New Avengers/Transformers - The first Marvel Universe crossover since,
well, Secret Wars II. Set before Civil War, the New Avengers investigate
mysterious happenings in Latveria, only to find Doctor Doom isn't behind it
this time.... 4 issue series published by Marvel.
New Avengers/Transformers #1 (of 4): Marvel - Stuart Moore writes, Tyler
Kirkham pencils. Takes place at a divergence point before Civil War. Mostly
the Avengers this issue, but parallels to the "standard operating procedure"
of IDW Decepticons are in place. All told, while it's not actually
disappointing yet, neither am I really filled with confidence for the rest of
the series. It feels like this entire issue should have been the first eight
pages of the story, not the first twenty or so. It's especially dangerous to
spend so much time writing people out of character before revealing that
there's a reason beyond "hack writer". Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
"Imagine How PISSED Doom Must Be" Award to New Avengers/Transformers #1
(of 4)
New Avengers/Transformers #2 (of 4): Marvel/IDW - The constipated
Wolverine on the cover is not exactly gonna sell books. The story inside is
pretty much a running hero-on-hero fight scene until the plot device is
neutalized. Doom gets to be Doom, and Spider-Man gives lip to giant robots,
but all in all it felt padded. Between #1 and #2 you get about one issue's
worth of story. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
"Bah, Doom Has Little Patience For Crossovers" Award to New
Avengers/Transformers #2 (of 4)
New Avengers/Transformers #3 (of 4): Marvel - Moore plays up parallels in
this issue, between Autobots and Decepticons, humans and TFs. And we do get
to see giant Iron Man kick some tail. Recommended. $2.99/$3.75Cn
"Sorry, The MegaMorphs Are From A Different Continuity" Award to The New
Avengers/Transformers #3 (of 4)
Transformers Evolutions - Stories in which writers are encouraged to
look at how the Transformers story might have unfolded under different
circumstances. The first arc, Hearts of Steel, places the Transformers in
the late 1800s.
Transformers Evolutions: Heart of Steel #1: IDW - The Evolutions line is
meant to be to Transformers what Elseworlds used to be to the DC Universe,
looking at taking the basic characters and concepts and transplanting them to
new settings, new times. In Chuck Dixon's first arc, we have the
Transformers waking up in the late 1800s after a different (and possibly
worth a one-shot of its own) initial war on Earth. The inevitable cameos by
the famous (Mark Twain and Jules Verne) and fictional (John Henry) are
handled fairly well, although Dixon glosses over the usual adaptation phase
in the story. For instance, one character goes from a dino altmode to a
steam engine altmode between panels with no explanation (although that may be
given next issue). Ominously, while there's several pages of house ads and a
Stormbringer preview, there's no masthead page talking about what will be
coming out next month, nor lettercol. It may just mean they're worried this
issue will blow deadlines, but some are taking it as an omen of IDW pulling a
Dreamwave collapse. Hopefully they're wrong. Anyway, while the writing is a
bit wooden in places, I give this one a Recommended. (I got Cover A, BTW.)
$2.99
Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel #2 (of 4): IDW - The "Keep Prime
and Megatron out of it until later" plan is in full force here, and we don't
even see them, although they are referred to. Anyway, this issue is about
the two "contact" humans and how they interact with and are treated by the
Autobots and Decepticons. Dixon does set up an interesting mirroring here,
where the Autobots seem initially threatenining and the Decepticons seem
initially benevolent, but both humans discover things are the other way
around. Guidi's art is generally good, and the nighttime scenes are fairly
clear without looking too "shoot day for night"-ish. I do have one quibble,
though, and that's the fact that the alt modes don't really feel clear from
the robot modes. Some of that is the fantastic nature of the alt modes, but
there's also a fair amount of kibble-erasing. A few pages of the reprint of
G1 #17 (Bridge to Nowhere) are included at the end. I picked up the B cover
this time, since I didn't really care for the A cover and wanted at least one
of the wraparound design sketch covers. Recommended. $2.99
Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel #3 (of 4): IDW - Pretty much
the entire issue takes place at night, which is portrayed in a washed out
sepia tone. It's not murky in the "hard to follow" sense, but it does rather
mute the emotional impact of the art. Mark Twain steals the show, which is
only fitting for such a personage as he, but there's generally a good balance
between the humans and the robots (although Starscream kinda goes through a
repeat of his spiel from #2). The writing is, I think, a bit unnecessarily
mysterious about the destination for the final showdown in #4, unless Dixon
is engaging in a major red herring. Recommended. $2.99
Transformers Evolutions Hearts of Steel #4 (of 4): IDW - While there
were certainly some cool bits, like Scourge the airship, it felt like they'd
headed the climax off at the pass. With the pacing up to this point, the
story really should have gone two more issues...the two sides barely even
skirmish and the battle is suddenly over, apparently because all the
Decepticons forgot they could transform or something. Feh. And the art,
especially on the humans, looked rushed. Neutral. $2.99
Transformers Timelines - FP Comics releases versions of the BotCon
exclusive comics a few months after the convention each year. This is a
"Universe" sort of mixed continuity, with a different focus each year.
