Transformers: Regeneration One 80.5

[inflatable dalek]

To be completely fair, I'm going to judge this on its own merits without any comparisons to G2, Another Time and Place, the UK G2 Annual, the fan club tat or any and all other previous post-Marvel stuff.

Well, the introduction from Furman where he lists his and Wildman's post-Transformers credits in a desperate attempt to make it look like they've done other things is hilarious and almost worth five stars by itself.

Other than that, mostly what the preview made it look. Lots of badly drawn pointless flashbacks (dear God, Fortress Maximus has a head that's the Transformers equivalent of the Elephant Man).

For the non-flashback stuff, I'm really not sure having Optimus bored and disinterested in the whole thing was a good idea. And considering I think they spoke about twice in the original series him picking Hot Rod as his special student (?! what do they do all day alone on top of a hill?) seems very odd. As does the mention of the Covenant of Primus.

Soundwave got the good bits, using Megatron's name and legacy to rally the "Neo Decepticons" felt very true to his UK best, and the no nonsense Goldeneye plan was nice and straightforward. It was also cool that his troops were mostly made of ones from towards the end of the Marvel days.

But, the ponderous (and unexplained) Furman spoofing narration dragged it down, Magnus is the IDW version, and I'm actually not entirely sure if that was the actual Last Autobot (in which case he's been on the Atkins diet since 80) or a badly made statue that got blown up at the end. If it is the later, why was he just standing in the middle of the street like that for no reason? It doesn't help those hypothetical new readers work out why his death might be a bad thing.

One odd thing, with the inclusion of stuff from the UK comic (the Baird transmitter is a bit of an odd callback isn't it?) it's surprising there's nothing including from it in the flashbacks. You'd have thought at least some of those events would have stuck in Mystery Voice Over's memory.

I wonder when Prime found out about what happened on the Ark?

The colouring is a bit odd, Prowl is in his Marvel scheme, Soundwave is purple in the flashback but blue in the present and Megatron has the black helmet throughout.

Oh, and the whole thing shamelessly recycled from Furman's Energon comic.

The real damning thing is, this dropped through the letter box at the same time as MTMTE 5. A comic that builds on Furman's groundwork (albeit without being set in the same Universe) in a much more solid, intelligent and enjoyable way. And Last Stand did the taking the piss out of Furmanisms thing better as well.
 

[Terome]

What? This is out? Didn't we all agree it looked silly? The nerve of them to release it anyway!
 

[inflatable dalek]

My copy turned up today, not sure if that's early for Free Comic Book Day or not. It might be the rest of the world is completely ignoring it.

I'm actually glad I've read it as it's exactly the right length to have a good laugh at the whole thing in the way that a proper issue wouldn't be (I think the crying would start around page 12). Despite initially having some morbid curiously in the first issue at least this has been properly sated here, and I will be safely occasionally illegally downloading in order to make mocking comments in threads ignoring the series as a whole.

Combat Colin blowing himself up is the canon end of the Marvel series.
 

[Terome]

Despite initially having some morbid curiously in the first issue at least this has been properly sated here, and I will be safely occasionally illegally downloading in order to make mocking comments in threads ignoring the series as a whole.

Yeah, it was weird to discover that this comic was absolutely not aimed at me. I'm not sure, really, who it is aimed at. Ignoring Generation 2 and the UK stuff seems to preclude those who care about what happens in that universe, which I imagine is most of those who signed the petition, the 'retro stylings' preclude anyone who was wandered in from the movie house and the aping of parallel IDW themes seems to preclude those who are already reading. Hasbro seems to hate it and there's a weird and undefined sense of resentment underpinning the whole thing.

It's bizarre, it was it is. I mean, at least that awful Classics story had toys to shift. This has 'historical oddity' written all over it.
 

[inflatable dalek]

It's including the UK stuff! Kup says "Wreckers"!.

