From sstoneb@campbell.mps.ohio-state.edu Thu Aug 1 01:47:29 2002 Path: nntp.service.ohio-state.edu!not-for-mail From: Steve-o Stonebraker Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers Subject: [BOTCON][SPOILERS] Wreckers #2 comic review Date: 1 Aug 2002 05:46:23 GMT Organization: Ohio State University Lines: 362 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: campbell.mps.ohio-state.edu X-Trace: charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu 1028180783 10171 128.146.38.12 (1 Aug 2002 05:46:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@osu.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Aug 2002 05:46:23 GMT User-Agent: slrn/0.9.7.3 (OSF1) Xref: nntp.service.ohio-state.edu alt.toys.transformers:579562 This is my review of the BotCon 2002 comic book, "Wreckers" #2. It contains spoilers for both Wreckers books. I start with a summary, then comment on the story and art, and speculate a little. S P O I L E R S ! -=> THE SUMMARY Last time, on "The Wreckers": During the events of "Beast Machines", the Oracle sends three bands of warriors on mysterious missions: the BW Mutants, the BM Dinobots, and the Wreckers. The Wreckers make a narrow escape from one of Megatron's facilities in an old Autobot shuttle, and in transit they are attacked and boarded by Devcon. And now, the continuation: Wreckers #2, "Betrayal" Story - Glen Hallit, Rob Gerbracht Script - Rob Gerbracht Art - Dan Khanna Members of the Wreckers team as the issue opens - Primal Prime, Apelinq, Rodimus, Arcee, Packrat, Fractyl, Ramulus, Sonar, Spittor, Rotorbolt, Skywarp, Cyclonus, Tigatron, Rav, Dillo, and Mol. Cover illustration shows a heavily-damaged Primal Prime, seemingly cursing the sky, and surrounded by the junked bodies of Wreckers, Dinobots, and Mutants. The story opens as the Dinobots, led by Magmatron, stand looking over a desolate, ruined city on an alien world. Their mission here, as given by the Oracle, is to awake a "sleeping giant". The team starts to get a bad feeling about the mission and their surroundings, and just as they start to return to their ship, they are attacked first by zombie-like robots, and then a giant worm with arms and glowing eyes: it is identical to the Dweller, one of the Quintessons' transorganic creations. We then cut to the Mutants on their mission. They are being shuffled down a hallway under guard, and then emergy into a large chamber. Standing on a plank extended over water, they look up to see a Quintesson judge on a platform above them, with more Quints beyond and behind a window. The Mutants do not seem to know who they are dealing with, so their leader, Icebird, greets the judge cordially and explains that they were sent by the Oracle of Cybertron. The judge is uninterested, finds them guilty of contempt, and sicks Sharkticons and Alligatorcons on them. As they attack, the Quints' pets all have a strange white, glowing hemisphere on their bodies, sort of like a spark crystal on a toy. We are taken into the windowed observation chamber where we see another judge in coversation with Cryotek. Sound effects from off panel imply that the Mutants are being destroyed. The judge makes a comment about the Mutants being "unmarketable product" who needed to be disposed of. The judge refers to Cryotek as "free trader" in their conversation. Cryotek acts a bit as if he is running the show, but the Quint's dialogue makes it sound more like they have a business agreement of some sort. Cryotek calls the Mutants being his "former student's biological experiments", referring of course to Megatron. From the conversation, it appears that Cryotek has laid traps for all three of the Oracle's teams, and that the Dinobots have indeed met their end at the hands of the Dweller's energy vampires. Cryotek assures the judge that "the necessary acquisitions will carry on" and that the Wreckers will also be dealt with. Aboard the Wreckers' shuttle, we join the action just as the bridge crew rushes to the rear of the ship and finds Devcon beating the snot out of Spittor, Sonar, and the Deployers. He recognizes Rodimus and Apelinq, however, and stands down. Devcon is the last remaining Peace Marshal from Cybertron. (And he doesn't much like Decepticons, Predacons, or Packrat the thief.) In the ship's sickbay, Fractyl is in desperate need of repairs after the fight with Devcon. However, he wasn't actually hit by Devcon; he just sort of shorted out and collapsed. The medical computer diagnoses him with a "severe laser core misalignment". This may be some sort of side effect from the scene last issue where Arcee used her "valkyrie" powers to upgrade Fractyl from a Beast Warrior to a Transmetal. Unfortunately, the medical computer can't perform any procedures. It only diagnoses and give instructions. Apelinq combines some data on an old comrade of his with the medical