Tales of the Fallen #6 Preview

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zigzagger
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Tales of the Fallen #6 Preview

Post by zigzagger »

Preview pages, along with an issue overview, for Transformers: Tales of the Fallen #6 have been posted @ The Full Mowry. This issue will spotlight Arcee and is scheduled for January 6.

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Post by Blackjack »

Ah, trying to sort out whether the Arcee bikes are one being or three. Still, reeks of Furman's previous Arcee work in IDW (what with Flatline, on the first panel of page 3, being similar to Jhiaxus in build). So what's left of Arcee is rebuilt into three bodies?

Weird to see the bike girls having Rampage-ish lower bodies.

This is going to end badly, isn't it? Still, the Thundercracker is a nice touch to Reign of Starscream.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Blackjack wrote:Ah, trying to sort out whether the Arcee bikes are one being or three.
Until Bay/Paramount decide differently and then IDW have to backpedal desperately.
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Post by Halfshell »

Cliffjumper wrote:Until Bay/Paramount decide differently and then IDW have to backpedal desperately.
I don't know why they couldn't just give up and go full-blown alternative continuity based on the toys, much as the original cartoon and comic did.

Actually, I do. It'd involve the appliance of actual new plot and character ideas, which are outlawed under IDW/Furman. But you know what I mean.
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Post by Mowry »

I tried repeatedly and was struck down... repeatedly. There were hints of things in Defiance that were to carry over into a possible movie-verse ongoing, but since that could never get any kind of support to move forward with... you get the idea.

I'll be posting some of those ideas on my blog eventually, though. How I wanted to introduce Unicron, the Quintessons, the Dinobots, etc. Basically taking that old formula of new toy=new characters and continue with it.

Believe me, I like the "freshness" of the movie universe, but filling plot holes gets really stale. Hence, this is my final issue. Hope everyone enjoys it.
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Post by Halfshell »

Mowry wrote:Believe me, I like the "freshness" of the movie universe, but filling plot holes gets really stale.
Must be quite difficult when the hole keeps changing afterwards, too.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Problem is the shifting retcons rob the stories of dramatic potential... I mean, you can read an IDW issue that, say, does a great take on I don't know, let's pick a RotF character at random, Jolt. Say, the comic has something happen to him which results in him turning into a pacifist. Then Transformers 3 the film features Jolt pulling Soundwave's head off and then sodomising whichever Blackout redeco is hanging around with it. You can bet your finest hat that IDW's TF3 material will snap back to featuring head-removing anus-violating Jolt without a word of explanation. It's impossible to get invested in comics that just don't matter to the company producing them.

The Titan material had the right basic idea, although sadly it chose the cheesiest possible route for it, and being written by Furman there were exactly two personalities in the thing - brave, stoic Autobots and brutish, sadistic Decepticons.

The biggest problem, though, is that the movie stuff is designed for, well, movies. You couldn't recreate the style on the page, so what makes the movieverse different is stripped down until we're basically left with yet another G1 reboot, but with busier character models.
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Post by Mowry »

Halfshell wrote:Must be quite difficult when the hole keeps changing afterwards, too.
You have no idea. ;)
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Post by Nevermore »

Hey Chris! Nice to have you here.

Here's another thought I just had that might help avoid these problems.

Instead of storylines that star the movie characters, with toy-only characters as cannon fodder (we had the topic before)... how about NOT using the movie characters and telling a story solely about the non-movie characters instead? I know Reign of Starscream did, which is why I liked it more than the direct movie tie-in comics.

But instead of "The wacky misadventures of Sam and Bumblebee with Barricade as the enemy", I'd have liked to see something like "Breakaway versus Dead End". Use toy-only characters that will likely never get any focus and tell a story with them that doesn't end with everyone who isn't in the movie dying, and one that doesn't have to be crapped over once TF3 rolls around. A lot of the Marvel UK stuff was like that.

I know that there's a possibility that Hasbro would insist on putting the focus on The Big Dudes From The Movie, instead of realizing that those toys already have more than enough promotion, and the lower-profile toys could use some more promotion instead.
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Post by Mowry »

Cliffjumper wrote:Problem is the shifting retcons rob the stories of dramatic potential...
Couldn't agree with you more. But that's just how it went for RoTF. For example, in Reign of Starscream, I based Starscream's character off of his two lines in the movie, one of which expressing his devotion to Megatron. Then, his fighting ability was looked and I thought that he's a loyal fighter, possibly misguided, maybe a bit insane, but he's a smart and formidable opponent. Not the backstabbing guy that's been played to death. Come RoTF, and he's got tattoos and what not. Oh, and he's not as tough as he was in the first movie. That does get frustrating, but bottom line is that the movie team absolutely doesn't have to take into consideration anything we do. Which makes the need for a separate (ongoing) series that much more important I think.
Cliffjumper wrote:The Titan material had the right basic idea, although sadly it chose the cheesiest possible route for it, and being written by Furman there were exactly two personalities in the thing - brave, stoic Autobots and brutish, sadistic Decepticons.
Before even pitching what was then called The SEARCH for Starscream, I wanted to have Megatron revived at the bottom of the sea, but being this amalgamation of scanned Navy ship parts (maybe that abyss was a dumping ground for the military). So he'd look a lot more G1-ish complete with a battleship turret on his forearm. Since (to my knowledge) we had to make sure we didn't do anything to contradict RoTF, IDW couldn't go the "elseworlds" route or do anything that would use characters other than Starscream. So while IDW couldn't tell different stories like that, Titan had the ability to. Again, I'm not sure what the details were, but I'm sure Simon or someone associated with that could clarify.
Cliffjumper wrote:The biggest problem, though, is that the movie stuff is designed for, well, movies. You couldn't recreate the style on the page, so what makes the movieverse different is stripped down until we're basically left with yet another G1 reboot, but with busier character models.
I agree, but disagree. I think the movies are indeed a reboot of G1, but I think they do lend the ability to go off in different directions and at least try new things. It's a bit lengthy of an explanation, but one of the ideas I wanted to introduce was that the Allspark was sent by another species to basically wipe out a planet. The one on Cybertron misfired and actually created life instead. So somewhere out there, that other species has taken notice and intends to finish the job. Just stuff like that. But the problem with that is sure, plots have been done before and things are so similar to what people might have seen, so you run the risk of being "yet another G1 reboot" in a way. I tend to ramble, so I hope that made sense, CJ.
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Post by Mowry »

Nevermore wrote:Instead of storylines that star the movie characters, with toy-only characters as cannon fodder (we had the topic before)...

