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[Groundsplitter]

After today, most of the AAEurope attendees and NTFA Store customers should have received their copies of Simon Furman's restart of the old Marvel continuity.
So now I think we should discuss: what did you think about it?

Since it was an in-between issue, one that mustn't be required reading for those who pick up #81, it was naturally a bit "thin", with half the issue consisting of flashbacks (mostly for the readers of the original book), and only one really important event (the killing of the Last Autobot). That event on the other hand will be rather important in retrospect, I think - even though there may not be many references to it in the regular series, it changes a detail that would have been in the way for what happens next. It had to be changed.

As for the storytelling... it felt a bit odd at first, compared to the modern interpretations of Transformers which are actually quite complex, especially at the moment, but once I was treated to a few page spreads of flashbacks, I was reminded of Simon Furman's style in the 1980's and 1990's. So from that point onwards my subconsciousness started realizing that it really is the continuation of the original story.

Some things felt like they had been influenced by other stories/interpretations though. Soundwave was unusually active and talkative. This is not really uncharacteristic for Furman's Soundwave, but you have to look at the Marvel UK issues, and its future setting, to find a Soundwave who's so comfortable taking charge. And then there were some aspects that made me think of the current Robots in Disguise series, what with the Autobots trying to make the peace work, and Optimus Prime trying to distance himself. Of course, this was a very short-lived situation (from our point of view at least), so we probably won't see any more of that similarity.

One final note on the artwork - for the flashbacks (as well as some of the close-ups in the present) Andrew Wildman redrew scenes from the original series. That resulted in one panel which may look odd to those who haven't read the very first issue (and even to those who have): When the Decepticons exit the Ark in the flashback from the arrival on Earth, Rumble (that's the red cassette, the blue colour in the cartoon is a mistake) is as tall as the Decepticon planes in robot form. It's not a mistake by Andrew Wildman, but how Rumble was depicted by Frank Springer in the very first issue back in 1984. I guess that Wildman kept him that size as a wink to the long-time readers.

[Rakhamon]

It was a satisfactory issue for what it was: Getting people who never read the original series up to speed, and refreshing the memories of everyone else. As such, it was understandably plot-light. I was also amused at the similarity between this setup and the current Robots In Disguise series from IDW, which is probably more coincidental than intentional. It will be interesting to see which direction Furman takes it. I was alright with the art, although it felt like Wildman has lost some of his edge from the 90's. The pencils seemed less detailed and less "solid", giving it a more blobby, unformed look than before. The retro-Marvel-style coloration was great though.

Some specific things I noticed while reading:

- As Lars noted, Furman seems to be revisiting Soundwave as a leader from the UK stories. Also, Marvel Soundwave is no longer purple (he is on the flashback pic on page3)!

- If you count the panel-by-panel references there's more flashbacks to Budyianski stories than Furman stories! This is of course understandable, since Furman wrote less issues of the US comic and he said it wouldn't specifically reference UK-only stuff. Of course, I'm one of the people who's never been on the "Budiyanski hater" bandwagon so I am totally fine with this.

- On the first splash page I can identify everything except the blonde human with cyborg parts. Where's that from? Also there's Jhiaxus, even though the G2 comic is not canon with Regeneration...

- Polyhex has now been revisited in both Transformers Prime and this issue!

- This is the first reappearance of the "present-day" (IE not time-displaced from the now-destroyed Time Wars futures) Ultra Magnus. Last time we EVER saw this version of him he was in critical condition. I'm glad to see he survived and got better!

- There's an obligatory Wrecker callback. Hooray!

[Groundsplitter]

- On the first splash page I can identify everything except the blonde human with cyborg parts. Where's that from? Also there's Jhiaxus, even though the G2 comic is not canon with Regeneration...

I have no idea. A very wild guess is that it is the replacement for Circuit Breaker, whom IDW can't use since she's Marvel's property, but I was under the impression that she was still going to be female. That could very well be my own preconception though, and not something that IDW or Simon Furman has ever hinted at.

[Smokescreen]

First of all, thank you for securing our copies. The TFW discussion is all about who got their copy from where and nothing about the comic itself.

I liked it, it's very much a continuation of the old story and artwork. In many ways. It's interesting to see the tradition of coloring mistakes being upheld:

Page 1: The top left panel depicts Dreadwind and Darkwing's attack on Nebulos (note the domes) but they're colored as Skydive and Slingshot.
Page 1: I believe the top human is either Galen with the wrong hair color or Spike with too long hair.
Page 12: Sparkstalker appears and takes action, when he's specifically mentioned as the only Klo casualty in #80. Cindersaur was shown on page 5, maybe he was supposed to be here too. Also, what appears to be Flywheels has a line but he was "killed" in a UK-only story so I don't know if that counts.

