We Ain't Ever Gonna Be Respectable.
We Ain’t Ever Gonna Be Respectable.
Issue 1*: Training Day/All Hail Megatron Part 1. 18th June 2009.
Sadly Mudflap, the shortest distance between two points is rarely ever a straight line.
*The comic will refer occasionally to the issues of this volume as “2.1” or “2.5”, but as it’s infrequent and only for the second run, I’m gong to go with the cover.
And we’re back to photo covers. Though I suspect that the comic only ever stopped doing them in the first place because there were only a limited number of stock photos of the Transformers recognisable enough to slap on the front. A new film means new promotional material (which they seem giddy about, sticking three characters on there) and no need for extra expense.
To make up for it, we do get two free gifts, dogtags (as with the previous first issue) and a return of that dear old favourite, a Panini Sticker album (covering Animated and the film). Plus the promise of it being a bumper sized “Movie Special”, though most of the extra length is in fact given over to Generation One content.
The issue itself represents the last time that Titan gave the comic a push at the older fan audience, in particular both Furman and Davis-Hunt did a joint panel at Auto Assembly 2009 to promote the title and their long term plans for it. And I wish I could remember any of it, or find my notes from the time as I’m sure there must be some fascinating differences in there.
Issue 1*: Training Day/All Hail Megatron Part 1. 18th June 2009.
Sadly Mudflap, the shortest distance between two points is rarely ever a straight line.
*The comic will refer occasionally to the issues of this volume as “2.1” or “2.5”, but as it’s infrequent and only for the second run, I’m gong to go with the cover.
And we’re back to photo covers. Though I suspect that the comic only ever stopped doing them in the first place because there were only a limited number of stock photos of the Transformers recognisable enough to slap on the front. A new film means new promotional material (which they seem giddy about, sticking three characters on there) and no need for extra expense.
To make up for it, we do get two free gifts, dogtags (as with the previous first issue) and a return of that dear old favourite, a Panini Sticker album (covering Animated and the film). Plus the promise of it being a bumper sized “Movie Special”, though most of the extra length is in fact given over to Generation One content.
The issue itself represents the last time that Titan gave the comic a push at the older fan audience, in particular both Furman and Davis-Hunt did a joint panel at Auto Assembly 2009 to promote the title and their long term plans for it. And I wish I could remember any of it, or find my notes from the time as I’m sure there must be some fascinating differences in there.
This is basically Star Wars doing Two Jar Jar Binks: The Comic.
The comic itself (named for a film again, this time Training Day), pulls back the scale from the last issue to focus on a small number of characters in close combat. Which is fine, not everything can be bigger and better and it’s how the first issue of the original volume started. Though that had the beloved Optimus Prime drawn by Geoff Senior.
This had Skids and Mudflap. Possibly inevitably, there was almost certainly a mandate to focus on the new characters, and of those they’re the only ones other than Jetfire (who, perhaps surprisingly will be completely ignored despite eight issues of prequels) with enough of a profile in the movie to launch a comic.
Now, I didn’t really touch on this in the film review, but one of the reasons they’re considered contentious characters is many people feel they’re racist stereotypes, an attempt to write black “Street” characters from a bunch of clueless white guys that then have monkey faces and buck teeth on the CGI models.
The comic tones this down. Possibly unintentionally, with Furman simply working from an earlier script with less “Hello fellow kids” dialogue. Though Davis-Hunt does give them battlemasks for most of the issue that cover up their contentious features, suggesting someone realised it was a bit off (and the panel where they unmask show this to be a good idea, in the film the camera never really focuses on them, in a big unmoving drawing I went “Yikes” a lot more).
The upshot of this is a more benign version of Bumblebee talking in too verbose a style in the IDW prequel comic, these don’t really sound anything like the guys from the film, but it feels a relief rather than an annoyance. Because imagine Furman trying to write cool young African American slang.
This had Skids and Mudflap. Possibly inevitably, there was almost certainly a mandate to focus on the new characters, and of those they’re the only ones other than Jetfire (who, perhaps surprisingly will be completely ignored despite eight issues of prequels) with enough of a profile in the movie to launch a comic.
Now, I didn’t really touch on this in the film review, but one of the reasons they’re considered contentious characters is many people feel they’re racist stereotypes, an attempt to write black “Street” characters from a bunch of clueless white guys that then have monkey faces and buck teeth on the CGI models.
