5 page preview of Transformers Ongoing #13!

i love this! i LOVE masterpiece Acid Storm! roche's art is incredible, i love that ongoing has several artists from TF comics past and present trying their hand at our heroes and villains.

this looks like a great story and so much fun!

MP ACID STORM!!

TAKARA!! MAKE ME SOME RAINMAKERS!!! AND SUNSTORM TO CHASE AWAY THE CLOUDS!

"a safe made of meter-thick osmium alloy that nothing short of Omega Supreme could penetrate."
Oh, I see where this is going.

Vicalliose wrote:"a safe made of meter-thick osmium alloy that nothing short of Omega Supreme could penetrate."
Oh, I see where this is going.

You are correct!

Don, I used to love your work, but that Kup design is possibly the ugliest transformer design I've seen. No offense, but it just doesn't appeal at all.

Nick's art looks great. Glad he gets to draw his favourite character again.

Oilspill wrote:Don, I used to love your work, but that Kup design is possibly the ugliest transformer design I've seen. No offense, but it just doesn't appeal at all.

Nick's art looks great. Glad he gets to draw his favourite character again.

That Kup wouoldn't be so ugly and more like his new generations toy if he had normal eyes and no visible rib cage thingy

WTF is up with kups eyes?

Dr. Heavy B wrote:WTF is up with kups eyes?

My guess is they're probably old-man specs as opposed to his actual eyes. Like Movie Jetfire's cane, it's something to remind us that he's, y'know, old.

I've come to expect a certain wrongness when it comes to comics with the words "Written by Mike Costa" on it. And ever since I heard about what's in this issue, I expected it to suck harder than a Hoover.

But never in a quintillion years would I have expected this issue to be as wrong and to suck as hard as this preview makes it seem.

Ultra Magnus would NOT leave an apparently inpenetrable weapons locker open so any dumb schmuck could get into it. Hot Rod did NOT try to convince the others with reason. Hot Rod is NOT good with bold moves. Nobody in their right mind would plunge headlong into an enemy base and walk away alive.

And after what he did last issue, Mike Costa has no business writing Transformers comics, and needs to be fired from IDW post-haste if they have any respect for their readership or their quality of work they put out.

Well it's that Tuesday again and you know what that means – idw Transformers Ongoing comic review time!

Just this time with Dead Metal, instead of TT24, that's because TT24 is chained up in my basement, and he shall remain there until idw makes a new Transformers comic I don't hate with a passion so intense that it should be illegal.
So I'll be reviewing The Transformers Ongoing #13, a comic by idw focusing on Hot Rod Rodimus Prime Roddy the Hot Rod, that is HOT, Rodimus (?), and the role he has in the future of the comic series. Oh looks like TT24's staying in my basement for a while – OR IS HE?!

And just in case you don't know, this review contains spoilers and as the name says, these spoilers spoil the comic for you. I will include the ending in this review, so if you don't mind getting spoilt keep on reading


So idw was very happy to stress to us that this issue took place in SPACE! and not on earth, but that's not all, they also stressed that this book had Rodimus, in SPACE!.
What an exciting brake from all that boring as hell Spike waffling, pseudo political waffling, propaganda, and the most boring and unexciting way Transformers have ever been portrait, seriously, they're giant sentient robots from SPACE!, how can they not be exiting and awesome – oh yea waffling...

I'm going to start by saying something about the art, since that's not just half of a comic but also the half one notices before the story.

The art, well the line art, is done by Nick Roche, the Irish artist who not only harassed idw into hiring him (according to Chris Ryall), but also made a huge impact on the fans with the art and scripting of such titles as "Spotlight: Kup" and "Last Stand of the Wreckers", the later with a great portion of help by James Roberts. He's famous for having a style that is both cartoony and organic, and still very mechanical. He's also, in his own words "Gay for Hot Rod".

And he does not disappoint, the art is very dynamic, expressive and full of character, and still very detailed.

Now on the subject that is always good for controversy in the idw comics since the Launch of "All Hail Megatron", the designs.
Nick Roche uses a mix of character designs, The Master Piece toy design for the Seekers, Don Figueroa's new design for Hot Rod, and the rest are more or less based on the Sunbow cartoon designs, except for a mystery character!

So the art will please Nick Roche-fans and displease those that don't care for his work, and comic character design nerds will probably find something to rage about.

I'll voice my opinion on the story part of the comic at the end of this review.

Now this is where the real spoilers start!

