Maximum Dinobots #1-5/TPB

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:24 pm

Well, I've 'bought' it (Rapidshare Premium still costs money, after all), and, well, it was ridiculously mediocre. I kinda wanted all the Dynobots to die, they all had pretty irritating personality disorders. Swoop especially needed a big dose of spine with a side-order of Shut The **** Up. "Oh, I'm striking out on my own, oh Grimlock I'll be your bitch". Just shut up already. Same with the three interchangable ones. Dreamwave-esque bum steer with Magnus (issue cliffhanger: MAGNUS GONNA KICK SOME ASS!!!!!; issue actuality: Magnus does some paperwork and wrap-up exposition) too.

That art change was laughable too. if they hadn't have been named, I wouldn't have recognised the Adventure Kids, what with their Star Trek jammies and all.

Plus points were Shockwave and sort-of the Monsterbots (through telling us someone is awesome and EDGY doesn't work if it isn't backed up; it was just nice to see them involved properly in a story, though). It also wasn't monstrously boring, which instantly elevates it above most of the rest of IDW's TF output.

Rossum · Post by **Rossum** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:06 am

Cliffjumper, is there any possible Transformers comic that would actually please you?

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:27 pm

Yeh - I enjoy probably the majority of the Marvel run (which tended to be funny when it wasn't good; most of Bob's stuff has this sort of insane charm to it when read in moderation). It only really gets a bit frilly when Furman got a bit too big fish in a small pond with some very artificial epics (Space Pirates through to Time Wars is largely bottomless posturing).

IDW, however, have yet to do all that much that's any good - and the stuff that has been good has often been undermined by what's not - e.g. Escalation isn't bad, but it can't really be read in isolation.

If you'd like to point out where my criticism of Maximum Dinobots is unwarranted, be my guest. I do like the way that rather than countering any of it you just vaguely implied that I'm somehow impossible to please. Which obviously I am, as my love for Transformers comics totally isn't on the record.

MD, however, was poor to middling. I guess it comes across better if it's intermingled with helpings of All Fail Megatron, but, y'know, I read good comics as well as Transformers comics. Compared to Zenith it lacks a certain something. Hell, it lacks a certain something compared to Fleetway, which at least has drive, direction and consistency...

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:23 pm

which at least has drive, direction and consistency...

Though I think I got more of a kick out this series than you, I definitely think there were some pretty glaring problems with the structure. Furman's usually good at cramming a lot of plot points together into a small amount of page-space, but here we've got a fairly straightforward story that needlessly wanders off and pads out odd lumps of itself - almost everything with Hunter was a case of 'okay, I'm going to do this thing now' and the Swoop Redundancy really exposed the shaky foundations of the story for me.

So yeah, drive, direction and consistency - needed more of it.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:02 pm

IMO, the sort-of rolling storyline of IDW's material doesn't seem to be working for Furman... While it was in some ways forced on him but the constraints of Budiansky's US material, I find the UK stories work better because they tend to focus on one thing at a time - we'll have a few issues of the Wreckers, or the Dinobots, or the Sparkabots, or the Mayhems, or whoever - covering a single group for twenty of thirty pages, and then moving on to another one entirely.

However, since he came back to TF comics with Dreamwave, Furman seems to have developed this habit of developing innumerable plot threads in rough parallel, so one issue will sometimes contain four or five threads, with 5/6 pages for each. It means the plots tend to inch along in a somewhat pondering fashion, and not flow very well as a result - I'd prefer to get one story at a time. The IDW hasn't had much of a beginning, middle, end (and I'm talking by story, not by universe, so it can't be blamed on Chippy McCarthy), but beginning, build up, middle, build up to something else. The art of telling stories within an arc needs to be resdiscovered, or arcs need to be shortened. As it is, the whole universe is staggering under the weight of its' subplots.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:26 pm

Man, Devastation just about fell apart because of this. It would have worked out quite nicely if there had been an Autobot introduction issue, then a Hunter issue, a Hot Rod issue and a Decepticon issue, bumpered with an Autobot issue #2 and then a concluding all-together-now issue. I mean, books do that stuff all the time, don't they? Where'd this inchy-squinchy paradigm come from? If IDW are expecting people to go look on the internet just to find out where any given comic fits in regard to publication order, surely crediting the reader with enough intelligence to figure out a mildly overlapping chronology isn't too much of a stretch.

