Boss That

One of my recent ebay Acquisitions (for I have fallen off that particular wagon and am now frimly back in the toy whore business, much to my girlfriends bemusement/disspair) arrived just now, and it is Boss, of not much European exclusive Turbomaster fame.

Look, here he is;





















That’s a good solid Autobot face isn’t it? Although he does seem to have weird fish eyes on his forehead, however I think these may be a customization by the previous owner rather than reflective of how he was intended to appear when Hasbro first unleashed him.

So is Boss boss?

Well I quite like him, but if he has an obvious flaw, it’s that he has rather stubby arms. For the life of me I can’t work out how Boss would scratch his arse. Luckily Boss compensates for this by having a MASSIVE GUN. Better yet, despite now being a toy of some years, Boss’s massive gun fires an impressive distance, so while he may struggle to grab at Decepticons with his childlike arms, they remain in range of his big fat cannon.




















His car mode is equally dependent on the weappendage, as it makes up about 30% of his bonnet. This means he probably isn’t the most disguised of intergalactic warriors, but given he is already sporting a pink windshield this is somewhat irrelevant.

Boss is far from the most sophisticated Transformer, but he cost me £8.60 and despite missing a few stickers (and seemingly having gained a few) he is a nice little chap who also completes my Turbomaster collection.

One final point though - were i to set him a task, it's that he needs to work on his appearances in TF fiction. So far he has done not very much in the truncated War Within Volume 3 and been seen running away from Evil Drift in the Drift mini-series. Running away from Evil Drift is frowned upon in this household so Boss better do something pretty damn couragous when he next shows up. As it stands in terms of being a cherished character as well as a nicd toy he is lagging a long way behind the other blue and pink Turbomaster, and all he did was crack jokes and get shot in the face.

So there you go, you want decent shelf positioning, crack jokes and get shot in the face. Career advice i am sure we can all get on board with, even if we are already the Boss.

On The Wr-egative Side

Assuming your brain functions at least reasonably well (by which in mean you know words like 'and' and 'the') you will be aware that the recent Last Stand of the Wreckers series was Very Good Indeed.

That being the case, now the collected edition is out, replete with the kind of bonus features that will have other graphic novels stuffing socks behind their covers out of sheer embarrassment, you can expect to have this goodness reiterated to you as the arrogant scum of the internet (people like me) pour fourth with their reviews in the mistaken belief that anyone  cares about their opinions.

And it is, really, so very very good. But equally that has been said very very often. So here, in a vain (kapow - dual meaning)' attempt to be different, is All The Things I Don't Like About Last Stand Of The Wreckers;

1) Shooting. Rather ironically for a book that's back cover proclaims, "Nine robots, one purpose: turn up and start shooting", the Wreckers do rather seem to forget their trigger fingers sometimes. The first example of this is in the moments after Rotorstorm's death, when his comrades decide that instead of using their point and kill sticks, dog piling Overlord is a better solution. While I appreciate the story would have been a lot shorter if someone had immediately shot the big bad in the brain it doesn't alter the fact that I can't for the life of me think why someone didn't shoot him in the brain.

The second instance, just as pronounced i think, is Pyro's death. Pyro is a chap who appears to spend his entire waking existence with an extremely large rocket launcher on his left shoulder. Now the possibility exists that he suffers from the rare Magnus's Malady, which makes a bot prone to forget he has shoulder mounted weaponry, but nowhere is this suggested. Assuming Pyro isn't afflicted this way again I can't think of a good reason why he didn't spend his final moments gleefully firing explosive projectiles into generic Decepticon faces before one of them managed to kick him in the gold plastic, thus ending him forever. Don't get me wrong, I understand Pyro's death is supposed to be in contrast with to his fantasised glorious ending,  but the fact he appears to spend his final moments being, at best, a bit forgetful somewhat cheapened his fate.

2. Armchairs. Ah, target 2006, how I love thee. And how I loved your grim harpoon handed sacrificial lamb, who's alt mode (save for a rather undescriptive reference to a tank in the UK letters pages) was never revealed. Imagine my disappointment then, a whole 24 years later, to find out he turned into a well tooled Lazy Boy. On the plus side we are one letter away from a much worse scenario but my disappointment remains.

3. Panel. I am a big fan of both the artists on LSTOW but there is one panel that just doesn't do it for me. Unfortunately it's a pretty fundamental one as we say goodbye to not one but two of our heroes. No matter how many times i look at the panel of Twin Twist and Top Spin's shared demise I struggle to make out what's what. Sure, I can figure it out through prolonged staring (to hijack my regular mating tactic) but when my initial reaction to the depiction of the death of two guys who have Wrecked and Ruled since I was 8 is to squint, rotate the page, and squint some more, something hasn't worked.

