IDW G.I. Joe Revolution #1 (One-Shot) Review

Via the iTunes page for IDW Publishing's Revolution #5, we have an initial preview of the last chapter in the Hasbro cross-franchise cross-comics crossover event - and we've mirrored the imaged, copied the info below, and will be ready for a full preview next week! Check it out.

LAST STAND IN AUTOBOT CITY! It’s all come to this—TRANSFORMERS vs. ROM vs. MICRONAUTS vs. G.I. JOE vs. M.A.S.K. vs. the ultimate evil! The futures of Earth, Cybertron, and the Microverse will all be changed forever by the decisions made this day.

viva revofunlution

Oh dear... I obviously always should have expected a battle like this to be one, but this is just a mess. I can barely make out what's going on and the proportions and scale are all messed up.
And what is Snake-Eyes' deal? I'm really confused, nothing about him has even been attempted to be explained since he first showed up. He's just here now because icon!

Kurona wrote:Oh dear... I obviously always should have expected a battle like this to be one, but this is just a mess. I can barely make out what's going on and the proportions and scale are all messed up.
And what is Snake-Eyes' deal? I'm really confused, nothing about him has even been attempted to be explained since he first showed up. He's just here now because icon!

I couldn't have put it better.

I haven't had a problem with revolution at all. It's been a fun story. Just harmless fun.

Randomhero wrote:I haven't had a problem with revolution at all. It's been a fun story. Just harmless fun.

That's cool!

Can I ask a question, then: did you find anything that impeded the enjoyment at all, or did you just take it in as it came, as you say, harmlessly? I just ask because in my case the art sometimes just distracted me too much from the story, and once I got to the latter, I was already annoyed.

Dr Va'al wrote:

Randomhero wrote:I haven't had a problem with revolution at all. It's been a fun story. Just harmless fun.

That's cool!

Can I ask a question, then: did you find anything that impeded the enjoyment at all, or did you just take it in as it came, as you say, harmlessly? I just ask because in my case the art sometimes just distracted me too much from the story, and once I got to the latter, I was already annoyed.

I find the story to be fun. It's not amazing but most events are not. Comics are my thing. Not just transformers but entertainment in general. I read a lot of comics and I've read a lot of event books. I was an 80s kid, it's fun to see my toys that arnt transformers coming out the box again. This is IDWs first really big event that spans a shared universe. There's pros/cons, ups/downs whatever you call them but it's taking many different franchises and doing its best to pu them together and John is a very talented editor and writer. Probably one of the few editors to come out of Marvel that cared.

The art is fine, I've seen way worse and I've had zero trouble following the layouts and story telling. I have not followed every Revolution tie in, just Transformers and Mask and haven't had trouble following the story. I'll admit I should have read Micronaughts because it is needed before issue 3 but i didn't read it till almost a month later and it didn't ruin my enjoyment not having read it before.

Than Baron Karzu/Wraith hybrid speaking Ancient Cybertronian has a similar sort of silhouette to Megatronus Prime from the Covenant of Primus book... A crappy, art snafu, coincidence or am I imagining things?

If you were waiting for news on the last Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye issue under that title (the story will continue, with the same cast and plots, in Lost Light #1), we have the coverage for you! Via iTunes, we have a quick three-page preview at the IDW crossover Revolution tie-in book, written by James Roberts and Nick Roche, and featuring the Scavengers. Check it out below!

A DATE WTH DESTINY! After years of doing very little, Krok, Crankcase, Fulcrum, Spinister, and Misfire think they can wriggle out of anything—but not even they can avoid a heavily-promoted multi-franchise crossover. It’s the Scavengers Versus Your Childhood in a story that exposes all other art for the sham it is.

Argh, I can't find any way to make the first page big enough to actually read it :/

Loved the third page though. Beautiful. ... well. Aside from the dumb-technology-obsessed-teenager trope. JRO tends to subvert tropes and play with them rather than just using them.

That subversion may come on page 4. Or page 20. Of lost light #23. Maybe.

that kid is wearing an old school hasbro logo

MP3 is the most interesting GI Joe in Revolution so far.

Liking how Zoids got a shout out.

ScottyP wrote:MP3 is the most interesting GI Joe in Revolution so far.

Harsh!

It's not too surprising in perspective. Roberts just takes things that were terrible and makes them fun and enjoyable, like Drift.

i find that tech obsessed teen to be a bit too close to the mark for me to not immediately HATE him.

In what is clearly a day of comics news, we have a full preview of the upcoming issue of IDW Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Revolution (the final tie-in issue, as far as robots are concerned). Not from IDW, but rather as an attachment to today's issue of Till All Are One, the five pages are mirrored below - via Tumblr user attackmercy - check them out, and join the discussion in the Energon Pub!

