RID #5 Review

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Thu May 31, 2012 2:40 am

I think this series is trying to keep up with MTMTE, but after six issues, it's clearly never going to be able to. Not a surprise, I know, but when released as the sister series of MTMTE, being compared to MTMTE is fair game. It's so obvious the story is trying to be every bit as clever as MTMTE, and by trying to do so, somewhat exposes the relative weakness in the writing. Better to be it's own animal than to try and live up to the lofty standards set my Roberts.

Metalhawk has for six issues now been the goofy-looking slender bot in the background who just happens to, well, just be there. Barber should have, by now, fleshed him out far more than he has six months into this, considering the Nails are such an important part of the overlying arc.

Prowl is simply not Prowl. He's a reckless schemer with an emotional grudge who uses a femanoid assassin to carry out his thug-like tactics. I know Barber is trying to make Prowl look clever and underhanded, but instead, he comes off as thugish and a bit of a dimwitted brute. Has anyone fired a gun more than Prowl in this series? Not good.

The plot elements are there, but the delivery needs some fine tuning. Having Nick Roche help out as co-writer would go a long way in correcting the deficiencies in the story. Primarily, those are in the dialogue and characterization department.

It will certainly help this series, taking things off of Cybertron and featuring Orion Pax and Shockwave. This series, more than ever, needs a major change of scenery.

Give it a "C". Good to see Sky Byte. Good to see Maccadams reopened. But not much else new in this issue that hasn't been seen in the previous four issues.

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Thu May 31, 2012 9:18 am

It's a stronger issue than the last one, but still lacking the finesse and subtlety of MTMTE.

On the positive side, Barber's probably the best writer to touch Ironhide since Furman. He's still a bit of a thicko, but I like the fact he now seems to have a compassionate / philosophical side about him.

Same can't be said for Prowl, whom Barber just doesn't seem to 'get'. There's nothing subtle or calculated about his actions, it's all just blatant police brutality.

I agree with Yaya's general comments that a change of scenery and some co-editing would help lift things a little.

At the moment, all feels a big disjointed - there's no building tension, and the links and references to previous events seem haphazard and slightly shoehorned in comparison to MTMTE (where it's all quite seamless).

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu May 31, 2012 4:52 pm

Now that was more like it, a big step up from last issue. I was initially worried Ironhide's monologue was going to overplay the "Ah slept with mah sister, mah cousin an' mah aunt (they're all the same person)" southern schit but no, we actually wound up with the first decent look at the G1 version since.... ohhh Perchance to Dream? Not a big dumb hick, but a level headed common sense no nonsense guy who is actually realistic as a security chief rather than the guy who should be making the hooch for Blurr's bar (we now have space pubs in both ongoings, there's probably some deeper symbolism there).

It's interesting to see the "Flash Forward" issue get incorporated into the narrative, especially as Costa didn't plan it as such (based on his comments on flashback stories in that underbase interview he seemed to just want to turn everything that came afterwards into one as a massive "SCRRRRRRRRRRREW YOU!") and it resulted in the one and only "Are all dead" joke that's ever worked. And again, Ironhide's reluctance to tell anyone about his crazy vision but instead to just get on with life safe in the knowledge he knows what's coming was very in character.

Sky Bite was OK, but was perhaps a bit subdued to the point that he could almost have been anyone if he hadn't done some poetry (which wasn't even a Haiku either. Though he did say it was a work in progress). Though there was certainly nothing wrong as such with him it would have been a lot more fun if they'd really played him to the hilt. The Scourge joke was rubbish as well.

Worryingly the ongoing Prowl's a dick/Bumblebee is useless stuff was by far the least interesting part of the issue because it doesn't seem to be going anywhere very fast. And having recently read it, it's odd that Bumblebee is having to learn here exactly the same "Using electrical devices that can kill/torture your enemies to control them is wrong" moral as he did in his own mini series. You'd have thought someone else would have at least pointed it out, especially as the issue was concerned enough about old business to explain where the Sweeps in Chaos came from.

Is it me or did the art look a little rougher than usual this month as well?

