Comic Review - Transformers: The Reign of Starscream

IDW's movie tie-in comics hadn't been able to ride the film's box office to some sort of wider casual audience or even been particularly well-received by fans but they had done decent business within context, selling in and around the same numbers as their G1 material (at the time, at least - each issue of their prequel series probably sold more copies than their combined Transformers output does now). While Transformers had done huge business at theatres a sequel wouldn't be due until 2009; IDW needed money though and decided to make their own. And these fuckwits have the word "Idea" in their name.

Comic Review - Transformers: Movie Adaptation

Back in the pre-video age if you loved a film rather than having home media or oldies channels was for kids to by a comic based on the film from Gold Key or Dell. Now, Gold Key and Dell weren't exactly renowned for groundbreaking material or high artistic pretensions, largely being concerned with instead profitability. Guess what IDW did while the first Transformers film was in the theatres even though it would be out on DVD officially within months (and illegally before that). Go on, fucking guess.

Comic Review: Transformers - Dark Cybertron

PUBLISHER: IDW (2013-2014)
WRITERS: JOHN BARBER, JAMES ROBERTS
ARTISTS: ATILIO ROJO, PHIL JIMINEZ, JAMES RAIZ, LIVIO RAMONDELLI, ALEX MILNE, BRENDAN CAHILL, NICK ROCHE, ANDREW GRIFFITH

It's that time again! The big IDW big plot big clusterfuck in which the poor hapless writers again try to live up to the hype generated by the company's psychotic PR as once again the lives of the Transformers and/or Cybertron will be CHANGED FOREVER or at least for another 12 months or so. While the storyline ran through both Robots in Disguise and More Than Meets the Eye (not to mention bracketed by a pair of one-shots, like a proper comic event) with both the usual writers handling whatever they usually did "Dark Cybertron" feels much like "Chaos" did - the story of one writer (in this case John Barber) with script input from another (James Roberts). In theory this set-up should work - Barber can plot almost as well as a proper comics writer while Roberts is more suited to a smaller soap style.

[Spoilers Follow]

Comic Review: Transformers - More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 5

PUBLISHER: IDW, 2013
WRITER: JAMES ROBERTS
ARTIST: ALEX MILNE, JAMES RAIZ

Despite everyone hating Chaos - including writer Mike Costa probably, what with him hating everything - IDW decided that a big gigantic event was what everyone really wanted from Transformers comics and thus did decree that the crew of the Lost Light return from whatever the fuck they were doing and link up with everyone else on for their planned Dark Cybertron storyline. More Than Meets the Eye, which had been just fine pottering off into space thank you very much, was spared the build-up work (handled by John Barber's Cybertron-based Robots in Disguise) but had to get its' house in order - there were even rumours early on that the book would either be cancelled or retooled. While it didn't really come close it meant that Roberts clearly decided to fast-track a couple of plot threads to be addressed before the crossover.

[Spoilers Follow]

Comic Review: Transformers - More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 4

PUBLISHER: IDW (2012-2013)
WRITER: JAMES ROBERTS
ARTISTS: ALEX MILNE, BRENDAN CAHILL, GUIDO GUIDI, AGUSTIN PADILLA

There's a question deep in the heart of James Roberts' writing which boils down to one issue - is it worth short-term frustration for a long-term payoff? It's a difficult one; the quality of the payoff plays a big part but so does the nature of the frustration. Throughout the first three volumes (which amount to about a year's worth of comics, which is one Watchmen) it's been pretty clear that everyone we've seen far too much of is part of some grander plan and in the fourth collection things finally begin paying off. Partly. For some characters.

Comic Review: Transformers - More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 3

PUBLISHER: IDW (2012)
WRITER: JAMES ROBERTS
ARTISTS: JIMBO SALGADO, EMIL CABALTIERRA, GUIDO GUIDI, ALEX MILNE

Comic annuals are a funny thing usually; not the hardbacked volumes that result in so much shared cultural memories in the UK, but the American comic version - a double or triple length issue which had to come out alongside the monthly book and avoid clashing with the monthly issues it was ran alongside while having some sort of point. Quite why IDW decided to revive the format I don't know, though they were at least able to keep the writers on both even if the artists couldn't fit it into their schedules. The third MTMTE trade collects that title's annual and the three-part "Shadowplay" story that was James Roberts' solution to the Optimus Prime mandate received from Hasbro. Both show him at his strongest and weakest.

