Revisitation 45: Treason and Plot.

5/11/2021

Happy bonfire night!

This week, Starscream knows how to turn you on...

and off.

Plus a plot that even the characters that are instigating don't care about, Hot Rod showing how smart he is and the shocking fate of Jimmy and Verity, all in my look at Devastation issue 5!

Plus, an Addendum at the canon/not-canon Mosasic, Hail and Farewell!

Come back next week for The Big One...

4 Comments

Llama God

6/11/2021 05:17:25 pm

"Momentum free" is a very accurate way of describing this issue. There's a lot of action, but not a lot of anything happening. Everyone's just in a holding pattern waiting for something to happen. Which is a shame because the Megatron/Starscream stuff could look like it was going somewhere interesting, but the surrounding content just sucks all of the energy out of that.

The one other interesting thing that I do like in this issue is Optimus Prime deciding that Earth isn't the most important thing to be dealt with at the moment, and that it will have to take care of itself. As well as giving us a slightly different Optimus Prime than we're used to (and which suggests that there's going to be a journey that he's still yet to go on to become the Optimus Prime that we all remember - which will never actually happen now due to behind the scenes changes), it also stops Earth from being central to everything yet again, which is refreshing (until it is massively central again due to Reasons, of course).

And of course the other big saving grace of this issue is E.J. Su, whose artwork is once again worth the price of admission alone. Not a bad panel from him at all.

So yeah, certainly an issue that leaves you wanting more... but only because it doesn't deliver.

Oh, and as to the passwords - who doesn't have a password that still references the one, true love of their life? Like Megatron, mine will also always reference pie...

Robo God

12/11/2021 01:43:46 pm

In reference to Hunter's name...

Back in the days of the early early web 0.9 internet, a friend of mine created an email address for himself based on a domain he'd set up: onionring@deepfatfryer.com. This was, and still is, hysterical.

But it makes me think that Hunter's name is his *internet* name. It would be in character for him to assume a name like this, particularly if he's into conspiracies and wanted to protect his identity. Part trying too hard to be cool, part joke? Internet handles to a tee, especially early ones. No justification for or evidence of it in the comics of course but it works for me as headcanon [mild pun not intended]. I like to think had Furman continued writing the series this would have come out via Sunstreaker, who would automatically have found out all "Hunter's" secrets.

Stuart

12/11/2021 02:14:28 pm

That's a good rationalisation.

Jeremiah Ecks

2/6/2022 08:53:17 pm

About the Mosiac...

My personal feeling is that back up to the 90's, editors in comics were in the main competent and talented. Some saw it as 'just another job' but even those who did, *cared* about their craft.

Then something happened.

The comics crash of the 90's occurred. Many olde skool talents retired or died. In the case of Marvel, Mark Gruenwald's continuity laden death left a huge gap I'm not sure Marvel has ever recovered from.

Editors became less concerned with consistency of stories and making sure runs of books moved smoothly from one creative to another. Instead they became more about NAMES and REBOOTS. Ongoing plots would be ejected on a whim rather than wrapped up.

This wasn't necessarily a writer's fault but whereas editors previously 'caught' inconsistencies in the narrative, the new gen of editor just didn't care.

Suddenly when fans started querying these inconsistencies you get editors such as Didio and Quesada being combative with their fans and suggesting such things don't matter.

If you're writing a series where every story is a reboot, a la a Final Fantasy style thing, inconsistencies don't matter. But when your storytelling model depends on it being *serialized*, actually, it does matter.

And I feel the IDW editors sometimes had this contempt for consistency, because to do that meant knowing and respecting what came before, and modern day comics writing hubris suggests all that matters is the current HOT JUMPING ON POINT RUN!

No wonder comics as a medium is virtually dead.

It's not the characters, it's the editorial and gimmick HOT NEW REBOOT LAUNCH WITH WORLD CHANGING CONSEQUENCES every few issues.

So to go back to Mosiac... I reckon Furman was given carte blanche to do the Mosiac, probably wasn't told what was coming in All Hail, and contradicted it. But the editor probably didn't tell him because the editor probably didn't know! If judging by current comics, all they care about was the JUMPING ON POINT and a billion variant covers.

That said, IDW buck this trend later with Roberts, Scott and Barber who actually follow up stories and keep things going. Indeed the only thing which ruined their momentum was the CROSSOVERS CROSSOVERS CROSSOVERS of Revolution and First Strike (fortunately MTMTE escaped most of that).

Their comics are just of a higher quality than virtually anything seen in mainstream comics for years and, frankly, if I was Marvel, I'd've asked Roberts to take a cheque of any value to get him on Spider-Man or X-Men for example...

Revisitation 45: Treason and Plot.

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