Post by legios on Jun 20, 2008 20:57:36 GMT
Now this is the high spot of Transformers comics for me this week. Yes, that is right, a comic about Wheelie is my favourite Transformers comic of the week.
Now I am not the biggest fan of Wheelie on The Hub, (I believe everyone has a fair idea who is the leading candidate for the biggest Wheelie fan on T'Hub), but this issue does exactly what a Spotlight issue should do, and it does it well. In the space of its page count it nicely establishes who Wheelie is as a character and gives him a bit of a character arc to go through in the course of the story allowing him to develop a little before our eyes. It isn't a complicated story, and its themes are fairly obvious ones when dealing with Autobot characters, but it is effectively told and rings true in terms of the character. I'd agree that it has some surface similarities with "Spotlight: Kup" , but I wouldn't say that they were more than coincidental slight resemblances. Where as "Kup" was a dark-toned psychological piece "Wheelie" is quite literally a more sun-lit story.
It is interesting in that it is about the only time that official media has done anything with the idea of Wheelie 's function "survivalist", and it is nice to see him demonstrate the strong will to live suggested by that specialisation. Indeed, it is on a character level that Wheelie shines here. I came away from this issue with a very clear sense of who Wheelie is in the IDW'verse - a much stronger understanding of him _as_ a character than I did for Prime or Galvatron after there spotlights. Even the rhyming speech - when it is used, which is not all the time - has a story logic to that makes it much less like the gimmick it was in the Sunbow Cartoon.
A good story, competently told within the confines of a single issue. An excellent example of what the Spotlights were originally announced as being. Wheelie, my little friend, you have done us proud.
Karl
Now I am not the biggest fan of Wheelie on The Hub, (I believe everyone has a fair idea who is the leading candidate for the biggest Wheelie fan on T'Hub), but this issue does exactly what a Spotlight issue should do, and it does it well. In the space of its page count it nicely establishes who Wheelie is as a character and gives him a bit of a character arc to go through in the course of the story allowing him to develop a little before our eyes. It isn't a complicated story, and its themes are fairly obvious ones when dealing with Autobot characters, but it is effectively told and rings true in terms of the character. I'd agree that it has some surface similarities with "Spotlight: Kup" , but I wouldn't say that they were more than coincidental slight resemblances. Where as "Kup" was a dark-toned psychological piece "Wheelie" is quite literally a more sun-lit story.
It is interesting in that it is about the only time that official media has done anything with the idea of Wheelie 's function "survivalist", and it is nice to see him demonstrate the strong will to live suggested by that specialisation. Indeed, it is on a character level that Wheelie shines here. I came away from this issue with a very clear sense of who Wheelie is in the IDW'verse - a much stronger understanding of him _as_ a character than I did for Prime or Galvatron after there spotlights. Even the rhyming speech - when it is used, which is not all the time - has a story logic to that makes it much less like the gimmick it was in the Sunbow Cartoon.
A good story, competently told within the confines of a single issue. An excellent example of what the Spotlights were originally announced as being. Wheelie, my little friend, you have done us proud.
Karl