One odd thing about the "Story so far" recap is it only covers the events of the comic, there's not a jot explaining how what seems to be a lot of the former Decepticons (last seen running away with Bludgeon) not only came back to Cybertron but successfully integrated back into society to the point where only a few malcontents are left stirring up trouble in such a minor way Optimus can't be bothered to leave the shag pad he's sharing with Hot Rod to go deal with them. Which is sort of a big thing.
 

[relak]

Originally Posted by Terome

Yeah, it was weird to discover that this comic was absolutely not aimed at me. I'm not sure, really, who it is aimed at. Ignoring Generation 2 and the UK stuff seems to preclude those who care about what happens in that universe, which I imagine is most of those who signed the petition, the 'retro stylings' preclude anyone who was wandered in from the movie house and the aping of parallel IDW themes seems to preclude those who are already reading. Hasbro seems to hate it and there's a weird and undefined sense of resentment underpinning the whole thing.

It's bizarre, it was it is. I mean, at least that awful Classics story had toys to shift. This has 'historical oddity' written all over it.

I can understand the underpinning resentment.

Furman did say that he hates to revisit old work

Maybe this was forced upon him after IDW saw how successful Larry Hama's continuation of G I Joe Real American Hero was
 

[Cliffjumper]

Or maybe Furman's a lying sod sometimes, what with most of his recent work relying so much on recycling what he's already done.
 

[inflatable dalek]

Furman was far keener on this than either IDW or Hasbro seem to have been to start with.

If Prime isn't bothering to make any effort to see anyone how is he effectively running the planet? Or if there are others making the day to day decisions why do Magnus and Kup need to take the long walk (which suggests Prime doesn't even have a phone) to ask his permission to send the Wreckers to go tell Soundwave he's a naughty boy?
 

[Red Dave Prime]

Never a big reader of the Marvel series, this does seem like a baffling comic choice for IDW - providing a new ending to a series which, from my limited understanding has effectively had three (the big battle with unicron could have been the ending, then there was the actual ending with the last autobot thing and then Generation 2 looked to have capped off at least the gen 1 angle, even if it was left open)

I could be wrong on the above, I'm really only going on reading the reviews on this site.

Not sure who this is aimed at but it will be interesting to see its sales figures.
 

[LKW]

Well, pretty much, it's aimed at me - someone who considers the G.I. Joe ARAH continuation among the top three books he's reading, and who has adopted Chris Claremont's X-Men Forever as his prefered X-Men continuity; and also, who freaked out, in the highly positive way, when he heard that Stephen Baskerville was actually coming back to ink this. (Dalek, I believe you now have a reprinting of what I consider to be a definitive proof of Basker's greatness, G.I. Joe #139. Anybody who wants to see what a difference an inker can make should check out the first several pages of this issue vs. the rest.)

And, yah, you got this a leeetle eariler than the rest of us (or, the US, at least); FCBD is May 5th Jealous (though spoiler-phobic), here; this book is the only reason I'll be making the Comic Book Day trip (albiet maybe to the newly-opened shop which is a little closer than my normal, pull list place).
 

[relak]

Originally Posted by inflatable dalek

Furman was far keener on this than either IDW or Hasbro seem to have been to start with.

If Prime isn't bothering to make any effort to see anyone how is he effectively running the planet? Or if there are others making the day to day decisions why do Magnus and Kup need to take the long walk (which suggests Prime doesn't even have a phone) to ask his permission to send the Wreckers to go tell Soundwave he's a naughty boy?

which i find baffling why he was so keen on it.

I sometimes get the feeling that he's not actually all "I do this as a creative art and thus as a creative person i refuse to go back and revist what i've done in the past and prefer to push forward".

I feels its more like "oh Thank God thats over, cos i had no idea where to go with it! Now to crack out some excuse and make some whole new story."
 

[Skyquake87]

Originally Posted by Cliffjumper

Or maybe Furman's a lying sod sometimes, what with most of his recent work relying so much on recycling what he's already done.

He's always recycled stuff...its perhaps not been as noticable since his return to Transformers, but take Death's Head for instance. Issue 10 ends with some completed artwork from the then in production issues 11 & 12 which were leading into what would eventually surface as 'The Body In Question'.
 

