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Post by The Doctor on Jul 28, 2009 17:07:53 GMT
I think the art/colouring on the second story will be a love/hate thing. Personally, I think it's fantastic and would like more of it.
-Ralph
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Jul 28, 2009 17:50:19 GMT
I didn't like the colouring on the Starscream story. I found it muddied the art and I couldn't quite interpret it properly in places. The black and white version was better. I probably didn't enjoy the story as much as I would have if it was coloured or drawn differently.
I was quite taken aback by Don's art, it's very different to what I'm used to from him. I'm undecided on it at the moment. Good story, though. (Optimus without the faceplate - anyone else reminded of Orion Pax?)
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jul 28, 2009 22:19:39 GMT
Arrived this morning.
Interesting style choice from Don, melding the movie aesthetic with the existing designs. I think it works apart from the "teeth" on Ironhide. He needs to try something else with them. Nothing really ground breaking as far as the actual story goes but it's good solid Furman and reads a hell of a lot better than the preceding 12 issues.
The second story is the winner though, atmospheric and quite striking artwork and a very good script. Some nods to the long term fans but not done in an inpenetrable fashion. The colouring isn't bad, but I think a slightly more muted palette would have served the story better.
I'll stick with the Coda issues for now, but Mike Costa hasn't done himself any harm with this tale.
Andy
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2009 22:39:30 GMT
Still haven't got round to reading this issue but from what people say and from what I've seen by flicking through the issue it looks like IDW could be onto a winner here.
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Post by dinogrrl on Aug 21, 2009 4:39:16 GMT
Is AHM#14 out yet for the UK? I apologize if I'm too early for posting this, but I just burbled it out at IDW and lazily decided to cross post.
***
'Replay' by Shane McCarthy.
This is one of the most straightforward stories of his, period. Nothing fancy, just recounts what we already knew, with some twists that I will prefer to consider a Sunstreaker view of things, rather than any sort of retconning. Although I think the ending has a nice horror tweak to it, I do not like the suggestion that maybe he can be brought back. If you're going to go the balls-out route of killing a two-part character in both a spectacular (Sunstreaker) and disgusting (Hunter) fashion, then hang onto those brassies and stick with it. Please. We have enough of this 'He's Dead! Wait, No He's Not!' stuff with Prime and Megatron.
Didn't explain anything about how either Sunny or Hunter became the Magical Fairy Keys to the Autobot Kingdom, so not only does it disappoint in that respect, it also renders the story just as pointless as the Prime/Ironhide one in #13. Also, one hell of a short read. Felt like it was 5 pages, not 11. Art was good though.
Grade: C- for story, B+ for art.
******
'Rebirth' by Andrew Schmidt.
Okay, let's start by saying that the art was lovely, I liked it more than the Sunstreaker story, very cool and stylized.
Story - well, I have to say, I'm bummed, as I liked Metroplex and was looking forward to see more Schmidt writing. Yeah. Not so liking this one. First of all, I'm confused as hell as to what is going on. And I don't feel the slightest bit inclined to go dig out Revelations to try and help make sense of it either. Wordy as all get out, but almost word salad to me in parts, it was so WTF as to what the deal was.
And as much as I liked the art, the flaming eyeballs have got to go - it just looked silly. Also, I can see what Shane McCarthy means with onomatopoeia with the terrible example in panel 2 of page 17. Were they going for a humorous effect there, because laughing was my response.
"Braak-koom, Bluurp, Spuurt"?
That sounds more like the after effects of a really bad curry. Then of course Scourge goes flying out of the fire, and while he doesn't have a stream of flame shooting out his ass, it's not too far off it either.
All I could think was, "Damn, don't eat at that joint." But hey, I give them a point for making me laugh, even if it was unintentional.
Otherwise, the third from last panel in the story sums up what I think about it:
Scourge: "What does that mean?"
Cyclonus: "I have no idea."
The writers need to avoid providing their own parody material, it makes the job of internet heathens like myself far too easy.