Transformers Timelines Featuring Beast Wars #1: FP Comics - This is
basically the BotCon 06 comic with a new cover (and a nice Matt Moylan
logo). As one might expect from a story written around a bunch of convention
exclusive toys (the ones from 06, plus some upcoming exclusives), the story
is a bit on the iffy side. It has to wedge everyone into the story in a
single issue, not to mention provide two forms for Megatron (presumably to
match the bio entry at the end, which isn't the form used for his convention
toy). This leads to some pretty pointless scenes and plot choices that might
have made more sense if the story were free to evolve on its own without
having to shove all dozen or so characters into place and get them back to
"starting places" for Beast Wars. Oh, it looked nice enough, and had some
interesting ideas, but as a story it kinda fails. Don't bust your hump trying
to find this one (which I finally found in Seattle, Diamond doesn't seem to
want to ship it to my store). $4.95
"Okay, Not The Shadowy Figure I Was Expecting" Award to Transformers
Timelines Featuring Beast Wars #1
Transformers Timelines #2 - Fun Publications - This is a publicly
available (in theory) version of the BotCon 2007 exclusive comic. Given that
it took until January 2007 for me to get the FP edition of the 2006 comic,
you'll see why I don't hold out a lot of hope for seeing this one in person
soon. Story by several people (Forest Lee, Pete Sinclair, Ben Yee), but
actual writing just Lee. Alex "Made Car Wash Of Doom Look Good" Milne is on
art. Where #1 featured Beast Wars, this one features Classics, tying in with
the Classics recolors/remolds in the BotCon exclusive set. The Target
exclusive Ultra Magnus gets in on the act too. Anyway, as one might expect
from a convention comic, there's loads of fan references and general fanficky
Gotta Explain 'Em All aspects sprinkled throughout. As for plot, call it
"Revenge of the Gobots". The story ends on a big confusing fragfest that
leaves several new characters probably dead and a few more possibly dead. Of
course, given that this sub-continuity (which seems to come out of the end of
the Marvel G1 comic) is unlikely to get more than 22 pages a year and will
need to cycle in new convention exclusive characters every year, a really
high death rate is really no hindrance. It's not like they'd have pages to
devote to doing anything with Bugbite again, after all. Ends with More Than
Meets The Eye pages for Springer (Cybertron Defense Hot Shot recolor),
Bugbite (Classics Bumblebee recolor), and a one page text piece explaining
how the Classics Mini-Cons came about (the Last Autobot spread bits of the
Matrix and his own spark across Cybertron after TFG1 #80 and the little
pieces grew into Mini-Cons). All in all, it's pretty much a 12-16 page story
loaded down with a bunch of character introduction scenes. Mildly
recommended if you can find it. $4.95
"I Foresee Fanfic In Which It's Revealed Bugbite Doesn't Keep His Brain
In His Head" Award to Transformers Timelines #2
Transformers Timelines #3: FP Comics - I am astonished! Diamond
actually shipped this one, more or less on time! I never did get last year's
through Diamond. The story picks up directly from...somewhere else. It
never says where, and it's not Timelines #2 (I did finally get a CBR of that,
and doublechecked it just now). Maybe something in the Collectors' Club
magazine, which I don't get. [Later note: I've had this confirmed.
