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02-27-2016, 10:50 AM | #11 |
Cobra Interrogator
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Undisclosed Military Installation in Kentucky
Posts: 1,466
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Just read issue 11. It was okay. I'm glad whenever they slow down to tell a character story. This one is a long flashback bookended by contemporary scenes on Cybertton. This seems to be his pattern... A book that is a deep character study followed by one in which lots of crazy crap happens and the plot quickly advances.
The Cybertron scenes capture this sort of weird imagery and epic mythological scale that Scioli does very, very well. The central story of Duke and Falcon was less interesting. Issues 7 and 9 were some of the best stories yet, but this one was just kind of a rehash of every basic training movie trope. It gave off kind of a "Sergeant Rock" vibe, with a little bit of "Officer and a Gentleman" mixed in. Most of the story is basically just Duke treating Falcon like crap. I didn't really care for this, because I remember Duke as the guy that stood up to bullies. On the other hand, Duke is a professional and on an intellectual level I'm sure was doing it to motivate Falcon. They are, after all, about to fight in the most treacherous and deadly environment imaginable. One scene I did like was when Duke does his Patton impression and gives the new recruits their welcome speech. The idea that the Transformers have reason to be afraid of the Joes is an entirely new dynamic, I think, because so often the humans are just helpless insects that can only run away from the giant robots. Also, I had to look up who Big Lob was. I very clearly remember the other "New Joes" from the movie (Jinx, Law and Order, Tunnel Rat) but I completely forgot about him... Perhaps because he never appeared in the comics or had a toy until like 2010. |
08-12-2016, 06:23 PM | #12 |
Cobra Interrogator
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Undisclosed Military Installation in Kentucky
Posts: 1,466
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So it is over.
I was really impressed by this. I was impressed by the boldness, the willingness to take risks, and just some of the sheer lunacy involved. It created something that was truly original and fresh and revived my interest. It reinterpreted same old characters in strange, new, and provocative ways. The fact that it was willing to "break" the characters gave it a kind of meaning and a drama that is usually missing in comic books, where the writers aren't allowed to do anything that actually has permanent consequences. And I really loved the weirdness... The Lovecraftian monsters, the reinterpreted Cybertronian lore, the Decepticobranomicon with Autobot angels in the garden of Eden... all of it was just so weird and fantastic. My only real complaint is with the hyper-compressed storytelling. When it worked, it reminded me of the Jodorowsky comics like Metabarons and Incal. It had a really punchy and straightforward style where every panel was an adventure. This is pretty much the opposite of most modern comics, which are extremely decompressed and might spend an entire page ruminating on a single action or idea. A character can be introduced and die horribly in the same panel, and you just have to accept it. But that's when it worked. When it didn't work, the storyline was impossible to follow and the ideas got confused. I think at many points they just completely overdid it and the only way to figure out what was going on was to read the commentary at the back. That's poor writing. They definitely needed to slow down at certain points and let the ideas marinate, and there are certain action sequences that deserved more panels to better explain the action. Overall, it definitely had the vibe of some kind of insane story a child would come up with while smashing his toys together. It was a lot of fun. Also, this sequence is just the greatest thing in the history of comic books and made the whole thing worth it: |
12-11-2017, 09:15 AM | #13 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
Posts: 1,563
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Quote:
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The biggest problem is that the author is writing an experiment in hyper-compressed storytelling. He is trying to tell the story with the fewest possible number of panels, and this causes problems in the more recent issues. Some of the books are compressed to the point where I just have no idea what is going on anymore. I'm not able to follow the progression from panel to panel. If Scioli could correct this, the book would be solid gold. |
12-11-2017, 02:10 PM | #14 |
Cobra Interrogator
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Undisclosed Military Installation in Kentucky
Posts: 1,466
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I did not. I just assumed it would be a reprint TPB. Does it have much new material?
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12-12-2017, 02:23 AM | #15 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
Posts: 1,563
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Quote:
Here's the premise: The Tom Scioli JvT series was so popular, that they turned it into a movie by popular demand. Of course, since it was only an hour and a half, they had to leave a lot of events out and streamline it, or change the way the story went. Then of course, they had to blatantly "cash in" on the film by making a comic book adaptation of it. To do that they had to fit the whole movie into one oversized issue, and leave a lot of the movie out and streamline it, changing the way the story went. (Of course, there was never a movie. We have to guess at what happened in the movie). It's WAY more sped up and disconnected than the series was. It is kind of a genius lampooning of bad comic book adaptations, the earlier series as a whole, and (sort of) retells their own series but it's like a game of telephone... it gets details wrong, misses beats, and generally seems confused with itself. It's pretty clever, and I feel sorry for the person who picks it up expecting something straightforward because it's wildly out-of-control farce. |
12-13-2017, 08:09 AM | #16 |
Cobra Interrogator
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Undisclosed Military Installation in Kentucky
Posts: 1,466
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So I read it last night, and it was just as you described it. I can't say I really 'liked' it, because it stripped out all the lunacy that made the first one interesting and sometimes even disturbing. And I kinda think that was the point. It's like one of those Hollywood adaptations that sanitizes the source material to the point that it loses what made the original special in the first place. And then they regurgitated it in comic book form so it makes even less sense.
From an intellectual perspective I can see how he was trying to make an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation, and in doing so we watch it degenerate by degrees. But unfortunately that doesn't make it enjoyable. |
12-17-2017, 09:44 AM | #17 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Boulder
Posts: 1,563
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I'm glad you checked it out! I'm glad I read it and feel like it makes a bizarre end cap to the story, but I agree with your sentiment. Eventually I'll get around to rereading it.
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