So the issue starts with Rodimus flying with Ultra Magnus's ship (which he stole from Ultra Magnus in #06) through SPACE!. They didn't lie you guys the story really is in SPACE!.

Now I'm not really going to say too much about the first five pages, since if you click here you can read them in the pre-view.

The pages give us a basic gist of what happened earlier, Rodimus "unexpectedly" getting swindled by Swindle (also #06), oh wow we didn't see that happening back when Swindle showed up in #02, how could you not trust someone going by that name. Rodimus also goes on about how smart he is, yea Swindle thinks so too, and that Ultra Magnus has a super-duper high security safe which can't be broken by anything short of Omega Supreme, which he doesn't lock. Why Magnus went through the trouble of owning that I don't understand, but I do think it's kind of funny, stupid but funny.

Rodimus arrives at the Decepticons' asteroid base and we see Acid Storm, yes he's even actually referred to as such, and Shrapnel. They lose their cool and shoot the ship, but due to an error the ship crashes and destroys their defences.

Bombshell gets the job of telling Starscream the bad news, who doesn't really care and tells him to go and fix it. Then we have a bit of an awkward moment in which Bombshell kind of suggests he should have The Matrix and tries taking it from Starscream (I guess it's like the "one" ring), who's still wearing it with a chain around his neck. Starscream orders him to "Leave us", which is odd as there is only Bombshell and Starscream in the room, maybe he's going nuts.


"And one to enslave them all."


We cut back to Rodimus who has survived the crash and gets ready to attack the base. However Acid Storm, Kickback and Bombshell search the wreak for survivors and useful things, and well they find Rodimus, who ambushes them and kills all three of them, well I guess he kills them.


I guess a fridge could have also been used for this.


Rodimus himself is then ambushed by Razorclaw, they exchange some dialogue in which Razorclaw reveals he could bite off Rodimus' head and swallow it whole, which is odd since he's a robot, but then again we've seen Transformers do stranger things. Rodimus tells Razorclaw to "Swallow this!" while sticking one of Bombshell's cerebro shells in his mouth, and he does. Razorclaw is now under Rodimus' command, because well roll with it.


Razorclaw will swallow anything smaller than his own head without question.


Rodimus then uses Razorclaw to ambush Starscream, who quickly kills him, yea sorry no Predaking in these comics.
Rodimus attacks Starscream, who tells him that he's impenetrably armoured, but Rodimus shoots The Matrix which knocks Starscream out, or kills him I'm not sure which.
click here for spoilerish image

He then takes The Matrix and goes deeper into the base, where he's surprised by Astrotrain, who's in his cartoon design, Rodimus thinks he's smart and decides to sneak up on him, while thinking to himself he's destined to bring the Matrix back. But surprise! And out of the shadows steps our mystery character! I'm not going to use any spoiler tags since, well it won't work.


"Out of the Dark, into the light."

The mystery character is Megatron in his new design, marking the first time the design has been used in fiction.
Due to Megatron having a new body, Rodimus panics and shows us that he knows what happens when a character gets a new body and shows it off to the reads/viewers for the first time! Rodimus somehow thinks The Matrix could shield him from Megatron, possibly forgetting Megatron is not Unicron (who isn't even in this universe, but still).


"Erm, Rodimus he's not Unicron, but whatever."

It goes just as well as one would think, and Rodimus is back in SPACE!


"SPACE! Blacker than the blackest black times infinity!"

Megatron somehow no longer caring for The Matrix, strange, he seemed to have been all over it in AHM, guess it was important enough to start a war over it (if we ignore the fiction prior to AHM) but blasting it with a huge cannon into SPACE! is OK, guess he thinks his new body is a much better "toy".
Megatron then tells Soundwave to assembly the Decepticons since he wants "To address my followers".

And on the last page we see Rodimus floating dead through SPACE!
Image spoils the final page of the comic.

So that was it, our space related issue in the ongoing, enjoy it while it lasts as it might take a while till we get another issue set completely in space.

Now I'll get to the story part , which is the most important part of a comic. A comic can be good with horrible art as long as the story is good, just like a wonderfully illustrated comic can be bad due to a bad story and horrible writing.

The comic is written by Mike Costa, who's been writing the ongoing since #01 - poorly in my opinion. Everything's dragged out far too long, characters act weird and the plot seems to be nothing more than Costa's statement of how much our beloved alien robots suck when compared to humans, it's so poor that it overshadows the few pretty good ideas and concepts he brings in.


"A typical and unedited page of what dialogue in the Ongoing."

