Ongoing #12 preview

[charlesrocketboy]

Oct 18, 2010 16:03:43 GMT Kingoji said:

A few weeks back on the IDW boards someone made a similar point. And Mike Costa was soon in the thread talking to this person because they were the first to pick up on it. He hinted that this was indeed his plan, and he seemed mystified that nobody else was getting it.

Maybe he's not doing it very well?

[legios]

Oct 18, 2010 18:26:33 GMT charlesrocketboy said:

Maybe he's not doing it very well?

I was about to say something similar there Charles. Indeed, an audience almost to a man do not pick up on an authors intent the question must be whether or not the author has actually managed to communicate it effectively.

Given the very limited amount of actual content in the issues of the ongoing I have read (about an issue and a half of actual story in the the first seven issues) I do not have any great faith in the titles ability to put across any text, let alone subtext.

Karl

[Rich]

Having stopped buying most of the comics almost two years ago (time flies), I've been catching up on my Transformers comics of late. It's taken this long because I was waiting for a third volume of the Premium edition, and since it was clear that they had died I've been waiting for vol 2 of All Hail Megatron to come into stock, which it never has. In the end I had no choice but to read volume 2 on the internet. Anyway, to get back to the point. AHM was pretty poor, but in some ways I didn't mind it - as long as he stayed away from any scene involving two characters talking, I found SM's writing passable, and some of the actions scenes were really quite good. The art was nice too. Sure, it was over-long and some of those coda stories were just plain awful, but actually, overall, it was okay.

So, last night I started to read the first trade of the ongoing. I was staggered by how bad it was - really, I have never read a more useless TF comic (and I include guff like Timelines). And the art?! I used to really like Don, but this thing is nothing short of hideous. Ultimately, I think I made it through about three issues and then I threw it across the room, such was the actual physical disgust I felt. No doubt this sounds like absurd hyperbole, but it's true. I didn't think there was a TF comic bad enough that I wouldn't buy it in trade form eventually, but this time I will make an exception. It will take some quite extraordinarily positive reviews to get me to read anything else by the hack who created this stinking pile of shit.

[legios]

At the I didn't expect that I would see professional Transformers comics worse than All Hail Megatron. Little did I know.....

I only bought the first issue of the ongoing, because the poor quality of the writing and the lack of actual content meant that it simply wasn't worth the cover price, and I am fairly ruthless with my periodical comics these days, anything that does not measure up is swiftly dropped. Probably why I am only buying two or three ongoing comics these days, but I digress.

I have read some later issues of the ongoing, courtesy of other folks buying it, and I did not find it to get any better. Nothing happens, and does so extremely slowly, and its characters are either underdeveloped to the point of non-existence (the Transformers) or actively horrible and unlikeable (Spike). The comic has completed a year and has given me no reason whatsoever to actually want to spend money on it and, like you, every reason to avoid anything written by Mike Costa.

Karl

[charlesrocketboy]

So you didn't find it inspiring when Spike murdered Scrapper with random bits from his kitchen to prove how AWESOME!! humans are? (And, of course, how shit everyone who died in AHM must have been since they weren't killing Transformers)

[blueshift]

It's been said before, but the ongoing feels a lot like the 80s GI Joe/Transformers crossover to me. A GI Joe story that the Transformers guest star in, and pop up to occassionally get blown to bits by GI Joe.

I never liked that

[Rich]

I hated the Gi Joe crossover in the 80s - it's what brought a stop to my comic buying, as I felt like I was getting ripped off as there were never any TFs in it.

I think the thing I found really annoying in Costa's writing was the portrayal of Prime; self-pitying Prime has been done better a dozen times before (and isn't an idea I really like, anyway), but even leaving aside the unoriginality, it was just painful reading the absurdly contrived motivation that was used to get him to take himself off-screen. And then Magnus and Hot Rod - I cheated last night and skipped to the end to read the last couple of pages - Hot Rod / Rodimus stealing Magnus' ship? Sheesh.

I can't believe I ever mumbled a word of complaint about the -tions 'cause compared to the stuff that has come since they were 'a staggering work of heartbreaking genius'.

[legios]

Oct 20, 2010 15:00:18 GMT charlesrocketboy said:

So you didn't find it inspiring when Spike murdered Scrapper with random bits from his kitchen to prove how AWESOME!! humans are? (And, of course, how shit everyone who died in AHM must have been since they weren't killing Transformers)

You mean the issue where the comic's main character proved once and for all that he is unfit for his command by going out, alone and without backup or support and tracking down an enemy combatant to kill not for any military purpose but just because he felt like getting some killin' done? Putting, by definition, a command echelon officer at unnecessary hazard in the interests of buzz-seeking and in the process tearing up the last shreds of doubt as to whether he had it in him at all to set an appropriate example to the men under his command. Did I find that issue inspiring?

Less than you would think.......

Karl

[charlesrocketboy]

Life is the right of all NON-DECEPTICON sentient beings.

[The Doctor]

I direct your attention to this fine fan-made spoof by Cosmic Duck:

docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9jQDJy_up6pMTJkMzBmMjItZTk2NC00Yzk5LWIyZjItYTdmNWExMDBmNTFk&hl=en&authkey=CJ262c4N

-Ralph

[charlesrocketboy]

Hee! ;D

[KnightBeat]

To balance the negativity in this thread, I feel I should say something positive about the comic:

It looks pretty.

That is all.

[Deleted]

I feel I should also say something positive about the comic.

It lasts longer than newspaper when used to cover the bottom of a rabbit hutch!

[dinogrrl]

While it's nice to know that Mike is thinking of more complicated story outcomes, the fact remains that he can't write to the concept level. Instead he writes the most stultifyingly boring comics I have ever read.