From the Moment I could Talk; I Was Ordered to Listen.
All Hail Megatron Issue 5. November 26th 2008.
“Mess”?
The idea of this blog is that very much me reacting to the issues in the here and now, and this time around I’m coming into the fifth part of All Hail Megatron after two days of incredibly erratic work hours for a stock take that involved coming in six hours early. I’m borderline hallucinating at this point, so I’m not entirely sure what is real, who is real or why is real. I’m not even entirely sure All Hail Megatron is real. But, whilst that means there could be some very strange opinions forthcoming this week, I’d also hope I’d not have the paucity of imagination we’ve seen so far in this series.
The issue itself gives us the first of a few artists to come in and help out Guido due to the tightness of the deadlines and some personal factors he was having to deal with, in this case, Casey Coller. Whilst we previously had a two artists issue of Megatron Origin, this starts the trend of trying to put some thought into how to divide an issue so the switch feels natural rather than just handing some pages picked at random over. In this case, Coller draws the opening four-page flashback of Hot Rod explaining how he wound up trapped on Cyberton.
It turns out the ship he was serving on, The Trion, was in pursuit of a Decepticon battlecruiser that led them into an ambush in orbit of Cybertron against multiple fighters, and with the odds already stacked against them, a ship-wide systems breakdown was the final straw and caused a crash landing.
“Mess”?
The idea of this blog is that very much me reacting to the issues in the here and now, and this time around I’m coming into the fifth part of All Hail Megatron after two days of incredibly erratic work hours for a stock take that involved coming in six hours early. I’m borderline hallucinating at this point, so I’m not entirely sure what is real, who is real or why is real. I’m not even entirely sure All Hail Megatron is real. But, whilst that means there could be some very strange opinions forthcoming this week, I’d also hope I’d not have the paucity of imagination we’ve seen so far in this series.
The issue itself gives us the first of a few artists to come in and help out Guido due to the tightness of the deadlines and some personal factors he was having to deal with, in this case, Casey Coller. Whilst we previously had a two artists issue of Megatron Origin, this starts the trend of trying to put some thought into how to divide an issue so the switch feels natural rather than just handing some pages picked at random over. In this case, Coller draws the opening four-page flashback of Hot Rod explaining how he wound up trapped on Cyberton.
It turns out the ship he was serving on, The Trion, was in pursuit of a Decepticon battlecruiser that led them into an ambush in orbit of Cybertron against multiple fighters, and with the odds already stacked against them, a ship-wide systems breakdown was the final straw and caused a crash landing.
This opening is interesting for two reasons. First, the attempt to “SF” how the Autobots connect with their ships. We’d already seen this in the Furman stuff of course, but here it’s taken to the extent that not just one pilot plugs in, and when the ship takes a hit, everyone feels pain. And when the computer system is seemingly hacked by the Decepticons, Blaster feels his brain slow down.
Which is, of course, a terrible and stupid system and no wonder we’ll never see it again. Trying to pilot in battle must be though enough already, you don’t need extreme pain as well on top of that.
The other, and far more intriguing, thing is that, whilst we get a good look at various crewmembers (Springer, Perceptor), the commander of the ship is kept in shadow, bar a tight close up of his face smoking what will come to be known as a “Cy-Gar”, with the only real clue to his identity being Springer is very deferential to the “Old man”.
This means we’re actually getting the most respectful treatment of the previous comics we’ve yet seen as the issue is building up to a surprise reveal that, yes, Kup is up and about again and now played by George Peppard. It assumes you remember how we last saw him and that this will be a big moment for readers when he does appear, even if “And he got better” is the only explanation we’ll get till after the main series ends.
Which is, of course, a terrible and stupid system and no wonder we’ll never see it again. Trying to pilot in battle must be though enough already, you don’t need extreme pain as well on top of that.
The other, and far more intriguing, thing is that, whilst we get a good look at various crewmembers (Springer, Perceptor), the commander of the ship is kept in shadow, bar a tight close up of his face smoking what will come to be known as a “Cy-Gar”, with the only real clue to his identity being Springer is very deferential to the “Old man”.
This means we’re actually getting the most respectful treatment of the previous comics we’ve yet seen as the issue is building up to a surprise reveal that, yes, Kup is up and about again and now played by George Peppard. It assumes you remember how we last saw him and that this will be a big moment for readers when he does appear, even if “And he got better” is the only explanation we’ll get till after the main series ends.