The comic tones this down. Possibly unintentionally, with Furman simply working from an earlier script with less “Hello fellow kids” dialogue. Though Davis-Hunt does give them battlemasks for most of the issue that cover up their contentious features, suggesting someone realised it was a bit off (and the panel where they unmask show this to be a good idea, in the film the camera never really focuses on them, in a big unmoving drawing I went “Yikes” a lot more).
The upshot of this is a more benign version of Bumblebee talking in too verbose a style in the IDW prequel comic, these don’t really sound anything like the guys from the film, but it feels a relief rather than an annoyance. Because imagine Furman trying to write cool young African American slang.
He had some work done between this and the film.
Which is a good thing to have to talk about as the comic itself is very slight. There’s a nice idea that Skids and Mudflap have basically dropped out, sticking on Cybertron and “Training” as a way of pretending to be doing something whilst avoiding responsibilities and the wider war.
Said training just involving racing and bitching at one another.
Unfortunately, Starscream has also decided to use the abandoned planet to gather his troops for the events of the film. This is where we get two moments that don’t really line up with what we see in the Movie.
The first is, we see Starscream report to The Fallen, who is within a stone pillar. This was a whole thing deleted from the movie about him being tapped and only able to escape after the death of the last Prime. This became the slightly less obvious being stuck in a big comfy sofa (probably to make for a more interesting visual), but was changed so late in the day all the spin-off feature the pillar. Though it’s possible the film never got as far as designing it as it doesn’t look the same in the IDW comics.
After being critical of how the comics don’t always reflect the source material very well (see the aforementioned intellectual Bumblebee), I should say is a perfectly understandable miss, and rather a fun one as it gives us a glimpse into what might have been.
The other is that Starscream really shouldn’t have so many drones to hand at this point, but it’s possible the business with the hatchlings was a late in the day addition as well.
Said training just involving racing and bitching at one another.
Unfortunately, Starscream has also decided to use the abandoned planet to gather his troops for the events of the film. This is where we get two moments that don’t really line up with what we see in the Movie.
The first is, we see Starscream report to The Fallen, who is within a stone pillar. This was a whole thing deleted from the movie about him being tapped and only able to escape after the death of the last Prime. This became the slightly less obvious being stuck in a big comfy sofa (probably to make for a more interesting visual), but was changed so late in the day all the spin-off feature the pillar. Though it’s possible the film never got as far as designing it as it doesn’t look the same in the IDW comics.
After being critical of how the comics don’t always reflect the source material very well (see the aforementioned intellectual Bumblebee), I should say is a perfectly understandable miss, and rather a fun one as it gives us a glimpse into what might have been.
The other is that Starscream really shouldn’t have so many drones to hand at this point, but it’s possible the business with the hatchlings was a late in the day addition as well.
Remember next time you watch the film, these guys know everything.
Starscream makes the mistake of giving a loud speech about all the Decepticon’s plans for the Solar Harvester to troops that already know it, allowing Skids and Mudflap to learn of a major new threat.
This means you now have the mystery of how the comic is going to explain Skids and Mudflap knowing all this throughout the film but never mentioning it. I can’t wait to find out what clever trick will pull this off.
Though at least they don’t know about The Fallen, eh?
As Starscream spots them and begins an attack, the twins have a choice. Keep bumming about, or go to that planet orbiting Sol and warn Optimus Prime. As the Decepticons are trying to kill hem anyway, this isn’t a huge moral dilemma, making the final choice a rather obvious one.
Still, it means we end on an image of Earth surrounded by giant floating Autobot heads. Which sadly isn’t another deleted idea from the movie.
This is solidly OK, and only suffers in the hindsight of knowing we’re getting nothing but the twins for the rest of the year. It’s not quite ground-stomping enough for a big relaunch, but there’s some nice little gags here and there and Starscream is pleasingly over the top. It does however wind up feeling like several steps back from where we’ve been. One wonders if it might have been better to kick off with a high-octane Prime and NEST hunting a Decepticon mission and them segue into the Twins story for issue 2.
This means you now have the mystery of how the comic is going to explain Skids and Mudflap knowing all this throughout the film but never mentioning it. I can’t wait to find out what clever trick will pull this off.