But generally I like where this is going. "The event" had to happen or it would be really hard to do a story afterwards, but you could ask how it was so easy and why noone tried that in #80. I also like how a ragtag bunch of survivors is used and I hope Furman takes the opportunity to actually use guys like Spinister rather than going back to the typical '84-'85 bunch that keeps appearing in every other IDW story. I'm sure Starscream turned out to survive the crash along with everyone else but I could really do with a story without the usual suspects.

Oh, and Thunderpunch and Rapture are in the Last Autobot flashback panel so they can probably be used, if anyone would care to.

This post has been edited by Smokescreen: 9 May 2012, 16:08

[Groundsplitter]

Oh, and Thunderpunch and Rapture are in the Last Autobot flashback panel so they can probably be used, if anyone would care to.

There is a small but important difference between Circuit Breaker and the Neo-Knights. As I have understood it, any character that made their first appearance in the pages of the Transformers comic (like Thunderpunch and Rapture) should actually belong to Hasbro, whereas characters that first appeared in other Marvel comics (Circuit Breaker first appeared in Secret Wars II #3, a week or so before her appearance in the TF book, and Death's Head first appeared in a commercial run through most of the Marvel UK books) belong to Marvel.
At least that's the official explanation for CB's and DH's appearance in the other books. But then I'm aware that there's a special disclaimer mentioning both G.B. Blackrock and the Neo-Knights in the small printing at the bottom of the first page of every TF comic, where I believe it is mentioned that they belong to Marvel too, just like Circuit Breaker. That seems to contradict the reasoning for letting CB and DH debut elsewhere, so I don't know what to make of it.

[palaste]

I got my copy of issue #80.5 today, and it looks like I'll be the first non-Swede to write about it in this thread.

The artwork looks excellent. In a strange way, I think I would have preferred it if the colours were kept as "flat" as in the original comic, as that would have made the new comic look more similar, and evoked more feelings of nostalgia. But this new, improved colouring is OK too.
The story didn't exactly quite get me hooked yet. There's plenty of flashbacks to the original comic - pretty much half of the pages are filled with them - but I didn't get the feel they were in any way connected to the on-going story. It felt as if I was being shown a slide show in the middle of an on-going story. The only definite sign that the storyline is going to continue directly from the old comic I have seen so far was the restoration of Cybertron and the Last Autobot. Interestingly, the Last Autobot seems to die in the second issue he appears in - the first being the previous issue, issue #80 21 years ago.
But I understand that this is a prequel issue, and the real storyline will only start from issue #81 in July. I have seen it mentioned that people will have to be able to continue from issue #80 to issue #81 without having read issue #80.5, so this means that this issue can't really have any real storyline development. I regard it as a "teaser" issue, to show that Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman are definitely set to produce a continuation of the original Marvel comic.
I rather like Furman's use of later characters, such as Spinister, Ruckus and Sparkstalker, which of course carries on from the original comic, where Budiansky and Furman were forced to introduce new characters, as the comic was published simultaneously with the toys. With the new comics, there is no such need any more, but it's nice to see that these "new" characters are still being used. I'm a definite G1 purist, make no mistake. But I have always enjoyed the whole G1 line - I find it hard to understand those "die-hard G1 purists" who apparently think that any character invented after 1984 is complete crap.
Oh, and I can't identify the blond man on the first page either. Is it supposed to be Spike Witwicky? Or perhaps a replacement for Circuit Breaker?
As a last note, I originally made a note of the first and last words spoken in the original comic. The first word was "look", spoken by Ravage (yes, he did speak in issue #1). The last word was "home", spoken by Optimus Prime. Here, in the new comic, the first word is "no", spoken by a Transformer I can't identify.

[Groundsplitter]

I also like how a ragtag bunch of survivors is used and I hope Furman takes the opportunity to actually use guys like Spinister rather than going back to the typical '84-'85 bunch that keeps appearing in every other IDW story.

I rather like Furman's use of later characters, such as Spinister, Ruckus and Sparkstalker, which of course carries on from the original comic, where Budiansky and Furman were forced to introduce new characters, as the comic was published simultaneously with the toys. With the new comics, there is no such need any more, but it's nice to see that these "new" characters are still being used.

I could be mistaken, but I think that Andrew Wildman even introduces a couple of figures from even later in the toyline. On page five, the middle panel... isn't the figure to the left (our left) of Soundwave one of the Micromaster Combiners from 1990? I think one or two of the others are also Micromasters. All of them are depicted in a more normal size though.

Regarding the miscoloured Darkwing and Dreadwind on the first page, I actually pondered whether this could be intentional... another wink to the long-time fans. Compare to how Wildman kept Rumble's size from his original appearance instead of correcting the original mistake. But no, I think that's too farfetched. There's a limit to how far you can go with the winks. This is probably a bona fide colouring mistake, the first one of the new series.