However, this issue is different, it's pacing is good, although it kind of feels rushed near the end; it's dialogue is waffle free, something which we usually suffer through when Costa writes dialogue involving humans or Optimus Prime (please die Prime, you suck in this continuity now); Rodimus' internal monologues are pretty good, sometimes stupid and cliché, but overall pretty good; and the best part, no Spike!
However, there are some bad or let’s say week parts to the story, like Razorclaw's part in this, which was pretty pointless since Rodimus' would have had the same effect if he just went and attacked Starscream himself, Razorclaw was basically just there to get killed. The part about Ultra Magnus' safe, that odd scene with Bombshell and The Matrix, The Matrix in general which seems to be indestructible and Megatron's appearance, while cool is somewhat sudden and not explained. But we might get the explanation in a following issue or heck even a Spotlight, telling us the story, which idw planned from the beginning but wanted to wait, of how and why in a few months.

So yea the story's not that bad, plus the fantastic art by nick Roche, with fantastic colours by J. Brown, make a pretty good and enjoyable comic.

I give it three stars out of five, which means I must have liked it.

"This I recommend!"
5 point of cool to who gets this.

Personally I think it's not as good or interesting as idw's earlier output (-tion, Stormbringer, etc.) but not that bad and might be the first sign of the series actually getting better, but then again Megatron might come back to earth and team up with Osama Bin Laden or revive Hitler, which would sadly make sense looking at what happened in previous issues.

This looks promising. Always been a fan of Roche's artwork and maybe they can salvage Hot Rod's character with this issue.

In Roche We Trust!!

Head, meet desk.

Even reading that spoiler'ed summary doesn't give me any hope for this issue. I thought the pointless inclusion of Acid Storm was the stupidest thing Costa could do with this. But I forgot about his habit of casually killing off characters, well loved or not.

Not for the first time do I find myself wondering why the *%$& I ordered this issue.

Darth Bombshell wrote:I've come to expect a certain wrongness when it comes to comics with the words "Written by Mike Costa" on it. And ever since I heard about what's in this issue, I expected it to suck harder than a Hoover.

But never in a quintillion years would I have expected this issue to be as wrong and to suck as hard as this preview makes it seem.

Ultra Magnus would NOT leave an apparently inpenetrable weapons locker open so any dumb schmuck could get into it. Hot Rod did NOT try to convince the others with reason. Hot Rod is NOT good with bold moves. Nobody in their right mind would plunge headlong into an enemy base and walk away alive.

And after what he did last issue, Mike Costa has no business writing Transformers comics, and needs to be fired from IDW post-haste if they have any respect for their readership or their quality of work they put out.

I disagree with the Hot Rod part. His motto is "my actions speak louder than words", his function is Cavalier - so he's meant to throw himself into battle in, well, a cavalier manner. He takes the risks and damns the consequences. And in Spotlight Hot Rod (was that Furman?), he basically rides a meteor to break into a Decepticon prison (which was fairly awesome).

However, I agree with all the rest. Mike Costa's writing in the Ongoing has been terrible - though Ironhide was not bad. I hope someone else takes the reigns before Transformers comics are ruined forever.

Oilspill wrote:I disagree with the Hot Rod part. His motto is "my actions speak louder than words", his function is Cavalier - so he's meant to throw himself into battle in, well, a cavalier manner. He takes the risks and damns the consequences. And in Spotlight Hot Rod (was that Furman?), he basically rides a meteor to break into a Decepticon prison (which was fairly awesome).

Maybe so, yeah. But who in their right mind would dive head first into a Decepticon base and expect to get away alive? And let's not forget that one of Hot Rod's most famous acts of "throwing himself into battle" led to Prime getting killed. So he hasn't exactly had a good track record.

Woah.... They just killed Rodimus!!! They are bringing him back... RIGHT?!?!?!!?

So shooting the Autobots most sacred and valuable artifact is a good idea?

GEEWUN wrote:Woah.... They just killed Rodimus!!! They are bringing him back... RIGHT?!?!?!!?

I hope not. His "characterization" has been the third stupidest thing Costa has done (after killing off Ironhide, then writing a miniseries that didn't explain why and killing off Bumblebee) and it's really nice to see him get his comeuppance.

Oilspill wrote:So shooting the Autobots most sacred and valuable artifact is a good idea?

It is when you, apparently, have no other ideas on how to create drama and tension in a story. That and killing people off.