Though at least they don’t know about The Fallen, eh?
As Starscream spots them and begins an attack, the twins have a choice. Keep bumming about, or go to that planet orbiting Sol and warn Optimus Prime. As the Decepticons are trying to kill hem anyway, this isn’t a huge moral dilemma, making the final choice a rather obvious one.
Still, it means we end on an image of Earth surrounded by giant floating Autobot heads. Which sadly isn’t another deleted idea from the movie.
This is solidly OK, and only suffers in the hindsight of knowing we’re getting nothing but the twins for the rest of the year. It’s not quite ground-stomping enough for a big relaunch, but there’s some nice little gags here and there and Starscream is pleasingly over the top. It does however wind up feeling like several steps back from where we’ve been. One wonders if it might have been better to kick off with a high-octane Prime and NEST hunting a Decepticon mission and them segue into the Twins story for issue 2.
A good bit.
Our new backup is All Hail Megatron! A 12 issue IDW series. Which made readers wonder at the time how it would fit into the (presumed) two years cut into chunks. As part of the publicity blitz we were assured that we’d get a full issue every issue, though that only actually happens here. Not that it will matter in the long run.
The idea behind AHM (which started the previous July and will actually finish in October after four issues were added to the end to try and fix the perceived issues with it) is simple. IDW had launched their comics with a series of interconnected miniseries and one-shots, mostly written by Furman (we’ve just finished an exception) that attempted to revamp Transformers for the post-Ultimates world.
These were deeply unpopular. I mean seriously, the amount of readers they lost as they went along was massive, more than Dreamwave. I quite like a lot of it, and the fandom that stayed looks back fondly on that era, but the entire run was basically heading for cancellation. Largely because Furman struggled to write in that format and there were some resulting severe pacing issues.
So Furman was very quickly told to wrap things up, and a big relaunch was planned. A straightforward big balls to the wall action film take that would try and reassure lost readers by being super into the G1 aesthetic. With Australian Shane McCarthy writing (IDW, in typical understatement, made great play of him being a Batman writer when he’d done one badly received story) and the ever awesome Guido Guidi on art, the intent was to be back to basics.
The results, possibly because of things like McCarthy submitting a six issue story and being told to make it 12 are frankly mixed. And McCarthy himself didn’t help, doing things like saying no one would judge a film after the first ten minutes (they do) so no one should judge his comic after one issue (they can) and insisting that the official sales figures were lies and it really did much better before vanishing in a puff of smoke when asked how this happened.
The idea behind AHM (which started the previous July and will actually finish in October after four issues were added to the end to try and fix the perceived issues with it) is simple. IDW had launched their comics with a series of interconnected miniseries and one-shots, mostly written by Furman (we’ve just finished an exception) that attempted to revamp Transformers for the post-Ultimates world.
These were deeply unpopular. I mean seriously, the amount of readers they lost as they went along was massive, more than Dreamwave. I quite like a lot of it, and the fandom that stayed looks back fondly on that era, but the entire run was basically heading for cancellation. Largely because Furman struggled to write in that format and there were some resulting severe pacing issues.
So Furman was very quickly told to wrap things up, and a big relaunch was planned. A straightforward big balls to the wall action film take that would try and reassure lost readers by being super into the G1 aesthetic. With Australian Shane McCarthy writing (IDW, in typical understatement, made great play of him being a Batman writer when he’d done one badly received story) and the ever awesome Guido Guidi on art, the intent was to be back to basics.
The results, possibly because of things like McCarthy submitting a six issue story and being told to make it 12 are frankly mixed. And McCarthy himself didn’t help, doing things like saying no one would judge a film after the first ten minutes (they do) so no one should judge his comic after one issue (they can) and insisting that the official sales figures were lies and it really did much better before vanishing in a puff of smoke when asked how this happened.
He's a good lad, Guido.
But it did the job, if not quite the one IDW wanted (hence them going straight into another relaunch). The left readers didn’t come back, but sales stopped dropping and basically stabilised at the point they’d remain at till the Hasbro shared Universe ruined everything.
All of which is much more interesting than the actual comic. After a one page recap of the story so far nicked from All Star Superman (this not being a full on reboot was a mistake, but not one that’ll impact on what we’re going to see hugely), the Decepticons arrive in New York, blow up a load of crap and beat off the USAF before we cut to Cybertron and see Prime laying dying on a table.
