Revisitation 40: Getting it in the Neck.

23/9/2021

This week...

It's the death of Sentinel Prime (not really!) Plus the deaths of Hound (not really) and Trailbreaker as Starscream gets all the best bits in my look at Megatron Origin Issue 4!

Which is, if nothing else, going to really annoy Megatron.

2 Comments

Adam

25/9/2021 12:32:47 am

All a bit of a mess, really. The meshing of IDW and DW didn't work, and as much this was canon I can understand how and why Megatron's history changed

Llama God

25/9/2021 09:21:12 am

Well, this is truly terrible, isn't it? The final issue, the one where they should have been pulling out all the stops and where they could have redeemed the rather muddy storytelling so far with some climactic action, and not only do they drop the ball but they jump up and down on it, shred it, smear it in the dog shit that was lying at the edge of the playing field and then hand it to us expecting us to be grateful.

As already said, the story itself, despite having a few good ideas, is poorly told, and Megatron himself is a non-character. The idea that Soundwave "takes revenge" on Ratbat by enslaving him is a nice one, if perhaps a tad inconsistent and hypocritical (although at least the hypocrisy of Soundwave's character is explored in (far) future issues, if not the deed itself). But the rest, to coin a phrase, is just sound and fury, signifying nothing.

What really lets it down is the art. I don't know how rushed this is, but we know by now that Milne likes to pack his art with so much detail that he's often running late. This might explain why many different colourists came in to work on this final issue, which in turn maybe explains why the end result is so inconsistent. Even without colouring issues though the art is very confused, and it's hard to figure out what's going on from panel to panel. Milne will improve in this regard, when given clear direction (which he apparently hated), but here it's impossible to comprehend what's going on, which is a massive failing.

Much as you can blame the artwork for this issue, however, you've also got to wonder how this made it past any sort of editorial control. I can't see how anyone could have thought that this was actually fit for being put out on the shelves. But as we'll see in coming years IDW will not always have the closest editorial eye on these books...

In all, to label this origin story as "unsuccessful" would be generous. It was an interesting idea, poorly executed, and should never have reached shelves. But here we are. Oh well, hopefully on to greater things...

Revisitation 40: Getting it in the Neck.

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