond Bombshell? The Constructions were there? Seems kind of flimsy, especially as a reason to kill all of them.

Not a bomb, but the quality of RiD has been behind MTMTE quite a bit in the third and fourth issues.

Hot Shot · Post by **Hot Shot** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:00 pm

Yeah, referencing and trying to rationalize(but failing, mostly) that Spike Costa mess really dragged this down.

This issue felt like a mess, TBH. Everyone was trigger-happy against all sense and logic, the latter of which should be Prowl's best friend. It's the first issue of the new ongoings I didn't enjoy.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:36 pm

Telling that MTMTE keeps getting better and better, but RiD seems to be on the wrong path.

Post by **Kaylee** » Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:02 am

I much preferred MTMTE. RiD is fine, but just... a je ne sais quoi that seems to hold it back.

Post by **Best First** » Sun Apr 29, 2012 3:21 pm

Blur seems to confound most TF writers - he should be lethal but usually seems to end up kind of a drip.

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:48 pm

Concur with the general consensus - it was a poor issue by the standards set by the first two.

It doesn't help that the quality of MTMTE seems to jump up with each issue.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Wed May 02, 2012 1:22 pm

Jack Cade wrote: I'm not really 'feeling' it.

This statement pretty much sums it up. I won't say it's bad, but just not as good as it should be. I agree, there are plot elements that should be exciting, but are falling flat.

I think the reason is two-fold. One, the overall structure of the story is poor. It just seems that each issue features an entire story arc, but by the end, we're all back to Bumblebee and Metalhawk standing on a stage looking around at a very populace Cybertron suffering from cabin fever. The subplots seem to be occurring in a vacuum, where time and space everywhere else are halted. There's no real progression of things.

And secondly, the art is just too cluttered, and in a story where the numerous Transformers are already seemingly crowded into one area of the planet, things just seem very cramped. This is annoying to me, don't know about others.

Despite this, I'm not at the point where I don't really care or don't want to know what happens next, as I was with prior stuff. There are some pretty bold moves occurring, which while poorly developed or out of character, still leave me intrigued enough to see how things play out.

As I said before last issue, Rocherts Prowl is dead. He has been lobotomized and now has a penchant for making dumbass decisions, comrade betrayal, and cold-blooded murder.

His worst trait? Referencing Costa's "Spike murdered a Constructicon" storyline.

Barber, seriously, you're playing with fire with that one dude.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri May 04, 2012 5:16 pm

After initially posting this in the wrong thread...

Thought it was the weakest issue yet, mainly due to a combination of being a bit dull (a murder mystery where even if you didn't get the cover that told you whodunit is still solved by page three), various elements not making much sense (why did Bombshell kill Skydive anyway? why does Prowl need to drag Dirge about hanging off his arse other than to allow him to see Bombshell get executed?) and that it feels that the genuinely morally ambiguous situation being set up in earlier issues is being retconned slightly to make Prowl more overtly EVIL.

As presented back in issue 2 it was easy to understand Prowl's thinking about having Ratbat killed even if you didn't agree with it, if Ratbat's plot to assassinate Bumblebee had become public knowledge the whole war would have kicked off again. Here, suddenly Prowl is a much more doubting character who didn't actually want Ratbat dead after all despite sending a Frank N Furter psychopath to bring him in, is on a descent into full on crazy and ends the issue actually foaming at the mouth about Decepticon conspiracies without anything to back him up because he's had all the witnesses killed. So does he want this information kept secret to preserve the peace or not?

Dirge and Blurr were good though, as was Wheeljack in his smaller role. It's not a series wrecking wooble (I think an ongoing comic is allowed the odd misstep), but next month needs to really pull things together.

I'm liking the idea of Sky Bite, it makes perfect sense considering he's a very popular character and there aren't going to be any new RID stories anytime soon. As long as he's played to the hilt in an unashamedly silly way (unlike what the Beast Wars Sourcebook did to all the Japanese BW characters) and Arcee doesn't hack him into sushi at the end this should be a lot of fun.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Fri May 04, 2012 6:20 pm

The repercussions of this story bother me. Maybe it's just timing Like you said, Ratbat is excusable, and maybe twelve issues down the road, if Prowl has been secretly killing off Decepticons, it works as a "Prowl has slowly lost it" plot. I want to scrap 3 & 4 and go back to the awesome promise this book had after the glory of issue 2.

Also, Prowl is just one cog in this machine. Why so little time with Metalhawk and Starscream in 3&4? Their stories are the most unpredictable.

I suppose we're going toward an eventual story where Prowl will try to assassinate Starscream. This was too much of a leap toward that story.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri May 04, 2012 6:48 pm

RE The Spike thing...

I've not read the ongoing (yet, I'm actually tempted to give it a go in order to get some more of the background details, I figure if I approach it with the same "It doesn't really matter" mentality as my recent AHM reread it should be good for a laugh if nothing else) and I felt the explanation of those events here didn't really make any sense. Spike betrayed the Autobots by killing a Decepticon? Huh?

Now, I know this story has a reputation of not making sense even in context, but I think they could have massaged it into the current narrative better here. As it is, it's the first time since the relaunch where I think you really have to have a clue about previous events to make any sense of bits of the issue.

It's a shame as generally I think one of the good things about the two current books is they're making the past continuity- however contrived and unweildy- work for them rather than just going "Oh noes! Ignore everything the previous writer did now he's Moved On". Which has now happened enough times previously to make the IDWverse less internally consistent than the Marvel one was despite being created on different sides of the Atlantic by people who didn't talk to each other. Working with what you've got is harder, but ultimately works for the betterment of the book.