A DATE WTH DESTINY! After years of doing very little, Krok, Crankcase, Fulcrum, Spinister, and Misfire think they can wriggle out of anything—but not even they can avoid a heavily-promoted multi-franchise crossover. It’s the Scavengers Versus Your Childhood in a story that exposes all other art for the sham it is.

Not to familiar about M.A.S.K but did they really wear suits like that?


I thought it was just a mad max version of G.I.Joe with transforming weaponized vehicles.

"Neo functionists" not very subtle are they

Those are no agents of M.A.S.K[b][b][b] those are robots in disguise. [/b][/b][/b]

Poor MP3. This book looks like it's Goan be great.

Oh god this is a date issue with Crankase and... I don't know. Probably needlenose. He makes most sense with a username like that.

Deadput wrote:Not to familiar about M.A.S.K but did they really wear suits like that?


I thought it was just a mad max version of G.I.Joe with transforming weaponized vehicles.

Here's a page from one of the previews, look at top left panel:

That looks like it's gonna be pretty amusing!

Big Grim wrote:That looks like it's gonna be pretty amusing!

I totally agree with you.

I love the references to the M.A.S.K theme song.

I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Why can they not have physical presence and holomatters at once?

Dr Va'al wrote:

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Why can they not have physical presence and holomatters at once?

You might be on to something especially considering the belt buckles and similar color schemes.

What's funny is that at one point their was a gijoe subline called Dino hunters.

I need someone from across the pond to explain the Alex and Dennis reference. Snooker? What's a snooker? Pls to help this damn Yankee understand the joke

ScottyP wrote:I need someone from across the pond to explain the Alex and Dennis reference. Snooker? What's a snooker? Pls to help this damn Yankee understand the joke

Snooker is pool. Billiards. This thing,



Though even I don't know what Alex and Dennis is. Sounds familiar, mind...

Kurona wrote:

ScottyP wrote:I need someone from across the pond to explain the Alex and Dennis reference. Snooker? What's a snooker? Pls to help this damn Yankee understand the joke

Snooker is pool. Billiards. This thing,

Though even I don't know what Alex and Dennis is. Sounds familiar, mind...

So from the Alex Higgins Wikipedia, there's this little gem:

Higgins drank alcohol and smoked during tournaments, as did many of his contemporaries. A volatile personality got him into frequent fights and arguments, both on and off the snooker table. One of the most serious of these clashes was when he head-butted a tournament official at the UK championship in 1986. This led to his being fined £12,000 and banned from five tournaments.[32] He was convicted of assault and criminal damage, and fined £250 by a court.[33] Another came at the 1990 World Championship; after losing his first-round match to Steve James, he punched tournament official Colin Randle in the abdomen, before the start of a press conference at which he announced his retirement. This, added to his having threatened to have fellow player and compatriot Dennis Taylor shot, led to a ban for the whole of the following season.

But now the puns are popping out too.

"Pool our resources"

"I really don't know what tricks Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor can bring to the table"

Hee hee

The final issue of IDW Publishing's crossover event, creating a shared Hasbro universe, hits retailers (online and physical) this week, and we have a full preview to share on our front page! Check out the beginning of the end of a new beginning for Transformers, MASK, ROM, GI Joe, Micronauts and Earth/Microspace/The Universe below, and head back for a review later this week.

Revolution #5 (of 5)
Cullen Bunn & John Barber (w) • Fico Ossio (a) • Tradd Moore (c)
LAST STAND IN AUTOBOT CITY! It’s all come to this—TRANSFORMERS vs. ROM vs. MICRONAUTS vs. G.I. JOE vs. M.A.S.K. vs. the ultimate evil! The futures of Earth, Cybertron, and the Microverse will all be changed forever by the decisions made this day.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Bullet points:
A universe of characters is born through REVOLUTION!
Not a reboot! Not a relaunch!
The TRANSFORMERS forever changed!
The return of G.I. JOE!
The MICRONAUTS in our universe!
Written by the writers of MICRONAUTS and TRANSFORMERS!
Illustrated by burgeoning superstar Fico Ossio!
Variant covers by Ken Christiansen, Guido Guidi, and Art Baltazar!

Transform everyone inside you for a pow-wow. Well, at least he's thinking creatively

I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

I've only been reading the main book, plus a couple of the tie-ins.

Reading this preview, I realize I have no freaking clue who half the people fighting are.

Nik Hero wrote:I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

Nope.

I need to update this but I'm waiting for MTMTE Rev to come out (next week I guess?) See the bottom of this post:
the-transformers-idwverse-a-chronology-t105238s25.php#p1828104

Worth noting, that's just my take on it. Many of the one-shots stand alone as being able to occur just about anytime before 5 and after 1. Mostly.

