Too Many Shades of Grey
(Spoiler free-ish)
SynopsisROM—A MURDERER?! That’s what OPTIMUS PRIME and the TRANSFORMERS think—and right or wrong, there’s only one outcome: all-out war! Meanwhile, G.I. JOE turns to the one person who can save the world from ultimate destruction—MILES MAYHEM!
See? Absolute MayhemIf the first issue of Revolution - reviewed by Tigertrack
here - showed where the ubersharedmashup universe crossover event would find its flaws, the second issue in the run is still not able to pick up the good bits for long enough to satisfy a regular reader of Transformers. Bear with me...
..as I puma reviewer hat onAs Rom the SpaceKnight provides the catalyst for the event, and even though Micronauts is probably doing a better job at connecting the wider mythology so far, even with just one issue (see my review of the other titles involved
here), the insistence on the 'everyone is the bad guy of someone else's story' is really not landing yet. Yes, the Dire Wraiths are creating confusion, and Miles Mayhem is clearly furthering his own goals, but still, something feels very much off.
why can't we all just get alongWhere John Barber and Cullen Bunn do have a knack for stories and dialogue - and we know the continuity skills of Barber are second to none, especially with the IDW Transformers-verse, so there is plenty to play around with for the both of them - unfortunately though, there just isn't enough space right now, and where they instead tend to shine is in the other titles that make up the event as a whole, at least at this point in the game.
Kup gets itWith that in mind, some of the interactions, especially between human and non-human factions, feel stilted, sometimes even forced - notable example is the MASK introduction, too short, too contrived and underplaying a potentially meaty development, in concept and story; also, the opening dialogue with the Joe team, and the decimate incident - with the best part of the book only coming towards the very very end.
ArtI do not dislike Fico Ossio's work, in any way at all. The designs for humans and robots, robots in particular, are visually stimulating, intriguing, and a new direction which I approve of for something so flashy like a franchise crossover. They're bold. But therein lies a flaw: the emotive aspect of non-organics in particular suffer from the linework of the rest of the character. Arcee and Windblade, and to an extent Kup, particularly feel this.
ExactlyThe colours still fit that 'HEY YOU LOOK AT THIS BOOK AIN'T IT COOL' vibe that IDW has been relying on for the crossover, in its multiple covers and big previews across major entertainment news sites too, and Sebastian Cheng does very good things with the vibrancy chosen - though I can see how some might find it too 'light' in some scenes.
This, however, is a very cool shotRegular Transformers veteran letter Tom B. Long has a heck of a job keeping the dialogue and sounds at bay - and that last word is actually a totally unintentional pun for the amount of explosive fontwork that we find in the book: the explosions and loudness are
very much present all the way through. Commendable indeed that it is this clear!
As for the covers, there are so many variants offered, as is to be expected from such a wide-scale project, that I am not sure I can master up enough words to mention them all. Make sure you do look out for them though, as there are some true gems in there, from Christiansen and Guidi, to Easton and Baltazar, via toy and minimal variants (see thumbnail by James Biggie), there is bound to be something to appeal to everyone.
ThoughtsSpoilerish aheadI will follow the event through to its end, but what I see so far is not entirely convincing as a way to get older fans of the Joe and Transformers franchises hooked for long enough to warrant the arrival of three new properties. Book-wise at least. Where Bunn and Barber do work well, still, is within the smaller titles that lead into this wider crossover, unfortunately.
Scarlett also gets itThat said, the building of the world around Revolution, both through reusing parts of the more cosmically inclined lore of the Transformers, or the making things align in the Microverse parts of the story. Visually, my issues are outlined above, but it is not a bad looking book, at all! And overall, we do have a slight improvement with the wider cast now fully present in the line-up for the event - here's hoping to the next three issues finally able to lift off the ground in the scale of what the premise has promised comics readers.
Bonus Content: A handy reference guide from Tigertrack, which still fully applies two issues in!
Who should try this?
Casual 80’s childhood guy or gal all grown up: Hell yeah! You’d probably get a kick out of this with Transformers, GI JOE, ROM, ACTION MAN and coming up… Micronauts, and MASK! My childhood hath been brought back alive again! If only VISIONARIES would make an appearance! Ore-13 won't mean anything to you, but you don't need it to.
IDW Transformers Familiars: You may be a bit more hesitant. 'Our guys' are a focus for sure, but we’re not quite sure how they will come out when this all shakes out, and there was a lot of awesome stuff to like going on before this. They are the elder statesman and most successful comics of the bunch, and readers are not interested in losing the awesome ground that we have gained over recent years. There seem to be inconsistencies with current comic continuity, but not so huge that it can't get cleaned up. AND... we do get this ORE-13 thing to finally seem to finally, finally, shake out in full, so there's that!
IDW GI JOE Familiars: You may just feel good that GI JOE is coming back, again, but are probably frustrated that GI JOE is coming back, yet again, seemingly rebooted, yet again (I’m not as good and up on my IDW GI JOE). I feel very badly for hardcore JOE fans. I really hope this helps to get them the great fiction that they deserve (and hopefully more of a toy line too).
OTHERS: Tons of action! Aliens, robots, human elite army operatives, and end of the planet Earth peril, plus some cool new sophisticated TECHIE vehicles. Recognizable big name characters. Sounds like a try out to me! It reads like the big boys crossovers so far, with satisfactory art, I'd give it a go.
. ROM was going to be featured in at least one episode. This was back in 2013, imagine what that small cameo would have done to boost that characters popularity.
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