In many ways, it’s even slighter than the lead strip.
Now, as someone who has just written a big positive piece on Revenge of the Fallen, I am firmly a fan of big dumb stories. But this is incredibly lacklustre. Characters talk entirely in cliche (upon seeing the Constructicons the New Yorkers don’t go “It’s those killer robots!” but assume a movie is being made, just like in Dark Star and against all logic of how movies are made), and there’s no energy or pace to things. Frankly the first ten minutes of any Michael Bay film has more going on.
It also does that “Oh here’s major character USAF pilot DJ... with his photo of his wife and kids... and he’s died! PSYCH!” thing that might have seemed edgy when Buffy started a decade earlier, but is only unintentionally hilarious now.
And the series does it again later as well.
Guido’s amazing art is really the big selling point here, without it, this would be a much more lacking story.
All of which is much more interesting than the actual comic. After a one page recap of the story so far nicked from All Star Superman (this not being a full on reboot was a mistake, but not one that’ll impact on what we’re going to see hugely), the Decepticons arrive in New York, blow up a load of crap and beat off the USAF before we cut to Cybertron and see Prime laying dying on a table.
In many ways, it’s even slighter than the lead strip.
Now, as someone who has just written a big positive piece on Revenge of the Fallen, I am firmly a fan of big dumb stories. But this is incredibly lacklustre. Characters talk entirely in cliche (upon seeing the Constructicons the New Yorkers don’t go “It’s those killer robots!” but assume a movie is being made, just like in Dark Star and against all logic of how movies are made), and there’s no energy or pace to things. Frankly the first ten minutes of any Michael Bay film has more going on.
It also does that “Oh here’s major character USAF pilot DJ... with his photo of his wife and kids... and he’s died! PSYCH!” thing that might have seemed edgy when Buffy started a decade earlier, but is only unintentionally hilarious now.
And the series does it again later as well.
Guido’s amazing art is really the big selling point here, without it, this would be a much more lacking story.
If you were in this comic, let me know!
The editorial (METAL MANIA) is incredibly excited about the new look (and correcting the credits mistake on issue 24’s Animated story), but largely it’s back to business as usual.
Our first new character profile is on Skids, making it clear that Optimus Prime does everything he can to ignore the annoying little shit. Wise robot.
Stand-alone competitions include the original Turtles cartoon on DVD and Night at the Museum and Sports Island 2 games for the DS and Wii respectfully.
More Than Meets the Eye is a double spread of puzzles, including playing spot the difference on two versions of last issue’s cover. Which is also a colouring page later on, so someone clearly liked it. There’s also a super fannish word-search, with words like “Vos” and “Jn’Wan” in there.
Probably the most exciting thing in the whole issue is Win a Walk on Part in Transformers Comic! Go to the website and enter before 13th August and you could be drawn into a strip! I can’t remember if this happens or if they draw attention to it, but the ad makes it look like your face will be on Megan Fox’s body.
The poster only has Optimus from the cover on it, though the other side is some All Hail Megatron art.
Our first new character profile is on Skids, making it clear that Optimus Prime does everything he can to ignore the annoying little shit. Wise robot.
Stand-alone competitions include the original Turtles cartoon on DVD and Night at the Museum and Sports Island 2 games for the DS and Wii respectfully.
More Than Meets the Eye is a double spread of puzzles, including playing spot the difference on two versions of last issue’s cover. Which is also a colouring page later on, so someone clearly liked it. There’s also a super fannish word-search, with words like “Vos” and “Jn’Wan” in there.
Probably the most exciting thing in the whole issue is Win a Walk on Part in Transformers Comic! Go to the website and enter before 13th August and you could be drawn into a strip! I can’t remember if this happens or if they draw attention to it, but the ad makes it look like your face will be on Megan Fox’s body.
The poster only has Optimus from the cover on it, though the other side is some All Hail Megatron art.
Skyquake!
Way Past Cool! gives up any pretence of neutrality and just talks up the Revenge of the Fallen game. It lets you control more characters than ever!
Pop Quiz, Hot Shots is sadly not a series of questions about the Armada character, but a surprisingly and increasingly difficult quiz. I actually struggled to remember who was the other actor than Orson Welles to be killed by the ’86 film.
