[Titan] UK comic / IDW "Saga of the Allspark"

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[Titan] UK comic / IDW "Saga of the Allspark"

Post by inflatable dalek »

IMPORTANT NOTE: this thread includes discussion for the UK comics as released and the IDW reprints about a year behind. Expect spoilers.

Information here: http://tfarchive.com/comics/idw/guide.php?s=titan

Interview with Steve White: http://transfans.net/interviews_white.php

* * *

[Issue #1] is out now boys and girls. Was I the only one to feel all nostalgic to be buying an actual Transformers comic from Smith's again after all these years? [Oh all right, the Panini Armada comic wasn't all that long ago, but lets draw a veil over that).

To make it clear what this issue has in it:

A new 10 page strip about Optimus Prime written by Furman and drawn by newcomer Geoff Senior.

The first seven pages of issue one of IDW's Transformers: The Official Movie Prequel.

And the wild card: the first six pages of IDW's Beast Wars: The Gathering. Seemingly to help plug the forthcoming Beawst Machines DVD R2 release (which gets the tagline: "Their planet, a new war").

I don't think anyone was expecting them to be reprinting non-Movie stuff so soon, I guess they saw how many copies the American version sold and decided they could stretch out the material. I suppose the more obvious choice of doing the ...ation stuff wasn't picked because of covering similar ground to the Movie related comics (Men in Black ect).

People are more than welcome to discuss any and all of the above in the thread, but in defference to those reading for the first time spoiler tags for anything not yet reprinted please.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Having now read it:

The original strip is a good solid begining storywise. Nothing revolutionary to most of us familiar with Furman's work (you can practically tell what Prime's going to think a panel or two ahead), but done well for what it is.

Art wise though it's another story, Senior rocks frankly. And am I mad to think the design of the drone was a Leige Maximo tribute?

As for the rest of the comic, I found the whole "Hey, you've all seen the Movie and it rocks and if you haven't seen it you're a tit" attitude a bit odd considering the film hasn't been released in the UK yet (I was joking to my Mother the other day that the delay in releasing the film over here is due to Paramount doing a deal with the guy in the pub who sells pirate DVD's, this seems to confirm it). As a result all the letters from 7 year olds going on about how they've seen it at the cinema and how great it is seem a tad suspect (though there's nothing as blatently as false as what was in the Panini Armada comic). And which one of you dropped a poor four year old in the middle of your collection to get a photo published?
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Post by thacent »

Im not a comic fan, just gonna get it for some pics to create a collage and the cool dogtags
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Post by Lambda prime »

I'm not keen on the idea of paying £2.80 for a comic with a new ten page story with US stuff which is already available through the web and in stores.
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Post by thacent »

WOOOO a whole €2.80, its nearly €6 here
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Post by Housewife2000 »

It's a really awful magazine to be honest. The non-comic content is just kid friendly nonsense, while the various snippets of US strips jar badly with each other and the home grown stuff. I have nothing against either the Official Prequel strip or the Beast Wars material printed here, but their butchered format shows through glaringly: being cut to 6 or 7 pages ruins the flow and leaves them unfocussed snippets. Furman's slightly pompous dialogue, especially in the prequel, is completely at odds with the short, sharp punch that is his home grown strip. Which brings us to the best bit of the package: the UK strip is tight, simple yet focussed. It's great to see Senior's work again, and he creates a whole new version of Cybertron, both drawing on the modern interpretation and his classic work. Unfortunately, since he's not going to be on every issue, and most of each issue is nonsense, I'm going to very selective about picking up future copies.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Titan Transformers #1: Optimus Prime.
A Review by Inflatable Dalek

Note:
For the two back up strips this issue reprints IDW material- Pages 1-7 of issue 1 of the Official Prequel Comic, and pages 1-6 of issue 1 of Beast Wars: The Gathering.

Optimus Prime:
Script:
Simon Furman.
Art: Geoff Senior.
Colours: Robin Smith.
Letters: Jimmy Bentancourt/Comicraft.
Editor: Steve White.

Synopsis:
On Cybertron a desperate Optimus Prime prepares to launch the Allspark into space in an attempt to stop Megatron getting his hands upon it. As he debates the morality of his decision a Decepticon drone attacks the building. Having traced Prime through the Energy Matrix of his Spark it is now programmed to kill him.

Prime puts up a strong fight, but in the process reveals the Allspark to the drone, resulting in it changing its priorities and going for the cube. Prime makes a suicide run on it, resulting in the drone’s destruction and him being thrown clear of the building. As he recovers he has a vision of the Transformer war reaching a new World of strange fleshy creatures. This makes him question his plan to loose the cube, but it's too late. His assistant has already fired it into space...

Characters Featured: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Arctus.