I do wonder what will become of the fledgling Monsterbot story if it is ever picked up on again. If they are the DARKER, LESS CARING DINOBOTS, what exactly do they get up to? Executing surrendered combatants is probably as naughty as you can get as a Transformer, seeing as they have no sex, advanced artificial intelligence for drudge-work, no juveniles and no apparent limits to their natural lifespan. And what they've been doing to earn that reputation can't be so dangerous as to get even one of them taken out of commission since the end of the last Ice Age, so um.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:33 pm

I tend to be more forgiving of the more rubbish Marvel stuff (Irwin Spoon, brining Optimus Prime back to life to stop Hi Test and Throttle eating pies) because it was a quickly knocked out kids comic made by people who mostly didn't care that wasn't supposed to be read by adults. The fact most of the issues do stand up brilliantly well today is something of a minor miracle.

IDW on the other hand are supposed to care and be making their G1 stuff for sad old wankers like us. But it's still shite.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:36 pm

Like I say, the Monsterbots thing did annoy me a bit... It was nice to see them, and nice to see the tech specs that made them sound like mad bastards were applied, but it'd have been nice to have some sort of reason for them being bastards beyond Swoop going "Wow, these guys are bastards, take it on trust!".

Devastation's probably in the running for worst structured comic I've ever read, and that's not hyperbole - I've read plenty of worse comics, but even the bad ones at least realise that the direction to go is forwards not sideways. It combines the parallel inching plot thing with a Dreamwave 'down a gear' conclusion as it stops building to Big Concluding Showdown and realigns the sights to the familiar Big Concluding Showdown Coming Next Mini, Honest To God. The Sixshot thing was especially pathetic - he, what, takes out Jazz' arm, then flies off and gets switched off by Starscream like something from the cartoon. Oooooh, scary.

It's actually quite cinematic, in a way - you see a lot of films that are badly directed or edited, but you don't see it often in comics. Devastation we salute you!

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:47 pm

brining Optimus Prime back to life to stop Hi Test and Throttle eating pies

I regard that as the single best idea in the original Marvel run! Every single part of it is hilarious.

The Sixshot thing was especially pathetic - he, what, takes out Jazz' arm, then flies off and gets switched off by Starscream like something from the cartoon. Oooooh, scary.

How great an ending would it have been to have Prime, at the last second, grab Prowl (the most valuable asset at hand) and the kids maybe (for extra Drama), orbital bounce up to a waiting Ark and high-tail it off to Garrus Nine while Sixshot reduced North America and its resident Autobot population to dust? That would be some Devastation right there, and wouldn't even mess up the extant storylines of Revelation and All Hail Megatron at all, if one is in the mood for not messing up quite fundamentally flawed storylines. You don't introduce a character like Sixshot if you plan on having him bonked on the head every time he's about to live up to his fourteen-word character description, dammit!

Rossum · Post by **Rossum** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:18 am

Cliffjumper wrote: If you'd like to point out where my criticism of Maximum Dinobots is unwarranted, be my guest. I do like the way that rather than countering any of it you just vaguely implied that I'm somehow impossible to please. Which obviously I am, as my love for Transformers comics totally isn't on the record.

Nah, your criticism is accurate, it's just that you just seem to get no pleasure at all from the IDW comics.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:53 pm

I liked the first two Spotlights, Stormbringer and the Fakerussianstateoslavia parts of Escalation, and I like some of the ideas in the universe and some of the characterisation... Beyond that, they haven't done a lot right. The publishing formats have been so badly chosen that it's hamstrung things from the start, but they've still made a bad fist of things. The Spotlights, for example, are either just fragments of a larger story, or they're so standalone as to be effectively pointless. The miniseries, as mentioned, have so much going on in terms of plot threads shuffling along there's no space for much actual advancement.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:04 pm

Having missed issue 1 of this when it was first out, I decided to wait until the TPB came out before buying it. And it was worth the wait. Much like stormbringer (IDWs other decent mini-series) this works because within the 5 issues it feels like a complete story. Granted you still need to have read a few of the spotlights to get the full story but whats within the 5 issues has a start, middle and end. And while it strays into sillyness at various points it all hangs together well.

Osku · Post by **Osku** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:47 am

Not really much to add to previous reviews, but short thoughts.

Nice mini-series, not great but entertaining and written well enough. Would have vastly preferred Sludge to remain dead though.

Sort of got used to Roche's exaggerating style and Raiz filling in for Roche disturbed surprisingly little. Glowing eyes effect has gotten even more irritating.

Otherwise I liked the new(?) colourist.

