New Target exclusive prequel comic online

Nevermore · Post by **Nevermore** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:35 am

http://www.target.com/b/sr=1-1/qid=1192 ... =347805011

Gah. This is a continuity cluster****. Completely retcons IDW Prequel #4.

Direct PDF download link:
http://transformers.target.com.edgesuit ... Comic2.pdf

Nevermore · Post by **Nevermore** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:57 pm

Just to get this straight:

In IDW's prequel comic #4, Starscream, Blackout and Barricade arrive on Earth in the USA in 2003, all three of them in different locations. All three assume local forms, with only Blackout actually avoiding any witnesses (Starscream and Barricade kill theirs).

In this comic, they arrive on Earth in Afghanistan together with Wreckage, who assumes an alternate mode but gets quickly killed. Then Blackout immediately sets out for Qatar.

In the movie, it's implied that Blackout gunned down a helicopter in Afghanistan three months prior to the movie's events.

Does this make any sense whatsoever at all?

This comic appears to be even irreconcilable with the FIRST Target exclusive prequel comic.

Also, Starscream's unit immediately races after Megatron, yet arriveres several centuries after him. Wah? But in the movie, the Autobots immediately respond to Bumblebee's signal days after he sent it.

Seriously, What the hell?

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:41 pm

IDW didn't do their homework, maybe?

All in all, the prequel comics were only on par, at best and the movie adaptation wasn't that great. I probably would have been less excited to see the movie, if I had read the adaptation, beforehand, so I'm glad that I saw the movie, first, since I really enjoyed watching it.

Kinda put off from seeking out other IDW material, tbh. I figured, after seeing the movie, that this would be a good way to check out IDW's style, and I'm sure there were plenty of other people, who were thinking the same thing. You'd expect them to put their top efforts into it, on the chance that it could have brought in readers to the main series, but this was pretty much a cash grab.

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:23 pm

That is a fairly bad comic by any stretch. I haven't read any of the prequels or the adaptation, but the standard set here is low. Three people came up with that story? There's no arc - no internal change for any of the characters. It's just a series of events that fill in chronology gaps (that have apparently already been covered). The panel to panel flow is really thrown off by some seemingly random dialogue balloons, and now the Decepticons are suddenly wisecracking in front of humans? Nonsense

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:36 pm

Yeh, there's about three pages of plot in there... lots of standing around and chatting for a force that loses 25% of its' strength in a few seconds and clearly has no real idea what's going on. Very poor characterisation, and again the movie designs do not work in comics (Geoff got away with it by stylising them so much). I dunno if it's just from scan-reading it when I'm shattered, but it's very tricky to work out who actually wants to do what...

Nevermore · Post by **Nevermore** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 9:56 pm

Originally posted by Housewife2000
There's no arc - no internal change for any of the characters.

Issue 2 of the original prequel mini was still the worst in that regard. It starts off with nine pages of Megatron arriving on Earth, then suddenly jumping forward through time with scenes taking up only one or two pages each, characters getting replaced by others as we approach the present day. The last four pages FINALLY set up an actual plot in the year 2003. As a standalone issue, it's just awful, as we are only offered brief GLIMPSES at characters.

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:35 pm

Who Cares? WRECKAGE!

Brimstone · Post by **Brimstone** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:54 pm

This thing reads like the back of the action figure cards.