AHM #9

[Evil Exe]

Soooo, who here besides me HATES the art when they are on Earth? I mean really, why the art change?

[MikePrime]

It's dreadful. A different artist worked on those scenes, but it's still no excuse for the bad artwork. I thought I was reading Shortpacked during those scenes.

[Rawhide]

The drawings on Earth were horrible. There really is no other word for it. Simplistic drawings, wrong perspective, wrong scale, wrong everything and anything. The Cybertron art was better, but still not close to Guido’s standards. (Hardly up to E.J. Su’s standard.). But let's be honest: the IDW housestyle pretty much is terrible. None of their artist really shines: humans are always drawn in a weird and simplistic way, background are often no more than a few lines, and the TF's are equally flat and uninspiring. E.J. Su is of the IDW stock perhaps doing an above par job, but compared to the likes of Don F or Guido, his art is boring.

 

 

But personally, the art of the Earth story was only the tip of the ice berg for me with this issue.

 

I mean, AHM # 9 as a whole was bad. Really, REALLY bad !!!!

 

 

What happened in this issue? Well, on Earth basically nothing. A few resistance people meet and they go get a gun. Whole issue? Yep, that’s the whole fraggin issue. And on Cybertron, well they sit and talk. That’s it? Yep, that’s it.

 

A whole issue of nothing happening. Okay, so it fits perfectly within the entire AHM series in which we now have 9 issues and enough story for two or three good ones.

 

 

Then let’s look at some individual things.

 

Even the artist/writer didn’t know whether the issue featured Frenzy or Rumble . Forget about the colors, look at what he’s doing. He starts of with the pile-drivers so it must be Rumble, but after getting shot (and why the hell is he even shot so easily?) he produces awful sounds...which is Frenzy’s capability. So, wtf is this ?????

 

Oh, and if a simple bazooka is enough to kill Fren...Rum...well, the cassette guy (who’s suddenly grown very big compared with his previous appearances), then why do they need that special gun????

 

And why would the other countries consider nuking the USA East Coast? A few issues ago the Decepticons had already conquered the entire world...and an issue later just the USA...and were busy conquering other countries... Me thinks the writer can’t keep track of what he’s doing. So suppose they do Nuke the East coast, that won't stop the Decepticons who are elsewhere on the world busy conquering. Will the nuke those too?

 

And finally, for the Earth part anyway, all this time New York has been occupied territory and has been blanketed by a jamming signal. No tv, no radio, no telephones. Then for some reason Soundwave lifts this and guess what…somebody is at that exact moment making a phone call to a phone within reach of our heroes so that they now know the phones are working again. Coincidence? Nah, bad writing!

 

 

So, let’s go to Cybertron. Mirage/Ironhide is done very well. Kudo’s for that. The Autobots being demoralized, also very good. But why is it Drift who starts the (aborted) pep talk? Isn’t that the job of “The Voice†a.k.a. Blaster. Makes me wonder why Drift is even there. Such a multitude of G1 and G2 characters to choose from and we get a new one. (Boring, lame story telling!)

 

But lo and behold, there’s Prime to save the day.

 

Wait a moment...On one page Ratchet is pretty adamant that repairing Prime may well be beyond their capabilities. Even with the old Perceptor (and not the gun toting one -- don't even know why Perceptor is gun toting now) it might be impossible to save Prime. He’s simply too damaged. He already was severely damaged after the fight (and loss of Matrix) but the warp accident made it even worse: frying all of his circuits. So, Ratchet is already prepping Kup to be the new leader...and then, three Cybertronian pages later (and based on the TF dialogue and the intermixed events on Earth a mere minutes later), Prime is back alive and looking brand new. Not a dent in his body, not a single paint chip.

 

It’s a bloody miracle.

 

 

Oh, wait, no: IT’S AWFUL STORY TELLING.

 

 

 

Like to say this issue was an isolated event, but so far this entire series has been weak. Hardly any story, no continuity with Furmans series, TF’s acting out of character and of course incredible inconsistency in the series itself.

[Evil Exe]

The drawings on Earth were horrible. There really is no other word for it. Simplistic drawings, wrong perspective, wrong scale, wrong everything and anything. The Cybertron art was better, but still not close to Guido’s standards. (Hardly up to E.J. Su’s standard.). But let's be honest: the IDW housestyle pretty much is terrible. None of their artist really shines: humans are always drawn in a weird and simplistic way, background are often no more than a few lines, and the TF's are equally flat and uninspiring. E.J. Su is of the IDW stock perhaps doing an above par job, but compared to the likes of Don F or Guido, his art is boring.

 

 

But personally, the art of the Earth story was only the tip of the ice berg for me with this issue.

