wordmongerer wrote:Sentinel Pax wrote:Wow! This was awesome. Any chance we'll get to see any more of these full-length comics?
Maaaaaaybe....
Heh! I'd love to see another one, myself. In particular, I think the Mosaic format is almost perfectly tailor-suited to a Rashomon-inspired story.
wordmongerer wrote:I wanted to do a war story that felt like a proper war, although one that would fit in 22 pages...
I think you succeeded in spades there. I remember lamenting to an online friend that there seems to be too little TF stuff that really deals with the idea of the endless fighting the TFs have to endure. His response upon reading this comic was, "There, you got what you wanted! You happy now?"
Anyhoo. As I promised, (a lot) more thoughts now that I'm reading this at a time when I'm not ready to nod off to bed.
It seems like it is the cosmic fate of the Aerialbots to eventually get shot out of the sky and then rebuilt into some bizarre contraption. At least this time it was for a noble purpose and it was a well-meaning Autobot that did the latter.
I already mentioned page 7, but I'll also say that now that I think about it, it reminds me of a similar vibe to that Deep Space Nine episode where Sisko ends up decking Q. ("P-Picard never would have hit me!" "I'm not Picard!") But Slingshot's belligerence *does* have more focus and purpose here than his usually just being a blustering jerk.
Then we have poor Silverbolt. The Bot really never ever gets a chance to be happy, does he? I can't even think of an instance in the cartoon where he so much as got to smile! An interesting take on his fear of heights, too, in it really being a cover for deeper worries. (As the old quip goes, "It’s not the fall that gets you, it’s that sudden stop at the end.")
The take on Superion is indeed creepy and original. Much more Frankensteinian than the ultimate expression of teamwork it's usually portrayed as. I also like how in just a few brief text bubbles we got an implication of the five disparate personalities and what it's like for them to all try to fit together.
(Side note: I never really had any particular problem with combiners in the original series, since there were several implications as to why it wouldn't be more common. But that's a tangent, and furthermore this *is* IDW continuity, which I'm not familiar with yet. So moving on...)
I really, really feel sorry for poor First Aid in this one. First he loses his partner Minerva. Then he finds that no matter what he tries to do to make things better and save lives, he just seems to keep making things *worse* instead and digging himself (and everyone else) into an even deeper hole. As I said earlier, the idea he seems to have to struggle with is, "When is surviving and keeping people alive no longer worth the cost you need to put into it?" Not an easy question for an inherently empathic and earnest Bot.
Hot Spot, meanwhile, seems to take over the mantle from *his* role model a bit more adeptly. In the end he does make the hard choices, comes up with a plan that succeeds despite the sacrifices... and has it be completely for naught as Optimus more or less consigns him and the others to the same fate he was forced to give the Aerialbots. Ouch.
Some more random thoughts:
Blades' page is both creepy and cool at the same time. Is (was) that the remains of Shrapnel?
Always good to see the Autobot cassettes get some "screentime", although they're probably wishing they got less right about now. Hurrah for Blaster's alter-ego Twincast as well.
Nice little twist on how the Protectobots got their name.
Finally, the last two-page spread is just seriously cool. (Charge of the Photon Brigade, indeed.)
I *think* that's everything I can think of to say here. It was indeed worth the wait, and I'm incredibly envious that you folks got enough talent to come up with something this good.
. Loved every page, every word, every color, and you released it a day early too 
.
(I've been waiting for someone to finally do that...)
