Whatever Happened to my Transylvanian Twist?
Addendum 12: Infestation Issue 1. January 26th 2011.
Holy &*&%$! She just zombie-fied a machine!
Epic crossovers are, of course, a standard part of comics publishing, but one that proves a challenge for a company like IDW, for whom most of their major properties are licenced and owned by different companies.
As the years go on, we’ll see more one on one crossovers (creating a problem for fans of the licences IDW lose trying to get a complete collection), but the more traditional, throw everyone and the kitchen sink in, event is much harder to arrange.
So here we see IDW come up with quite a canny solution. A two issue series based around properties owned outright by IDW, Zombies VS Robots and CVO: Covert Vampire Operations. But, the end of the first issue sends the threat into multiple other Universes, where each licenced title can then have its own two issue series fighting them where they don’t have to interact with any characters not owned by IDW. Before the second issue of the wraparound series tidies everything up.
It's a handy way of doing an Event, and even allows IDW to keep reprinting the issues related to each property even after they’ve lost the rights to some of the others. Though, presumably, no other publisher that gets the rights to, say, Transformers, will be able to reprint those issues themselves because of the IDW characters.
And for this first attempt, they take it nice and slowly as two of the four properties involved, (Transformers and G.I. Joe. The other two are Star Trek and Ghostbusters) are owned by Hasbro, reducing the number of partners to deal with.
Holy &*&%$! She just zombie-fied a machine!
Epic crossovers are, of course, a standard part of comics publishing, but one that proves a challenge for a company like IDW, for whom most of their major properties are licenced and owned by different companies.
As the years go on, we’ll see more one on one crossovers (creating a problem for fans of the licences IDW lose trying to get a complete collection), but the more traditional, throw everyone and the kitchen sink in, event is much harder to arrange.
So here we see IDW come up with quite a canny solution. A two issue series based around properties owned outright by IDW, Zombies VS Robots and CVO: Covert Vampire Operations. But, the end of the first issue sends the threat into multiple other Universes, where each licenced title can then have its own two issue series fighting them where they don’t have to interact with any characters not owned by IDW. Before the second issue of the wraparound series tidies everything up.
It's a handy way of doing an Event, and even allows IDW to keep reprinting the issues related to each property even after they’ve lost the rights to some of the others. Though, presumably, no other publisher that gets the rights to, say, Transformers, will be able to reprint those issues themselves because of the IDW characters.
And for this first attempt, they take it nice and slowly as two of the four properties involved, (Transformers and G.I. Joe. The other two are Star Trek and Ghostbusters) are owned by Hasbro, reducing the number of partners to deal with.
Me battling through the Hilton rooms booking system for TFN.
Now, all this talk of properties, licences and rights makes it all sound very cynical and corporate, but, let’s be honest, there’s no comics crossover in history that isn’t. And at least the nature of this one means it has to be IDW driven, we’ll get some later ones that are very obviously forced upon them.
In terms of the wraparound, IDW have of course, created several of their own properties that have managed to have some success. Locke and Key probably being the most notable. But it’s fair to say that Zombie Vs Robots and CVO are not amongst them, despite having run for several years. At the time of writing, neither has a Wikipedia page and most of the information you get from Google is related to this crossover, largely via TFwiki.
And, it’s easy to see why to be honest, both are a very cynical attempt to cash in on popular trends of the early to mid-Noughties, most notably the zombie comics craze (of which Transformers had of course already done a well regarded riff on) and Buffy/Angel. With, for this crossover, a Stargate thrown in. It’s lazy, unimaginative and it’s understandable why they died on the vine after those trends shifted.
The big other thing to note before quickly summing up this first issue is the writers of both the framing device and the two Transformers issues, Dan Abnett (who’s come a long way since I talked about his early Marvel UK work in Transformation) and Andy Lanning.
In terms of the wraparound, IDW have of course, created several of their own properties that have managed to have some success. Locke and Key probably being the most notable. But it’s fair to say that Zombie Vs Robots and CVO are not amongst them, despite having run for several years. At the time of writing, neither has a Wikipedia page and most of the information you get from Google is related to this crossover, largely via TFwiki.
And, it’s easy to see why to be honest, both are a very cynical attempt to cash in on popular trends of the early to mid-Noughties, most notably the zombie comics craze (of which Transformers had of course already done a well regarded riff on) and Buffy/Angel. With, for this crossover, a Stargate thrown in. It’s lazy, unimaginative and it’s understandable why they died on the vine after those trends shifted.
