Hearts of Steel #3 five-page preview

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:56 am

http://www.idwpublishing.com/newreleases.shtml

If anyone was having trouble with the news RSS feed on the main TFA page, BTW, it should be working now...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:03 pm

Hopefully it won't be as awful as issue 2 was...

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:16 pm

You didn't like? I thought it moved the story forwards a decent amount. I mean, few Elseworlds-type stories are classics in the way Dark Knight Returns was, but it's entertaining fluff.

Like BW probably not a keeper, but worth a few reads.

Is it you or Aardvark that was going to review the series?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:24 pm

Originally posted by Denyer
You didn't like?

Sample dialouge:

"Look at all this gold! I won't as where you got it from and will trust you blindly".

"BWAHAHAHAHA! I'm going to loudly talk about my evil plan by an open door so our duped human ally can hear what complete twats we are. Still, we have good reason for keeping him around because he has designed us flying machine alt-modes! On a planet that has yet to have flying machines thus making them pointless as disguises! And isn't it odd that a guy who couldn't come up with a working submarine turns out to be such a dab hand at aviation?"

"I'm going to treat the sight of outer space robot people with no real shock or suprise and act as if it's an every day occurance as long as Bumblebee agrees to be my bitch slave".

Then you've got the bigger problem that the plot seems to be following a lot of the beats of Infiltration (Autobots not wanting to involve Optimus straight away, Starscream leading a rouge group of Cons in a plot against Megatron) a little to soon after the former for a rerun...

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:32 pm

Whatshisface and Starscream are both quick on the uptake in the same way house bricks are, and the plot and at least one character are straight out of Stop The Pidgeon. Yep. It's not really pretending to be anything else -- that whole "Bumblebee is Morph" bit last issue already put paid to any idea of credibility.

isn't it odd that a guy who couldn't come up with a working submarine turns out to be such a dab hand at aviation?

It's not like Transformers are the vehicles they turn into; the designs probably wouldn't work in reality.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:36 pm

Originally posted by Denyer

It's not like Transformers are the vehicles they turn into; the designs probably wouldn't work in reality.

Hence making using a human in the first place even more pointless.

I don't mind light fluff usually, but this rilled me in a way that the similary daft Art of War didn't. Probably because, as I feared, it seems the Unbound/Elseworld/What If? seting is just being used to tell the same old story with slightly different window dressing.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:46 pm

Originally posted by Denyer
You didn't like? I thought it moved the story forwards a decent amount. I mean, few Elseworlds-type stories are classics in the way Dark Knight Returns was, but it's entertaining fluff.

I haven't picked up #2 on the grounds that #1 left me massively unimpressed, and I've given too many comics too many chances in the past. It being an Elseworlds-style thing doesn't really mean it can't be very good, and DKR isn't the only comic to prove so (random example - the Death's Head What If? is much better than any other DH story outside of Transformers that I've read*). Sounds like yet another IDW title that really isn't especially good... The question you've got to ask is that if the best they can come up with for a book with such enormous potential (Transformers' myriad continuities and the very nature of the race give an Elseworlds series much more scope than such a series for, say, Batman or X-Men) is entertaining fluff and yet another bunch of so-so redesigns, they're doing something wrong.

* = All of it bar "The Body in Question".

EDIT: Dalek nailed it. On the grounds of what I read of HoS, the series will be an excuse to bung the usual suspects in a different timezone every six months, with the same old "What would Windcharger look like if they landed in Sweden in the 1940s?" crap masquerading as a plot.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:52 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
I haven't picked up #2

My earlier post covers most of the plot- Except that Starscream is using somthing called The Astrotrain (which I like to think should be said in the same way WingOnuts claimed to be The Black) and that the Shocking cliffhanger is Will Mark Twain Save the DAY?!?!?!. Now you don't have to read it.