Cliffjumper chased the clear-plastic Club Exclusive toys through a plot hole,
and while they landed in the main Club setting, Cliffy got dumped in
Shattered Glass.] Anyway, how Cliffjumper got into the Shattered Glass
universe isn't too important, as the story mainly focuses on how he deals
with being there (in and among the worldbuilding infodumps). Figueroa's art
is pretty good, and Ben Yee's story is okay, burdened by a G1-like need to
trot all the toys on-camera in one issue (for those who don't follow TF
fandom, most of the characters in here were BotCon 2008 convention exclusive
toys). [Later note: the story continues in Club-Exclusive text stories.]
There's also character data pages for evil porn-stache Rodimus and heroic
Starscream. But what really makes this issue worth picking up is the
inclusion of the three page April Fool's gag "leaked preview" of the
Shattered Glass story, by M "Insert Quip Here" Sipher and Trent Troop. Tally
ho! Recommended. $4.95
"Cut The Jibba-Jabba!" Award to Transformers Timelines #3
Transformers Timelines #4: FunPub - Gasp! It actually shipped to my
store without requiring months of reordering! [Later note: that makes an
astonishing two in a row!] Anyway, the FP comics are made to provide fiction
for BotCon's annual batch of redecos that they sell for a few hundred bucks a
set, and the theme this time was the Elite Guard, taking the TF:Animated
concept and putting it in a pseudo-G1 context. The main story is a tale of
Kup's youth, with the framing sequence being an odd re- envisioning of the
1980s movie's "story time" with Universe Cyclonus and redecos of Cybertron
Sideways taking the role of Sweeps attacking. Rik Alvarez goes a bit
overboard with bits of the story in places, but for a comic that has to bring
in a bunch of "new" characters (old names, new bodies, new interactions) it
does pretty well. Khanna's art on the framing sequence is rather busy, but
Guidi's flashback story art is pretty good. Recommended. $4.95
"Neon Dion" Award to Transformers Timelines #4
Anthology Specials - Not crossovers per se, but books that contain
multiple continuities.
Transformers Summer Special #1 - An anthology book, this has four short
pieces, mostly by Patyk and Mick (in various orders), plus an Energon story
by Furman. The first piece has Pat Lee art and is set in the G1 comic
continuity, more or less (some cameos on page 2 draw in a Japanese continuity
element). It's reminiscent of Marvel's G1 #25, albeit with a decidedly
different outcome. The art is more or less followable. "Perspective" has
Furman and Raiz on a story that is stated as being out of continuity,
featuring Snow Cat, Slugslinger and Sharkticon (the latter two being
characters not yet released as toys). It's a clever little tale, with
reasonably clear (for Dreamwave) art. Rob Ruffolo pencils Patyk&Mick's
Robots in Disguise tale, which is a bit of a mess in storytelling terms. I
kinda liked the ending, but if this is the level of RiD tale they can
provide, I don't want RiD to win the vote (more on that in a sec). Finally,
Figueroa pencils a Beast Wars tale set late in the final season and inserting
some new stuff that might get used in a potential BW comic. Inserted in the
middle of the comic is a postcard you can send in to vote on whether you want
Dreamwave to do a Robots in Disguise comic next, or a Beast Wars title. To
be honest, neither's representative in this book thrilled me, but the RiD
story was less interesting, so I'll probably send in a vote for Beast Wars.
Oh, and as the "May" on the cover and the ads for comics that came out last
month attest to, this came out a leeetle late. Mildly recommended. $4.95
GIJoe vs Transformers - A series from Devil's Due (a branch of Image)
answering the question, "What if Cobra found the Ark before Teletran-1 could
wake up the Transformers?"