...and the lower-profile toys could use some more promotion instead.
Hey Nevermore, glad to finally be here. I've lurked long enough!

Yeah, we did have that conversation before, so let's just leave it at that. :) I think this Arcee story will show that I do indeed take things into consideration and I think you personally will be pleased.

Again, if we had ever done an ongoing or expanded series, sure, that would have been fun to do. I love Crosshairs in the movie universe and really wanted to use him more. Same thing with Thundercracker. Sadly, I just didn't have the time or the opportunity. The Bumblebee story was intended to be a one-shot, silent issue. Editorial told me to put words in there, so I think it really hurt that story. But again, I definitely could have made it better. Point noted, though.
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Post by Nevermore »

Mowry wrote:Couldn't agree with you more. But that's just how it went for RoTF. For example, in Reign of Starscream, I based Starscream's character off of his two lines in the movie, one of which expressing his devotion to Megatron. Then, his fighting ability was looked and I thought that he's a loyal fighter, possibly misguided, maybe a bit insane, but he's a smart and formidable opponent. Not the backstabbing guy that's been played to death. Come RoTF, and he's got tattoos and what not. Oh, and he's not as tough as he was in the first movie. That does get frustrating, but bottom line is that the movie team absolutely doesn't have to take into consideration anything we do. Which makes the need for a separate (ongoing) series that much more important I think.
What bothers me, personally, the most is that I specifically pointed out Reign of Starscream to Roberto Orci, pointed out how you expanded Starscream's character based on his two lines in the first movie and how much more interesting of a character Starscream was in ROS compared to the done-to-death G1 personality (though I prefer Armada cartoon Starscream, but then again, he was basically BW Dinobot as Starscream). Orci replied with a "yeah, cool stuff" remark, which, to me, sounded like "Yeah, I agree with you there, that's an interesting take on Starscream". Then Orci went and wrote ROTF Starscream, so I guess his remark was more of a "yeah, whatever, as if I would read those comics".

Not the first time Orci has contradicted himself, though... Back in 2008 or so, he claimed he had never watched Lost and wanted to watch the entire show for the first time on DVD when it was all over in 2010. Recently, in an interview, he claimed he had watched Lost in preparation for developing Fringe, which would have been in 2007...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I personally don't think there was too much of a seismic shift in Starscream's personality - the scene on the Doohickey was near enough to the one outside the dam from the first one (which, remember, had the wonderfully open-to-interpretation battle in Mission City, where by default or design it's easy to assume Starscream doesn't really care what's going on). He just doesn't seem to take having the shit knocked out of him twice in as many minutes by Prime particularly well.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Nevermore wrote: Instead of storylines that star the movie characters, with toy-only characters as cannon fodder (we had the topic before)... how about NOT using the movie characters and telling a story solely about the non-movie characters instead? I know Reign of Starscream did, which is why I liked it more than the direct movie tie-in comics.

It's a nice idea but I do think there needs to be proper main film characters (not just the background boys like Jolt or Sideways) to be involved in each storyline. Not all of them, and you don't want the "Wolverine in every X-Man comic" thing by just using Prime all the time but have them front and centre in the action, even with new guys. I suspect most people who buy comics that tie into films expect and want the characters from those films to be in them, hell even I'm not that bothered by the idea of Movie comics that are that distant from the lead characters. I do think there's a potential untapped audience the movie comics haven't been reaching, the films do well with the prime comic book buying demographic but sales are always much lower than the stuff that's mainly selling to us old farts, I'd have expected them to be at least equal.

Cliffy's right when he says the Titan comic got it right with the whole "This is an alternate reality, just roll with it thing". There's around a years worth of strips where the comics at the absolute top of its game (bar the odd bizarre filler issue on the Jazz subplot) and producing a good fun knockaround kids comic. [I would disagree about the stock characters though, Prime was pretty much as close to the film version as you can get in a title that can't be as violent (fully pragmatic in betraying Stockade first despite having no real proof the alliance won't last) and the New Decepticons were a generally honourable if batty bunch]. Sadly almost the second they returned to "regular" movie comics to tie into ROTF the quality started to drop and we're now eight issues in and a story that had about enough plot for two is now only just finishing...
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yeh, I'd much prefer to see the proper characters fleshed out and used than a bunch of recolours and designs that didn't make the grade - that would really compliment the films nicely.
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Post by Denyer »

Mowry wrote:I tried repeatedly and was struck down... repeatedly. There were hints of things in Defiance that were to carry over into a possible movie-verse ongoing, but since that could never get any kind of support to move forward with... you get the idea.
Yeah, general impression is that approvals haven't become much easier, if they have at all, since the first prequel miniseries.

Is there more wiggle room with pre-movies-timeline ideas or less?

edit:

What generally puts me off comics continuities, TF or otherwise, is stories not seeming to "count" within them. It's gotten like that with the main IDWverse with different writers taking characters and tone in different directions, which is a shame... once you fall out of collecting a full run of a particular continuity, the momentum goes a bit.
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