computer's programming and uses his transfer interlink, which is "capable of downloading digital imagery into reality". On the computer screen, schematics of three robots appear... on the right is either G1 Grapple or Inferno. In the middle is something based on Cheetor's appearance in Beast Machines, although it does not appear to actually be Cheetor. On the left is a more generic robot who looks very familiar to me, but I can't place who it is... The result of Apelinq's actions is that CatSCAN appears in a flash of yellow light and begins repairing Fractyl. He also responds to the dialogue going on between 'Linq and Ramulus, which seems to surprise both of them. At this time, a plasma bomb goes off in the rear portions of the ship. There's a saboteur on board! The control circuitry in the aft goes offline, and Packrat immediately decides to separate the ship to save his own butt. (Hey, they're in an Autobot shuttle, so they have to end up detonating three quarters of the ship, you know?) Primal Prime and Rotorbolt object, as some of their crew are back there, but Packrat doesn't care and punches the control. The rear portion of the ship drifts back from the front and then explodes. This is, apparently, the end of Spittor, Sonar, and the Deployers. While discussing their situation and watching CatSCAN as he learns more about his body, Prime has a vision of Alpha Trion, sent by the Oracle, who says to "Seek the future -- recover the lost. Beware the theft of your trust." Approaching their destination planet, the Wreckers pick up a faint Autobot distress signal. Rodimus explains that during his stint as commander, he sent out many Autobot survey missions to set up a security framework "to prevent 'surprises' like Unicron from ever happening again". Some of the long-range missions he sent out were never heard from again. Primal Prime orders Skywarp to set the ship down, even though they may not be able to take off again due to the damage they've suffered. The Wreckers land on the planet, Archa-9, and begin setting up a camp and exploring the surrounding forest. CatSCAN is eager to help out, and seems to be rapidly developing from a very "robotic" personality to something more like an adapted AI. He scouts ahead a bit as night falls, and is suddenly surrounded by humanoid fleshlings, speaking a language he doesn't understand and behvaing like hostiles. They appear to be primitive, technologically. He draws his swords, and then Tap-Out jumps out of the greenery, declaring the humanoids to be under his protection. Since CatSCAN wants to minimize injury to everybody -- he's a medical computer, after all -- he puts his swords away and manages to punch Tap-Out in the head, knocking him cold quickly but without real damage. Some more Wreckers arrive, and it looks like things are about to escalate when suddenly Glyph appears, and begins explaining the situation to all assembled. (She can speak the fleshlings' language, natch.) She tells Primal Prime that she and Tap-Out are, indeed, part of one of Rodimus' survey missions. Their ship suffered a drive failure and crashed shortly after TF:TM, leaving them stranded for three hundred years, until the Wreckers' arrival. The indigenous people (or the local tribe of them, at least) are called Akalouthans. Although they have no "fuel" per se, they do possess an artifact called the "Divine Light" which the Autobots have been able to use to keep themselves at full power. This object, certainly, is part of what the Oracle has sent the Wreckers to this planet for. In her library, Glyph describes some legends of the Akalouthan people which state that a protector of some sort will arrive to guard the Divine Light against "five-faced demons". She takes the Wreckers to see the Light itself: it appears to be crystalline, but is shaped a bit like a jagged flame. It's pink, and suspended in a beam of light that splits below and shines horizontally across the temple-like chamber in which the Light resides. The object supposedly fell from the sky long ago. As they head back to the library, Packrat breaks off, and Cyclonus instructs Rotorbolt to follow and observe him. After much analysis, Apelinq is unable to discern much about the Divine Light, although he did state early on that his readings seemed somehow familiar. Evenmtually, Prime decides that they should begin working to repair their ship and get off-planet. Packrat and Rotorbolt's absence is noted, and Devcon says he'll track them down. He finds Rotorbolt pretty quickly -- skewered and pinned to a wall with his own broken-off rotors. Before falling into stasis lock, he mutters a vague warning about a traitor. Devcon rushes back past the library to make sure the Divine Light is still in the temple, alerting the others on his way. They burst inside to see Cyclonus on his way out with the Light. Packrat lies