Grade: D for story, A for art.
****
Two issues in, and both have been achingly mediocre in terms of stories, but have had really nice art. So congrats to the artists, you're putting your best out there.
I will now proceed to lower my expectations story-wise further for the remaining two issues. Can't get much lower though, I'll have to break out a shovel. Although depending on my reaction to one particular half of the next issue, they may well end up in China.
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Aug 21, 2009 10:54:21 GMT
Well I understood what was going on in Galvatron's story, it just wasn't that interesting. Sunstreaker's was okay but taught us nothing we didn't already know, nor explain anything about what he did which was supposed to be the point.
It's a real step down from #13.
On the plus side, Side Burn turns up in a few panels! Yay Side Burn!
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Aug 21, 2009 12:17:00 GMT
...thinking on Replay, I'm increasingly irritated by the rewriting of a scene from Devastation issue 3. Rewriting done to completely alter the point and tone of the scene.
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Post by blueshift on Aug 21, 2009 12:34:06 GMT
What happened in it? Not picked it up yet and I dont mind spoilers
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Aug 21, 2009 14:14:35 GMT
Cyclonus is still alive and dumping all his dead Dead Universe mates (including Scourge) into a solar pool. Then Galvatron appears, proclaiming both he and the Darkness have changed, and brings C & S back to life and creates the Sweeps. He says he's decided the one constant in the universe is change, so he's going to FORCE change.
The other is a flashback to Sunstreaker winning a planet for the Autobots, a flashback to the Machination cutting him up, a flashback to Dev #3 but rewritten so Hunter looks like a jerk, a flashback to him rebuilt and being sad, and then his corpse being nibbled by the Swarm.
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 21, 2009 17:15:48 GMT
So this has a McCarthy story? I thought he was off the books. Mmmm. May have to reconsider whether to pick this one up.
-Ralph
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2009 19:47:08 GMT
I'll give it a go since issue 13 was enjoyable to a certain degree.
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Post by legios on Aug 21, 2009 20:54:30 GMT
Having read this I am somewhat underwhelmed. The Galvatron story has too much of the wrong sort of purple prose - the sort that hangs limply on the page rather than entertaining - and seems to boil down to Galvatron standing around talking what even the other characters in the comic think is incomprehensible nonsense.
The Sunstreaker story has, to all intents and purposes two pages of actual content - the rest is a clip show from other stories to explain the context of what you see in the two pages that actually make up the story (presumably working on the assumption that folk haven't read the previous series that the events alluded to happen).
Falls far short of the standard of the Starscream story in #13 unfortunately.
Karl
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Post by dinogrrl on Aug 22, 2009 1:13:50 GMT
Sorry about neglecting to actually describe what was going on in the stories, whoops!
And on the Galvatron front, I did like Cyclonus in it, but the rest of the story was muddled and forced and not what I expected from Schmidt.
Here I was thinking CODA would be better than AHM itself, and so far, I've found it to be largely disappointing.
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 23, 2009 17:32:10 GMT
Well I picked it up.
I actually like the Sunstreaker story. I liked the structure and the idea that a terribly unwell dismembered head of a TF was flashbacking (memory glitches, perhaps, as a mind dies) to recent events in life. The scientist being disturbed by the screaming robot as it's being dismembered is nicely horrific. I've only read a few bits of AHM so can't comment as to whether it retreads old ground. Yes, a McCarthy story I actually liked. Jings
As for the Galvatron story...what was that about? Seriously, what was that about? Someone please tell me. I have no idea what the fuck was going on. Obligatory IDW production error : apparently Cylonus was on the "first arc mission".
Ah well. I look forward to #15. Mr Roche was kind enough to let the art for his part be shown at AA and it looked rather lovely.
-Ralph
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Aug 24, 2009 10:51:02 GMT
In the second story Cyclonus mentions that he's always been able to last the longest outside the dead universe. Um... wasn't that Galvatron's thing?
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Aug 24, 2009 11:53:31 GMT
Yes. Yes it was.