Issue 1: While there's bits and pieces of characterization here and
there, this is really a comic driven by the High Concept: what if the
fledgling Cobra organization discovered the crashed Ark and rebuilt the
Autobots and Decepticons into their servants, reverse-engineering the
technology to create all the weird stuff Cobra has classically brought to the
table? There's hints that future issues will focus more on a few characters
and their development, but for now it's all set-up and action scene. Not
that this is a bad thing, mind you. This is a good, solid, action-movie sort
of piece. I'd have a little more praise for it if it wasn't recapitulating a
lot of what we saw in the first TF G1 series from Dreamwave, though.
Recommended. $2.95/$4.05Cn
Issue 2: After the initial action sequence, this follows a pretty
standard 4-part-story pattern and steps back for teambuilding and exposition.
There's still some action sequences, but they're sparring and demonstration,
not in earnest. I do like where the story seems to be heading, and Blaylock
is managing to keep things tied together without making it blindingly obvious
what every bit of foreshadowing portends. It *was* a little annoying,
though, to get to the last page of the story when I was barely past the
middle of the comic...a few too many pages of back-loaded ads. Recommended.
$2.95/$4.00Cn [Late note: Of course, it's actually SIX issues....]
Issue 3: The last few pages are a bit too "easy" even though it's clearly
set up that it should be easy. Almost an anticlimax (and yes, this is the
proper dramatic climax, the turning point in the tale). While the art may
lack much in the way of emotional power, it's a welcome relief from the murk
of Jae Lee in Transformers/GIJoe and the overcolored blur of the rest of the
Dreamwave TF books. Recommended. $2.95/$4.10Cn
Issue 4: The first few pages are pretty badly laid out in terms of
storytelling, a clear case of writing for the TPB and ignoring the fact that
not everyone rereads all previous issues before reading a new one. The
storytelling improves later, but does tend to have some awkward scene
transitions. Miller's artwork is pretty good, although the highly organic
(even Maguire-like) face on Megatron doesn't quite work for me. Of course,
its clarity is very welcome after Jae Lee's shadows and fog in
Transformers/GIJoe, and the clean coloring is likewise welcome compared to
the overproduced Dreamwave house-murk. Recommended. $2.95/$4.35Cn
Issue 5: While a couple of the larger panels look like they were made
with an eye towards selling the original art as a poster later (i.e. cool
poses instead of coherent storytelling), Mike Miller's clear art is generally
an asset to the book, and Lynx Studio's restrained colors continue to be much
better than those found on Dreamwave TF books. The story jumps a bit here
and there, but flows pretty well overall. Recommended. $2.95/$4.50Cn
Issue 6: Whenever there's an "out of continuity" story like this, there's
a temptation to make it a slaughterfest. After all, it's not like killing a
character will keep the regular books from using him, her or it. But
Blaylock and Jolley exercise admirable restraint in that regard, and even the
apparently dead characters are mostly revealed to have survived (with one or
two exceptions, of course). There's a strong sequel vibe in the last few
pages, and I'd welcome one. I like the combined setting created for this
miniseries, and wouldn't mind seeing more of it, especially exploration of
the philosophical implications of the climactic conflict between Prime and
Megatron. Strongly recommended. $2.95/$4.00Cn
GIJoe vs Transformers II - Devil's Due has spun off from Image, and is
following up with a series set a few years after the above book. Same
creative team. It looks like it was originally planned as another six issue
series, but is now three double-sized issues. CORRECTION: It's four issues,
but not all the same length.
Issue 1: I have to wonder if this was originally planned as a 6 issue
series, and is just being put out two issues at a time (there's a natural
cliffhanger break at page 20 out of the 40). The structure is very classic
"team book adventure", which is to say that the plot device forces everyone
to split up into four teams and run around on a scavenger hunt (one issue
setup, one issue per segment, one issue wrapup...another reason I think this
was planned as 6). Jolley and Su don't give us anything highly original or
masterfully crafted, but it's good nostalgia and competently told. And I
don't mind a merely "good" comic, especially when attempts at greatness
(i.e. TF vs. GIJoe v1) can fall so hard. Recommended. $4.95 (Oh, and the
art deco Wheeljack image on the back cover is nifty.)
