You're in the Army Now.
Bumblebee Issue 1: The Hanging Sword. December 16th 2009.
Err… Bumblebee Prime, is it?
After giving the ongoing a clean two-month head-start, the three-pronged relaunch of the comics hit their second stage, from writer Zander Cannon and artist Chee Yang Ong (credited as just Chee on at least the Hachette collection). And it’s not just three-pronged in the number of series that are launching, as we’ve already noted, each is specifically intended to target a specific audience. And this is the comic for kids.
Now, there’s certainly cynicism there and IDW flat out saying it was for young readers rather than calling it a teen or general family book creates preconceptions that make some things that wouldn’t stand out seem odd. In particular, there’s a level of violence and themes that would not seem out of place in something like Doctor Who, or even the Transformers movies, specifically PG/12A targeted properties, that just become very bizarre in a book that is not also courting those older readers as well.
And yes, I’m not going to continue to beat this into the ground but trying to get younger readers in is a good thing. It’s something IDW will do very successfully do in a couple of years as several of my friends who joined on the Barber/Roberts run were 11/12 years old when it started (ironically, a run not trying to aim itself at children at all). But trying to do it with Bumblebee, and not making that Bumblebee like any version kids of 2009 actually liked is one of the greatest and silliest missteps of the whole of IDW.
Still, if it’s all a strange comic taken at face value in terms of its stated intent, how does it hold up as a comic without that context?
Err… Bumblebee Prime, is it?
After giving the ongoing a clean two-month head-start, the three-pronged relaunch of the comics hit their second stage, from writer Zander Cannon and artist Chee Yang Ong (credited as just Chee on at least the Hachette collection). And it’s not just three-pronged in the number of series that are launching, as we’ve already noted, each is specifically intended to target a specific audience. And this is the comic for kids.
Now, there’s certainly cynicism there and IDW flat out saying it was for young readers rather than calling it a teen or general family book creates preconceptions that make some things that wouldn’t stand out seem odd. In particular, there’s a level of violence and themes that would not seem out of place in something like Doctor Who, or even the Transformers movies, specifically PG/12A targeted properties, that just become very bizarre in a book that is not also courting those older readers as well.
And yes, I’m not going to continue to beat this into the ground but trying to get younger readers in is a good thing. It’s something IDW will do very successfully do in a couple of years as several of my friends who joined on the Barber/Roberts run were 11/12 years old when it started (ironically, a run not trying to aim itself at children at all). But trying to do it with Bumblebee, and not making that Bumblebee like any version kids of 2009 actually liked is one of the greatest and silliest missteps of the whole of IDW.
Still, if it’s all a strange comic taken at face value in terms of its stated intent, how does it hold up as a comic without that context?
The five seconds any new leader is liked.
The Hanging Sword opens with Bumblebee going to the assembled meeting of Autobots after being elected leader, as promised by the end of the first Costa issue. The first and just about only time the two series will sync up neatly. And they (including a pleasingly wide Hound) are cheering him, calling his name, and even shouting, in a cute gag, “All hail Bumblebee!”
And then we skip to days later, and though it won’t be apparent till that next issue comes out, after the events of the third Costa issue. Which, as noted, had not been released yet. Great synergy.
Still, things have already gone all wrong, and Bee is now siting with his head in his hands and bemoaning how tough being leader is and wondering if someone else could take the job. Something not helped by Wheeljack (who in previous and later years will be a sensible and reliable voice of reason), has decided to be an arsehole, cheerfully telling Bumblebee no, no one else does want it, so suck it up.
Ratchet chases him off and points out to Bumblebee that he needs to insist on more respect, and he needs to realise that he’s a great choice for leader as, amongst other reasons, the humans trust him. As seen in the last issue of All Hail Megatron, where the humans were about to put him down like a rabid dog.
Still, even if Bee isn’t as big as Prime or as fast as Hot Rod, what they need right now is someone small and slow.
And if that’s a pep talk, I don’t know what someone who hated Bumblebee would say.
And then we skip to days later, and though it won’t be apparent till that next issue comes out, after the events of the third Costa issue. Which, as noted, had not been released yet. Great synergy.
Still, things have already gone all wrong, and Bee is now siting with his head in his hands and bemoaning how tough being leader is and wondering if someone else could take the job. Something not helped by Wheeljack (who in previous and later years will be a sensible and reliable voice of reason), has decided to be an arsehole, cheerfully telling Bumblebee no, no one else does want it, so suck it up.
