Revisitation 113: A Pistol Whipping.

17/2/2023

This week, it's very amusing that we've hit the 113th Revisitation with a Costa issue. That'd shock James Roberts down to his Jeremy Corbin underpants.

Still, it's an issue that goes all MEGA (Make Earth Great Again), meaning it's ahead of its time as I ask if it's one of the Bester stories or needs demolishing as I look at REVENGE OF THE DECEPTICONS PART 1.

1 Comment

Llama God

25/2/2023 02:19:14 pm

One of the complaints I had about season 2 of Picard (yes, bear with me) is that it features a scene where a black character gives a long speech to a white character about why racism is bad, specifically in modern day America. Now, I didn't have a problem with the content at all, but rather it felt far too unsubtle for me - Star Trek has always been about presenting issues in an allegorical fashion, in a science fiction context, and I was disappointed they couldn't be more imaginative here. But then I remembered the number of right-wing Star Trek fans that exist, who just don't get it ("When did Star Trek get political?!?1?"), and I realised that, actually, it seems we're past the time for subtlety, and the only thing that's going to work is a metaphorical brick to the face. And in that context, it makes Costa's work here, which might have felt a bit on the nose a decade ago, a lot more relevant now.

And I will admit, this is one of his better ideas. His "global politics" idea was clearly less-than half-baked and went absolutely nowhere, but he's certainly got something here. He is, unfortunately, not the best of writers, so it's not going to do anything particularly revolutionary here. But, especially given where the world is now, he has to get a little applause for trying. I suppose.

In all, this wasn't one of his worst issues, actually. It might still be coasting off the fresh burst of energy that Roche's work gave the previous issue, or maybe the fact it's just not that terrible East Asian storyline, but I definitely felt more positive coming away from this. And this issue, at least (and ignoring what we know is to come) feels like it's setting something up. And that's not a bad thing.

That said, I did have to question the Decepticons weapons cache being found in South America. For all the story might be trying to comment on the rot that comes from within, it's still distracted with the usual stereotypes of those warlike types from South of the border being where the real problem is, which is in poor taste, and a shame.

On the art front, Figueroa is back. Which is possibly all you can say about that. It is indeed unfortunate that this story is very human-focussed, because drawing humans is not one of his strengths. But the robot battle scenes at least are nice and dynamic. Although I do have to question now why every Transformer has to have their faction symbol painted on their heads.

One of the more jarring moments with the art isn't Figueroa's fault, though - and that's the discovery of Megatron's old head along with the weapons cache. Now this is clearly meant to be a plot point, but given the poor editorial oversight over the art and/or the strange decisions that have been made about not bothering with consistent character models, it did initially make me wonder if that was a mistake, or if we were actually not going to see Megatron's new stealth bomber body again, or... what. Unfortunately given everything that had come before I just assumed that an error had been made with the art, either by Roche or by Figueroa. And that's unfortunate.

So yes, not the best of issues, but also not one of Costa's worst. So, let's see if he can sustain this mild improvement in quality...

Revisitation 113: A Pistol Whipping.

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