Hot Shot · Post by **Hot Shot** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 12:22 pm

So I completely forgot this was out, and I can't seem to get myself excited for it after that last issue.

How should I feel about this?

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:02 pm

[quote="Hot Shot"]So I completely forgot this was out, and I can't seem to get myself excited for it after that last issue.

How should I feel about this?[/quote

It's alright. It's inoffensive and nothing really happens. Skybite's appearance feels utter pointless. It could have been any other character really.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:10 pm

I thought it was the best so far but still problematic. Jesse Custer, I mean Ironhide, was good characterization I suppose. It's the same old "Should we trust people? I mean really? REALLY?" thing it's been on since the series started.

Here's the thing: I LIKE a lot of the story beats. But they're not well presented or well done. It's like a 15 year old playing Stairway to Heaven.

(It's also the opposite of MTME for me. RID: Great, well developed overall story, piss in the details and execution, MTME: "Uh, let's go off in a ship and have some adventures," but even the mundane interactions spark and crackle with fun and writing skill)

Starscream, Bee, X Factor: political machinations. Sounds great! But it manages to be both massively underdeveloped and pounded into your head. Autobot paranoia, police state, who's really standing in the way of peace: Sounds great! But it's just Prowl acting like a dick and blasting things so the other side can say cheesy things like "You Autobots never change! The war never ends!" Ironhide was great and all, but he also came off like a deus ex machina to get the I/D chips off. Everybody respects Ironhide! But at least they ARE off, which should push the story forward. And Sky-Byte is cool by me.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 5:13 pm

Shanti418 wrote: Here's the thing: I LIKE a lot of the story beats. But they're not well presented or well done. It's like a 15 year old playing Stairway to Heaven.

This. Lots of good ideas but a real struggle to turn them into a good story.

A lot of poor character choices are being made - Not Prowl and Rubbish Bee really suck the life out of the story being immersive as you just keep wanting to yell at the writer.

Equally i find the environmental setup of the whole thing pulls mem out of the story on a regular basis - are they all in one city? Cybertron seems ever so small, only reinforced by the fact we seem to see the same 3-4 Nails over and over again. A bit more context and a bit more of a sense of 'world' would really help.

Part of me thinks they are trying to over complicate things too much, i appreciate we need a bit of grey but having the Autobots seem as ammoral as the Decepticons, rather than victims of circumstance, takes focus out of the story. You aren't really rooting for anyone and no one is particularly sympathetic. Bee should be exactly this character - something of a Jon Snow - but instead just seems to fecklessly move from one scene to the next while Metal Hawk humps his leg.

Still a billion miles better than Costa though.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 7:35 pm

One thing I think is hurting both books but especially RID is the shameless toy whoring of the W/FOC stuff. Even beyond the fact there aren't many buying the comics who aren't up on the toys anyway *especially compared to the audience the actual games reach) it doesn't actually make any sense. Here they're on a resources limited devastated planet, would gettting shiny new bodies really be a priority? Even the idea from AHM that Earth alt-modes don't travel too well on the surface of Cybertron is fairly moot when they're stuck in a fairly small space and the Decepticons were barred from transforming anyway.

Over in MTMTE if they'd have changed alt modes after leaving it might have made more sense, but again, if it's that easy why is poor old Ambulon stuck as a leg forever?

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:59 pm

I have written my response four times then quit Chrome before I remember to post. So, in bullet points:

-Prowl gets a ton of screen time. For what? To show us that he's willing to kill to maintain order? We learned that when Ratbat died and he didn't press Arcee about said senator's death. Prowl's character arc was well established by the end of issue 2.

-The most interesting character is traditionally the one with the most to lose, and therefore, the one with the most power. Who has the most power and agency? Metalhawk and Starscream do. They can manipulate things on a level that Prowl cannot and Bumblebee won't. But we spend all our time with Prowl and with Ironhide and Blurr and other distractions. What are Metalhawk and Starscream planning? Why don't we know? We were left with the intimation that Starscream was planning something at the end of issue 2, and not a word from him since.