Nick Roche was a bit befuddled at the time as he was expecting to get to do the follow up to his Spotlight, though he was ultimately a good sport and took it as an important lesson about playing in a shared sandbox.
Luckily, as IDW will make a trend of doing odd things with Kup that get in the way of Nick Roche stories about him.
What is amusing is the accompanying cool cigar, something that a decade later feels like a visual gag that wouldn’t be allowed to happen in a comic tied to a kid’s property. Notably, the recent Playmobile A-Team set may have Mr T’s milk and Murdock’s sock puppet, but no cigar for Hannibal. Or guns for anyone for that matter, though dynamite was apparently OK.
As the switch to Guido happens, we see an oddly tiny little boi looking Hot Rod finish his story by explaining the crew had gone to ground to hide from something called The Swam, and he’d broken orders by using their sparse energon supplies to send out a distress call, which he’d thought had been answered.
Cue team Kup walking in, with the Cy-Gar chomper basically calling Hot Rod an idiot. It’s a great full-page reveal of Kup, Blurr, Perceptor (looking different to normal, but more on that in future issues), Blaster, Roadbuster and new guy Drift, with the especially lovely detail of Roadbuster, who feels like he’s subbing for Arcee in a cast of prominent in the 1986 film characters, being so tall his shoulders are scraping the ceiling.
As we’ve had new characters introduced before in IDW (usually to die) and he gets a very low-key entrance—indeed, not doing anything but standing there this issue—you’d think there’d be no controversy about Drift at all. Unfortunately though, the IDW publicity machine did him incalculable damage by pushing him far, far harder that this comic will.
Luckily, as IDW will make a trend of doing odd things with Kup that get in the way of Nick Roche stories about him.
What is amusing is the accompanying cool cigar, something that a decade later feels like a visual gag that wouldn’t be allowed to happen in a comic tied to a kid’s property. Notably, the recent Playmobile A-Team set may have Mr T’s milk and Murdock’s sock puppet, but no cigar for Hannibal. Or guns for anyone for that matter, though dynamite was apparently OK.
As the switch to Guido happens, we see an oddly tiny little boi looking Hot Rod finish his story by explaining the crew had gone to ground to hide from something called The Swam, and he’d broken orders by using their sparse energon supplies to send out a distress call, which he’d thought had been answered.
Cue team Kup walking in, with the Cy-Gar chomper basically calling Hot Rod an idiot. It’s a great full-page reveal of Kup, Blurr, Perceptor (looking different to normal, but more on that in future issues), Blaster, Roadbuster and new guy Drift, with the especially lovely detail of Roadbuster, who feels like he’s subbing for Arcee in a cast of prominent in the 1986 film characters, being so tall his shoulders are scraping the ceiling.
As we’ve had new characters introduced before in IDW (usually to die) and he gets a very low-key entrance—indeed, not doing anything but standing there this issue—you’d think there’d be no controversy about Drift at all. Unfortunately though, the IDW publicity machine did him incalculable damage by pushing him far, far harder that this comic will.
The idea behind him was that Hasbro, clearly concerned at the time that was no way they could sustain Classics by doing the same six characters over and over, wanted a “New” Generation One Transformer to make a toy of. Which is fair enough, but it meant we got PR about how unique and special and amazing Drift was. No existing character could be an ex-Decepticon turned good guy (untrue), no one created for the comics had ever gotten a toy (untrue). Drift is an amazing sexy samurai bad ass who you want to make sweet, sweet love to.
And though he is a background presence here, he was guaranteed a Spotlight and his own miniseries before we’d even seen him. Unfortunately, the hard sell poisoned the well somewhat, and it would take a few years for the fandom to come around to Drift.
Adding to the hilarity, as Drift hasn’t been to Earth yet, he doesn’t actually look like his toy in any of these initial comics, and said toy was also hugely delayed, to the point a lot of people just assumed it wasn’t happening. So, a bit of a mess all round.
Speaking of characters this series introduced that the fandom initially didn’t like, on Earth, Colonel Witwicky is joined by his son “Commander” (a navy rather than an army rank, making the chain of command here even odder) Spike Witwicky!
Though, again, initially it looks like Andy has walked in the room. Maybe Daddy Witwicky put it about a lot in the 70s?