Though it took me a while to realise it was Twain because I'm so used to how he looked circa his Star Trek/That Claymation Film Thingey appearences.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 12:56 pm

I have no real plans to read any of it (unlike Storm Bringer, which I do intend to buy once a few ebay auctions have ended). IDW will probably have to really look at the slow starts all of their series seem to have had... Not a lot has really happened in any of the #1s I've bought so far, and in the case of HoS and BW, there wasn't really much of promise.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:02 pm

Oh, one thing I did like- No ones used the word "Robot" yet, which at least shows that Chuck knows a minimal bit of history. Though the fact that John Henry (that's John Henry) shows absolutely no shock at meeting something there isn't even a word for yet is hugely idiotic. I'd like to think that even I, as well versed in Sci-Fi as I am- would be slightly put out if the Pizza fridge at work turned out to be a alien robot bitch.

Aardvark · Post by **Aardvark** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:38 pm

It's worth getting for the cover alone.

Originally posted by Denyer
You didn't like?

I have to agree with Dalek, the last issue wasn't great; the story was weak and the dialogue was poor. The first issue was enjoyable fluff, but this was just....fluff.

I quite like the artwork; the Insecticons’ designs are great and the Shockwave cover is impressive. Personally, I’d rather a collection of artwork than a “What If” story.

Is it you or Aardvark that was going to review the series?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:42 pm

I wrote most of a review, but had to chuck it as I'd somehow gotten the impression from the first issue that the formies were supposed to have evolved on Earth in this. So I wrote lots and lots on how groovy that was and how it would give the Deceptiocons better motivation than usual in a Doctor Who and the Sillurians way.

Not that my misunderstanding of that has coloured my opinion of the second issue...

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:08 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
in the case of HoS and BW, there wasn't really much of promise.

Enjoying HoS more than BW, anyway -- there the science and the displacement through time were actually supposed to make a tiny bit of sense... well, as much sense as BW and time travel ever do. Reminds me, I must dust off and finish those two reviews after getting other stuff sorted.

It being an Elseworlds-style thing doesn't really mean it can't be very good

No, I just haven't encountered many decent ones, and I've read quite widely on account of people making it easy to do so -- Batman's particularly overwritten in this genre. Holy Terror was the last decent-ish historical take I came across. (i.e. One I'd read more than once.)

Much prefer "What if?" concepts rather than Elseworlds. Unfortunately, they tend to go for rather obvious fare such as "What if Wolverine led a Canadian super-team?" or "What if Storm changed her hairstyle?" No, wait, that was the 80s.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 11:20 pm

Yeh, I'd agree What If? works better, because it has a forty-odd year universe to work with, and thus there are all sorts of interesting spin-off points... Execution's a bit less impressive, they all tend to go for "everyone getting wiped out except Wolverine and five others". The book suffered alot from being largely a staffer title, rather than roping in the original writers and asking them to do something different...

I don't really see how either concept can really be sustained for IDW or Transformers. For the What If? angle, there aren't really enough interesting make or break points even in the Marvel UK universe that could be done well... And personally, I think the massive amount of new continuities opened post-BM takes a lot of punch out of any Elseworld style series... Like I say, I don't see much potential for Evolutions beyond it being an excuse for character redesigns, historical cameos and other vague twiddlings. There have been too many mindless fluff comics with Transformers stamped on the cover of late. and combined with the bad ones they massively outnumber the good stories... The unread-by-me-and-as-yet-incomplete-and-we-know-what-Furman's-like Stormbringer notwithstanding, we're still waiting for our first genuinely good Transformers comic story of the century.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:48 pm

The Doctor Who Unbound stuff was mostly a good example of the "What If?" genre (bar the awful Valeyard and female Doctor ones).

I think part opf the reason I'm prefering Art of War to this is that, whilst it might not handle them brilliantly, the former does have some nice allmost original ideas and good charecterisation. All sorely lacking in HOS so far.

But then, AOW had a awful second issue as well so mayhaps Evolutions will pull it back.