JRFitzpatrick7 wrote:roche's art is incredible

What is the big deal with Roche's art? I don't get why everybody loves his art, he's not that great. Guido, Figuara, Meline, and Su are all 1000 times better than he is.

I'm not fond of IDW's G1 stuff at all though I really enjoy their Movieverse comics.

Not a fan of Roche's style either. Far too cartoon like especially in those pages with Hot Rod in up there. His face looks too childlike and immature though perhaps not to the extent of Animated's facial styles thankfully. Actually I've not really been keen on any TF artist since the very dynamic work by Geoff Senior and Lee Sullivan on the old Marvel Comics (and they used to draw far better TF faces too) though Alex Milne does good work with the Movie designs (even if his humans need work).

Carnivius_Prime wrote:Actually I've not really been keen on any TF artist since the very dynamic work by Geoff Senior and Lee Sullivan on the old Marvel Comics (and they used to draw far better TF faces too)

I've never understood the massive love for Geoff Senior's work.


His art was OK for the 80s, but it seems to pale next to the detail & better proportions of the art today (for example EJ Su's art). His faces are expressive, but they still look a bit ridiculous at the same time - see the Galvatron pic above. Roche gets much better expressions out of his TFs, though I can see how his cartoony style doesn't suit everyone. But just glancing at his work you can see how much he enjoys drawing his subject matter!

Maybe, a bit like G1 cartoon itself, you had to grow up with the comics to really 'get' what's so great about Geoff Snr. Maybe I don't get it because I'm comparing it to the work of today, not the artists of the 80s.

oh dear god.

how many blatant rip offs are in this issue?

more over considering the slagging nuking the fridge got in indianna jones how in the name of christ did costa think he could get away with that as a central plot point ?

and as to the end, no hot rod (which is his real fucking name - fuct this "rodimus" nonsense ) is gonna come back after being rebuilt by the matrix....

...just like thunderwing did twenty years ago under furman ! !

sweet jesus did costa just randomly pick other films and stories to DO this issue over the weekend.

im actually getting angry at how the book is being handled now.

issue after issue of turgid, pointless, meaningless "stories" that dont add a fecking thing to the characters and worse of all bloody meaningless deaths that fuck the whole universe up to whatever writer is going to have to step in at some stage to sort this clusterfeck out.

even nicks art isnt his best work, which TBH im putting down the the colourist who doest seem to know what subtle hues are. i dont know who this j brown is but there are better guys out there like josh who you think would be on the TFs flagship title.

FFS IDW just END this now while you still have a fanbase

lol kups feet say "oldtimr"

I was hoping for better since they switched the focus from the "AMERICA F**K YEAH!" nonsense going on on earth, to some of the rest of the characters... but Costa really needs to quit, or get fired or something. Bring in a writer who knows a little more about continuity, subtle references as opposed to blatant ripoffs, characterization (which really shouldn't be hard since a lot of these characters have been around for over two decades), pacing, structure... pretty much ANYTHING a writer should be good for... At this point I'll maintain that the fictional aspect of Transformers is still dead to me, if anyone needs me I'll be in the toy forum ... for a long time.

Dead Metal wrote:

Vicalliose wrote:"a safe made of meter-thick osmium alloy that nothing short of Omega Supreme could penetrate."
Oh, I see where this is going.

You are correct!

Yay! So, what do I win for pointing out the blatantly obvious?

Yeah, I hate Mike Costa. Basically it's been nothing but a bunch of dumb humans who kick Transformer nutz (aren't we getting enough of that in the movies?), and randomly killing characters off followed by immediately reviving them just to get them from point A to point B.

I still prefer Shane McCarthy's work over reading this junk, bad as it is, I was still able to tolerate it, and at least the art didn't make my eyes hurt on top of everything else (not including this issue of course.)

Well I'm guessing they wouldn't make a big deal about Rodimus in space and the matrix just to kill him off. I'm guessing the matrix revives him, chooses him blah blah, and then he goes back to earth and relieves Bumblebee as leader of the bots. A position that still should be held by OP.

Yeah, can just see that the matrix is gonna revive Rodimus, especially thanks to that "Nothing can stop us.." dialogue over the image which obviously implies Roddy will come back as a bigger threat to Megatron's plans... IDW's way of getting Rodimus Prime into the story maybe?

I miss the -Tion mini-series. Seriously, this is beyond awful here.

WTF! They're killing off every Transformer we care about!!!

How about less time with annoying ass humans and more character development on characters like Acid Storm!!!

Oh wait, he's dead....

And so is my interest in this book until this current writer leaves!!!