4. Dying. Throughout this series, certainly from the arrival at Garrus 9 onwards a truly exceptional job was done at creating the sense that anyone could die. And die people did. But, looking back at who made it and who didn't, I can't help but feel a little cheated that the characters you would have predicted to survive, the big names as it were, all made it through. In the end Last Stand of the Wreckers wasn't quite as surprising as I both hoped and feared it would be when it came to who died. Although it rather makes up for this last one by doing a much better job of defying expectations in terms of who lives, for which we, the disciples of The Almighty Guzmiester and His Wondrous Transformation give eternal thanks.

And that's it. Any other criticisms, such as a strong dislike for Nick Riche's hair, would be cruelly manufactured in the name of creating a more compelling list and nothing more.

Because it really is so very very good.

Art 8/10
Story 9/10
TPB Extras 10/10

Ironhide Issue 4 - Geno-hide

This book opens with 9 pages of Big Red killing 700 or so beings. It’s ok though because;

a) The things he wipes out are essentially big robot spiders and
b) It’s cool to watch

Yes, as every action movie has taught you since you first watched Commando in 1980something, mass loss of life is ok if it’s cool and the bad guys have little or no character. Especially if there is quippage.

Which – sort of – serves as an analogy for this book; aspects of it are slightly troubling, but it’s sufficiently entertaining that it doesn’t really matter. Actually this also serves as an analogy for a lot of what is wrong with western society but I have sexy robot vs. robot action comics to review so hey, who cares, right?

The story primarily works due to two things, both of which have been largely lacking from Mike Costa’s previous Transformer’s work.

The first is that the art is employed to tell the story in such a way that pages don’t feel wasted. While the opening pages are largely dialogue free they don’t feel squandered as we are treated to a fantastically rendered battle between Ironhide and the Insecticon mutants he has been tasked with clearing from Cybertron. Mike Costa has been good enough to admit that the composition of this battle was the work of artist Casey Coller rather than dictated by the script – judging by the results (and in comparison to the boring Combaticon scenes in the last issue of the ongoing) this is an approach Costa should consider more often. On a related note the art overall is stellar and it’s a real shame that Casey Coller has decided to take some time away from interior art.

Hopefully this won’t be a permanent hiatus as the story telling here is exemplary and belies the fact Coller is a relative newcomer.

The second boon, as with last issue, is the rich character interplay (some of it knuckle based), especially between the gruff Mr Hide and the brilliantly pompous Alpha Trion. Decent character moments have been in short supply in the main Transformers series, but here, possibly due to the smaller cast, the principles stand out as well defined characters and interact as such.
Finally, as an added bonus, we get some continuity wrinkles (created by the series All Hail Megatron, which respected continuity in much the same way Thierry Henry respects fair play) ironed out with a few simple but welcome bits of commentary. Once more it’s hard not to notice the ease at which this is achieved compared to the main book which has often felt poorly juxtaposed with what has gone before.

As suggested above, it’s not flawless – Alpha Trion’s plan seems rather weak and its success equally implausible but the strengths listed above are enough to overshadow this. On a similar note the strong second half of the series makes me more inclined to forgive the rather slight (if pretty) first two issues.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay this book though, is that this is one of the better books I read this week. A certain limited series aside, it has been rare in the last 24 months for me to feel that IDW’s Transformer’s output has competed well with the Marvel, Vertigo and Dark Horse books I snack on, but this week was a pleasant exception.

More please.

Story 7/10

Art 9/10

Transformers Ongoing 9 – Can I speak to your manager please?

I’d like to know who is in charge please.

Generally, when I am dealing with a pan-galactic mechanoid army I think this is important. If I don’t direct my memo to the right robot how the hell will my request for them to “accidentally” steer their next property threatening battle towards the studio where Two and a Half Men is filmed be heard?

Unfortunately when I rang Autobot Headquarters to table this entirely reasonable petition I was faced with the following;

“Thank you for calling the new Autobot Headquarters. We are no longer in a cave. Woop Woop!

If you would like to speak to Autobot High Command, please press 1

If you have a complaint about consistency of alt-modes, please press 2

If you suspect that Tank is actually a Deception, please press 3

If you are secretly calling about one of Prowl’s underhand schemes, please press 666”

Ok. So far so good - Beep! 1

“Thank you for selecting Autobot High Command.

If you would like to speak to our new leader, please press 1

If you would like to speak to our old leader, who still sort of seems to be our leader, please press 2

If you would like to speak to the human who actually seems to be running things, please press 3”

Hmm, that’s a bit odd, I guess I’ll go with 3 if this human dude is in charge – Beep!

“Thanks for calling! I am currently off banging chicks or pumping iron or on a secret mission involving Fairy Liquid or something else AWESOME. Please call back later... Unless you are my Dad.”

