Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers #1-5

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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Cliffjumper wrote:None of Sin's seeded properly, is it? It should be an arc in an ongoing or something but we're dropped into this big revelation story about people we've never met and mysteries that we didn't know were mysteries. Springer's origin has never, ever been a big mysterious thing. Hubcap's not an ignored nobody because the first time we see him he's handpicked to come and back the Wreckers up on a field mission. Stakeout's not this loyal principled cop because he's up to his neck in it the moment we meet him.

So finding out Springer is actually some science project from a tedious never-before-mentioned super-science-villain who's inexplicably able to keep the Wreckers busy with his technobabble has zero impact because we didn't know Tarantulas existed four issues before let alone that he'd made himself an artificial Transformer.

So finding out Hubcap is this bullied little arsewipe has no impact because we've only got his whining to go on and it doesn't remotely scan with the way anyone treats him even after we find out he's the world's limpest traitor ever ("Don't betray us Hubcap"/"I spent my whole life planning this with an evil robot spider telling me to but yeah alright"). He should have been in the background perenially since as close to the start of the IDWverse for it to even half work (considering both Roche and Roberts just assign whatever personalities they like to whatever robot is nearest he should have been Searchlight).

Stakeout shows up and dies almost immediately chasing a ****ing robot rabbit into a whale having established that he's basically Streetwise. If that had any sort of emotional impact on anyone unless the original crap lanky Micromaster was your only companion for five years of being locked in a basement then they're indoctrinated by this sort of false tragedy IDW have been tube-feeding readers since the early days to a startling degree.

All of this is forced by the format of a limited series for sure. But then there was always the option of not just hurling loads of revelations at the thing; the most annoying thing is the whole Prowl/Aequitas plot is actually pretty organic even if it shits all over that gloriously ambiguous frame that topped off LSotW so perfectly (it's the equivalent of Inception having a credits scene where Nolan stands there holding a giant idiot board saying "HE'S STILL DREAMING!!!") but there's just so much other manipulative garbage thrown in because, hey, didn't futile deaths, overpowered villains and pathetic weaklings getting screwed over by The System go down well the first time?

Plus that Ironfist corpse scene is even more tawdry and desperate on a second reading. And you can hear Linkin Park fading in on that last page can't you?
Y'know, I dont tend to agree with you as a matter of course, however you hit so many nails there right on their heads that I am considering getting you to assemble the wardrobe we just got.

Honestly SIns, I tried to love you, I really did. But Art and Mayhem Squad aside, all that deep monologuing from Spider Boss did not hide the fact that this was a series that was unlovable. Characters I did not like, feeding into arcs I didn't like with a reveal and resolution that I did not like either. Sadly, this wont be a hardback I'll be buying. I'd still give Roche another shot - this aside his three previous work has been quality (I'm going by LSOTW, Spotlight Kup and AHM:the only good one). Plus the new art style was cracker.

But feck it Cliffjumper, when you're right, you're right.

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Post by Cliffjumper »

Oh God yes Roche is still worth a read for any upcoming; hopefully what seems to be a lukewarm reaction will see that he doesn't get himself into this sort of a mess again. I do feel for him - sequels to acclaimed miniseries are a hard enough business at the best of times and have caught out some of the absolute greats. But at the same time that doesn't give a free pass and I think the biggest Sin might be the sullying of a couple of bits of Last Stand, notably the destruction of the Aequitas data slug and the cheap use of Ironfist's body as an emotional trigger.
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Patapsco
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Post by Patapsco »

I think it should also be noted that Nick had a family bereavement in the middle of the run. Can't help but think that that might have been playing on his mind during the creation of the series.

As for the series itself, my initial point still stands: it feels like being dropped into a box set four episodes in, with no "previously on..." flashback to fill in the blanks
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Post by Denyer »

All fair points, and particularly reading it with the background notes in the trade plus in one sitting I found it worked better than when in singles the most meaty issue was mid-way through the arc. More like fan-fiction than LSOTW (in the kitchen sink approach) and full of difficult second album type stuff but will check out future stuff for definite.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Patapsco wrote:I think it should also be noted that Nick had a family bereavement in the middle of the run.
No. Without wanting to sound like any more of a bastard than I do usually no, no it shouldn't. You know Chris Sarracini's circumstances when he was writing Prime Directive? Eric Holmes' during Megatron: Origin? Mike Costa's? Michael Bay's? Chuck Austen's when he was running X-Men into the ground? No. We've been given a comic, we evaluate that. Part of the reason so many of you are so difficult to take seriously is that through Twitter and whatever you're far too close to the creative team of books like this and MTMTE, giving them huge leeway you don't afford to other titles.