 

I mean, AHM # 9 as a whole was bad. Really, REALLY bad !!!!

 

 

What happened in this issue? Well, on Earth basically nothing. A few resistance people meet and they go get a gun. Whole issue? Yep, that’s the whole fraggin issue. And on Cybertron, well they sit and talk. That’s it? Yep, that’s it.

 

A whole issue of nothing happening. Okay, so it fits perfectly within the entire AHM series in which we now have 9 issues and enough story for two or three good ones.

 

 

Then let’s look at some individual things.

 

Even the artist/writer didn’t know whether the issue featured Frenzy or Rumble . Forget about the colors, look at what he’s doing. He starts of with the pile-drivers so it must be Rumble, but after getting shot (and why the hell is he even shot so easily?) he produces awful sounds...which is Frenzy’s capability. So, wtf is this ?????

 

Oh, and if a simple bazooka is enough to kill Fren...Rum...well, the cassette guy (who’s suddenly grown very big compared with his previous appearances), then why do they need that special gun????

 

And why would the other countries consider nuking the USA East Coast? A few issues ago the Decepticons had already conquered the entire world...and an issue later just the USA...and were busy conquering other countries... Me thinks the writer can’t keep track of what he’s doing. So suppose they do Nuke the East coast, that won't stop the Decepticons who are elsewhere on the world busy conquering. Will the nuke those too?

 

And finally, for the Earth part anyway, all this time New York has been occupied territory and has been blanketed by a jamming signal. No tv, no radio, no telephones. Then for some reason Soundwave lifts this and guess what…somebody is at that exact moment making a phone call to a phone within reach of our heroes so that they now know the phones are working again. Coincidence? Nah, bad writing!

 

 

So, let’s go to Cybertron. Mirage/Ironhide is done very well. Kudo’s for that. The Autobots being demoralized, also very good. But why is it Drift who starts the (aborted) pep talk? Isn’t that the job of “The Voice†a.k.a. Blaster. Makes me wonder why Drift is even there. Such a multitude of G1 and G2 characters to choose from and we get a new one. (Boring, lame story telling!)

 

But lo and behold, there’s Prime to save the day.

 

Wait a moment...On one page Ratchet is pretty adamant that repairing Prime may well be beyond their capabilities. Even with the old Perceptor (and not the gun toting one -- don't even know why Perceptor is gun toting now) it might be impossible to save Prime. He’s simply too damaged. He already was severely damaged after the fight (and loss of Matrix) but the warp accident made it even worse: frying all of his circuits. So, Ratchet is already prepping Kup to be the new leader...and then, three Cybertronian pages later (and based on the TF dialogue and the intermixed events on Earth a mere minutes later), Prime is back alive and looking brand new. Not a dent in his body, not a single paint chip.

 

It’s a bloody miracle.

 

 

Oh, wait, no: IT’S AWFUL STORY TELLING.

 

 

 

Like to say this issue was an isolated event, but so far this entire series has been weak. Hardly any story, no continuity with Furmans series, TF’s acting out of character and of course incredible inconsistency in the series itself.

 

I'll agree with you on the most part. That bit with Rumble, I'm positive it was Rumble, seeing as how after he was shot Soundwave picked him up and it looked like the shock wave things were emanating from Soundwave, not to mention it just made people deaf. The whole gun thing I actually liked, it filled in some blanks for what happened to Shockwave. If remember correctly it has never quite been revealed what happened to Shockwave. We know Grimlock and th others who were captured escaped and now we know Shockwave never did, and was used to create a super weapon for America, kinda ironic in it's own right. Hopefully Drift will be a much more compelling character after his Spotlight. Perceptor, while being an :awsum badass, still confuses me how he got from point a to point b. And the Prime thing was a definite :tfwtf for me too. I mean they really made it seem like he was going to die. I think they should've had him die, I mean it's a comic, comic book characters cheat death all the time.

[Ender]

Oh, yeah. Prime death is SOOOOOO compelling.

 

Why not just cut out the middle man and cancel the TF comics alltogether. It'd be quicker and cheaper.

 

For better or for worse, resurrection of heroes is a classic theme, and this execution of it was done better than average. Thie dialog was great.

 

Sorry everyone, Prime is never gonna die and leave the Matrix to your fanfic character.

 

And Drift... that spotlight had better be something special. This Wolverine impression is just boring me to tears.

[TheForgottenTaxi]

Hopefully Drift will be a much more compelling character after his Spotlight.

 

No such luck. So, let me get this straight. He "approaches everything in life with equal measures of joyful exuberance and cavalier flare," but he's also a loner Samurai, a former Decepticon mass murderer and a motivational speaker? This guy is like a fanfic character.