--

Still planning to skip AHM and related Spotlights, but could be talked into giving the next "soft reboot" a change, if I hear good things about it.

Spotlight Metroplex seemed to get mixed responses from remaining audience?

Patapsco · Post by **Patapsco** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:35 pm

A few minor irritations aside a pleasantly entertaining romp with Skorponok being perhaps the most comically inept bad guy ever (not Ramjet bad, but close) and some good old fashioned carnage. Washed the taste of AHM volume one away quite nicely

Xed51 · Post by **Xed51** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:02 am

Cliffjumper wrote: Devastation's probably in the running for worst structured comic I've ever read, and that's not hyperbole

I agree, but Devastation was also fast forwarded by the editors to go on with the reboot as soon as possible.
(They probably would've done the same thing with AHM to go on with the next reboot, too bad they had 12 issues already planned)

andersonh1 · Post by **andersonh1** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:39 pm

Maximum Dinobots - Trade Paperback

I started reading the Transformer comics by IDW when they first began publishing, and for various reasons I dropped out about the time that Devastation began. So it’s been enjoyable to go back and fill in the gaps and catch up on a year and a half of missed stories. “Maximum Dinobots” fills in a lot of those gaps. The slow burn really does pay off quite well when that payoff is finally reached. “Maximum Dinobots” deals with story threads from not only the main series, but also Spotlights Shockwave, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave and Grimlock.

After a flashback to the “glory days” of the Dynobot team, the story starts out with Grimlock on his own, trying to get their spacecraft functioning again. He sends for help and then is located by Scorponok, who has been after him since the events of Spotlight: Grimlock, briefly summarized here. The story follows this conflict between Grimlock and Scorponok, mixed with Sunstreaker and Hunter’s search for Sunstreaker’s original head. Hot Rod and Shockwave are thrown into the mix, along with Soundwave, Ravage and Laserbeak. Given all the characters and loose ends, it should be apparent that the plot is very busy, and thick with characters, and yet it works and works well.

Grimlock also gets some character development, finally. He lost his speech impediment in the IDW series (though we get two “me, Grimlocks” in his internal dialogue as in-jokes) but retained his traditional belligerent attitude. Grimlock is and has been a character who acted based on his own beliefs and goals, while not always taking into account what those around him want, and it comes back to haunt him here. The Dinobots come into conflict with Grimlock, and Swoop briefly abandons the group, before they pull together against the headmaster attack. But it’s Sludge’s near-death that really seems to get through to Grimlock. At the end of the story, he takes responsibility for going awol with the rest of the Dynobot unit, and has seemingly begun to rethink the way he’s lived his life up to this point. He submits to imprisonment by Ultra Magnus without protest, which is something I can’t imagine Grimlock doing in the past.

I loved Shockwave’s part in the story. With a bomb implanted in his chest by Skywatch and with full knowledge that it will be detonated within a certain time if not shut off, he goes to free Soundwave and essentially does as much harm to Skywatch as he can. In one story, Skywatch loses all of their controlled Transformers and is left with nothing except a damaged reputation, just in time for Spike to help run the group in the ongoing series. I loved Shockwave’s exchange with the guy who sent him to stop Grimlock. “Do you know how much damage I could do in 24 hours?” Ha. He’s not too impressed with the humans.

Scorponok’s real head turns up, and is key to defeating his plans. I remember Magnus taking a shot at him in the Ultra Magnus spotlight, and it was nice to finally see that incident and its implications revealed. Sunstreaker gets his head back and goes in for repair, the whole experience having left him very scarred and damaged, leading to his actions in All Hail Megatron. Scorponok, Shockwave and Grimlock are arrested by Ultra Magnus, and Soundwave is free to rejoin Megatron, having been freed by Shockwave from his alt mode imprisonment. All very satisfactory.

About the only unsatisfactory thing about the story is how incompetent Scorponok is. From constantly underestimating the Dynobots, to sending Hot Rod out to be shot rather than doing it himself, the whole situation goes out of his control because Scorponok is way too overconfident. Or rather, the human in the headmaster unit is too overconfident. He did very well in setting up the whole situation with the Machinations and the headmasters, but blew it big time by throwing caution to the wind and openly trying to expose and destroy Skywatch.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed the story. It’s great to see so many of the storylines set up back when I was first reading regularly finally get tied up, though I doubt the original plan was to do so in only five issues. After lots of slow, steady buildup, it all comes to a head in five short issues. And for the most part, the story is successful and interesting, and the characters are used well. “Maximum Dinobots” is well worth reading.