Ratchet chases him off and points out to Bumblebee that he needs to insist on more respect, and he needs to realise that he’s a great choice for leader as, amongst other reasons, the humans trust him. As seen in the last issue of All Hail Megatron, where the humans were about to put him down like a rabid dog.
Still, even if Bee isn’t as big as Prime or as fast as Hot Rod, what they need right now is someone small and slow.
And if that’s a pep talk, I don’t know what someone who hated Bumblebee would say.
Good clean family fun.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the odd violence levels, at a as yet mystery office building, Skywarp has brutally killed a bunch of humans, leaving broken bodies and burnt skulls. Why doesn’t become immediately clear this issue, but for whom is made readily apparent as his narration shows he’s a full on Megatron devote, and he’s plotting something for either his return or to help with it. And the one mistake the humans have made is leaving him alive.
Which is a pretty cool line, though super loyal Skywarp is amusing in retrospect considering his most recent at the time of writing role in the IDW second continuity.
Back at the base, Wheeljack continues his passive aggressive day as he tries to fix communications, and in doing so picks up a message from Skywatch Colonel Gordon Horiuchi, trying to reach any robots with the “Designation” Autobots. Telling them that they know what caves they’re hiding in and will be finding them soon. That he has broken orders to send this scrambled message and he believes there is a better way of dealing with the remaining Decepticon menace than hunting down all Transformers, and instead they should team up and form an alliance.
Now Wheeljack starts from the obvious position that this is a trap but looks increasingly convinced by the speech as it goes on, suggesting this is supposed to be more dynamic than it comes across.
But before we see if he answers the call or not, we get one of the best gag moments so far in IDW, with Omega Supreme crouched in a cave too small for him and having a good bitch at Bumblebee about it, who is having to be very apologetic, but he can’t let the bigger boy stay out in the open anymore. And no, they don’t have enough energon to even let the poor bugger transform, so he can be flatter.
Which is a pretty cool line, though super loyal Skywarp is amusing in retrospect considering his most recent at the time of writing role in the IDW second continuity.
Back at the base, Wheeljack continues his passive aggressive day as he tries to fix communications, and in doing so picks up a message from Skywatch Colonel Gordon Horiuchi, trying to reach any robots with the “Designation” Autobots. Telling them that they know what caves they’re hiding in and will be finding them soon. That he has broken orders to send this scrambled message and he believes there is a better way of dealing with the remaining Decepticon menace than hunting down all Transformers, and instead they should team up and form an alliance.
Now Wheeljack starts from the obvious position that this is a trap but looks increasingly convinced by the speech as it goes on, suggesting this is supposed to be more dynamic than it comes across.
But before we see if he answers the call or not, we get one of the best gag moments so far in IDW, with Omega Supreme crouched in a cave too small for him and having a good bitch at Bumblebee about it, who is having to be very apologetic, but he can’t let the bigger boy stay out in the open anymore. And no, they don’t have enough energon to even let the poor bugger transform, so he can be flatter.
Wheeljack: I will not be scammed. *Is scammed*
It's Chee’s visual that sells this, with Supreme looking cramped and uncomfortable and as annoyed as he can ever get.
Omega Supreme is at least putting up with Bumblebee’s leadership, back in the cave, Bumblebee is horrified to learn that not only has Wheeljack answered the call from the Colonel, but he’s set up a meeting as well. And he continues to be out of character, telling Bumblebee to “Cool his pipes” (not his Pipes) and he decided to act because all the weak leadership of Bee and Ratchet would have done is talk and talk till the humans captured all of them. They’re not a team, they’re an army and armies need leaders who make decisions rather than trying to make everyone happy.
Which is where putting this out after at least the third issue of the ongoing might have been better for more than chronological reasons as we’ve not seen Bumblebee fail at leading yet. Indeed, at the end of issue 2 of that book, Wheeljack seemed quite pleased Bee was in charge. So, him suddenly being a complete arse doesn’t even have the slightest context.
Omega Supreme is at least putting up with Bumblebee’s leadership, back in the cave, Bumblebee is horrified to learn that not only has Wheeljack answered the call from the Colonel, but he’s set up a meeting as well. And he continues to be out of character, telling Bumblebee to “Cool his pipes” (not his Pipes) and he decided to act because all the weak leadership of Bee and Ratchet would have done is talk and talk till the humans captured all of them. They’re not a team, they’re an army and armies need leaders who make decisions rather than trying to make everyone happy.