Notes:

Titan acquired the UK rights to the Transformers licence shortly after the Panini Armada comic folded, but have sat upon them until the Movies release to maximise sales. Editor Steve White had provided art for various issues of the Marvel UK comic and was extremely keen on the chance to run the title. As is the norm with British comics this is effectively an anthology title, with IDW reprints making up the rest of the comic. Beast Wars might seem an odd choice, but the TV show was broadcast in a loop on Saturdays on Channel Five a couple of years ago, the only Transformers series to be broadcast in its entirety on British terrestrial television, so it's likely to be the best known after the original in the UK. The Gathering also has the advantage of being the same length as the Movie Prequel, meaning if sales aren't good enough to sustain it after the Movie hype wears off the title can end there without leaving any stories dangling.

Apart from a few covers for the Armada UK comic this is Geoff Senior's first TF work since A Rage in Heaven 13 years ago. Colourist Robin Smith also worked on the Marvel UK title, so this is something of an old school reunion. At ten pages this is the longest UK originated strip since Time Wars Part 7 back in 1989.

The events here take place towards the end of issue 1 of the IDW prequel comic, or around issue 3 of this title if the page ration stays the same.

The Movie itself doesn't comment on how the Allspark was lost. The idea of Prime firing it into space as seen here (and IDW's output) is likely inspired by The Flames of Boltax! (Marvel US #48), where Prime shoots the Underbase- Cybertrons greatest source of knowledge- into space to stop Megatron getting his mits on it (and it latter arrives on Earth). Here it's actually Prime's assistant, Arctus, who presses the button as Prime is busy at the time.

And to round of the in-jokes, the drone that tries to kill Prime is seemingly based on the Leige Maximo from the Generation 2 comic (which as noted above, was the last interior art Geoff Senior did).

The idea that the Allspark can give visions of the future is taken from issue 2 of the Prequel comic. It seems to show Prime exactly the same vista of Mission City it gives Captain Whitwicky.

Goofs:

Though he turns into the Protoform spaceship thing Prime's robot mode is clearly based on his Earth body. It's like someone provided Geoff Senior with reference photos of two different toys by mistake (and it's nothing like the robot mode we'll see Prime have latter in the Prequel comic).

The fuel container has "FUEL" written in English in large letters (a possible Jose Delbo tribute?).

The intro page encourages readers to go see the new Movie right now even though it wasn't yet released in the UK when this issue was published. Even more oddly, the letters page is full of comments from people that have seen the film at the cinema.

In the advert/feature on the original Movie there are several stills taken from TV episodes rather than the feature film.

Fantastic Free Gift!: Want to be as cool as a soldier without having to do all that nasty killing? Well now you can with amazing Autobot dog tags!

Extras: Also included is a Optimus Prime poster (based on the cover), a run down on who'd win in a fight between Ratchet and Barricade (written by Furman) and two thinly disguised adverts for tie in merchandise and the Metrodome DVD release of the 1986 film.

Review:

Expectations were high. Geoff Senior is generally regarded as the best single Transformers artist of all time, and his self imposed retirement for so long has made fan excitement at his return huge. It would have been very easy to be disappointed- as happened with the return of Andrew Wildman- but he hasn't lost his touch. Despite the goof over Prime's robot mode every page sings with crisp, beautiful art.

As for the story, it's a standard Furman monologue for Prime. But as a intro to Transformers comics to new fans it works well and shows something significant that, surprisingly perhaps, happened off page in the Prequel Comic.

For anyone who's collecting the IDW material there's not enough new stuff here to justify the cover price (hopefully they'll be some Summer Special type titles collecting the original strips together as it goes along), but for anyone who isn't it's well worth getting for Senior's triumphant return alone (and the back up strips are decent as well).

[three out of five]
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Titan Transformers #2

Post by inflatable dalek »

I'd totally forgotten about this till seeing it at work Yesterday...

The second issue containing a Megatron story and the next two bits of the Prequel and Beast Wars is out now.

The Megatron story itself was a bit of a comedown from last issue's Prime despite good work from Transformer's second favourite Irishman on the art chores. Part of the problem is that it's called Megatron but it's really more about Devastator (yup, not Brawl) being dumb when fighting Jazz and Ratchet.
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Post by Clogs »

But there are free temporary tattoos with this issue! :D
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Post by Housewife2000 »

Agree on the Megatron story - fairly throwaway and basically just a setup for the interlinked stories coming up.

I picked up #3 at the London Film and Comic Con and while the story is interesting, Wildman's Art is a little bland.

Furman himself was kind enough to give me some advice on breaking into comics and was a genuinely really cool guy. Opposite his stall was a guy who worked as a production designer or concept designer on the 2007 movie, and he was really interesting: loads of info on early drafts of the movie and what they're planning for the sequel.

All of which was groovy.
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Post by Clogs »

Originally posted by Housewife2000
Agree on the Megatron story - fairly throwaway and basically just a setup for the interlinked stories coming up.

I picked up #3 at the London Film and Comic Con and while the story is interesting, Wildman's Art is a little bland.

Furman himself was kind enough to give me some advice on breaking into comics and was a genuinely really cool guy. Opposite his stall was a guy who worked as a production designer or concept designer on the 2007 movie, and he was really interesting: loads of info on early drafts of the movie and what they're planning for the sequel.