Hmm.

That was basically the stand out point of issue 9 for me – Bumblebee is sort of in charge, but Optimus seems to be kind of in charge, but really Spike is in charge. The final panel, with a bunch of Autobots looking a bit baffled while Spike strides boldly towards the camera with A Plan™ sums up the rather miserable state of this comic for me.

I don’t have an issue with humans in TF stories, but here the presence of Spike seems to emasculate the Autobots en masse. I’m morbidly fascinated with what Mike Costa is trying to achieve with Spike, is he supposed to be cool? Likable? Are we supposed to relate to him? Or is he supposed to be a bad action cliché who makes you want to punch walls? And if he is supposed to be as obnoxious as he comes off, why is making him the focus of the comic that is supposed to be about big fighty robots considered a good idea?

Obviously there is some other stuff in this issue as well. We get a bit of TF action with the Combaticons. It’s not as exciting as it should be – the fact that there are two panels where Onslaught essentially shoots some mud sum up the action levels nicely. And while I am usually a big fan of Guido Guidi he doesn’t deliver the goods for me here – the cartoony and slightly simplistic feel to the art underlines the lack of terror that sadly accompanies the Combaticon’s arrival.

Basically it’s got to the stage where I feel like I am paying whatever $3.99 is in UK Sterling to rubberneck as the franchise ploughs in slow motion into a wall.

Boo.

Story 3/10
Art 6/10

Ironhide 3 Review - Oh no not him!

Ironhide 3 contains two of my most hated Transthings™;

1) Alpha Cocking Trion
2) Transformers wearing clothes – the stupidity of which I hope is self evident.

So having seen the previews, and having felt very little happened in the preceding issues, I was rather expecting not to like this. Furthermore, despite an intriguing ending to the previous issue, not much has actually happened yet.

However, possibly because my expectations were pretty low, I really rather enjoyed this. While the whole thing still reads pretty quickly (which sadly seems to be becoming one of Mike Costa’s trademarks) there are definitely some rewarding elements to this issue.

The key one, at least for me, and probably what has deflected my anti-cartoon oh god not frigging Alpha bloody Tricycle bias (yes I freely admit it’s a bias, well done) is this;

Alpha Trion is a bit of a dick.

Usually when Alpha Trion pops up (probably in some crappy reality hoping BotCon fangasm masquerading as an official comic) he plays the tedious role of wise old exposition dispenser and you know that uberguffin Vector Sigma is not far behind. Here however, while he arguably still plays this role to an extent, he does it in the manner of a vain, self obsessed know it all.

This attitude, coupled with Ironhide’s utter lack of care for it, creates a surprisingly amusing issue with some lovely moments of character interplay.

I also think that Ironhide’s predicament in terms of his memories raises some interesting potential for future stories (and cheap exposition…) even if it is rather reminiscent of Green Arrow’s revival a few years back under Kevin Smith.

Couple these story elements with the gloriously clean Casey Coller art and this is probably the first of Mike Costa’s Transformers comics (despite at least quarter of the internet wetting their thongs over That Thundercracker Issue it didn’t really do it for me) that I have come out of the other side of with a smile on my face.

That’s not to say there aren’t faults. As alluded to before this isn’t going to take you long to read – Costa seems to specialise in wasting panels on extraneous scene’s (and here they are a bit further down the corridor) or boring talking heads.

Furthermore the reason Ironhide has (allegedly) been brought back seems a little ill thought, just in terms of the logistics of the task he has been given. Of course this may be part of a bigger plot twist in the final issue but Big Red seems to take it at face value which makes me wonder.

And that brings me to my final concern – there seems to be an awful lot to cover in the final issue and given the pace of things up until now, I can’t quite see it all being wrapped in a satisfactory manner.

Unless Shockwave turns up and spews 22 pages of exposition about how and why he is responsible for everything before falling down a hole, which has been known to happen.

But until then, this was a pleasant surprise.

Story 6/10
Art 8/10

Please note I consider 5/10 to be average, so anything above that is a degree of good.

Hmm

Not doing much with this am I?

On reflection the title points the way and this blog will now specifically be about the mesmerising world of Transformers.

Except when it isn’t.

But mainly it will be.

For now.

Decisiveness is an attractive quality isn’t it?

Not as attractive as being able to turn into a freaking truck though. That’s fucking awesome.

Does Whatever a Spider Can

Which does not include making it across the Atlantic without jet propelled transport.

Having made light out of the plight of volcano trapped travelers, I now find the shoe is on the other foot.

Or as the Forbidden Planet website so pithily outs it;

All new comics, graphic novels and books due to be in stores on Thursday 22nd April are delayed.

Shit my friends, just got real.

Comic Shipping This Week @ Forbidden Planet