MTMTE #26 / DC part 8 preview

[Metal Vendetta]

Prepare yourself for a whole five pages of unconvincing dialogue and nothing happening:

http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... iew/29315/

[snarl]

That looks really good - can't wait!

[Computron]

I like how Shockwave has now regressed to the point of being a Saturday morning cartoon villain who can be beaten by everyone "working together in the spirit of friendship, yeah!"

I want to punch Prowl in the face. His plan is bad and he should feel bad. /Zoidberg

[Metal Vendetta]

I want to punch Prowl in the face. His plan is bad and he should feel bad. /Zoidberg

Perhaps one of the after-effects of being infected by a cerbro-shell is permanent retardation?

[Brendocon]

Retardation sounds like an IDW TF arc.

[Computron]

Retardation sounds like an IDW TF arc.

I can't stop laughing.

[Metal Vendetta]

Reading through the preview again last night and I suddenly realised what it reminds me of - it's a toy pack-in comic. The weird art, stilted dialogue and everyone acting out of character just screams pack-in merchandising. Which it is, I suppose. But look at Megatron's face when he's talking to Bumblebee and tell me I'm wrong.

[Yaya]

No, it's definitely a toy-packaging, Hasbro-mandated story.

So the key here is to skip over everything that's happening on Cybertron (which amounts to a zombie Metrotitan stomping around while everyone ineffectively shoots at it issue after issue) and focus on everything else. To be fair. take away the Cybertron-Barber stuff, and it's not bad. I enjoy the stuff happening inside Metroplex and the stuff in the Dead Universe, mainly for Roberts writing and for Raizs' and Livimondelli's art, which I think is excellent. I may be in the minority on this, but I prefer Raiz's style for MTMTE over Milnes' blocky style.

The Metrotitan battle could be incredible if Roberts is allowed to write it and Raiz is allowed to draw it. Otherwise, it will suck like everything else that has occurred on Cybertron.

Three issues left and Shockwave hasn't really done much But I'll bet you it goes like this at the end:

Shockwave: "And now I will see my ultimate plan to it's completion."
Optimus: "Shockwave, please! I know the real you. The true you! There is good in you, I can still sense it."
Shockwave: "It is....too late for me old friend. The old Shockwave you once knew is dead forever. Replaced by what you see before you."
Optimus: "Then, you leave me no choice, old friend."
Optimus kills Shockers in a lameass scene (if written by Barber) or in a freakin awesome scene (if written by Roberts).

The scene will probably go like this:
Optimus kneels next to Shockwaves broken body:
Shockwave: "Help me....take this....Shadowplay mask off....let me...look at you.... with TWO eyes...."
Optimus: "But.....you'll die!"
Shockwave: "Nothing can stop that now"
Optimus rips off Shockers face to reveal the old Senator's face
Shockwave: "Now GO.....my shhhhhhon....."


What?

[Hound]

I thought this issue was a step up. I can't stand some of the art (WTF is going on with Prowl's head?)

I don't buy Megatron playing the hero when a few issues ago he was about to form part of Devastator and stomp all over Iacon himself. I think if Roberts had been writing him throughout then it could have worked.

I guess we have a couple more deaths to come before the end because you can't have a big crossover without a body count. My prediction is Roddy as some sort of atonement.

I'm a bit conflicted that this ends up with the Lost Light back on Cybertron. It undermines 'the quest' a little. I imagine some crew members will swap books. Hopefully Roberts can make a play for characters he originally wanted.

[snarl]

Hopefully Barber will [composite word including 'f*ck'] right off in the aftermath.

I agree with Yaya, the Roberts stuff is not complete ****. It feels a bit hamstrung though.

[inflatable dalek]

I think after a truly terrible start DC has improved a lot as it's gone along (though a lot of, probably sensible, readers seem to have given up and battened down the hatches whilst waiting for the regular comics to start up again, feedback on even the MTMTE side of things seems to have really fallen off), like the last couple this issue had lots of nice moments in it, in this case the Rodimus/Optimus conversation was the absolute standout of those.

But for all the nice moments (which, as much as I've tried to be fair and not just assume the good bits are all one author and the dodgy bits the other, do feel mainly Roberts. Mind, I think the Slag joke was one of his as that's both the sort of meta thing he's into and ties in with the themes of identity and everyone having changed their names over time in MTMTE), the whole is still not kicking into high gear and there is blatantly not even slightly enough plot for 12 issues. I get all the outside constraints that are affecting the series (though some seem self inflicted, Livio works best on mad widescreen imagery but, other than the giant space slugs, he's been stuck with people talking at each other which isn't his strength as an artist at all and I think we're missing a lot of the subtleties in facial expression that would come over in those conversations if Milne/Roche/Raiz had done those bits) but that doesn't make it any better to read.