The big other thing to note before quickly summing up this first issue is the writers of both the framing device and the two Transformers issues, Dan Abnett (who’s come a long way since I talked about his early Marvel UK work in Transformation) and Andy Lanning.
Codename: Boobs.
As a writing duo, they were incredibly hot around this time for their Marvel work, including revamping Guardians of the Galaxy. They were quite a catch for IDW, and over the course of 2011 they are going to be set up to take over from Mike Costa on a forthcoming big relaunch.
We’ll see how that goes over the next few months.
As for the comic itself…
At a secret military base in New Mexico from the Zombies Vs Robots series, the US government is delighted to find a Stargate…erm…dimensional portal, through which they go conquer new worlds and dump their undesirable elements in SPACE Guantanamo. Unfortunately, a hoard of zombies break through from the other side and start biting everyone.
This is when the CVO are called in (apparently, they do more than vampires), fighting their way through the zombies, to find they’re controlled by an intelligent hive mind, making the brains eaters work on turning the portal into a conduit to multiple dimensions.
For the overall story, the most important character is “Codename” Britt (with a design that suggests the C in CVO stands for “Chest”), half vampire, half zombie, she’s one of a couple of members of the team who fall under the hive mind and help it achieve its end, blasting zombies, both humans and robots from those stored in the base, into four other dimensions. And though the real Britt is left behind, some form of her essence goes with them.
This leaves the CVO with no option but to watch through the portals, to see if those in each dimension can beat the Infestation.
We’ll see how that goes over the next few months.
As for the comic itself…
At a secret military base in New Mexico from the Zombies Vs Robots series, the US government is delighted to find a Stargate…erm…dimensional portal, through which they go conquer new worlds and dump their undesirable elements in SPACE Guantanamo. Unfortunately, a hoard of zombies break through from the other side and start biting everyone.
This is when the CVO are called in (apparently, they do more than vampires), fighting their way through the zombies, to find they’re controlled by an intelligent hive mind, making the brains eaters work on turning the portal into a conduit to multiple dimensions.
For the overall story, the most important character is “Codename” Britt (with a design that suggests the C in CVO stands for “Chest”), half vampire, half zombie, she’s one of a couple of members of the team who fall under the hive mind and help it achieve its end, blasting zombies, both humans and robots from those stored in the base, into four other dimensions. And though the real Britt is left behind, some form of her essence goes with them.
This leaves the CVO with no option but to watch through the portals, to see if those in each dimension can beat the Infestation.
Let's hope the heroes get a clean sweep.
Meaning a one tiny image in a spread page of a Sweep is the only Transformers presence in the issue. Though he did also appear in one page of the never subsequently collected anywhere else Classified Secrets tease for the series, but I’ve already lost the will to live enough to not find it worth tracking down.
This is, functional. It might be more exciting if you know or care about either property, but the problem of course, is no one did.
It certainly feels like a comic for 6 years earlier, not helped by the very “Ohhhh ho BOOBS” art by David Messina and Elena Cassgrande. I read this via the Star Trek comics partwork (which, unlike the Transformers one, included the framing issues as well as their own miniseries), and poor quality of the reproduction even made it feel like a comic from a decade earlier, the pixelated art making it look at home with Dreamwave.
Still, it’s not the worst crossover IDW will ever do, and it sets the scene for what is, as far as this project is concerned, the main event.
So, will the first Transformers issue infest us with good cheer?
THE TRANSFORMERS ISSUE 15
2011
COMMENT
KO-FI
This is, functional. It might be more exciting if you know or care about either property, but the problem of course, is no one did.
It certainly feels like a comic for 6 years earlier, not helped by the very “Ohhhh ho BOOBS” art by David Messina and Elena Cassgrande. I read this via the Star Trek comics partwork (which, unlike the Transformers one, included the framing issues as well as their own miniseries), and poor quality of the reproduction even made it feel like a comic from a decade earlier, the pixelated art making it look at home with Dreamwave.
Still, it’s not the worst crossover IDW will ever do, and it sets the scene for what is, as far as this project is concerned, the main event.
So, will the first Transformers issue infest us with good cheer?
THE TRANSFORMERS ISSUE 15
2011
COMMENT
KO-FI
