Transformers: Tales of the Fallen #1-6

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Transformers: Tales of the Fallen #1-6

Post by zigzagger »

A six-part series, with each issue spotlighting a character from Revenge of the Fallen. This is your all purpose Transformers Tales of the Fallen reaction and discussion thread.

Merged due to low traffic.

Issue #1 (Bumblebee)

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Issue #2 (Sideswipe)

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Issue #3 (Jetfire)

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Issue #4 (The Fallen)

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Issue #5 (Ravage)

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Issue #6 (Arcee)

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Post by Dreadwing »

So, Is anybody even reading this series?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

What's it for? I mean, what stories need to be told here? And what's the point in including human characters who look nothing like they're meant to? What's the point in a story that will basically be rendered as splinter continuity whenever TF3 comes out and contradicts it? What's the point in getting live-action designs of tremendous complexity and letting someone simplify them to the point where they could be anyone?

And this is about the movie comics in general... I read the batch of scans I've had sitting around for a few months, and these were the questions I had in my head. They all just seem to be an excuse to jam in non-movie Movie toys with little thought to coherence, and it leads to a really skewed set of characters with plot armour and characters who are cannon fodder - we know nothing, but nothing, is really going to happen to Ironhide, while at the same time we know the random Cybertron repaint guys are almost certainly going to be dead within a few pages.

I mean, Reign of Starscream. What's the point in that? It spends five issues farting around with Starscream's personality and killing off F-listers, and then RotF has the guy act in a completely different way because the comic was based on leaps of logic from the first film which turned out to be misplaced.

Worst one so far has been the RotF adaptation, which manages to fluff every single good scene due to bad writing and bad art, while generally ending up so different from the film you wonder why they bothered in the first place. On top of that, it's even more fractured than what even I realise is a pretty convoluted screenplay. If what IDW are given is so different to the film, they just shouldn't bother.

Is there any reason for the movie comics at all, in short? Has anyone read a single one and thought "Hey, this is good". By 'reason', I'm optimistically reaching for something other than "IDW are whores" here...
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Post by inflatable dalek »

I do have this comic in my to read list, unfortunately my exact reading order has been held up by comic book guy finding AHM 14 so insignificant he didn't notice it was out...
Cliffjumper wrote:What's it for? I mean, what stories need to be told here? And what's the point in including human characters who look nothing like they're meant to?
Well, the likeness thing isn't really the fault of anyone. No comic company could afford it and no actor would lower their price for an exact likeness because that could hurt them hard in the future. As for what spaces there is for stories between the first and second film, I think six missions get mentioned as happening in that gap. The UK comic is already taking advantage of that, no doubt the other spin off's will as well.

To put it another way, there's more scope for stories set between the first and second live action film than there is for Target: 2006 to happen between "Decepticons to Earth!" and the jump cut to Earth in the '86 film.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

IDW seem to manage for likenesses for Doctor Who and their myriad other titles based on someone else's idea. If they can't do it, they shouldn't do it. That simple. It's no good saying "this is terrible but for legal reasons it's the best that we can manage". You're still paying them money for the comic, see.

The Target 2006 comparison is a complete red herring too - fun fact, the UK Marvel continuity had been running for a while before that. Target 2006 wasn't a spin-off of TF:TM, Furman simply hijacked elements of it for the story that he could use. In relation to TF:TM, Target just co-opts the villains (the plot can actually work if you haven't seen the film).

IDW's live action stuff, meanwhile, desperately tugs at loose threads and tries to spin entire stories out of them with minimal imagination, Reign of Starscream being the most obvious culprit. The fact the UK title descended into Rhythms of Darkness style crappery in sheer desperation says it all. There is no need for these comics to be made, other than to maximise IDW's profits.

The fact the IDW Movie continuity already contains huge contradictions says it all as to how valid it is - for example, Barricade is killed in the first movie adaptation (which, to be fair, might have been badly drawn and slightly inept, but at least had a stab at a narrative). Some movie teaboy says he might be in the second one, and inexplicably being killed by Prime in a brutal fashion turns into being nudged into a wall by Ironhide and turns into the Transformers equivalent of Sark (for extra humiliation, of course, Barry wasn't even RotF, meaning IDW have contradicted themselves for no reason, simply because they're Paramount's bitches). How is it possible to have any sort of investment in comics that have those sort of constraints?