ScottyP wrote:

Nik Hero wrote:I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

Nope.

I need to update this but I'm waiting for MTMTE Rev to come out (next week I guess?) See the bottom of this post:
the-transformers-idwverse-a-chronology-t105238s25.php#p1828104

Worth noting, that's just my take on it. Many of the one-shots stand alone as being able to occur just about anytime before 5 and after 1. Mostly.

It's kinda funny that the last issue titled More Than Meets The Eye comes out only a week before Lost Light coming out.

Thank you so much for this! Please let me know when you update your list.

ScottyP wrote:

Nik Hero wrote:I'm waiting to get all of the issue (including tie-ins) before reading. For those who have read it all so far, does the suggested reading order by IDW actually work for reading things in continuity order?

Nope.

I need to update this but I'm waiting for MTMTE Rev to come out (next week I guess?) See the bottom of this post:
the-transformers-idwverse-a-chronology-t105238s25.php#p1828104

Worth noting, that's just my take on it. Many of the one-shots stand alone as being able to occur just about anytime before 5 and after 1. Mostly.

IDW are a fantastic company. They produced, and have produced (Locke & Key!!) some brilliant titles.

The one area they fail at is crossovers. I've yet to read a IDW crossover and enjoy it.

This did not change. From the announcement of the project my thought was "what's the point?". And that question remains, aside from introducing new titles (which is generally all crossovers are for), I cannot see a point to this series.

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

Dr Va'al wrote:

Mr.MicroMaster wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I wonder what exactly our two M.A.S.K. "agents" are. For anyone familiar with the franchise, are Alex and Dennis some obscure characters? I don't think they're holomatter avatars on account of the windshield wipers and cup holders, but what do I know?

Yeah at first a thought that was Spinster and Misfires holomatters,but their alt modes in the sky throws a wrench in that theory then again why is their a S and a M on belt buckles.

Why can they not have physical presence and holomatters at once?

You might be on to something especially considering the belt buckles and similar color schemes.

You know, I'm hoping MP3 turns out to be a holomatter avatar as well.

I'm basing this off the nearly military acronym name (MP3 instead of MP5, seemingly anachronistic knowledge of technology (offering to get cables to transfer the video off the kid's phone) and that he comes with his own mission ready hardware: the action van.

I'm wondering if MP3 will turn out to be the blind date...

The final tie-in book for the IDW Publishing multi-franchise crossover, definitely not decided by Hasbro, hits the shelves - digital and physical - next week, and we have the full preview to share with you all. Check it out below, and prepare yourselves for the comic, its review coming after the release, and the inevitable discussion in the Energon Pub!

Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye: Revolution #1
James Roberts & Nick Roche (w) • Alex Milne (a & c)
A DATE WTH DESTINY! After years of doing very little, Krok, Crankcase, Fulcrum, Spinister, and Misfire think they can wriggle out of anything—but not even they can avoid a heavily-promoted multi-franchise crossover. It’s the Scavengers Versus Your Childhood in a story that exposes all other art for the sham it is.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Bullet points:
What will the universe’s worst DECEPTICONS make of the world’s greatest crossover?
One last dance with the your favorite DECEPTICONS before LOST LIGHT begins next month!
The entire creative team that launched MTMTE returns!
Variant cover by Ken Christansen, part of a 13-part connected cover! Connects with all 13 Revolution issues and one-shots!

Synopsis
LAST STAND IN AUTOBOT CITY! It’s all come to this—TRANSFORMERS vs. ROM vs. MICRONAUTS vs. G.I. JOE vs. M.A.S.K. vs. the ultimate evil! The futures of Earth, Cybertron, and the Microverse will all be changed forever by the decisions made this day.



Story

Here we are, the final issue of the core storyline for IDW's Revolution. The end of this stretch of the road. The final chance to prove that this could lead somewhere, and do so well. By the timing of this review, you can probably guess how much it lived up to that, really. But let's proceed with order, and constructively, shall we?



First, a recap. Karza has allied himself with the Dire Wraiths to save his universe, then merged with them, and realised that he's about to destroy two universes for the price of one. Everyone else decides to stop him. Humans (G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K.) are still not happy that aliens are doing things on their territory. Miles Mayhem keeps being evil but maybe not but maybe yes.



The good things, writing wise: there are some good interactions, especially when it comes to established group dynamics like between the Transformers or between the Joes, and the Micronauts still have a better edge. Windblade digging at Optimus is always a treat. There is some sort of organic fitting in of the different factions at play, and yes as a crossover it does create a common starting point for stories from here.