Naturally it's sad if Roche lost a family member during the process but unless you're willing to factor that in for every other piece of media you consume until you know otherwise it does not matter to the quality of the end result.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Aye. The plot would still have been laid out in advance even if the scripts weren't finished.

Plus we all know what happened to Jeph Loeb before he erote Ultimatum, and while it's accepted as an explanation, nobody uses it as an excuse.
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Post by Patapsco »

Cliffjumper wrote:No. Without wanting to sound like any more of a bastard than I do usually no, no it shouldn't. You know Chris Sarracini's circumstances when he was writing Prime Directive? Eric Holmes' during Megatron: Origin? Mike Costa's? Michael Bay's? Chuck Austen's when he was running X-Men into the ground? No. We've been given a comic, we evaluate that. Part of the reason so many of you are so difficult to take seriously is that through Twitter and whatever you're far too close to the creative team of books like this and MTMTE, giving them huge leeway you don't afford to other titles.

Naturally it's sad if Roche lost a family member during the process but unless you're willing to factor that in for every other piece of media you consume until you know otherwise it does not matter to the quality of the end result.
I said "Noted", not using it as an excuse. And Roche actually announced what had happened in the middle of the run, not after it had finished. And I didn't give it leeway anyway, allow me to quote myself:

"It's... not great. The art and colouring are amazing but the story just didn't hang together. It read like Tarantulas set this whole thing up purely to get Prowl back for killing "The Bot That Would Be Springer" and chucking him in the noisemaze, and the Aequitas stuff just happened to be bonus material that tied it logically back to Last Stand. The Roadbuster stuff felt unnecessary and forced and out of character even if mini Tarantulas was behind it. All in all it just felt a bit muddled and not all that well thought out."
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Post by inflatable dalek »

It's good to have context for the delays at least.

Cliffy actually liked this more than I thought he would. He keeps defying my expectations...


[I don't have the trade to hand so all quotes are paraphrases]


The Stakeout thing has actually grown on me with each rereading, originally I was very much "That's a thing that could have done with the old 22 page issues to let it breath" but I really came round by the trade and actually might have the Carnivac scene with him as my favourite bit of the whole series.

I do get it's a very--arguably ridiculously--melodramatic series and if it doesn't get you on board quickly then things like Ironfist or Roadbuster's secret horror (I love the line in issue one where he says some throwaway comments about his cadets and Impactor is just "Well, yes") will probably leave you cold, but I wound up really enjoying how unashamed it was to just embrace all these extreme and slightly nuts ideas.

Not sure it really ruins the end of Last Stand, oddly I don't think it ever firmly says what happened to the slug Prowl had (did he crush it or not?), the one featured here is the duplicate the Wreckers trade already made clear Verity had in the bonus comic.

No problem here with the Springer thing either, it doesn't actively contradict anything and him having lived is a much more interesting idea than the been there done that original idea that Prowl would kill an innocent for his own ends. Fairly well seeded through the story itself as well (Kup and Impactor's "Someone must have been looking after him" exchange for example).

I must admit I didn't expect the Guzzle thing to be addressed at all, I failed to spot that in the buddy scenes between him and Kup it's Kup doing all the banter lines...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Patapsco wrote:I said "Noted", not using it as an excuse. And Roche actually announced what had happened in the middle of the run, not after it had finished. And I didn't give it leeway anyway, allow me to quote myself:
#rackattack
inflatable dalek wrote: The Stakeout thing has actually grown on me with each rereading, originally I was very much "That's a thing that could have done with the old 22 page issues to let it breath" but I really came round by the trade and actually might have the Carnivac scene with him as my favourite bit of the whole series.
Don't be sad, either they can find an alternate universe where everyone but Stakeout's dead or his body can be used for cheap emotional manipulation in Dark Death Pain Urgh of the Wreckers.
slightly nuts ideas
Actually found it all crushingly boring, even the Big Moping Whale. The Roadbuster thing especially was terrible; the actual crime was pretty "eh" and then it all gets fobbed off on the oh-so-crazy villain meaning bleh whatever hey look his head's blown up Lol Nick you so sick mofo sadface. It's as craven as Furman letting Beachcomber off the hook in the Blaster Spotlight and sticks out like a sore thumb in a comic where we otherwise learn every other character is an unrepetnant piece of shit we want to die.