And though he is a background presence here, he was guaranteed a Spotlight and his own miniseries before we’d even seen him. Unfortunately, the hard sell poisoned the well somewhat, and it would take a few years for the fandom to come around to Drift.
Adding to the hilarity, as Drift hasn’t been to Earth yet, he doesn’t actually look like his toy in any of these initial comics, and said toy was also hugely delayed, to the point a lot of people just assumed it wasn’t happening. So, a bit of a mess all round.
Speaking of characters this series introduced that the fandom initially didn’t like, on Earth, Colonel Witwicky is joined by his son “Commander” (a navy rather than an army rank, making the chain of command here even odder) Spike Witwicky!
Though, again, initially it looks like Andy has walked in the room. Maybe Daddy Witwicky put it about a lot in the 70s?
Spike, like Drift, IDW will stick with despite being disliked, but unlike Drift will always remain an immense drag factor on any story. But there’s going to be a lot more to talk about with that as we go along, so I’ll stick to mentioning that is of course deeply stupid to have a father giving orders to his own son in a military setting, especially for a blatant suicide mission. At the very least, it should be one of the other senior officers doing it.
So we get an awkward greeting, and then Spike being presented with what looks like Megatron’s LinkedIn profile picture, as daddy explains that the broadcasts the Decepticons have been sending out to intimidate the Earth have made it clear the other robots won’t be up to much without their leader, so Spike’s teams of super soldiers are to assassinate him using some sort of secret weapon that, handily, is kept in New York.
This plan would suggest the experts have not been paying much attention to the footage, as we’ve already seen Starscream leading teams successfully. But then, in our latest sign no one making this comic has any idea how much the Decepticons have attached the rest of the world, he also thinks they’re only just starting to attack other American cities, so maybe US intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
He's also worried that pesky UN might be thinking of wanting to get involved as well. Can't have that, foreigners.
The scene ends with a very uncomfortable “Call your mom” moment, and then two soldiers outside the tent revealing Sparkplug picked his own son for this mission himself.
Idiot.
So we get an awkward greeting, and then Spike being presented with what looks like Megatron’s LinkedIn profile picture, as daddy explains that the broadcasts the Decepticons have been sending out to intimidate the Earth have made it clear the other robots won’t be up to much without their leader, so Spike’s teams of super soldiers are to assassinate him using some sort of secret weapon that, handily, is kept in New York.
This plan would suggest the experts have not been paying much attention to the footage, as we’ve already seen Starscream leading teams successfully. But then, in our latest sign no one making this comic has any idea how much the Decepticons have attached the rest of the world, he also thinks they’re only just starting to attack other American cities, so maybe US intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
He's also worried that pesky UN might be thinking of wanting to get involved as well. Can't have that, foreigners.
The scene ends with a very uncomfortable “Call your mom” moment, and then two soldiers outside the tent revealing Sparkplug picked his own son for this mission himself.
Idiot.
It was at this point during the writing of this piece, my Bluetooth keyboard for my tablet died. Presumably knowing what was coming and doing a better review of the comic than I’m managing. Because on Cybertron, we get the single worst scene in the series to date.
Unless you were missing the whole characters on the same side punching each other thing from last issue that is, as Kup and Jazz (who we’re told takes precedence over Prowl in “Certain situations”) have a bitch fest over how shit Jazz has been as leader, even though both sides have done nothing but feel sad about themselves since getting to Cybertron.
Then Springer and Jazz get to have a fight for dominance, which Jazz wins. Which definitely wouldn’t be the case in later IDW. He then tries to Gotcha Kup’s complaint about his security be revealing an invisible Mirage was on guard all along.
Yeah, give one of the prime suspects for Traitor of the Year an excuse to walk about invisible.
It’s a horrible, padded and out of character scene for everyone involved.
Unless you were missing the whole characters on the same side punching each other thing from last issue that is, as Kup and Jazz (who we’re told takes precedence over Prowl in “Certain situations”) have a bitch fest over how shit Jazz has been as leader, even though both sides have done nothing but feel sad about themselves since getting to Cybertron.
Then Springer and Jazz get to have a fight for dominance, which Jazz wins. Which definitely wouldn’t be the case in later IDW. He then tries to Gotcha Kup’s complaint about his security be revealing an invisible Mirage was on guard all along.