For a theoretical example, Tales of the Fallen could have loads and loads of stuff about Ratchet in, make him a really great character invested in all sorts of grand things. Then the first scene of TF3 establishes that Ratchet was mortally wounded in the desert and died there. IDW bend over and take it, and the comic arc is made invalid.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote:IDW seem to manage for likenesses for Doctor Who and their myriad other titles based on someone else's idea. If they can't do it, they shouldn't do it. That simple. It's no good saying "this is terrible but for legal reasons it's the best that we can manage". You're still paying them money for the comic, see.
I hd a flic through The Forgotten yesterday, they seem to have the rights for Tennant but not the other 9 Doctors. Not sure about their other properties, though the covers for the GI Joe film adaptation suggest they don't have those likenesses either.

Mind, it could of course be other outside factors resulting in a poor likeness. According to Mike Collins Chris Eccleston has no dea what he looks like (considering himself to be a lot uglier than real life) and would constantly demand DMW change the art till the point he basically looked like Pug.

Though it could equally be bad art, but considering the sheer number of artists who've haven't managed it (especially taking the Titan comic into account) that one seems unlikely.
The Target 2006 comparison is a complete red herring too - fun fact, the UK Marvel continuity had been running for a while before that. Target 2006 wasn't a spin-off of TF:TM, Furman simply hijacked elements of it for the story that he could use. In relation to TF:TM, Target just co-opts the villains (the plot can actually work if you haven't seen the film).
All true, but doesn't really change the fact the gag in the film Galvatron and company come from is a bit of a forced one.
The fact the UK title descended into Rhythms of Darkness style crappery in sheer desperation says it all.
The Titan comic is actually pretty good and that arc turned out surprisingly well despite the less than promising premise.
How is it possible to have any sort of investment in comics that have those sort of constraints?
I don't think the constraints are that much worse than any most TFcomics have been under to be honest, there are plenty of other examples of characters or storylines being abandoned because a toys been discontinued or the looming risk of cancelation ect. Things like the promised but never delivered final Ultra Magnus/Galvatron fight.

My problem with IDW's film stuff is that it's simply not very good regardless of the outside pressures. Out of the whole lot ony Defiance has really worked to date.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Was Defiance the one where they spent two issues covering the really obvious stuff that must have happened after the first film (killing Dewbot, having some sort of service for Jazz), and then did all the really obvious stuff that must have happened shortly before RotF (like Sideswipe & co. turning up and 'covering' some of the other NEST/Decepticon scuffles)? As you might be able to tell, I found it all pretty redundant - especially when Crasher and some others land on Earth and it looks like things are going to kick off, and then she and her forces are killed in a method of storytelling that can only really be described as flashsideways. You are right in suggesting they're the best by miles.


The problem as usual with IDW is the lack of strategy. The smart thing to do (obviously assuming they could hire a decent writer/artist team in the first place, which does seem to be something of a blind spot - the usual suspects just can't do the Movie aesthetic, time to cast the net a bit wider - Ashley Wood or Jae Lee on past form) would have been to just carry on from the end of the first movie adaptation, and if RotF didn't gel, so what, don't cheat the readers you've built up so far.

I mean, the worst thing about the live-action stuff is that they've got a solid reason to go for the Beast Wars TV approach, with around a dozen confirmed people on either side. And yet they go with the Beast Wars comic approach, and just try to cram as many irrelevant toys as possible into the thing...
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Defiance was the War Within one that focused around the Fallen being trapped in stone influencing Megatron in a Ring (as in Frodo rather than chick in well) kind of way. All of which of wasn't just cut from the final film but actively contradicted by it (despite what some may say). Despite that it's a nice straightforward unpretentious action story that, whilst not going to challenge for a place at the table with the great TF stories on it, is diverting enough.

On a similar line of thought to the Barricade thing I wonder if one of the Tales... will resurrect Chromia in a contrived way just so she can merge with Arcee or if they'll just roll with it for a change.
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Post by Starfield »

Are all these stories going to be prequels? Come on, move along.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Okay, I finally got the actual comic in question. They don't learn, do they? Same old dross - art style that doesn't fit the aesthetic, writing style that doesn't fit the characters (I do like the way in the movie comics that Optimus, Megatron and Starscream are their G1 Marvel/IDW personas, while everyone else is a totally generic Furmanbot/con with completely interchangable) and a sincere desire to turn Barricade into a sort of crap robot version of Robbie Rotten.

Plus someone needs to tell IDW that Bumblebee communicating via his radio doesn't mean Bumblebee singing snatches of apt pop songs. I mean, you could understand for the first round of prequels, where it's pretty clear Paramount wouldn't let them know much more than the title, but haven't they even seen it on DVD yet? Someone also wants to tell them how stupid it is in text as well.