I'm assuming that English is not the reviewer's first language? All I can say is next time, pause for an edit. Plenty of spelling and grammatical errors as well as homonyms in lieu of the intended word, if I recall correctly. Doing so would make for a more credible review and help reinforce good English to the younger readers of this site.

bout damn time the douschbag traitor got his come uppance and from megatron himself of all people ha

Somebody please push the reboot button. NOW.


The series is going in a direction where even the TF/GIJoe: Dark Horizon seems like a masterpiece compared to the slag Costa produces.
EDIT: Going? It went past that point.

I hate the way Rodimus looks.

Oh dear GOD.

DM, you're spot on on the 'Robots suck/humans rule' thing. I more or less lost my heart for this series when Witwicky managed to kill Scrapper with an I-beam...and no shirt. But...wow. I hate to say I can't even summon thrills for the notion of Megatron's return.

HK, IDW bringing new meaning to 'jumping the shark...ticon'

Something needs to be done quickly about where the whole IDW continuity is going. Its not too late to salvage this !!

Ive stood by IDW for a long time now but Im losing interest real fast, and I think a lot of other people are too.

Big fan of Roche's work though. Give him the reigns perhaps? Or at least another mini series.

Oilspill wrote:

Carnivius_Prime wrote:Actually I've not really been keen on any TF artist since the very dynamic work by Geoff Senior and Lee Sullivan on the old Marvel Comics (and they used to draw far better TF faces too)

I've never understood the massive love for Geoff Senior's work.

Personally, I would say that it might have something to do with:

1. Marvel UK was a weekly release. This meant shorter time frames to get stuff done.
2. Senior managed to consistently evoke energy and dynamics in his imagery despite only having quarter of the time.
3. He could really draw an awesome fight scene (just check out the fight between Galvatron and Ultra Magnus in Target: 2006 for confirmation).

lowman_x wrote:

Oilspill wrote:

Carnivius_Prime wrote:Actually I've not really been keen on any TF artist since the very dynamic work by Geoff Senior and Lee Sullivan on the old Marvel Comics (and they used to draw far better TF faces too)

I've never understood the massive love for Geoff Senior's work.

Personally, I would say that it might have something to do with:

1. Marvel UK was a weekly release. This meant shorter time frames to get stuff done.
2. Senior managed to consistently evoke energy and dynamics in his imagery despite only having quarter of the time.
3. He could really draw an awesome fight scene (just check out the fight between Galvatron and Ultra Magnus in Target: 2006 for confirmation).

Hmm I wasn't aware of the time frame thing, that's quite impressive. I think I do have the Target:2006 reprint somewhere, I remember Magnus taking a pounding, Galvatron gripping onto the top of Magnus in truck mode and then maybe a petrol station blowing up. Will check it out again, it was pretty cool.

Thanks for the info!

on the geoff senior things.

lets remember as well. there was no computer colouring in HIS day.

that stuff was all hand done and in the US marvel comic was that god awfull dot matrix colouring thing.

check out the painted stuff he did for "Deaths head : the body in question" to get a feel of what he's capable of.

i think the most sophisticated TF stuff he did was the G2 stuff and even that didnt have dreamwaves or IDWs production levels.

the blokes doing advertising now IIRC and you can see how his style has evolved on his website. like byan hitch he's moved on ALOT .

its a pity he dosnt do comic work anymore.

After buying every TF comic since Dreamwave brought them back to the shelves 8-9 years ago I have given up buying them based solely on Costa's crap story lines. This really does make me angry because I truly want to support IDW and TF comics in any itteration [they are the only TF media since BW that doesn't have to pull it's punches for the kids] but there are so many things wrong with the writing I just can't justify spending any more money on this drivel.

The Legend wrote:After buying every TF comic since Dreamwave brought them back to the shelves 8-9 years ago I have given up buying them based solely on Costa's crap story lines. This really does make me angry because I truly want to support IDW and TF comics in any itteration [they are the only TF media since BW that doesn't have to pull it's punches for the kids] but there are so many things wrong with the writing I just can't justify spending any more money on this drivel.

I know that people classify me as a IDW-hater (mostly on the IDW boards, naturally), so let me say that this is my opinion, too. I liked IDW's prior storyline and series (even Beast Wars, which I've poked enough holes into so as to make it swiss cheese, is something I read and enjoy), so it's really sad for me to see how badly things have gotten. Out of IDW's total TF output this past year, Last Stand of the Wreckers has been the only thing I've read and enjoyed, and that's mostly because it's essentially a "by the fans, for the fans" book. If IDW would look at the success of that, and work the ongoing around that formula, it would make a load of difference.