On the other hand, personally, ROM has brought nothing to this whole event (sure, it started because of him, but the character is nothing much at all compared to others), both MASK and GI Joe are used very oddly given their potential, and fans of the latter in particular may feel a little under-catered for. Where not having a fixed villain could've been good ground for interesting stories, it fell short of using the various 'antagonists'. But more below on the follow-up.

Art

From the visual side of things, I have defended Fico Ossio's work previously, as there are some good ways of depicting humans, and giving that more organic feel to some robotic designs - more appropriate for MASK and ROM than Transformers, I felt, and better executed overall - but in this issue in particular, a lot of flash covered the undermining problems of the 'too much together' elements of the series.



And if that was true for the layouts and linework, the colours did not help make things clearer either. Mind you, I am not saying that Sebastian Cheng did not do a good job, but rather that the colours do not clarify what the art is trying to do, opting instead for a DC or Marvel-style visually punchy style with shaky substance beneath the technicolor smoke.



Similarly, and unfortunately, the lettering could only do so much: with this still being an event trying to draw in new readers, Tom B. Long was asked to fit in name tags and Budiansky pretty much the entire issue, making the most of the space available - not an enviable task, and not one that leads to a result that makes things any clearer either.

The covers, I have to say, are excellent: Tradd Moore and Felipe Sobreiro with the cartoon classic, Ken Christiansen with a part of his composite patchwork, Adam Riches and James Biggie with their signature toy and promo art respectively, Brandon Peterson's take on superenergised Karza, Art Baltazar suggesting the Aw Yeah! issue coming in the new year, Guido Guidi's excellent G2/I Joe mashup (thumbnailed) - and the oddly chosen John Byrne art, with Len O'Grady on colours.

Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

Really, all in all? It was a bit of a mess. The suggested schedule was not helpful, nor accurate, to follow the event in a linear fashion - and the tie-ins were decidedly much better, to varying degrees, than the core story itself - and the events happening within the issues were either too stretched out to begin with, or too condensed towards the end as was the case for this last book, visually and script-wise. It was confusing, or negligible, and just ..sort of happened. And looked inconsistent while happening.



As we've said in previous reviews, it's really a shame: all the series going into this were written by people who actually believed in the books and their characters, from Ryall to Easton to Barber to Bunn, but somewhere along the line, the idea of making a comic book EVENT proves one of IDW's missing achievements, especially one acting as a shared universe catalyst as Revolution was meant to be.

That said, it does not detract from the stories that come out of this, with Revolutionaries sounding like Revolution done right (now that it's out of the way), Till All Are One and Micronauts working on a wider scale, MASK, ROM, and GI Joe continuing the Earth-based sides of the plot, and Optimus Prime sort of shoving people around to sneak in between everyone.

I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

ricemazter wrote:I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

Yes.

Randomhero wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

Yes.

But, for me, entirely undermined by how this is done.

The Dire Wraiths are the major antagonist of the event, along with Mayhem and Karza at different points, but they've been used badly by the writers, both here and in the ROM comics themselves. It just doesn't feel developed as a storyline - whereas both Mayhem and Karza have more of a motive, better of a motive, and better rounding all over.

Dr Va'al wrote:

Randomhero wrote:

ricemazter wrote:I haven't read anything revolution yet, but I think I thought of something ROM could probably have added to the story (though correct me if they already did this).

Does ROM ever have any comment to make on cybertronians as a race? One of the things I always found really interesting about recent transformers stories is that the wider cosmic community absolutely hates the Cybertronian race. Their war has consumed millions of organic planets, and it occurs to me that the decepticons basically do the exact same thing the dire wraiths do. Disguise themselves among the native population, destabilize the civilization, and take over, is basically the 6-stage infiltration plan in a nutshell. Not only that, the Decepticons have been successful multiple times. The autobots may have tried to stop them, but I think it's implied in a lot of cases that they either failed, or allowed their war to break out in it's entirety to the detriment of the natives. I have a hard time believing that out of all the planets like like Clemency and Babu Yar, that none of them were inhabited by neutral or innocent species.

So, for the people who have read this event, does ROM ever bring this up? He's been fighting against an evil species with, from my understanding, the same M.O. as the decepticons for a while.

Yes.

But, for me, entirely undermined by how this is done.

The Dire Wraiths are the major antagonist of the event, along with Mayhem and Karza at different points, but they've been used badly by the writers, both here and in the ROM comics themselves. It just doesn't feel developed as a storyline - whereas both Mayhem and Karza have more of a motive, better of a motive, and better rounding all over.

At the risk of asking spoiler questions how is the topic broached? I'm honestly not interested in revolution enough to read it right now.