The Odds Will Betray You, and I Will Replace You.
Nerd.
Addendum 7: Transformers Wreckers Mosaic: Dead Man’s Boots. September 1st 2010.
You can turn down this opportunity, no questions asked.
First some important housekeeping. Last Stand of the Wreckers is by far the Transformers comic with the most extras in trade, first in paperback, and then even more so in the limited edition and now quite difficult to get hardback. James and Nick were determined to make double and triple dipping seem value for money as they tried to give the serries a long afterlife. This means the hardback has 59 pages of bonus features, from the standard cover gallery through profiles, short comic stories and even two prose stories.
Now, that’s a lot, so even though nearly everything included here was meant to be read after the main series, I’ll be covering the contents as I go along, some individually, some as a group depending on how much I can get out of them. So that’s something to remember when reading these Addendum pieces.
And just to add to the non-linear nature of all this, I’m actually writing this piece before that for issue one for scheduling reasons.
Dead Men’s Boots is somewhat unique as it was not created for the trade, but was originally presented as a Mosaic, four months after the end of the main series.
We may need a flowchart by the end. Still, I’d forgotten that there was another Mosaic that made a stab at official canon, and unlike the previous effort, still is and gets included in reprints. See Simon, it can be done.
This is also the first thing I’ve covered written entirely by James Roberts (Nick just does the art on this one), but we’ll save more thoughts on him for his real time debut.
Which is a lot of setup for a very simple story, where Springer remembers Impactor recruiting him for the Wreckers (something we’ll get more on in years to come), before going to do the same for Pyro, Rotorstorm, Ironfist and Guzzle. With him musing that unlike Impactor, he gives the recruits chance to say no. Which they sometimes do, but, as Guzzle calls in to ask if it’s true if Kup is on the mission, sometimes they change their minds.
You can turn down this opportunity, no questions asked.
First some important housekeeping. Last Stand of the Wreckers is by far the Transformers comic with the most extras in trade, first in paperback, and then even more so in the limited edition and now quite difficult to get hardback. James and Nick were determined to make double and triple dipping seem value for money as they tried to give the serries a long afterlife. This means the hardback has 59 pages of bonus features, from the standard cover gallery through profiles, short comic stories and even two prose stories.
Now, that’s a lot, so even though nearly everything included here was meant to be read after the main series, I’ll be covering the contents as I go along, some individually, some as a group depending on how much I can get out of them. So that’s something to remember when reading these Addendum pieces.
And just to add to the non-linear nature of all this, I’m actually writing this piece before that for issue one for scheduling reasons.
Dead Men’s Boots is somewhat unique as it was not created for the trade, but was originally presented as a Mosaic, four months after the end of the main series.
We may need a flowchart by the end. Still, I’d forgotten that there was another Mosaic that made a stab at official canon, and unlike the previous effort, still is and gets included in reprints. See Simon, it can be done.
This is also the first thing I’ve covered written entirely by James Roberts (Nick just does the art on this one), but we’ll save more thoughts on him for his real time debut.
Which is a lot of setup for a very simple story, where Springer remembers Impactor recruiting him for the Wreckers (something we’ll get more on in years to come), before going to do the same for Pyro, Rotorstorm, Ironfist and Guzzle. With him musing that unlike Impactor, he gives the recruits chance to say no. Which they sometimes do, but, as Guzzle calls in to ask if it’s true if Kup is on the mission, sometimes they change their minds.
Well, there's nothing sinister here and I won't ask why"
This is largely dramatizing moments from the Bullets short story (more of that alongside issue 5), though, presumably to keep the twist of the shimmer in that story a surprise, it’s not really very clear that Springer is a hologram here (though nicely, three of the four are holding just fired guns in reaction to their scare).
But it does use the one-page format to nicely sell each character, Pyro is immediately overwhelmed, Rotorstorm is cocky, Ironfist goes into nerd statistics mode (and confirms Rack’N’Ruin are dead), whilst Guzzle just stares. As something to tease anyone who hadn’t bought the series in issues into being interested in the first trade, it does a good job.
What is most interesting though, is Guzzle changing his mind because of Kup. This is a plotline the main comic introduced and, because of ideas and moments getting lost during editing, didn’t do anything with. It’s one of the few weaknesses of the book, especially in its original context where they were no plans for sequels.
Deliberately bringing it up here feels like a promise. We haven’t forgotten this, there will be payoff down the line. And talk of some sort of Wreckers follow-up did begin pretty quickly—not to mention both Nick and James were discussing other potential projects as a team and solo—so it was a promise they probably thought they could make with some confidence. And pleasingly, it will come, it’s just going to take the long way round in getting here.
Coming right after a run of issues of different series that barely seem to be aware of each other, reading a quick and fast one-page story that works hard to fit seamlessly in-between lines of dialogue in a trade only text story is an incredible relief, and shows the strength of the two creators at world building and consistency on even a minor story. In its own small way, Dead Men’s Boots is a sign of the healing process that, though it might take a while to get there, will eventually bring us to the real golden age of the IDW comics.
There’s some life in the old boots yet.
But is there life in an old Volkswagen? Find out next week, back on Sunday, with Bumblebee Issue 3.
LAST STAND OF THE WRECKERS ISSUE 1
2010
COMMENT
KO-FI
But it does use the one-page format to nicely sell each character, Pyro is immediately overwhelmed, Rotorstorm is cocky, Ironfist goes into nerd statistics mode (and confirms Rack’N’Ruin are dead), whilst Guzzle just stares. As something to tease anyone who hadn’t bought the series in issues into being interested in the first trade, it does a good job.
What is most interesting though, is Guzzle changing his mind because of Kup. This is a plotline the main comic introduced and, because of ideas and moments getting lost during editing, didn’t do anything with. It’s one of the few weaknesses of the book, especially in its original context where they were no plans for sequels.
Deliberately bringing it up here feels like a promise. We haven’t forgotten this, there will be payoff down the line. And talk of some sort of Wreckers follow-up did begin pretty quickly—not to mention both Nick and James were discussing other potential projects as a team and solo—so it was a promise they probably thought they could make with some confidence. And pleasingly, it will come, it’s just going to take the long way round in getting here.
Coming right after a run of issues of different series that barely seem to be aware of each other, reading a quick and fast one-page story that works hard to fit seamlessly in-between lines of dialogue in a trade only text story is an incredible relief, and shows the strength of the two creators at world building and consistency on even a minor story. In its own small way, Dead Men’s Boots is a sign of the healing process that, though it might take a while to get there, will eventually bring us to the real golden age of the IDW comics.
There’s some life in the old boots yet.
But is there life in an old Volkswagen? Find out next week, back on Sunday, with Bumblebee Issue 3.
LAST STAND OF THE WRECKERS ISSUE 1
2010
COMMENT
KO-FI