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KoshNaranek
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Post by KoshNaranek on Aug 24, 2009 13:30:47 GMT
In the interview that Shane McCarthy did a while back he mentioned that he had some possible future plans to use Scourge in a new way, but they were vetoed by Hasbro who said they had their own plans. Make of that what you will. I'd hypothesise that they probably want to set up the old Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge dynamic from the cartoon. Not good, IMO, as Galvatron was bonkers and made idiotic decisions and Scourge was mostly an incompetent idiot. Cyclonus was OK, though. I'd much prefer closer to their incarnations from Target 2006.
I thought the Sunstreaker story was so-so, but not bad. The re-write did annoy me a bit.
- Tony
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Post by dinogrrl on Aug 25, 2009 3:19:22 GMT
Some people are interpreting the 'rewrite' of the Hunter scene as being Sunstreaker's distorted personal recollection of it. After all, he hated humans. Of course, that's the generous approach, and one could always say that Shane really dislike the Headmaster concept and did away with Hunter and re-visioned that scene as..I dunno..spite?
I have issues with what is becoming increasingly obvious as IDW's new path, backward, in time, to the 1980's movie set-up. Do we really need to have another crack at Unicron (which is where I reckon this is going)? Do we have to have things set up a la the old movie, as this Galvatron story does?
Yeah, they might have a few different features such as the Autobots hiding from humans and Galvatron not being boogety boogety nutso, but you can see where it's going from miles away, and I'll be floored if they don't actually go there.
I wonder how much Hasbro has to do with this.
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 25, 2009 7:39:08 GMT
Some people are interpreting the 'rewrite' of the Hunter scene as being Sunstreaker's distorted personal recollection of it. That was the way I read it. Seemed pretty clear to me. 99% of the internet appears to be interpreting it differently though! I'm defending a McCarthy story. The Dark Times have come! -Ralph |
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Post by blueshift on Aug 25, 2009 7:42:00 GMT
Well the guy obviously has some talent. There were brief moments in AHM, but those were just pages out of a massive, unweildy tome. Obviously he is better suited to much smaller tales.
Also, am I the only person who doesn't mind Unicron? As long as it is done in a unique way.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Aug 25, 2009 9:05:27 GMT
If it was a new matrix-less tale with little to no resemblance to previous Unicron stories then I might be interested, but I'm not sure how close we'll get to something like that.
Of course IDW might not be going that route, which would be fine. I just have a nagging feeling that somewhere down the line The Darkness will be revealled as Uknowhonicron.
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Aug 25, 2009 11:55:19 GMT
Also, am I the only person who doesn't mind Unicron? As long as it is done in a unique way. Therein lies the problem - will it be done in a unique way, or will it be a retread of Edge Of Extinction? Plus with Unicron we're likely to end up with Primus and the Original Thirteen and multiversal singularities and yawwwwn. |
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chrisl
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I still think its the 1990s - when I joined TMUK
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Post by chrisl on Sept 11, 2009 20:14:37 GMT
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KoshNaranek
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Post by KoshNaranek on Sept 12, 2009 3:42:34 GMT
I got a quick look at the B&W pages at AA, nice to see it all in glorious technicolour. Smashing work from Nick, as always.
- Tony
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2009 8:59:46 GMT
So waht does everyone think the cigar is for then?
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 12, 2009 11:01:57 GMT
The cigar *is* Kup?
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Post by Kingoji on Sept 12, 2009 11:59:44 GMT
Keeping the residual toxic radiation in his processor at bay.
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primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
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Post by primenova on Sept 13, 2009 14:51:19 GMT
I've not read the text on the pages - just looking at the art & can't wait to read the full comic later on.
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Post by grahamthomson on Sept 13, 2009 17:08:37 GMT
Like it, like it a lot.
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chrisl
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I still think its the 1990s - when I joined TMUK
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Post by chrisl on Sept 13, 2009 17:21:24 GMT
This is how the original Marvel comics SHOULD have looked.
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