Comic Review: Transformers - More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 2

PUBLISHER: IDW (2012)
WRITER: JAMES ROBERTS
ARTIST: ALEX MILNE

With the setup of the first volume out of the way More Than Meets the Eye finally kicks into gear, Kind of, intermittently, for a bit. The phrase is "meticulous build-up" and little hints and hooks are scattered throughout the five issues collected here that will presumably be explored some way down the line, carefully hidden among throw-away lines and simpler resolutions. There's a certain fun to be had from such puzzle-piece series - Warren Ellis' Planetary is still very much the daddy of the approach - but it can be a difficult thing to pull off. Roberts' problem as such is that while some of the characters are waiting to be explored they enter a holding pattern of recycling their basic start point; the danger is the reader can already be fed up with schtick like Ultra Magnus' exaggerated pedantry and inflexibility or Swerve's being a twat long before the writer stops giving them scenes hammering this aspect home.

Comic Review: Transformers - More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 1

PUBLISHER: IDW (2011-2012)
WRITER: JAMES ROBERTS
ARTISTS: NICK ROCHE, ALEX MILNE

IDW had stepped Transformers up to two issues a month using parallel stories for the last few issues of the ongoing series, all part of preparation for two series by separate creative teams as they tried to relaunch the franchise for the 64th time. John Barber stayed on Cybertron while James Roberts cherry picked his favourites and set off into space on a quest for the Knights of Cybertron for More Than Meets the Eye. MTMTE has since gone on to gather a small but psychotic fandom of around the same since of Hartlepool United's but for now we're going to focus on the first batch of issues. Or episodes; among MTMTE's many, many eccentricities is that it's not a comic but actually a TV show with seasons that last a couple of years. In which case this first collection is the free DVD you get with Sunday newspapers that contains a couple of trailers, some potted character bios, several wallpapers and a screensaver.

Comic Review: Transformers - Chaos Theory

PUBLISHER: IDW (2011)
WRITERS: MIKE COSTA, JAMES ROBERTS
ARTISTS: GUIDO GUIDI, ALEX MILNE

The supreme irony of IDW finally taking the plunge into making a single Transformers ongoing only for it to be even more fractured continues in the fifth collection of the series. IDW had by now realised that Mike Costa wasn't really hitting the right notes with either the fandom or the by this stage non-existent casual readers the title had accrued and began looking at bringing in another writer alongside the handful, the original plan being for Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning to join the three or four different Mike Costas in writing the book. After contributing the dodgy "Infestation" and weird "Heart of Darkness", the first building blocks for the planned "Chaos" event storyline, yet another IDW saga that would make sure the world of Transformers would never be the same or whatever. They then fucked off to do something else and instead the job went to James Roberts, then just the popular mortal writer of Last Stand of the Wreckers and yet to be cocooned in a sycophantic social media echo chamber.

Comic Review: Transformers - Revenge of the Decepticons

PUBLISHER: IDW (2010-2011)
WRITER: MIKE COSTA
ARTISTS: NICK ROCHE, DON FIGUEROA, ALEX MILNE

Mike Costa's schizophrenia continues in the third batch of ongoing issues, consisting of a prelude-style one shot and then a five-part story. The real story though is again IDW's lack of editorial direction and forward planning; just like the Dead Furmanverse and All Hail Megatron the ongoing is set into that pattern of a bold new direction that didn't go down too well and then furious backpedalling when the fresh stuff failed to find the expected crossover audience, instead forcing pandering to the fandom in order to keep the numbers up. The main events of the first year's issues were that the war was over, that Megatron was out of the picture, that Optimus Prime had abdicated and that Bumblebee was the leader of the Autobots. Basically all of these things are undone in deed if not word.

Transformers - Spotlight: Arcee

Christ almighty. Okay, let's get the good stuff laid out first. And there is some really good stuff in here; structurally the issue does a fine job of naturally dovetailing several plot threads from previous Spotlights in an organic way as opposed to Furman's recent habit of just skipping from one to another with no narrative connection.

Firstly there's the appearance of Banzaitron's secret service-y unit from Spotlight: Hot Rod, clearly acting on information passed on by Doubledealer. It's nice to see the guy get something solid to do even if all those years haven't made that name any less wince-inducing. He makes for a nice clutter-free villain, though it's a shame the Combaticons, one of the better defined Special Teams, are reduced to generic Decepticon psycho-saddhists.

Also followed up on is the fate of Monstructor from Spotlight: Optimus Prime, being examined at the Autobot prison on Garrus-9 by - in a nice callback to Stormbringer - Jetfire and the Technobots. They're a bit of a plot device here as the reason for Banzaitron's attack but it's still nice to touch base. Other elements worthy of praise here are a good flashback showing for Ultra Magnus and the decent recasting of Fortress Maximus as a no-nonsense warden, meaning the guy's name can make sense without him having to turn into a city. 

Now the problems. You'll notice how Arcee herself wasn't mentioned in any of the positive sections - that is because here she is terrible in every possible way - as a character , as a concept, as a narrative device. It's hard to know where to start.