Not sure it really ruins the end of Last Stand, oddly I don't think it ever firmly says what happened to the slug Prowl had (did he crush it or not?), the one featured here is the duplicate the Wreckers trade already made clear Verity had in the bonus comic.
No problem here with the Springer thing either, it doesn't actively contradict anything and him having lived is a much more interesting idea than the been there done that original idea that Prowl would kill an innocent for his own ends. Fairly well seeded through the story itself as well (Kup and Impactor's "Someone must have been looking after him" exchange for example).
How can something be seeded when the issue is raised and dealt with in a five-issue mini? Especially one with so many jumbled plot threads hanging around with lots of other shit character arcs getting in the way? And yes, it is probably better than Prowl killing him. But let's not think that makes it in any way good. Again, it's a plotline for a regular series or a tight sequel - establish Tarantulas (I do like the way everyone called him that once we saw he looked just like Tarantulas from Beast Wars even though he just named it himself on the spot and everyone knew him by his old name for waaaay longer) and his projects and the mystery of what happened to his experiment. Let mystery brew, tumblr posts be made, tweets to be retweeted. Reveal later.
I must admit I didn't expect the Guzzle thing to be addressed at all, I failed to spot that in the buddy scenes between him and Kup it's Kup doing all the banter lines...
TBH it was blindly obvious that Impactor was going to kill him from the moment he was locked in the box, almost certainly for him going blood-crazy - felt it was so obviously nineties Image grimdark (the Polar Claw thing!) but we were going to get a swerve - like the way Last Stand backed away from the area with Kup.

Third re-read I noticed Arcee was in it.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

Cliffjumper wrote:Tarantulas (I do like the way everyone called him that once we saw he looked just like Tarantulas from Beast Wars even though he just named it himself on the spot and everyone knew him by his old name for waaaay longer)
Remember when Swindle jokingly called Hot Rod "Rodimus" and suddenly that was his name and even when he went to another planet the Transformers there called him it too? No? Well repressed, good sir.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Or when Shane McCarthy called Octane 'Tankor' and there was a fatwah issued and then James Roberts called Trailbreaker 'Trailcutter' and a group of people slightly smaller than Wigan's average home attendance declared him the all-time king of writing?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote: How can something be seeded when the issue is raised and dealt with in a five-issue mini?
In exactly the same way the POVA stuff was seeded into and dealt with in the equally packed Last Stand? If you were going to have a problem with one I'd have thought it would be that considering it's the one that's more likely to have come up before (it's easy to see Prowl bringing it up in Spotlight Kupn during his chat with Springer), especially as more characters who've had roles in prior IDW stuff knew about that rather than it being a close secret between Impactor (who's post war appearances are basically Last Stand a few standing around in the background cameos in flashbacks) and Prowl.

Plus of course there's nothing quite as chunky here as one of the few bum notes in Last Stand, the "Hey, do you remember Impactor and that thing?" moment 30 seconds before Impactor turned up.

I actually thought the plotting was tighter here than Last Stand which did have those dangly bits that got lost in rewrites.
(I do like the way everyone called him that once we saw he looked just like Tarantulas from Beast Wars even though he just named it himself on the spot and everyone knew him by his old name for waaaay longer)
Prowl and Impactor knew him from before, and I think Prowl's the only one to have much chance to call him by any name isn't he?

On the general name thing of the last few posts... It's become such a thing now (well, I suppose it always was to a certain extent, "I feel like a Gold Bug!" indeed) for Transformers to go "And today I'm called this!" and for eveyone to go with it that it's easier to roll with it than when McCarthy was obliged to do it.

Indeed, wasn't part of the confusion at the time people not being sure if Tankor and Octane were supposed to be the same person?

Despite being a clunky toy advert the Trailcutter thing feels relatively smooth because it's in a book where identity is a massive theme and the majority of the cast have gone by other names (even sometimes changing for fairly frivolous reasons, everyone at the Institute having brain based nicknames like Chromedome that wound up sticking) or personas. So it's a meh moment but not a story taking out of one because it still fits what the book is trying to do.



TBH it was blindly obvious that Impactor was going to kill him from the moment he was locked in the box, almost certainly for him going blood-crazy - felt it was so obviously nineties Image grimdark (the Polar Claw thing!) but we were going to get a swerve - like the way Last Stand backed away from the area with Kup.

Third re-read I noticed Arcee was in it.[/QUOTE]
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Post by Cliffjumper »

