Revisitation 165: Feeding the W.A.P.

7/4/2024

This week, it a story that will get you pumped as the Scavengers get to grips with Fulcrum and decide not to solve a mystery. All whilst Tarn has something to say about traitors in my look at More Than Meets the Eye issue 7!

6 Comments

T-Wing link

7/4/2024 10:58:41 pm

I've an opinion on the Scavengers that I've basically always had, and has always been unpopular.

I... don't much care for them.

Maybe it's part of me violently rejecting Roberts' takes on characters like Flywheels and Spinister in favor of their Marvel versions, but the other part is... they're just a bit "much" to me.

Roberts is obviously having a blast writing this series, but virtually ALL his main characters are snarky gag engines to some extent. Then he introduces this group, who are all armed with snark-and-gag firehoses and while there are some bits that did make me laugh... I was just kinda tired of their collective schtick by the end of the next issue and never looked forward to them showing up in subsequent issues.

On the other end of the spectrum, you've got the DJD, and they're undeniably edgy and cool. Roberts does the time-honored thing of "These new guys kill an old established guy to showcase their cred" but since Black Shadow was only really known by rep in IDW till this point, I guess it works fine. I think I would have taken it poorly if it were Sixshot getting owned by them here.

Still, most of my sour taste of this issue comes from subsequent rereads and my initial take (aside from the aforementioned hesitance over Flywheels and Spinister) was being game with almost everything Roberts was doing. The fake-out death ploy hadn't overstayed its welcome yet at least.

LiamKav

9/4/2024 12:19:13 pm

I don't normally worry about typos, but you've written "Missfire" an awful lot there...

Stuart

10/4/2024 12:50:25 pm

Whoops!

But fixed...

Llama God

14/4/2024 09:38:23 am

Annoyingly, this is an issue I can only say good things about. And that's annoying because I'm just going to end up sounding repetitive.

The writing, in terms of both character and world-building, is by this point both strong and assured. Sure, there's a lot of wise-cracking, but given that I was reading this alongside Robots in Disguise that wasn't such a bad thing (not that RiD doesn't have it's funny moments - it's just a different, slightly more traditional beast) - and having Transformers comics actually being entertaining was in the day still something of a novelty by this point. But it's the continued worldbuilding, with the idea of the DJD and the symbol ships and "the Institute", that are really key here, continuing Roberts' thing of just making this universe feel big and real. I loved it, and I continue to love it.

The Scavengers are an interesting creation, and it's nice to see what the lower ranking characters would do at the end of the war. Given I am one of the ones that came to love them the glib murder of the pleading Autobot comes as something of a shock on re-reads, but then that just points to how well-written they'll become in the future, and how realistic their journey becomes.

The DJD are also a very interesting addition. It does make one wonder where they were when other stories were going on, but you can overlook that as just being a corner of the universe we've not stumbled upon yet, as we normally focus on the main players. Again, they're both well-written and the designs are strong - most notably Tarn's, of course. The only possible weakness is in the amount of detail Milne puts in - I was utterly unaware of the presence of The Pet in these panels until pointed out much later, because he's obscured and there's just so much going on. But maybe that was the point.

I'm also not bothered about the inclusion of scenes on the Lost Light, either - and wasn't at the time, either. Indeed, I think back when originally published if there hadn't been any scenes with our main characters then it would've been more unsettling - especially given the events of the previous issue. This will of course change further down the line, but by this point there still wasn't complete confidence (mostly in IDW editorial) that this series would remain focussed, and a complete issue about the Scavengers/DJD without any of the regulars would have come across as just a bit odd. As I say, this will very much change, but it was important at this point.

Also, oddly, Rung's survival wasn't something I read too much into at this point - I just put it down to Swerve somehow being a uniquely terrible shot, which was just a nice gag in itself.

So yeah, a really strong issue this one. We were certainly in a golden era of Transformers comics at this point...

LiamKav

14/4/2024 01:25:21 pm

I suppose with the DJD it comes down to who you'd think they'd be going after. Starscream plots against Megatron but as Megs keeps him around they presumably think it's not their place to interfere. Shockwave's machinations are relatively quiet (and as we see at one point in the future they HAVE gone after him before this point.) The big one question is why they didn't go after Overlord for abandoning the cause, but I guess maybe they just didn't notice him the way Megatron didn't notice him?

Med

25/5/2024 09:11:35 am

> the WAP is lubed

> three other “jokes” along the same lines

Your recaps are way more entertaining / not to mention easier to read when you’re not doing such try-hard stuff here, man. Maybe just stick to the strong points?

Revisitation 165: Feeding the W.A.P.

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