battered on the floor. Cyc says that he has achieved his mission "with poor Packrat's help". Perhaps removing the artifact from the beam of light was dangerous? The Divine Light is no longer bright and glowing -- it's more of a purple color, which more or less matches Cyclonus' paint job. Devcon is about to fire at Cyclonus, but Prime orders him to stand down, for risk of destroying the Divine Light. Cyc flies off into the sunset. In the epilogue, CatSCAN has just finished a "retrofit procedure" to restore Devcon's G1 body. With his spaceflight capabilties restored, Dev is leaving to tail Cyclonus and recover the Divine Light. The rest of the Wreckers are struggling to get the shuttle back in shape. The last page shows Cryotek sitting in a fancy chair. Cyclonus radios in to say he's obtained the Light. Cryotek does a little exposition to tell us that he knew Vector Sigma would eventually try to stop him, and that he knew VS' flunkies could lead him directly to the object he's looking for. Hence, he sent Cyclonus along with them. He then derides the efforts of the Wreckers, the Oracle, and the Quintessons, and declares that he's about to conquer "time itself". ::cue dramatic chord:: ::fade to black:: -=> THE COMMENTARY: STORY The book this year feels much more "together" than the first issue did. As much as it bothers me that the Mutants and Dinobots were introduced and sent on missions only to be killed immediately (what's the point?), Wreckers #2 definitely benefits from having a much smaller cast than the first issue. To give all of these characters equal time would have made the book very disjointed and also prevented most of the character development. And on that note: the character development in this issue is *great*. Even the Mutants and Dinobots, who are all dead after five pages, get clear characterization with distinct speech patterns and concerns. I barely remember Devcon from "The Gambler", but his portrayal here does seem a little off to me in some way I can't elucidate, but he is consistant through the comic. Arcee gets very little page time, and doesn't seem to have anything to do, but there is nothing jarring about her dialogue. Most of the characters get a decent amount of spotlight, though, and they all "feel" right. I especially like Glyph -- her characterization is perhaps a little too heavy-handed, but there's not a lot of time to establish her, so that can be forgiven. She speaks with an advanced and colorful vocabulary, and is clearly quite educated. I would have liked to get more dialogue from Tap-Out. His tech spec profile has a lot of potential, but other than trying to protect the Squishies, and complementing CatSCAN on his left hook, Tap-Out doesn't do anything but follow Glyph around silently. The plot itself is also improved over last year. It's still epic without being quite so overblown. I desperately want to know what Cryotek is planning. There is humor, suspense, and action, all well balanced. In fact, I don't think I have a single comment about the story or script that I would describe as a "complaint". About the closest I can get is a little confusion: I'm not clear on what, exactly, Cryotek had to do with the deaths of the Mutants and Dinobots, and what they were sent on their missions for. I mean, obviously, Tek had the Quints capture the Mutants, and may have gotten them to release a Dweller on the planet the Dinobots were visitng. But what were those teams trying to do, anyway? The Oracle said the Mutants needed to "heal" their "fractured sparks" to regain their robot modes. Is that all it was? Were they captured on their way, or was their destination the planet where the Quints and Cryotek were waiting? The Dinobots were sent to awaken a sleeping giant. That could, in fact, be the Dweller, which would mean they weren't so much walking into a trap as just dying, awakening it but not surviving. -=> THE COMMENTARY: VISUALS As with the story, the artwork this year is significantly improved. And I *liked* last years art, too! It looks like Khanna's storytelling ability has been developing rapidly over the part year. The layouts are more interesting and easier to follow. The detail in the pencilling has been taken up a notch. The linework is thinner than in the first issue, which makes a big different to my eye. Also, the characters are more epressive than last year. It all looks more finished and professional in general. Some of this may be related to the inking -- I think Dan did his own inks last year, but this year it went to somebody at Dreamwave. I've never really gotten a handle on what good inking vs bad inking looks like, or how different styles of inking can help or hinder certain styles of pencilling. So, some of the credit may belong there, with the unnamed Dreamwave artist. Colors last year were fairly standard, if not a little bit