Yeah, give one of the prime suspects for Traitor of the Year an excuse to walk about invisible.
It’s a horrible, padded and out of character scene for everyone involved.
Speaking of bad decisions, back in New York, Spike and company are about to cross the river at night, as in the base, a transmission of their life signs is being monitored (which lets us know one of them is Wilder from Masterforce). So, they’re going on this stealth mission against an enemy who have shown themselves to be experts at communications, and are broadcasting their heart rates to all and sundry.
In a shock twist, this means they barely get anywhere before (classic cassette mode) Ratbat attacks and capsizes the boat, seemingly killing everyone aboard. Good job, dad.
On Cybertron, Kup and Jazz get to be more introspective as they watch over Prime, chatting over how they got there (dropping hints that Devastator was involved that will be expanded upon later) and making it crystal clear there is a traitor amongst them. Kup even apologises for being a dick, before revealing that, as Prime never kept him around for his looks, he knows the big secret: Megatron, who we see gloating over it in his brief mute cameo for this issue of his own series, has the Matrix.
Turns out he really couldn’t be in the issue much because he was busy covering the Matrix in weird funny little symbols for fun.
New York has also heavily been rebuilt into a Cybertron looking place, but, as with how much of Earth has been attacked, this will be all over the place going forward.
In a shock twist, this means they barely get anywhere before (classic cassette mode) Ratbat attacks and capsizes the boat, seemingly killing everyone aboard. Good job, dad.
On Cybertron, Kup and Jazz get to be more introspective as they watch over Prime, chatting over how they got there (dropping hints that Devastator was involved that will be expanded upon later) and making it crystal clear there is a traitor amongst them. Kup even apologises for being a dick, before revealing that, as Prime never kept him around for his looks, he knows the big secret: Megatron, who we see gloating over it in his brief mute cameo for this issue of his own series, has the Matrix.
Turns out he really couldn’t be in the issue much because he was busy covering the Matrix in weird funny little symbols for fun.
New York has also heavily been rebuilt into a Cybertron looking place, but, as with how much of Earth has been attacked, this will be all over the place going forward.
We then get a frankly terrible emotional scene of Witwicky being all sad, going on about how Spike has copied him his entire life. And boy is his wife going to be annoyed.
Though I'd be more relieved.
The most interesting thing here is one of the military vehicles looks just like the Movie toy-line character, Dropshot. I wonder what that could mean?
The cliff-hanger though, is one of the most terrifying in IDW history: Spike Lives! To subject us to many more years of pain. But, for now, he's in New York.
After the upswing of issue 4, we're back to Earth with a squelch with the worst issue yet. Almost nothing happens in 22 pages. The two teams of Autobots meet and Spike goes on his mission and that's it. The padding here is now at a ridiculous level. And it's not ever good padding. We didn't need 4 pages of “Our ship crashed”, and we definitely didn't need the cock slapping between Autobots. And the soap opera Witwicky stuff assumes We’ve come to care about Sparkplug.
Though I'd be more relieved.
The most interesting thing here is one of the military vehicles looks just like the Movie toy-line character, Dropshot. I wonder what that could mean?
The cliff-hanger though, is one of the most terrifying in IDW history: Spike Lives! To subject us to many more years of pain. But, for now, he's in New York.
After the upswing of issue 4, we're back to Earth with a squelch with the worst issue yet. Almost nothing happens in 22 pages. The two teams of Autobots meet and Spike goes on his mission and that's it. The padding here is now at a ridiculous level. And it's not ever good padding. We didn't need 4 pages of “Our ship crashed”, and we definitely didn't need the cock slapping between Autobots. And the soap opera Witwicky stuff assumes We’ve come to care about Sparkplug.
We haven't.
My keyboard had the right idea here.
Next week, we end 2008 with the opening of Phase 2 of the Furman Farewell Tour.
And that will be on Thursday, as I'm going to LFCC to meet Jodie Whittaker. Which I might mention once or twice after...
SPOTLIGHT: BLURR
2008
COMMENT
KO-FI
My keyboard had the right idea here.
Next week, we end 2008 with the opening of Phase 2 of the Furman Farewell Tour.
And that will be on Thursday, as I'm going to LFCC to meet Jodie Whittaker. Which I might mention once or twice after...
SPOTLIGHT: BLURR
2008
COMMENT
KO-FI