[inflatable dalek]

Originally Posted by LKW

And, yah, you got this a leeetle eariler than the rest of us (or, the US, at least); FCBD is May 5th Jealous (though spoiler-phobic), here; this book is the only reason I'll be making the Comic Book Day trip (albiet maybe to the newly-opened shop which is a little closer than my normal, pull list place).

Ah, if it's been sent out earlier than it should I'll edit the post mentioning where I brought it from in case it would get them into trouble. Though it shouldn't be so hard to work it out for those of you in the know.
 

[relak]

just got it and read it.

I really dont see whats the problem with the narration though other than over repeating "Witness....."

I like how Wildman recreated a number of key scenes from the original comic.

As to why the last autobot is standing on a pedestal in the middle of the city......maybe he has to be there in order to maintain the regeneration of Cybertron. Kinda like a terraforming machine. As long as he remains, he is using his power to heal cybertron.
But now that he gets blown up (which IMO was shocking yet retarded once you think about it. Wasnt he supposed to be some legendary all powerful being like Primus??) cybertron's healing stops and perhaps will start to degenerate again.

Hence the state of disrepair we see on cybertron in the 5 page preview of regeneration 81
 

[Cyberstrike nTo]

Originally Posted by inflatable dalek

Furman was far keener on this than either IDW or Hasbro seem to have been to start with.

IMHO I think the reason that IDW didn't want to do it was because they didn't want to cancel the Costa-written series and wanted to combine all the previous mini-series and one-shots into on big series and have a big legacy number event (remember that TDoOP was orginally going to be The Transformers #125) and probably had this series not come about Roberts would have written it with the same storyline as MTMTE just continuing the series (as #126 and beyond) and Barber would have gotten a spin-off series.
 

[relak]

Originally Posted by Cyberstrike nTo

IMHO I think the reason that IDW didn't want to do it was because they didn't want to cancel the Costa-written series and wanted to combine all the previous mini-series and one-shots into on big series and have a big legacy number event (remember that TDoOP was orginally going to be The Transformers #125) and probably had this series not come about Roberts would have written it with the same storyline as MTMTE just continuing the series (as #126 and beyond) and Barber would have gotten a spin-off series.

But REgeneration is not connected to IDW's timeline at all
 

[Terome]

Didn't manage to snag one of these on Saturday - I was drawing stuff at Gosh all day and by the time I popped my head around the door of Orbital the party was well past over. I did get a look at the Roger Langridge exhibition though, which made up for everything.

So anyway, now that I have insinuated a read, my report is that it made me feel nice. You know, like, inside.

I got a kick out of Wildman drawing some of the old panels, I got a kick out of Soundwave being a proper Soundwave and I got a kick out of Kup's line about wanting to be able to fly. Extra, semi-kicks too for making fun of a Furmanism and then going and using a Furmanism on the very next page.

So good work, Regeneration 80.5. Good work.
 

[Cyberstrike nTo]

Originally Posted by relak

But REgeneration is not connected to IDW's timeline at all

It's about the name of the series not the universe.

Marvel's series was called The Transformers so was the Costa series. I do not know of any company past or present that has published two different series with the same name with two different numbering systems at the same time.

Now if Furman had wanted to do a continuation of The Transformers: Generation 2 chances are IDW would have been more opened to it, since they could have lauched The Transformers: Generation 2 #12.5 with little or no problem and not have to cancel another series with the same name with a different number.
 

[Red Dave Prime]

Am I the only person a little confused?
 

[relak]

Originally Posted by Cyberstrike nTo

It's about the name of the series not the universe.

Marvel's series was called The Transformers so was the Costa series. I do not know of any company past or present that has published two different series with the same name with two different numbering systems at the same time.

Now if Furman had wanted to do a continuation of The Transformers: Generation 2 chances are IDW would have been more opened to it, since they could have lauched The Transformers: Generation 2 #12.5 with little or no problem and not have to cancel another series with the same name with a different number.

I thought its now "Classic Transformers"?