[Shanti418]

In terms of overall quality, DC is snugly underneath MTMTE and on top of RiD. To me, this crossover suffers a lot of the same problems that the Scorpy arc of ReGen did: things seem unfocused, things move slowly (although it's at a slightly more rapid pace now), and it seems like your attention is always being jerked away from the place you're most interested in to the place the author is most interested in. Although it's a bit hard to parse out exactly how much is poor writing and how much is poor art RE: Cybertron. I think the Underbase podcast made a good point on this the other day: the Cybertron artist guy is artCosta in the sense that he'd really much rather be drawing humans and is better at drawing humans. Thus all of his TFs come away looking plain, like guys with weird costumes and helmets, and he is HORRIBLE when it comes to thinking about drawing TFs in different scales (which already has and will continue to hurt the Necro/Metro stuff) although some of his expression work is great.

But even in the other areas, it's not great, story wise. Dead Universe: That's cool to me because Pax/Rodimus interaction and Pax/Nova interaction. Everything else - Nightbeat, Kup, HardDead - doesn't have enough breathing room to do anything else but serve the plot. Lost Light is fine, but it has felt the most disconnected to the rest of the story until now and Raiz's work on the faces trips me up as well.

You know what would have been cool? If DC started as three separate books - MTMTE Lost Light stuff, RiD Cybertron stuff, and "DC" for the Dead Universe stuff - where the entire focus of the issue was on that storyline. And then slowly, as the stories got to their "meldiing" point, they would be folded back in. So like MTMTE would go for two months with all LL stuff, and then it would be paused with the reader knowing that at some point in the main crossover series, Metroplex is going to beam in. And the same with the Dead Universe stuff, assuming there's a point where Pax & Co. meet back up with the Cybertron story. Then everything could breathe, we'd have some sense of momentum, and individual issues would read better. Of course, this would be confusing to the average reader and wouldn't give the overall line the sales bump (? Yaya figures?) that IDW was hoping to have by stretching it out so long.

I also was a bit confused by the whole Megatron/Bumblebee thing. Was Megatron NOT supposed to think, "hey, I've got reinforcements, seems like we need them?" I just thought the previous issue established the starting line for Megatron vis a vis redemption but here Bee wants to put him back in the bad guy box and I'm not sure if the audience is supposed to go, "Yeah, Megatron's just trying to bring a bunch of Deceps and take over the planet! As*hole!" or if we're supposed to go "Oh Bee, you myopic, black-and-white fool, can't you open your mind to a more nuanced characterization of Megatron? Go read your back issues, As*hole!"

[Computron]

I picked up #26 and thankfully it was better than what the preview promised.

Optimus and Rodimus' conversation was the clear highlight, again showing how Roberts breathes in so many layers of characterization to his bots.

I did like the callback to Thunderclash and #21 or whatever issue it was that he showed up on the Lost Light. Some really epic art regarding Metroplex's brain as well. Reminded me a lot of the original animated movie. Also really enjoying Ultra Magnus' growth as a leader.

Cybertron stuff was well...no need to beat a dead horse. Art and dialogue is generally forgettable and I really want to punch Prowl in the face. First five pages he gives this "epic" speech about how he can figure out Shockwave's plan cause they just gotta do things the Prowl way, with logic! Then as soon as he is in charge he basically shrugs his shoulders, gives up and asks Soundwave to explain it all. Seriously dude, you were in charge for 5 minutes and you somehow managed to be more unimpressive than Bumblebee. If there are any Community fans here, Prowl Britta'ed leadership 101.

There was one thing Prowl did state correctly though, and that is that Shockwave's plan makes no sense. As a reader, I really do agree.

I really hope that someone like Raiz or Milne does the art for the Cybertron plot climax. It would really be a shame to have Metroplex's debut on Cybertron suffer needlessly.

As a final thought, while Barber has his own writing sins to account for, it seems to me that even an author of great skill like Mark Twain or Tolstoy would have trouble putting out riveting content with the way Hasbro appears to be guiding things. It's not meant to be a pass for Barber but more like...extenuating circumstances.

[inflatable dalek]

Agreed on the pay off to the Thunderclash issue being nice, I think that retroactively helps with one of my problems there that the whole issue felt like a last second replacement for the intended issue 22 which wound up being forced into that text story even though it wrapped up some pretty big loose ends.

I think part of the problem with DC as a whole, is that it's clearly intended (presumably by Hasbro?) to be an All Action Epic, but Barber and Roberts both have the same weakness of the action scenes not being their strong point (something I think Roberts is more self aware of, generally he'll focus on the characters stuff around any fight scene rather than the action itself- so Pipes' death is the big thing in the Overlord issue rather than Overlord ripping through the crew for example- whilst Barber thought that whole Prowlstator thing was a Good Idea. Then again, I think overall Barber suffers from thinking the things he's not so good at are his strengths...), resulting in all these odd moments of the characters just sort of standing about in the middle of a life and death crisis against impossible odds.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Speaking of overlord, when's he gonna pop up again?