[Protek]

- On the first splash page I can identify everything except the blonde human with cyborg parts. Where's that from? Also there's Jhiaxus, even though the G2 comic is not canon with Regeneration...

I'd say that it is Ka-Zar from Savage Land, where the Dinobots were discovered. Ka-Zar was the other crossing-over original Marvel character along with Spider-Man.

I have to say that I like Wildman's old skool style of drawing. It's more free-hand compared to the modern artists, making the characters bit more lively.

This post has been edited by Protek: 10 May 2012, 00:26

[Groundsplitter]

- On the first splash page I can identify everything except the blonde human with cyborg parts. Where's that from? Also there's Jhiaxus, even though the G2 comic is not canon with Regeneration...

I'd say that it is Ka-Zar from Savage Land, where the Dinobots were discovered. Ka-Zar was the other crossing-over original Marvel character along with Spider-Man.

There is a certain resemblance in the face and hair, but Ka-Zar never appeared in the Transformers comic - only the Savage Land itself did. And I don't know if Ka-Zar has ever had cyborg parts at any point in his career.

[Tformer]

I can't really say that much about this issue as I haven't read all of the original Marvel run. It does do a decent attempt at bringing you up to speed, but I still feel like there are several key moments that will be missing. I guess I know what's on the comic agenda for me now, completing my collection and having a bit of a marathon.

I could be mistaken, but I think that Andrew Wildman even introduces a couple of figures from even later in the toyline. On page five, the middle panel... isn't the figure to the left (our left) of Soundwave one of the Micromaster Combiners from 1990? I think one or two of the others are also Micromasters. All of them are depicted in a more normal size though.

You're right. They're all from the Micromaster Combiner Battle Squad. From left to right we have Direct-Hit, Half-Track, Power Punch, Meltdown and I believe it's Fireshot who's at the very right edge.

[Fighbird]

Read the issue last night with great interest. Was thoroughly tired, though, so I can't remember the specifics... But I was puzzled about the blonde gent at the beginning as well, and didn't recognise Dreadwind and Darkwing because of their Aerialbot coloring. Weird with the Straxus image, yeah. I was a big fan of the Budiansky run so I'm hoping for a few more throwbacks to that era as well.

Either way, I did feel some of the retro-Marvel run vibe from reading it, with only the coloring being "too good" as the only detracting factor in that regard (where's Nel Yomtov when you need him? ).

Having not read any of the newer series (I don't think I've ever read anything IDW at all before now), I thought the way Prime acted was way bit, even considering (what I seem to remember) happening in the original issue #80. Nice to see 3rd tier characters like Ruckus, Crankcase and Spinister; I'm also hoping the will get a bit more action and characterisation this time around.

[Thunderclash]

Having not read any of the newer series (I don't think I've ever read anything IDW at all before now)

Huh ? Nada, zilch? Nothing in IDW's Transformers continuity since 2005? Man....

Witness! The FCBD issue certainly was a little cracker.
Witness! The return of old school. Yummy!
Witness! Cheesy grins all around. Well, if you are a FAN of the comic books.


This post has been edited by Thunderclash: 10 May 2012, 22:01

[Agent Smith]

Regarding the person in the cyborg suit, could it perhaps be one of the classic pretenders? That was my first thought when I skimmed through the magazine.

[Groundsplitter]

Regarding the person in the cyborg suit, could it perhaps be one of the classic pretenders? That was my first thought when I skimmed through the magazine.

I pondered the possibility that it could be a Pretender too, but I don't know which one it would be in that case. The only one who was bare-chested was Stranglehold, but he had dark hair. And the others, we barely saw them without their helmets so the recognition factor is very low. There's nothing technically that prevents it from being a very obscure reference, but using an obscure character seems like an odd choice for a splash page, which is why I'm leaning towards believing it could be Circuit Breaker's replacement. If only I could find the reference to there even existing a replacement for Cuircuit Breaker now - I'm quite sure that I read it somewhere, but naturally I can't find it again now that I need it...

[Groundsplitter]

Found it! It's a very brief mention, and could actually be Comic Book Resources misquoting Simon Furman, but for this series he promises "Soundwave, Ultra Magnus, Wreckers, Kup, Hot Rod, Circuit Smasher, Nebulos, Grimlock, Headmasters, Zero Space, Nova Point, Bludgeon, War-Worlds, G.B. Blackrock, Ratchet, Starscream, and the Optimus Prime vs. Megatron battle to end all Optimus Prime vs. Megatron battles".

I see that people on other boards are also speculating that the blond cyborg is supposed to be this Circuit Smasher, and as this series - as they remind me - takes place 21 years after #80, it could be that he's actually Circuit Breaker's successor, maybe even her son. But of course, that's just sheer speculation at this point (unless they have found even more hints).