I have been umming and ahhing over whether I would continue collecting the IDW TF stuff for s while now.

This is sad because I have been collecting the TF comics since the UK Marvel stuff when I was 6 years old and collected it until the bitter end.

I was excited when I discovered the ONLY STORE in my home town that decided to get in the G2 comics back in the early 90s (though I missed half of the 12 issue run because that same store didn't see a need to get all of them in). I felt it was a bit of a bummer when Derek Yaniger was replaced with the artist who tried to badly follow his style but I still persisted in trying to track down each issue from month to month (which was fruitless half the time) because it was still a good story. I said a little "Hell yeah!" because Geoff Senior worked on the final issue of G2 then felt sad because, once again, it had been taken away from me.

I watched and enjoyed Beast Wars despite not being able to see much of it because I was in school when they showed it on TV here. We never got Beast Machines (or, at least, I never found it on TV). I didn't enjoy any of the new iterations (RID, Unicron Trilogy) so let it all slide.

When I heard Dreamwave had picked up the rights I was practically salivating because I have always been a bigger fan of the comics than I am of the cartoons. Despite Pat Lee drawing Prime with a tiny head and massive whitewashed window frames I enjoyed it. (This was also despite the fact that I felt like I was missing some considerable backstory somewhere between volume 1 and 2.) I was, once again, disappointed when that was cancelled eventually due to ineptitude.

Then IDW came along and called for a reboot of the franchise. A re-imagining if you will. The -ation series got me gripped and I couldn't wait for each issue. The months-long wait between volumes was a killer but I managed it. Why did I like it so much? Because it took what I knew and remembered of the Transformers, skewed it a little, matured it and then gave it to us with heaped slatherings of awesome art. It worked and it worked well.

Then the -ation series were... "cancelled". The powers that be called for a shake up. They called for something new. Something to excite the fan base again. What did we get? We got All Hail Megatron. Sure, the premise was new. What if the Decepticons won? Wow... you know what? This might actually be good! Take the characters and plotlines we have now and fast forward a year into the future. And the Cons have whooped ass and the Bots are on the ropes. Holy crap, this is so awesome... no... wait... what's the opposite of awesome? Crap? No, not that far gone. Disappointing. Yeah, that's the word. Pretty disappointing. Let's take a pretty cool idea and then screw the pooch by turning the whole thing back into a bad copy of the original cartoon. Previous plot work essentially ignored, plotholes patched up worse than my attempts at putty filling, characters became 2 dimensional and cliched. The artwork (which is an important thing for me being an art teacher and all) took a huge step backwards and we ended up with, essentially, the G1 cartoon in high glossy paper format (art wise). For me it's been a downhill slide from that point on, really.

I've hung on, hoping like all buggery that Costa and co would drag this behemoth back to the surface but I just feel like I'm reading regurgitated plotlines from here, there and everywhere. Oh wow, enemy countries have Transformers as weapons of mass destruction? Yeah, think I saw that in DW's first series. Bumblebee gets his ass handed to him and he bulks himself up? Yeah, UK Marvel did that with Goldbug. A fan favourite dies and is then miraculously brought back? Hmmm... pretty sure Marvel do that with Jean Grey every couple of years (though they do explain it better) and Prime dies all the time. Optimus Prime has a crisis of faith and leaves his troops to go wallow in self-pity, cut himself and write poetry? Yep, Marvel UK did it when they introduced the Predacons in issue 98 (I think). Mind you, at least Costa followed the continuity before him and kept Spike and didn't ignore what he was following on from. (Though, to be honest, can't we kill him off?? Do we really need Spike? Really?!)

Don't get me wrong, there have been glimmers of coolness along the way, Last Stand of the Wreckers being one of them, but I think this is where I get off this ride, folks. I might stick around for the zombie thing but otherwise, I think this is where I call it quits before Transformers calls it quits on me.

Well, I haven't ran out to buy this issue yet...I WAS trying to maybe make myself NOT buy #13 - you know, to make a statement and what not. It's Veteran's Day so I'm not working. It's snowing outside. I have a monster cold I'm trying desperately to fight off in one day - the cold is winning, unfortunately. Based on what I've read here, now I'm just curious to see just HOW bad #13 is - plus if I have to sit at home all day instead of go to the mall or do something fun, I might as well read it.

polystyleneman wrote:I'm assuming that English is not the reviewer's first language? All I can say is next time, pause for an edit. Plenty of spelling and grammatical errors as well as homonyms in lieu of the intended word, if I recall correctly. Doing so would make for a more credible review and help reinforce good English to the younger readers of this site.