Issue 2: Looks like they're playing around with issue length to turn a 6
issue story into 4, not into 3, since this is only 22 pages long and they
list an issue 4 on their schedule now. :) Pacing can be a glitch, eh?
Anyway, the "split into teams on a scavenger hunt" plot continues in the
1930s, and the nameless (well, okay, he's named Percy) Cobra goon really
steals the show. Jolley's dialogue is fun all around this issue, and Su &
Seeley do a good job on the art (and how did that Race-Bot BETA get in
there?). Recommended. $2.95
Issue 3: I got the alternate cover (cover A) with what looks to be a
Decepticon rebuild of Metroplex on it (not Metrotitan colors). Jolley seems
to be playing the role of Simon Furman crossed with Chris Claremont in this
issue. A decent story, although with a "Hey, what? That's pointless!" sort
of ending. Granted, it's an Act III sort of thing, and stuff is supposed to
be at its bleakest here, but the switch from "we seem to be getting a handle
on things" to "darkest hour" is almost perfunctorily abrupt. Mildly
recommended. $2.95
Issue 4: The art quality drops a lot this issue. Not on every page, but
on a lot...it looks like the deadline got moved way up and the artists had to
scramble to finish in time (which might well be the case, since I've already
noted how this feels like a 6 issue series crammed into 4). Decent story
wrapup, some fun scenes, and a bit of broken internal logic that I suppose I
can overlook because of the way it's used to bring in a particular group of
characters. And the sequel is pretty clearly set up. :) Recommended. $2.95
GIJoe vs Transformers III: The Art of War - Dreamwave may be dead, but
Devil's Due is doing fine. In this third miniseries, the consequences of
tech transfer become a serious problem, and Serpentor gets a new origin.
Five issue series, the "A" covers fit together as a single image.
Issue 1: Sort of follows on from v2, but there's a strong feeling of
"Whoops, we decided we didn't really want to go that way after all". And
then proceeds to probably go tht way anyway, but with new justification. I
got the Ng cover (will there ever be a Transformers comic again without
multiple covers?) with Bumblebee being chased by every Decepticon. The plot
setup hearkens back to G2 #2 in some ways, and that genie never goes back
into the bottle. The new menace being set up is a little tortured in
execution, but I suppose no worse than the character's original origins.
Recommended. $2.95
Issue 2: It's the "ARP" issue, heh (check the front cover). And while
it's still not labeled by how many issues there are, the inside front cover
says that there are five "A" covers that fit together into a single
piece...so either it's a five issue series or something very weird is going
on. :) I still think the Serpent O.R. name is weak, but the character by
that name shows promise. And he has GaiGar shoulders. It's nice to see The
War Within being referenced here, even though it's a compeltely divergent
continuity...I suppose it diverges in the 1980s, though, not in the deep
past. Heh. The coloring drifts into Dreamwave-style occasionally, but the
art is otherwise decent. Recommended. $2.95
Transformers vs GIJoe III #3 (of 5): Devil's Due - A mix of exposition,
fight scenes, and a little OTP fanwank. It looks nice thanks to Ng and Raiz,
but the story itself felt a little flat to me. Got cover A (mini-poster
component). Mildly recommended. $2.95
GIJoe vs. Transformers III #4 (of 5): Devil's Due - Following the
Shakespearean five act structure pretty well, as things start to turn around
for the heroes. I liked the philosophical parts revolving around Serpentor,
although Prime's own meanderings were a bit stale. The art's not always easy
to follow, but the colored borders on the word balloons at least help with
keeping track of the factions. Recommended. $2.95
GIJoe vs. Transformers III #5 (of 5): Devil's Due - Lotsa fighting, a
false climax, and then the actual climax that is pretty much given away by
the A cover. Cute flashforward sequence at the very end, though. All in
all, I'd say this was technically proficient, but didn't really move me in
the way I expect Seeley might have hoped. The array of artists kinda hurts
things as well, especially the way some of the pages look like they're
designed for original art sales at conventions, rather than trying to tell
the story. Mildly recommended. $2.95
GIJoe vs. Transformers IV: Black Horizon - Two
48-page issues, no ads breaking things up. Andrew Wildman on art, Tim Seely
writes.
GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2): Devil's Due - Once again, we're
getting fewer issues in a series, but oversized ones (48 pages and no ads
interrupting it). And DUUUUUUUUDE. Yeah, there's fanwank going on here, but
it's the good kind. :) Both the Transformers AND GIJoe movies get melded in
this story, plus a new origin for Pretenders...and Eject gets to shine. And
even more stuff I'll leave as a surprise. Wildman's art is a bit scratchy in
places, and a couple pages look like there were uncredited fill-in artists,
but the layouts are excellent. Seeley's story isn't the best-crafted I've
seen, but it's so loaded with good ideas that I'm willing to overlook the
occasional clunker line. Strongly recommended. $5.50
"Kung Fu Brip!" Award to GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #1 (of 2)
GIJoe vs. Transformers IV #2 (of 2): Devil's Due - I got the Bludgeon
cover. Anyway, you can tell where the issue break is here (a 4 issue series
done as two double-sized issues), and it's a good spot for one. :) There's
a LOT more nostalgia cranking here, what with Kung Fu Grip and Battle Beasts
and the Laser Team. The story itself is a bit compressed, but at least the
plot device used in the endgame was clearly established last issue and makes
perfect sense. Recommended. $5.50 (gave it the Kung Fu Brip award again,
oops)
Transformers vs GIJoe - From Dreamwave, this series is set in WWII,
with Cobra being elite Axis forces. The Autobots align with the Allies,
Decepticons take over the Axis. 6 issues.
Issue 1: John Ney Reiber's storyline shows promise, but count me out of
the Jae Lee fan club. Dark and moody is one thing, murky and twisted another
entirely. What good are cool new character designs if you can't tell what
anything looks like? Very mildly recommended. $2.95
Issue 2: Not quite as murked out as #1, but the art still subtracts more
than it adds, IMO. Decent enough story, though. Mildly recommended. $2.95
Issue 3: Y'know, this story might be pretty good if I could see anything?
I can't even blame this on the usual Dreamwave coloring job, since it's just
inked to death. Deep black shadows concealing anything of interest...I
didn't even realize Stormshadow had an exposed face until several pages in.
Plus, Jae Lee seems to be a bit obsessed with using photoref (or outright
photocopying) on all the vehicles, to the point where there's no life to
them. And when you're doing living machines, you NEED to give them life
visually. Neutral. $2.95
Issue 4: I think this is the point at which the writer was able to start
seriously adjusting his scripts to work with the art, because there's a lot
more captions to clarify what's going on in the murk. Also, every so often,
the art clears up like a break in the clouds on an overcast day. Both
factors make for a better read, and there's some good banter between
Bumblebee and Scarlet, but there's still so much potential that's not
realized. Mildly recommended. $2.95
Issue 5: You know, the cover might have spoilered the final page if I
could have figured out what the heck was supposed to be going on. My best
guess was that Starscream was crashing into Optimus Prime or something, which
was nowhere near the truth. Anyway, all my complaints about Jae Lee's art
continue to hold, but so do my comments about Rieber routing around the
storytelling damage with additional words. Mildly recommended. $2.95
Issue 6: Bleah. Fog of war is one thing, and some of the stuff
characters say can be attributed to it. But other stuff reads like they had
to scramble the word bubbles because the pages weren't drawn in order.
Extremely unclear issue, with plenty of "let's kill them, since we don't have
to do an #7" bad writing. This has been one long disappointment capped with
a craptastic ending. Avoid. $2.95
Transformers vs GIJoe II: Divided Front - Pat Lee takes over the art
on this six issue sequel crossover series. It's set in 1985, supposedly in
the same universe as the previous series, but.... A casualty of the
Dreamwave collapse, only one issue came out.
Issue 1: Sort of a sequel to the World War II crossover, but with enough
details...off...to suggest an alternate timeline. Or just careless writing,
which is certaintly possible. Pat Lee's art is passable, and McDonough's
writing goes okay (although the military jargon feels pasted-on). It looks
like it might be better than the first series, but that's not too hard.
Mildly recommended. $2.95