Revisitation 37: Crash Course.

2/9/2021

This week, the final full thrust of Furman's arc kicks off.

Not that anyone knew it was the final full thrust at the time.

It's the world's worst detective and a Russian Kitty as I look at Devastation Issue 1!

3 Comments

Llama God

4/9/2021 10:06:06 am

Hurrah! Back to the main story at last! Whilst you're right in that this is a touch bitty and disjointed, to me that works (and indeed worked at the time) in that it gave the idea of lots of things that were happening all over the world that were about to somehow come together in some sort of... shall we say "devastating"... way. For me it certainly gives the issue a sense of urgency and tension. Although I will agree that the Ravage reveal sequence hearkened back to the worst of the Dreamwave stylistic excesses, and should have been a single page at most.

You're right that a lot of the story points don't actually work if you look at them too closely, but for me the way that the issue moves forwards means that you don't really have too much time to stop and think about them, and it kind of gets away with it. And, if anything, this is an accidental harbinger of things to come in the live action films...

I do like Prime starting to move now with a sense of urgency (although it's not that much urgency - although with comics, and indeed a lot of media - it can be hard to gauge how much, or how little), and the idea that Megatron might be starting to go off the rails is a welcome one. And it's interesting to see that this is the point that his troops realise that something needs to be done about him - clearly Megatron himself is not bigger than the overall goals of the Decepticon movement, which stands in a little contrast to the Origins series (although which you could generously say shows how much it's progressed).

(SPOILER PARAGRAPH FOR MEGATRON ORIGINS) The one thing I don't have too much of an issue with is Ratbat's depiction here. Although we know (or will soon know) his fate in the Origins series, that took place four million years ago. Soundwave himself has been lost for over twenty years, and it can be assumed that the only cassettes he had with him were Ravage and Laserbeak. It's not a stretch to think that in his absence Megatron would've brought Ratbat along anyway and had him modified to act independently. And maybe he'd been able to re-acquire a degree of mental independence in the intervening million or so years. It can work.

Of course, the real star here, as ever, is Su's work, with the attack on the Ark looking absolutely amazing. It's for his artwork alone that the series is worth continuing with.

And yes, that is finally a decent cliffhanger from the series. I can't wait for issue 2! Although I'm going to have to.

Llama God

4/9/2021 10:43:34 am

I also meant to add that I really like Hot Rod's new alt mode, and did at the time, too. It really works for him. Even if it's somewhat ironic that his original "futuristic sports car" look that was originally designed for the space year 2005 didn't look at all right when we reached the very ordinary year 2007. But yeah, it's a good look.

Stuart

4/9/2021 04:39:54 pm

The cliffhanger is definitely a some lessons have been learnt thing.

Revisitation 37: Crash Course.

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