Sorry - this just made me laugh! Thanks for that - hahahahaha *cough!* hahahahaha!!!! This WAS supposed to be funny.....right....?

So, let me pose this question - If Mike Costa quits/gets fired/retires/calls in sick for a year, who would you want to replace him as the writer?

Oh, and I don't believe for a second that Bumblebee is really destroyed - he's just about to become another soldier in Alpha Trion's Army of Undead!

polystyleneman wrote:I'm assuming that English is not the reviewer's first language? All I can say is next time, pause for an edit. Plenty of spelling and grammatical errors as well as homonyms in lieu of the intended word, if I recall correctly. Doing so would make for a more credible review and help reinforce good English to the younger readers of this site.

I believe the part about the grammar, as I was too tired to and had no time to go through it again before it had to be posted.
I'm pretty certain the last few paragraphs are the worst in term of grammar. But the spelling I would say is spot on, except for like maybe using the wrong word for a grammatical structure, and I'm not sure if I spelled "cerebro shell" correctly.

If you mean with bad spelling the British spelling I used, like colour, then the joke's on you.

However should I ever do one of these again, I hope I don't have to write the review at night time during the week.


But now just a general question to you guys. Was the review, apart from the above mentioned things, good? Was it informative, not informative enough, too informative, too dry, to unfunny, where the jokes too stupid, was the "unedited" page too much or was the review totally wrong?

just interested what I did good or what I should change for any future review, if I ever do one again that is.

Thanks.

Stormer wrote:So, let me pose this question - If Mike Costa quits/gets fired/retires/calls in sick for a year, who would you want to replace him as the writer?

Roche, Furman, me, just about anyone who has some respect for the characters and the reader.

The Legend wrote:

Stormer wrote:So, let me pose this question - If Mike Costa quits/gets fired/retires/calls in sick for a year, who would you want to replace him as the writer?

Roche, Furman, me, just about anyone who has some respect for the characters and the reader.

Seriously, the comic has come to a point where gay slash fan fiction about Optimus Prime and Megatron is more respectable to the characters.

The Legend wrote:

Stormer wrote:So, let me pose this question - If Mike Costa quits/gets fired/retires/calls in sick for a year, who would you want to replace him as the writer?

Roche, Furman, me, just about anyone who has some respect for the characters and the reader.

Roche would be good for short runs I think - LSOTW was great, but can he keep it up for a whole ongoing series? What the H. Maybe we'll get to see what he's got.

Furman? Hmmmm. As much as I loved the Marvel stuff - ok, even some of the newer stuff, do you think he has a few more spectacular stories in that brain of his? The respect and knowledge is certainly there.

The Legend - Ok, let's see what ya got!

Gay slash fan-fic - though may be fun to read - isn't exactly what I was probing for. (ha! probing!)

Who else?

Dead Metal wrote:But the spelling I would say is spot on

Dead Metal wrote:But now just a general question to you guys. Was the review, apart from the above mentioned things, good? Was it informative, not informative enough, too informative, too dry, to unfunny, where the jokes too stupid, was the "unedited" page too much or was the review totally wrong?

just interested what I did good or what I should change for any future review, if I ever do one again that is.

At a glance the only spelling error I really saw was "pre-view" should be "preview". There were several others that just looked like typos, like "wreak" should be "wreck" and "becasue" is clearly a typo. But if I was writing the review I would have made many a typo myself, in fact I made several in this post before correcting them. And as you say you wrote it late at night, so I think those comments regarding English as a first language were a bit unnecessary.

Besides, clearly a lot of effort was put into the review. There were heaps of handy pics and also the "typical & unedited page of ongoing" was pretty hilarious. So IMO, a couple of typos or some dodgy grammar is not worth complaining about when we get an otherwise excellent review for the unbeatable price of SFA.

I'd still think I've gotten more entertainment out of reading the review than I would get from reading the comic

Oilspill wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:But the spelling I would say is spot on

Dead Metal wrote:But now just a general question to you guys. Was the review, apart from the above mentioned things, good? Was it informative, not informative enough, too informative, too dry, to unfunny, where the jokes too stupid, was the "unedited" page too much or was the review totally wrong?

just interested what I did good or what I should change for any future review, if I ever do one again that is.