The most immediate I suppose is that this is another issue where narrative clarity is sacrificed so that Furman can bang on about a hot potato from the line's history - in this case gender. It's not actually an area I'm too fussed on personally; I'd rather the female characters weren't sexualised or stereotyped  (much like the handling of gender in Challenge of the Gobots, of all things) but I really don't think it's worth getting steamed up about or bogged down on - something on the level of the Transformers - Prime cartoon, where some Transformers are male and some female and that's about it for depth is fine by me.

However, thanks to the semi-humorous UK strip "Prime's Rib" and the asexual reproduction shown in Generation 2 we already know what to Furman thinks and it's really not worth yet another element being added to the straining IDW continuity to find out that he still basically thinks the same - that Transformers aren't gendered. It especially isn't worth it when it's done this badly.

The twist here is that Jhiaxus has introduced gender to the species by experimenting on Arcee. The why isn't so bad - because he could, he's a mad bastard playing God. It's the how that's really wrongheaded. The issue never really bothers explaining what precisely Jhiaxus does to Arcee - adds a reproductive system that has no male counterpart as the rest of the Transformers are gender neutral? Adds female character trails cribbed from observing other species to Arcee's neural network? A half-hearted mention of CNA doesn't even start covering this. Because on what the comic shows us, all he's actually done is painted Arcee pink, added curvy bodywork and told his experiment they're female now. 

At the risk of sounding offensive it's more a case of forced transvestism than a gender swap, straying into non-consensual sissification. Surely Jhiaxus can't introduce gender into a whole genderless species in this way anyway as he's changed nothing about anyone else to make them male. I'm not especially versed in gender politics but surely at best he's somehow changed the species to however many million gender neutral members and one female than however many million males and one female, otherwise we're left with the crass idea of male gender being defined as anyone not male. And the whole thing is muddied by Arcee effectively choosing to identify as female by going around telling everyone she's female rather than claiming to be a genderless robot mutilated by a mad scientist.

Arcee's characterisation is that of a vengeful action chick from an exploitation flick (though given Furman's propensity for being slightly behind the pop culture curve a homage to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill seems more likely). It's possible to read a bit too much into this and say the writer is trying to convey that being female is something to be angry about or that she's a balanced example of what a female Transformer would be like. In the context of the insane mechanics of gender as per this story though it makes some sense - Arcee is the result of an enforced change through Jhiaxus and no attempt at some sort of empathic female archetype is seriously attempted. While it's unimaginative the idea of a discarded experimental subject out for revenge is simply a dull old trope, and Arcee's quite openly presented as being completely mental. And anyone know why Jhiaxus also made his creation insanely powerful? No?

Annoyingly there was a perfect alternative to much of this literally right there on the page. If Furman had needed a revenge-crazed powerful loose cannon hell-bent on tracking down Jhiaxus, why not Monstructor? No part of the issue wouldn't work with this switch - they'll get nothing but used by the Decepticons and could have some development in putting their faith in Jetfire's honest scientific graft, so they could even be Garrus 9's last resort. Instead Furman introduces another 'new' character to carry out this function, opening an unpleasant can of worms in the process while also answering a question surely nobody was asking. A look at gender in this continuity might have been interesting some point down the line, but the question once again is why the Hell Furman's just throwing so much shit at the title when there are already a preposterous amount of things going on.

One final point should be made - the dialogue in this issue is appalling. It's never really been Furman's strong suit - yes, there have been memorable lines over the years but actual frame-to-frame dialogue's always been a bit of an area to work for even before he found out about the Furmanism thing and prolapsed into self-parody. But here is a low - everything Arcee says is a ridiculous level-breaker only matched by the Combaticons' Saturday morning cartoon evil speeches.

Oh, and Arcee apparently has a homing instinct which means Jhiaxus can't hide from her but is unaware that he's in the next room in the flashback. Rubbish.

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Comic Review: Transformers - Drift

PUBLISHER: IDW (2010)
WRITER: SHANE McCARTHY
ARTIST: ALEX MILNE  

Drift is - or at least was - one of the most reviled Transformers characters ever and a lot of the blame for this was down to the obnoxious promotional push IDW comics gave him, though creator Shane McCarthy's prickly side didn't exactly smooth the path. In general the actual character wasn't quite as much of a Scrappy Doo as expected. However, a four-issue mini-series exploring his crazy mysterious backstory was hardly warranted and is every bit as terrible as these elements would suggest.

Comic Review - Transformers: Megatron Origin

The earliest-set complete series from IDW, Megatron Origin has a simple but fascinating premise - show how Megatron become Megatron and where exactly the Decepticons came from. Sadly, it's botched on just about every level. Eric Holmes' script was originally written for previous licensee Dreamwave and it shows.