-Agree with Besty that we need a lot more landscape. Tailgate was brought to the surface, in theory, partially from the volatile change to the landscape (although I need a better explanation for how he was preserved for six million years... hermetically sealed cave? So how has it changed? What is it eating or trying to eat?

Bottom line? Issues 3-5 should have given Metalhawk and Starscream more screen time and less to Prowl.

But I must give this series credit. It has more ambition than any other TF series since the Marvel days, as does MTMTE. MTMTE executes its great stories more skillfully, but at least Barber has big ideas.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:22 pm

Shanti418 wrote:Here's the thing: I LIKE a lot of the story beats. But they're not well presented or well done. It's like a 15 year old playing Stairway to Heaven.

A fairly succinct summary of what is bugging me about this series.

Best First wrote: Still a billion miles better than Costa though.

Oh, absolutely. But this is easily going to be my thrid tier Transformers book in about a month or two, and I don't know if what's going on is good enough to keep me onboard.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:18 pm

DJ_Convoy wrote:
Shanti418 wrote:Here's the thing: I LIKE a lot of the story beats. But they're not well presented or well done. It's like a 15 year old playing Stairway to Heaven.

A fairly succinct summary of what is bugging me about this series.

Me too. The ideas on paper should be pretty intriguing, but the execution has been weak from the beginning. It's kind of frustrating because with some tweaking it could really kick ass. And I've said it from the beginning, things just seem so cramped. Cybertron is a planet, and you just get the sense everyone is crammed into one city or town.

But yeah, better than Costa.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:20 pm

I can't get past the fact that this should be the series James should be writing.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:15 pm

Considering that, other than the dip in 4, I've being enjoying RID despite the flaws does that mean I'm liking this book more than anyone else here?

Post by **Kaylee** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:02 am

Yeah, but I'm reasonably sure you're a hallucination so it's okay

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 1:07 pm

Karl wrote:Yeah, but I'm reasonably sure you're a hallucination so it's okay

I think you have a severe paucity of imagination.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 3:13 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Considering that, other than the dip in 4, I've being enjoying RID despite the flaws does that mean I'm liking this book more than anyone else here?

I'm definitely enjoying it. I think I would enjoy it even if it were coming off something good like Furman's run, but I especially enjoy it in the light of the crap that passed for TF comics for the past few years.

That's why it can be so frustrating--this series has so much going for it that it should be better than it is!

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 3:26 pm

The big worry for me is IDW not finding the sales figures good enough for either book, they've settled at roughly what they were before and the company seems determined to try and aim for what they were getting before the -Tion series drove all the readers away (for a wide variety of reasons mind, some of which are beyond IDW's control. There's effectively nothing they can do to bring back people who were reading five years ago but have screaming babies to spend that money on now short of infaticide and I wish they'd stop trying). If they just accepted steady and consistent if not Earth shattering their outtput would be a lot more consistent.

That's why the whole rapid return of Pax and Dreamwave style "Months" has me more worried than anything in the actual comics to date. Hopefully this was all planned from the start rather than the "Holy crap, MTMTE lost 3000* readers after issue one! Red alert and emergency stations!" reactionary stuff we've seen before.

*Which I actually think is understandable, it was the first issue out and was going to be the one people tried as a sampler of the new direction, those who didn't like it didn't come back. The fact RID has had very little drop off and MTMTE soon settled down to just slightly more suggested those that weren't enjoying didn't even give the next issue 1 a chance but those who did have been loyal to both books.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:50 pm

If it's any consolation, according to Chris Ryall, Transformers has been performing better than they hoped and they are very pleased with the performance of both titles.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:56 pm

Yaya wrote:If it's any consolation, according to Chris Ryall, Transformers has been performing better than they hoped and they are very pleased with the performance of both titles.

Fingers crossed on that score.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:57 am

I kind of assumed that the grand scheme was basically that there are 10-12,000 guys who will pretty much always buy a TF monthly so the best wayto increase sales was a second monthly.

From what i have seen so far this seems to be true.