At a glance the only spelling error I really saw was "pre-view" should be "preview". There were several others that just looked like typos, like "wreak" should be "wreck" and "becasue" is clearly a typo. But if I was writing the review I would have made many a typo myself, in fact I made several in this post before correcting them. And as you say you wrote it late at night, so I think those comments regarding English as a first language were a bit unnecessary.

Besides, clearly a lot of effort was put into the review. There were heaps of handy pics and also the "typical & unedited page of ongoing" was pretty hilarious. So IMO, a couple of typos or some dodgy grammar is not worth complaining about when we get an otherwise excellent review for the unbeatable price of SFA.

I'd still think I've gotten more entertainment out of reading the review than I would get from reading the comic

Damn, I typed stuff like that? Seriously that's just wrong, I hate this dodgy spell checking system of open office, yea that stuff shouldn't happen.

Glad you liked the review, I if I had more time I would rewrite a few of the ongoing issues like that

OK I've got a bit of spare time right now, I'm revising this review, also that caption should be "Out of the dark, into the light" not night.

At least I got the Metalocalypse one right

Oh but he's half right with English not being my first language, I did grow up bilingual.

Dead Metal wrote:But now just a general question to you guys. Was the review, apart from the above mentioned things, good? Was it informative, not informative enough, too informative, too dry, to unfunny, where the jokes too stupid, was the "unedited" page too much or was the review totally wrong?

just interested what I did good or what I should change for any future review, if I ever do one again that is.

I'm not really sure what I want to say. I mean, my opinion on the issue was so obviously slanted in one direction that I was pretty unlikely to change it on account of anything anyone else said, so in that respect, I'd have to say that it was all right.

Dead Metal wrote:Seriously, the comic has come to a point where gay slash fan fiction about Optimus Prime and Megatron is more respectable to the characters.

It's a sad fact that, as jokey and stupid as this sounds, it's actually a pretty fair account of the situation.

Dead Metal wrote:But now just a general question to you guys. Was the review, apart from the above mentioned things, good? Was it informative, not informative enough, too informative, too dry, to unfunny, where the jokes too stupid, was the "unedited" page too much or was the review totally wrong?

just interested what I did good or what I should change for any future review, if I ever do one again that is.

Thanks.

I wanted to wait until I read #13 before I read your review. Before reading the review, I concluded that this story wasn't half bad. There were some hokey things in there, but this isn't a bad story by any stretch.

Upon reading your review, I could tell it must have been a-late-night-almost-asleep accomplishment, but I did find it entertaining. I found it fair - aside from the occasional bitter opinion - and an honest assessment of the quality of both the story and the art. Thank you very much for a fun read. Hope you get to do more! (just wait til morning...)

As one who hasn't been able to get back into the comics, I really have littel to go on, but I can say I throughyl enjoyed the review.

The thing I liked about some of the earlier comics was the idea of Prime being somewhat helpless outside of The War, having been driven into it. I think it was brought up in StormBringer, and other comic lines have done it too. (TCC's Megatron/Ratchet prose).

This, ain't seeming to be it.

Likewise, I can see Prime having moments of doubt on popularted planets. That would be his conscious.( I know that's misspelled, shoot me. Or better yet, shoot him.)It might also be bothering him on the fact that he lost the Autobots' sacred Disco Ball.

This, ain't seeming to be it.

The other thing I liked is this recent take on TFs/Humans that we humans aren't all suckers and will actually try and fight back. I actually prefer that to the old "Look A GIANT ALIEN ROBOT! HOO-RAY!" *Squash* approach they seem to have had in the earlier runs. It's an entirely more accurate approach. And it doesn't bother me that cons had signed up with foreign powers of Weapons of Mass Destruction. They want Power, cons want destruction, which they can then pillage, they all win.
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Far as this sissue goes. Not having seen how he got Razorclaw to swallow exactly, but a surpise shove and close of the mouth could create an automatic reflex. It;s been overdone in Horror movies, why not?

Shooting the Matrix: Actually makes perfect sense. I would've expected it to reflect back, but having it backfeed would work too, in order to protect itself and disperse excess energy. Why shoot Starscream? Because He's likely be expecting you to shoot him. So go for the open target. The Magic 8 Disco Ball. I find it hard to believe it was interfaced WITH Starscream though, he just got to be the lightning rod.

Why is Roddy WEARING the Matrix? Doesn't he have one of those nifty little pockets in his chest? Starscream I get. but Roddy?