Top Gear quotes the official press releases and has competitions for Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead, Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (! Can’t be much of a crossover with the key readership there), a Transformers art pack and the two Alan Dean Foster novel tie-ins to the film. Though looking at the multiple choice options for the “Who wrote this?” question, I really want a Harry Dean Stanton Revenge of the Fallen novelisation now.
New format means a new letters page and, copied from the Animated comic, two hosts. Barricade (presumably picked before anyone realised he wasn’t in the film) and Ironhide (a slightly puzzling choice for the Nice One), who will banter in replies in such a way as to mean they don’t have to print as many letters. Officially they’ve replaced Starscream due to him having been sent to a “Very special home for the criminally megalomaniac”.
Things start well with Barricade telling Joseph Powell (13, Tylers Green) that his favourite part of Transformers: The Autobot Propaganda Movie was the dog pissing on Ironhide. Whose response is “All that separates this Decepticon from his grasp on reality is some head trauma”.
Again, Ironhide is the nice one.
We get a particularly joyless pedantic sort of adult fan as Raymond T of the Netherlands writes in to smugly point out errors in the residency exam in issue 23. Of the “The Ark wasn’t called the Ark in the original cartoon, only the comics”, before having to concede the TV versions was revealed to be called that in Beast Wars, type stuff. Though this just makes the two hosts agree Starscream is an idiot.
More pleasingly on the older fan front, regular reader of this blog Simon Hall (AKA Skyquake!) writes in a lovely letter full of praise and some friendly worded suggestions like a regular artist (done), collected comics and reprinting that actual film strips from IDW rather than Megatron Origin. Barricade’s suggestion that anyone who wants to read IDW should just go down a comic shop is a sign of how things are going to head.
And finally, the air commander still has a presence with Starscream’s Stars! Which is basically the horoscope gag again, complete with my sign, “Scorponok”. Which tells me I’m allowed to freak out. So that’s what I’m off to go do.
Next week... Earthfall for the twins!
REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
2009
COMMENT
KO-FI
Pop Quiz, Hot Shots is sadly not a series of questions about the Armada character, but a surprisingly and increasingly difficult quiz. I actually struggled to remember who was the other actor than Orson Welles to be killed by the ’86 film.
Top Gear quotes the official press releases and has competitions for Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead, Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (! Can’t be much of a crossover with the key readership there), a Transformers art pack and the two Alan Dean Foster novel tie-ins to the film. Though looking at the multiple choice options for the “Who wrote this?” question, I really want a Harry Dean Stanton Revenge of the Fallen novelisation now.
New format means a new letters page and, copied from the Animated comic, two hosts. Barricade (presumably picked before anyone realised he wasn’t in the film) and Ironhide (a slightly puzzling choice for the Nice One), who will banter in replies in such a way as to mean they don’t have to print as many letters. Officially they’ve replaced Starscream due to him having been sent to a “Very special home for the criminally megalomaniac”.
Things start well with Barricade telling Joseph Powell (13, Tylers Green) that his favourite part of Transformers: The Autobot Propaganda Movie was the dog pissing on Ironhide. Whose response is “All that separates this Decepticon from his grasp on reality is some head trauma”.
Again, Ironhide is the nice one.
We get a particularly joyless pedantic sort of adult fan as Raymond T of the Netherlands writes in to smugly point out errors in the residency exam in issue 23. Of the “The Ark wasn’t called the Ark in the original cartoon, only the comics”, before having to concede the TV versions was revealed to be called that in Beast Wars, type stuff. Though this just makes the two hosts agree Starscream is an idiot.
More pleasingly on the older fan front, regular reader of this blog Simon Hall (AKA Skyquake!) writes in a lovely letter full of praise and some friendly worded suggestions like a regular artist (done), collected comics and reprinting that actual film strips from IDW rather than Megatron Origin. Barricade’s suggestion that anyone who wants to read IDW should just go down a comic shop is a sign of how things are going to head.
And finally, the air commander still has a presence with Starscream’s Stars! Which is basically the horoscope gag again, complete with my sign, “Scorponok”. Which tells me I’m allowed to freak out. So that’s what I’m off to go do.
Next week... Earthfall for the twins!
REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
2009
COMMENT
KO-FI
