Revisitation 21: Necro Files.

14/5/2021

This week, it's the end of 2006, and what better way to celebrate Christmas than with a double header of DEATH.

First, the Reapers stike terror(cons) into your heart as I look at Spotlight Sixshot!

Then, an Addendum goes even further back in time to the all but forgotten Necrowar!

And I've certainly already forgotten it again even between writing that and posting this.

6 Comments

Upside

15/5/2021 12:20:52 am

I think a lot of people agreed with you about the depiction of the Terrorcons as big Sixshot fanboying "misfits" being the best and almost innovative stand-out plot element here. Despite there being a sizable amount of telling-and-no-showing involved and none of them being terribly fleshed out beyond that one-note detail to their characterizations. It, and people rightfully making fun of Sixshot for being an emo edgelord, are the only details that seemed to evoke a smudge of lasting interest. The Reapers? Who?

I've seen new fan things of Sixshot and the Terrorcons being odd friends or them being his fanboy squad floating around as recently as 2020 and 2019 - and this issue was published was in 2006 and the Terrorcons and Sixshot never have a single other on-page interaction after this! Again, Reapers? Who?

It's a real shame that this plotline never gets any payoff and Sixshot gets a bridge dropped on him.

A sad Six Phase Sixer (I was surprised to learn this issue isn't the one that coined the term to explain why he can bust up planets, honestly) being pestered into friendship by some guys he totally doesn't care about, no, really, would have been entertaining to read as a story.

Stuart

15/5/2021 08:06:44 am

Yeah, it's a genuine surprise Monstrocity and its completely different take is the only place to do anything substantial with the Terrorcons. They feel tailor made for the later years.

Glad they live on in fanfic though.

Llama God

15/5/2021 11:40:33 am

I didn't think of this as terrible at the time, I just didn't think it was anything particularly special, either. And still don't.

It certainly does feel like part of the developing IDW-verse, given the morose, introspective monologue, and the pontifications on death and the end of the universe. It's all very much in line with what we've seen before. But, at the same time, it's also what we've seen before, which makes it not stand out in the slightest. As you point out, what we needed was more terrible Terrorcons... but we don't. A missed opportunity.

I will agree though that the Reapers were one step too far. Fair enough that Furman was trying to broaden the universe, but given everything else we've been introduced so far, and given that every bad thing has been a universe-ending-level event, they end up feeling very much like a "so what", and cheapening both themselves and all the other concepts in the process.

Still, whilst the Deatbringer callback is cool and all (although I do prefer the more streamlined original - this is a very '90s design), I do have a soft spot for the jellyfish Reaper. Because it's daft. And thus fits the concept perfectly.

Stuart

16/5/2021 11:59:22 am

I'll let the jellyfish off actually, yeah.

Jeremiah Ecks

29/9/2021 12:30:05 pm

This one is tricky. On one hand the art is good... but there are panels I haven't a fudging idea what is going on. That for me is a big no no. I'd take classic style art over post-Image stuff every time when it comes to actually telling what happens on panel.

In terms of the story... The Reapers (hi Firefly and Mass Effect - the latter of which I doubt Furman could have known about as it wasn't out yet... was it?)... Stuart, you're right in that introducing yet another villain group at this point is over egging the pudding by a significant amount. And they're not that good anyway. Throwing in a Deathbringer reference (when the original was so much cooler) doesn't save what is a generic and vaguely pointless 'we want all life to die' group. Yawn.

If Furman wanted to add in another group, maybe Sixshot killing them here - and their death setting up something later - would have been better to do. Or have Old Sixie join them here (faking the Terrorcons death of course). In the event we get Sixshot blowing holes in the ground FOR WHAT REASON? To create a page cliffhanger and nothing else plot related. Of course.

That said everybody's points about the Terrorcons and Old Sixie's relationship is on point. I found one weakness of IDW is that the Special Teams... well aren't all that special unless it's the Aerialbots, Constructicons or Combaticons (well First Aid as well I guess). I kind of like the Terrorcons but they do rather get forgotten by writers (about as much as the very awesome Seacons). And yes this whole 'odd couple' thing between the 'Cons and Sixshot is underused.

Different plot scope here: Sixshot goes to the Reapers but spares the Terrorcons. He goes to Earth as an envoy of the Reapers, who remain off panel and mysterious for the far future. Sixshot then participates in the events of Devastation - more or less - but now not at Megatron's behest but at that of the Reapers. And when the Autobots bail, Sixshot goes for them and makes carnage. They're forced to reanimate Starscream for actual reasons and not nonsense. The Decepticons barely get rid of him since he's a PLaNeT KiLLeR. But he is sent away from Earth somehow...

Then from time to time you can have him return as a MASSIVE threat, slowly reveal the Reapers as something significant, and have the Terrorcons have an arc where they try to bring him back to the Decepticons. Maybe they allow themselves to be experimented on to create Abominus in order to take Old Sixie down to talk sense into him.

Without wanting to sound arrogant but that makes a lot more sense than Old Sixie suddenly turning super heel during Devastation for 'reasons', joining the bloated Dark Order Dead Universe story and then dying off panel whilst chasing... Throttlebots. Throttlebots of all things.

Except all of this... I don't hate the story. It's a good one-and-done piece of frivolity that is only let down by over egging the villains, art that I'm not entirely always keen on, and the fact that future stories make this look bad. Oh, and a planet killer should be that. Overlord, take a bow.

Jeremiah Ecks

29/9/2021 12:32:46 pm

By "going for them" I meant the Decepticons, not the Autobots.

Revisitation 21: Necro Files.

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