All of which was groovy.


And.....? :wall:
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Post by Denyer »

No complaints about the art, but Furman's onto filler already -- without a lure such as Geoff, it falls flat.

And I think BW was a very poor choice for a drip-feed story (a few of the Spotlights would've worked much better)... actually, I think the drip-feed mentality in general is going to kill the title.

As the movie becomes a distant memory, there's no hook.
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Post by Housewife2000 »

I don’t want to get Concept Guy in trouble, but seeing as he was happy to tell a complete stranger at a convention, I guess it’s no biggie.

Apologies if much of this is already known. Two strands of info – movie 1 and movie 2:

Concept Guy said he saw a cut of Movie 1 that ran to 3 hours. He also saw over 500 drafts of the script. The Mars rover subplot was more integral to the plot, and less throwaway. The flashbacks to Megatron in the Arctic were all at the beginning of the movie as prologue, rather than interspersed through it. Barricade’s death was a longer action sequence: he drives off the highway and onto Prime after the Bonecrusher fight, and they roll into a construction yard where Prime swings a wrecking ball into Barricade, killing him. It won’t make it to the DVD cut since they’re working on the theory that Barricade is going to play a role in the sequel.

As to the sequel, he said they have a series of scenes and ideas rather than a full script, and the design team basically spin their own theories to connect them together, developing characters and set pieces along the way (which is one of the coolest jobs I’ve heard of). He’d seen a design of an Air Craft Carrier Decepticon in robot mode, whose feet were on the Atlantic floor, and head above water. Why the Atlantic? Laurentian Abyss. Concept Guy was also playing with the theory that Starscream went for help from a ‘guy with one eye’ – I’m guessing one hand as well and a thing for purple.


Back on topic:

Titan are in a bit of a trap though – they can’t really do post-2007 Movie stories since the sequel is likely to render any storylines non-canon. Box office failure for the 1986 movie was what allowed Furman write post-movie spin-off tales in the Marvel UK run to his hearts content. The new movie and its success makes anything other than peripheral filler somewhat pointless.

IDW might dabble with movie continuity stories, but their mainline G1 saga is unaffected. One option for Titan might be to set their original stories in a new continuity, but how well that would work, I’m not sure. If Furman’s penning them then there’s nothing stopping him doing an IDW-verse of the Earthforce type stories, although you’d need a fair bit of summary or reprinting to bring new UK readers up to speed.

At the end of the day, if they stick to the movie then I think they’re dead in the water. The stories just can’t go anywhere.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I've not read it yet, but I reckon they'd be best off just going for some sort of direction... they'll get a lot of early warning for the second film and be able to at least make a choice as to whether they're going to be able to dovetail their material towards it or not - if done well enough, they can make the choice to not and strike out on their own.

Only thing is, Furman's not the man for that job. His commitment to the UK title dropped massively once he got a job at Marvel USA, and now he's far too tired and jaded to manage it, especially as he and IDW are collaborating to make their 'G1' continuity as complicated as possible. Transformers in general could do with an infusion of new writers - the competition would probably raise Furman's game too if it wasn't a given that he'd be first choice for any TF comic. Only problem with that is that Furman's a greedy ****, and the Titan money probably covers Andy "Ridgely" Wildman's food bills nicely.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Originally posted by Denyer


And I think BW was a very poor choice for a drip-feed story (a few of the Spotlights would've worked much better)... actually, I think the drip-feed mentality in general is going to kill the title.


BW is the show most of the kids reading are likely to be more familiar with thanks to the five re-runs though, so from that point of view it makes sense (plus of course, it's the same length as the Movie Prequel, so when they're done they can do what 200AD does once a year and have a big push on a "All new stories start inside" issue). I can't see much point in doing the Spotlights by themselves, and the ...tion arcs cover to much of the same MIB ground really.
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Post by Denyer »

You reckon it's going to last a year?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Originally posted by Denyer
You reckon it's going to last a year?


I reckon they're assuming/hoping it will and that's informing the decisions they've made on picking the reprints.

Any official word on sales yet?
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Post by Denyer »

Assuming it lives, it'll be interesting to see whether they move onto IDW's movie sequel comics (can't recall where I read that, but it seemed a go) or other TF stuff.

No idea on sales -- do Titan even make public that sort of info?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Originally posted by Denyer
No idea on sales -- do Titan even make public that sort of info?


It'll be in industry stuff, so I'll keep my eyes peeled - we usually only get figures quarterly, though.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Originally posted by Denyer
Assuming it lives, it'll be interesting to see whether they move onto IDW's movie sequel comics (can't recall where I read that, but it seemed a go) or other TF stuff.


The Search For Spock Starscream mini should be well underway by the time they finish the Movie Adaption, so I'd assume so. I'm interested in what they'll do if the comic lasts long enough to do a focus strip on each of the characters. Will they go through the loop again, move through the humans (including those random guards included in the Top Trumps to pad it out...)?
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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