sloppy, IMO. This year, however, the colors are absolutely *beautiful*. Every scene has a tint to the lighting which is appropriate for the setting, and there's lots of smooth shading and gradiants, as well as pleasing glare/shine patterns on the robot bodies. It is a little inconsistant, though. Most noticably, some pages look like very detailed animation cels (sort of like the Dreamwave G1 art) while others have a more normal "comic book" feel to them. I think this is related to how flatly the colors are applied, but I'm not sure. As an example (for those of you who have the book), I think the page where the natives attack CatSCAN by torchlight looks very cel-like, as does the bottom two-thirds of the page where the shuttle lands and they do the little joke about Rotorbolt's rotor noise. The page where Devcon complains about having Skywarp and Rotorbolt on board, however, and the Dinobots sequence at the beginning, look much more comic book-y. My sources in #wiigii! tell me that a few different people did coloring for the comic this year (one of whom was ATT's Jackpot, of course), so the changing look is probably a function of the colorist. For the most part, I really like the character models Dan is using. I think Tap-Out and Glyph look absolutely fantastic. I love the panel where Glyph is sitting in her reading chair with her legs crossed, and the shot of her talking to Prime at the bottom of the page where she introduces herself. The way Dan has used the toy's "head plate" as a sort of trap door which would flip down when her head retracts into the body is really nice. I also love the way Rotorbolt is drawn with skinny robot-mode fingers that snake out of the gunports in his arms. I hadn't noticed that last year; maybe I didn't have the Obsidian toy yet at the time. The one model I don't like is Arcee's. She's often looks like she's just a human woman with white skin and a pink swimsuit two happens to be wearing a funny helmet. The shot of her in the medlab where she says "It's Fractyl! He's dying!" is probably my least favorite picture in the book. She looks completely human... she even has neck tendons and clavicles. In looking back at least year's comic, she appears the same way, but it wasn't as obvious because of the angles she was drawn from. In some of his older pinup style art, Dan Khanna's perspective and proportion were sometimes a bit wonky (though never as exaggerated as in many of the Dreamwave pinup pics, mostly by Pat Lee), and some of those issues carried over into Wreckers #1, but there was almost none of that in the new issue, at least for me. The one bad thing about the art which did sometimes jump out at me is that the quality is a little inconsistant. Most of the book looks really good. Some of it looks simply outstanding. Here and there, though, there are panels where the lines are thicker for no apparent reason, or the figures are sort of shaky, or it's one of those rare weird-perspective frames... The faction sigils in this book were applied digitally like in the Dreamwave G1 series. They are applied with more care in terms of angle and perspective than in DW's G1, but they don't seem to be subject to the same coloring as the rest of the page. So, they often stand out as oddly vibrant against the rest of the colors. It's a little jarring on some pages. The lettering for this comic is pretty straightforward. The robots all have round speech balloons, but most of them speak in a "technical" looking font with sharp corners, and the Quintesson ballons are rectangular, though they have rounded corners instead of the little "spikey" corners from the Marvel G1 comic. CatSCAN's balloons have an interesting red border with little trapezoids on each side. And Cryotek gets his own font. I think it's "Revue", which is somewhat similar to the font in the "TF:RID" logo that Neale duplicated for his "Convoy" font. Also, where a normal character's words would be in boldface, Cryotek's words remain normal weight but are blue instead of black. Heheh. ^_^ -=> CONCLUSIONS Basically, I really enjoyed this year's comic. I think it was much better than last year's, which I liked well enough anyway. I'm not sure if I'd put it at the same level as the big Shokaract showdown from BC2000, though... it's a close call, I guess. I strongly recommend ordering the comic (it comes with Glyph, I think) once it's put up for sale for those of you who didn't attend the convention. I think it provides a great setup for the remaining two chapters of the story, and has made me significantly more interested in the characters than I was after the first issue. Good job, everyone! --Steve-o -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Stonebraker | Transformers FAQ Keeper | Astrophysicist sstoneb@yahoo.com | www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~sstoneb | AOL IM: srstoneb