Which is where putting this out after at least the third issue of the ongoing might have been better for more than chronological reasons as we’ve not seen Bumblebee fail at leading yet. Indeed, at the end of issue 2 of that book, Wheeljack seemed quite pleased Bee was in charge. So, him suddenly being a complete arse doesn’t even have the slightest context.
Same, mate.
Someone else who’s actions don’t yet have a full context, though here it’s at least clearly meant to be a bit of a mystery, is Skywarp. Who, despite being a bit out of his tree, has still managed to find an old storage locker full of nasty looking weapons he promises to give Megatron as “Riches.” At first, I thought he’d actually hired a locker and filled it full of stolen stuff, but as he has to break the door open (wrecking it in the process), he presumably hasn’t been there before.
Bit that is all a mystery for another day, as Bumblebee goes for his off the grid meeting with the colonel in a desert. Which is the strangest sequence of the issue, not just because what is about to happen will be a hard sell, but because it starts with Hound, lovable friend of the planet Hound, seeing a big box the soldiers have bought with them and thinking it might be a big bomb all the humans are suicide bombers.
Maybe he and Wheeljack need to switch to decaf.
We do get one nice gag of Bumblebee being greeted by the Colonel as “Bumblebee Prime,” but then there’s an odd bit about him saying he expected Bumblebee to be a Japanese car rather than a German one, with this being from how Wheeljack described Bee, and it’s taken as an insult on his part.
Horiuchi then gives a speech that should feel more topical than ever, about how Skywatch are wasting resources chasing all the robots rather than just the “Bad” ones, and therefore a team of “Legal” Autobots working to chase down the wrong’uns (like Skywarp, with us being told it was a Skywatch office he attacked earlier), that’ll convince the rest of Skywatch that everyone who is on the right side of the law can be friends.
Bit that is all a mystery for another day, as Bumblebee goes for his off the grid meeting with the colonel in a desert. Which is the strangest sequence of the issue, not just because what is about to happen will be a hard sell, but because it starts with Hound, lovable friend of the planet Hound, seeing a big box the soldiers have bought with them and thinking it might be a big bomb all the humans are suicide bombers.
Maybe he and Wheeljack need to switch to decaf.
We do get one nice gag of Bumblebee being greeted by the Colonel as “Bumblebee Prime,” but then there’s an odd bit about him saying he expected Bumblebee to be a Japanese car rather than a German one, with this being from how Wheeljack described Bee, and it’s taken as an insult on his part.
Horiuchi then gives a speech that should feel more topical than ever, about how Skywatch are wasting resources chasing all the robots rather than just the “Bad” ones, and therefore a team of “Legal” Autobots working to chase down the wrong’uns (like Skywarp, with us being told it was a Skywatch office he attacked earlier), that’ll convince the rest of Skywatch that everyone who is on the right side of the law can be friends.
The only pipe Wheeljack needs is one around the head.
Presumably, the non-legal Transformers will be on a flight to Rwanda.
What could be quite biting (and again, especially in a kids’ book) satire is rather held back by Bumblebee actually buying into this very obvious bullshit and becoming that Priti Patel “Well, if I get in bed with the bastards, they won’t come for me” Right Sort of illegal alien.
Especially when Horiuchi also goes “Oh, and the rest of Skywatch can detect Transformers easily whenever they’re above ground, so wear these giant and not at all sinister SW badges that will mask your signals, but don’t ask anything about them.”
Still, we then cut to some time later, where we get a rather fun and nasty scene of the Legal Autobots rounding up a completely bonkers and missing his “Master” Frenzy, who has been using his now very bloody drill arms to kill cows.
Which is retrospectively quite funny considering how Soundwave will later lean quite hard into conservation, but also (in what I think is the last appearance of this take on the character), nightmare fuel Frenzy is always good value.
What could be quite biting (and again, especially in a kids’ book) satire is rather held back by Bumblebee actually buying into this very obvious bullshit and becoming that Priti Patel “Well, if I get in bed with the bastards, they won’t come for me” Right Sort of illegal alien.
Especially when Horiuchi also goes “Oh, and the rest of Skywatch can detect Transformers easily whenever they’re above ground, so wear these giant and not at all sinister SW badges that will mask your signals, but don’t ask anything about them.”
