Post by Andy Turnbull on Nov 13, 2007 13:36:56 GMT
Seeing as how Ken has gone to the trouble of making these available it's only fair that I give it a review.
First off I love the seasonal cover from Neil Sutton. I've only seen a smattering of his art in an issue of Transformers: Holiday Special and I thought it was fabulous, a very distinct take on Transformers.
As it's a Christmas issue the lead story is Atonement by James (Eugenesis) Roberts with art by Jack (Darkham Vale, Lions, Tigers & Bears & ATOM) Lawrence.
That alone should be recommendation enough. The tale itself follows in a long-line of christmas stories from Marvel UK with a character indulging in a bit of navel-gazing. This time round it's Optimus Prime. He is feeling the guilt from his recent decisions, including the decision to allow the Earth to be Cyberformed. Naturally as with any good Christmas tale he comes out of this and realises he can atone for his mistakes.
The artwork by Jack is superb as you would expect. It's highly polished and full of energy and looking at it there is no surprise that Jack has gone on to bigger and better things.
The second tale is part of TMUK's Beast Wars saga, written before the animated series had shown us just how tied up it was in established Transformers lore. Instead we are embedded firmly in Continued Generation 2 territory and I am quite happy with this. Handling the story and art duties is none other than Matt Dallas.
We kick off with Leadfoot and Manta Ray being attacked by Cybertronian troops and end up crash-landing on Yajarus. The very same planet were the bodies of the abortive Beast Warriors project initiated by Megatron landed. We meet several of these Beast Warriors and they are markedly different from the characters we've known in the television show, there is a primal quality to their characters as they retain a lot of the animalistic qualities. This makes for a marvelous contrast to their robotic origins.
Several of them including Razorbeast, Cheetor and Iguanus end up attacking Cybertronian drones, while elsewhere Leadfoot and Manta-Ray meet up with Dinobot while fending off more Cybertronian drones.
I find myself enjoying this and lamenting the fact that the Beast Wars show was brought into the main TMUK storyline and relegating this storyline to the sidelines.
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable issue.
Andy
First off I love the seasonal cover from Neil Sutton. I've only seen a smattering of his art in an issue of Transformers: Holiday Special and I thought it was fabulous, a very distinct take on Transformers.
As it's a Christmas issue the lead story is Atonement by James (Eugenesis) Roberts with art by Jack (Darkham Vale, Lions, Tigers & Bears & ATOM) Lawrence.
That alone should be recommendation enough. The tale itself follows in a long-line of christmas stories from Marvel UK with a character indulging in a bit of navel-gazing. This time round it's Optimus Prime. He is feeling the guilt from his recent decisions, including the decision to allow the Earth to be Cyberformed. Naturally as with any good Christmas tale he comes out of this and realises he can atone for his mistakes.
The artwork by Jack is superb as you would expect. It's highly polished and full of energy and looking at it there is no surprise that Jack has gone on to bigger and better things.
The second tale is part of TMUK's Beast Wars saga, written before the animated series had shown us just how tied up it was in established Transformers lore. Instead we are embedded firmly in Continued Generation 2 territory and I am quite happy with this. Handling the story and art duties is none other than Matt Dallas.
We kick off with Leadfoot and Manta Ray being attacked by Cybertronian troops and end up crash-landing on Yajarus. The very same planet were the bodies of the abortive Beast Warriors project initiated by Megatron landed. We meet several of these Beast Warriors and they are markedly different from the characters we've known in the television show, there is a primal quality to their characters as they retain a lot of the animalistic qualities. This makes for a marvelous contrast to their robotic origins.
Several of them including Razorbeast, Cheetor and Iguanus end up attacking Cybertronian drones, while elsewhere Leadfoot and Manta-Ray meet up with Dinobot while fending off more Cybertronian drones.
I find myself enjoying this and lamenting the fact that the Beast Wars show was brought into the main TMUK storyline and relegating this storyline to the sidelines.
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable issue.
Andy