inflatable dalek wrote:In exactly the same way the POVA stuff was seeded into and dealt with in the equally packed Last Stand?
No, in nothing like the same way; that grew organically via the gradual stripping away of Ironfist's fanboy belief that the head of an Autobot death squad would be squeaky clean and is based on actual character development and gradual reveals rather than cheap gestures.
Plus of course there's nothing quite as chunky here as one of the few bum notes in Last Stand, the "Hey, do you remember Impactor and that thing?" moment 30 seconds before Impactor turned up.
Of course! That one contrivance suddenly completely reverses my opinion on both series, and it's not like there was a totally plausible reason why Impactor was mentioned what with his biggest fan being on the way to the place he was being imprisoned and Impactor escaping for a totally justified reason as well. I mean it's not like in real life anyone ever actually mentions someone and unexpectedly walks into them anyway, let alone if they're totally relevant to the reason they're out walking anyway.
Prowl and Impactor knew him from before, and I think Prowl's the only one to have much chance to call him by any name isn't he?
And? Is that not a big enough reach? I'm not even sure if there's a toy out, which just makes it seem like Roche doesn't trust his own character to stand on his own eight overpowered legs without piggybacking a popular BW character.
Indeed, wasn't part of the confusion at the time people not being sure if Tankor and Octane were supposed to be the same person?
I don't think so, I think the confusion at the time was that people genuinely thought the guy who had just curled out Maximum Dinobots was actually going to come up with something better. There was a lot of confusion about lots of things at the time.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote:No, in nothing like the same way; that grew organically via the gradual stripping away of Ironfist's fanboy belief that the head of an Autobot death squad would be squeaky clean and is based on actual character development and gradual reveals rather than cheap gestures.
And this grows organically out of the already well established relationships Springer had with Kup, Impactor and Prowl who were effectively the three most important (albeit not always in a welcome way with Prowl) influences on his life. Sins solidifies and expands on that to make it an "Adopted parents/real parents" thing and brings Tarantulas in as the absent mother to take it all out into the open. I'm not sure how that isn't grown out of established stuff, I mean sure, prefer one to the other but it's clearly very intentionally one of the few parts of Sins structured to be like part of Last Stand (even down to unreliable narratives).


Of course! That one contrivance suddenly completely reverses my opinion on both series, and it's not like there was a totally plausible reason why Impactor was mentioned what with his biggest fan being on the way to the place he was being imprisoned and Impactor escaping for a totally justified reason as well. I mean it's not like in real life anyone ever actually mentions someone and unexpectedly walks into them anyway, let alone if they're totally relevant to the reason they're out walking anyway.
Well if we're going to play the realism card, people find out their family has secrets or they have unexpected relatives all the time as well. I've had the sitcom variant of Springer/Tarantulas happen to me in real life when someone I've known for about ten years turned out to be a first cousin who could fill me in on all sorts of stuff that happened to my Grandfather after he fell off the radar. By that score there's nothing unlikely about what happens here.


And? Is that not a big enough reach? I'm not even sure if there's a toy out, which just makes it seem like Roche doesn't trust his own character to stand on his own eight overpowered legs without piggybacking a popular BW character.
It just seems a really odd complaint when it really barely applies to any of the characters in the book (and the main one, Prowl, is the sort of guy who'd call people by their proper name exactly) and it's a fictional world where regular quickly adapted to name changes are a thing already.And thinking on it, as a species of shape shifters who constantly alter and update their bodies it's not a massive reach they just roll with name changes as well.


Ohhhhhh, and thinking on Brend's Hot Rod/Rodimus point (though I've no idea if Costa intended this, I'd lean towards not but it's just a bit of silly speculation): One of the general rules of More Than Meets the Eye is everyone is speaking Cybertronian and the language is being put through a "Tardis style" translation for the reader's benefit that adapts and alters all the colloquialisms to appropriately English ones as well (basically a handwave for everyone being obviously British and using expressions most of them shouldn't know. Might seem strange to have as a rule as it's fairly standard for dramas set in foreign countries/aliens to work the same way, but coming after years of comics where everyone is hanging on Earth and thus actually speaking English the clarification this is no longer the case despite appearances probably helps).

So when Rodimus is off on all those planets everyone is actually calling him "Xqfgyaerguilgh" but for our eyes it's just made his current name.

No?

Actually Cliffy, knowing your general disdain for her previously, what did you think of Verity this time out? Tbh I thought her continued presence would have been the thing that would have annoyed you the most.
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Post by Brendocon 2.0 »

inflatable dalek wrote:So when Rodimus is off on all those planets everyone is actually calling him "Xqfgyaerguilgh" but for our eyes it's just made his current name.

No?
No, because his name changed and they're calling him his new one.

If they were still calling him his old one it would translate for our eyes as his old one. Because they're different. Because it changed.

I find it's easier to chalk down to Mike Costa not really caring and just using it to pay the bills until Marvel let him write a fourth-tier Spiderbook.
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Post by optimusskids »

Just read it and given Prowls changing characterisation was hoping he'd died and been replaced by Smokescreen whose original bio seems to fit Prowls current character better than what s actually happened . Although everyone having ignored Smokescreen having any particular character would have made it seem a bit left field. Plus inconvenient bit where he's on the Lost Light
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