Still, we then cut to some time later, where we get a rather fun and nasty scene of the Legal Autobots rounding up a completely bonkers and missing his “Master” Frenzy, who has been using his now very bloody drill arms to kill cows.
Which is retrospectively quite funny considering how Soundwave will later lean quite hard into conservation, but also (in what I think is the last appearance of this take on the character), nightmare fuel Frenzy is always good value.
Good clean family fun.
The main purpose of the scene though to reveal to the Autobots their badges have radio transmitters in them that Horiuchi can communicate through. That they didn’t know about.
Someone should check on these things really.
The situation gets worse back at base, where Bumblebee congratulates everyone on six successful captures.
Or five, the number changes on the same page.
But this is when the Colonel calls in, to say their next target has been changed from Scavenger to a more gettable one… Blurr. Who will leave Bumblebee’s group in the next issue of the ongoing.
Protests that Blurr is not a wrong’un, but a perfectly legal Autobot go unheeded, because if you’re not playing ball with the team, you’re not safe from the team. And when Cliffjumper gets very snarky about it, Horiuchi simply orders an aide to activate his badge, forcing him into vehicle mode until he “Cools off.” These inhibitors just being a “Precaution.”
Someone should check on these things really.
The situation gets worse back at base, where Bumblebee congratulates everyone on six successful captures.
Or five, the number changes on the same page.
But this is when the Colonel calls in, to say their next target has been changed from Scavenger to a more gettable one… Blurr. Who will leave Bumblebee’s group in the next issue of the ongoing.
Protests that Blurr is not a wrong’un, but a perfectly legal Autobot go unheeded, because if you’re not playing ball with the team, you’re not safe from the team. And when Cliffjumper gets very snarky about it, Horiuchi simply orders an aide to activate his badge, forcing him into vehicle mode until he “Cools off.” These inhibitors just being a “Precaution.”
You know the drill.
Great work Bumblebee, you’ve created the situation where the cliff-hanger is you having to agree to go get Blurr or everyone becomes trapped as a car.
Actually no, this is Wheeljack’s fault. What a sod.
This book does not have a great reputation, but I actually enjoyed that more than I was expecting, largely for a couple of basically irrelevant scenes like Omega Supreme and Frenzy.
But, just about everyone except Ratchet and Cliffjumper are out of character and Bumblebee has to be a complete idiot to agree to any of this, robbing a potentially interesting analogy of any power. If he’d just gone into it less blindly and more through gritted teeth to buy some time, things would work much better.
I know it’s a bit Marmite for people, but I also quite like the Chee art, though yes, all the character models are different from the ongoing and that will become a problem when character design actually plays a role in the plot.
Actually no, this is Wheeljack’s fault. What a sod.
This book does not have a great reputation, but I actually enjoyed that more than I was expecting, largely for a couple of basically irrelevant scenes like Omega Supreme and Frenzy.
But, just about everyone except Ratchet and Cliffjumper are out of character and Bumblebee has to be a complete idiot to agree to any of this, robbing a potentially interesting analogy of any power. If he’d just gone into it less blindly and more through gritted teeth to buy some time, things would work much better.
I know it’s a bit Marmite for people, but I also quite like the Chee art, though yes, all the character models are different from the ongoing and that will become a problem when character design actually plays a role in the plot.
A CLiffjumper cliff-hanger.
The real and baffling question though, is if each book in this relaunch was meant to be targeted at a different audience—and the Wreckers series will largely be standalone—why is the one for kids so dependant on needing to have read the Ongoing? As well as weaving closely amongst its issues (or trying to anyway, again, more on that as we go along), the whole setup depends on a working knowledge of the other series. It’s a baffling and counterintuitive decision considering the intent.
Still, “Baffling and counterintuitive” basically sums up most of IDW in 2009. A year of stopping and starting like an old car trying to do a hill start, the successes this year have largely been down to the little moments rather than the big overarching plots.
But will 2010 find more cohesion and, more importantly, quality? Find out next week with issue 3 of the ongoing.
THE TRANSFORMERS ISSUE 2
2009
COMMENT
KO-FI
Still, “Baffling and counterintuitive” basically sums up most of IDW in 2009. A year of stopping and starting like an old car trying to do a hill start, the successes this year have largely been down to the little moments rather than the big overarching plots.
But will 2010 find more cohesion and, more importantly, quality? Find out next week with issue 3 of the ongoing.
THE TRANSFORMERS ISSUE 2
2009
COMMENT
KO-FI