I did like the alternate cover that's just Megan Fox's tits, though. At least they're being honest about the lengths they'll go to to get some money, eh?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Mine's still in the bag (nothing specific against the title, I've still got a bunch of Miller/Hitch Fantastic Four to read as well. It's just finding the time). I do however agree fully with this:
Cliffjumper wrote: Plus someone needs to tell IDW that Bumblebee communicating via his radio doesn't mean Bumblebee singing snatches of apt pop songs. I mean, you could understand for the first round of prequels, where it's pretty clear Paramount wouldn't let them know much more than the title, but haven't they even seen it on DVD yet? Someone also wants to tell them how stupid it is in text as well.
Not having been able to get to comic guy this weekend (I watched Paul Cornell cry about Captain Britain instead) I'll be about five weeks behind in all my comics when I do catch up.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I think the funniest bit is in the first prequel, where Bumblebee's just driving around by himself just playing random blasts of music. I mean, what? He doesn't think via the damn car radio. It's also very jarring if you don't know whatever song it is.

It's a shame, because I think the films actually handled what could have been a very cloying gimmick in a really nice way - pop songs used in moderation (which means things like "Your Cheating Heart" are hilarious"), and very limited dialogue, making use of a CGI model with a lot of expressive body language.

The live action stuff is just basically incompatible with comics... IDW could well be doing the best they can considering that, but it hardly makes the comics more enjoyable (the UK stuff benefits a bit from the decision to just do whatever they want with the basic set up; IDW suffer from their consistent attempts to try and pretend they're on the same page as Bay).
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote: He doesn't think via the damn car radio.

That's probably giving the sequence more credit that I did in assuming he was just listening for pleasure, with the most stupidly ironic radio station ever.

I do think the solution for the comics (and I include Titan in this as it was in their post ROTF stuff that it first really started to bug me) is to have him get his voice box "fixed" for between film adventures only for it to break down again in time for each film. A bit contrived, but removes the reliance on a aural gimmick in print and as Bumblebee isn't as major a presence in the comics as in the films (due to Sam being mostly absent) the difference in portrayal probably wouldn't be that jarring.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

The other option is just to have him mainly silent - comics are full of characters who've led stories without saying much (and often having no real features), all it requires is a good artist. Ah. Give him the odd soundbite as well, as in voice clips rather than music - it doesn't especially need to be something in particular, just sound like it does (like the way the UK comic Wreck-Gar tended to speak in vague cliches rather than direct pop culture references).
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Post by inflatable dalek »

True, the talking thing occurred to me because when his voice was fine in the UK comic it worked for me. Soon as they try and start him talking like the film it stands out a mile.

Having now read issue 1: It was OK. The two big problem's were that it took 22 pages to cover something that's explained in about 30 seconds in the film (Living with Bumblebee is ceeerazy) and the idea that Bee's going a bit nuts without the structure of the Autobots in his life doesn't really gel with the movies where he's always seemed to be like that.

And whilst approximate likenesses don't bother me Sam seems to have found a giant pile of pies somewhere.

I can see how recreating the style of the film would be hard in comic form, simply because the pace and OTT energy would get very wearying on a monthly basis, but I do think they can do better than this.

EDIT: Oh, and the Megan Fox cover is awesome. Though based on how the artist beefed up Sam it's probably a good thing she wasn't in the comic itself...
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Post by Nevermore »

So, issue 3.

Jetfire.

Y'know, the "grumpy old guy" with lots of over-the-top dialogue. (Whether or not you think it was actually funny is up to you.) Lots of potential right there.

This issue is about Jetfire, the Generic Flying Guy With A Generic Sense Of Right And Wrong.

The Fallen is more generic evil than he was in the movie. Oddly, this is because the comic actually puts MORE focus on him than the movie did. His motives never quite make sense. "Let's blow up this sun with an inhabited planet instead of another sun and defy my brothers over it BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST FOR CYBERTRON!" Megatron has been given a better motivation in various prequel comics.

And the coloring... looks like Nel Yomtov with access to Photoshop. GAH.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Is it me, or do all IDW's Movie books feel like they're written by Furman even when they're not?
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Post by Dreadwing »

I just read issue four, the fallen. Seems like Furman took his epic "The Thirteen" tale and summed it all up in one issue. There are no real surprises here, it realy just says "yup, what you thought happed was what happened." The more important thing is that it tells you why things happened. It tells the fallens motives and why earth was chosen for a harvester site.

The jetfire issue is sort of a companion peice to this story.

Lets see how long it takes IDW to retcon this out of and then back into continuity when TF3 is out.
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Post by Nevermore »

Issue 5: Ravage. Short read, plot felt like a teaser with notthing much of substance.

Issue 6: Arcee was somewhat better, I quite enjoyed the dialogue of Skids and Mudflap. Wasn't quite movie-accurate, but entertaining nonetheless.
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Post by Brimstone »

I liked the idea of Issue 6 and how they reconciled pre-movie TF Arcee with RotF Arcee.

Issue 5 was crap.
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