Transformers: Windblade Vol. 2

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:58 pm

Actually forgot the Predacon team. They have a preexisting combiner already it seems. And Predaking is always a nice one to see since he's the only normally coherent con combiner

Edit: though it also seems they've been mothballed on Cybertron. So this coyld be a chance to see them shine. Other than that besides Beast Wars theres the handful Cybertron introduced and maybevthe Dini Force or Sharkticons as the others speculated.

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 8:36 am

Bit of a side note but I figured I'd bring up that there were apparently 12 colonies titans out there and we have knowledge of at least 4. Those being Velocitron, Eukaris, Prion, and Elita Ones. Any other guesses on what we might see in the future?

Death's Head · Post by **Death's Head** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 10:09 am

There's a colony called Prion? That's scrapie the bottom of the barrel.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 1:40 pm

Death's Head wrote:There's a colony called Prion? That's scrapie the bottom of the barrel.

HIGH FIVE!

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 4:19 pm

Planet Kiss Players?

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:24 pm

Death's Head wrote:There's a colony called Prion? That's scrapie the bottom of the barrel.

Its Nickle's homeworld. Was completely leveled by organics.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 8:29 pm

The basic problem of issue 5 remains in that this has the misfortune of having been written as an issue of an ongoing whilst it's been published as the penultimate part of a four issue miniseries.

It also suffers from the fact I suspect we'd all rather have a proper (and also good) Beast Wars comic rather than shoving strange altered versions into G1.

But: Of itself it works fine. A fun breezy read that has Starscream killing a flying giant golden bird at the end. Fab. Not hugely full of depth, and I suspect people who thought the "Planet govourned by who is fastest" was too childish won't like the "Planet where people are divided by whether they walk, fly or swim" (it's amusing that in Depth Charge they've included a character whose original counterpart would completely **** their system by being able to fly and swim*!), but overall I found it just a nice comic.

Also one thing I don't think I've said so far, Scott writes Rattrap much better than Barber did. None of that "Udder" phonetic stuff here.

Oh, and this issue apparently retcons Empire of Stone with its completely different take on Vanquish (which was actually set up in the first miniseries before Empire came out. You'd almost think McCarthy was a law unto himself). Go Windblade!

*And of course walk. But they seem to only be counting Beast-mode abilities.

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:34 pm

I think you summed it up quite nicely Dalek. That being said I enjoy the world of twins as it seems at least mildly unique. Also the back and forths between Windblade and Screamer are quite nice.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:27 am

Now that Scott has been a lot more explicit about her intention behind this series - she wants to unlock a ton of previously-inaccessible characters - this all makes a lot more sense. It's an issue made entirely of laying pipe.

The Titan fight was pretty cool. Extending the metrotitan concept to a bird sleeping under a volcano is interesting. I like the idea of Starscream just flying into someone's brain and lobotomising them without breaking a sweat.

The tribe system and the standard-formers/beast-formers thing was dumb as hell. Sounds like they would respond vigorously to a dose of Decepticonism. Was the implication that Rattrap was from Eukaris originally?

Count me in with everybody who likes the planet full of sweet little Micromaster combiners. That one also doesn't make much sense - it was a binary star system so they are all twins?

I'm sure more SF-minded writers can go back and make something of these societies. For now, the original goal of extending the universe seems to be going well.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:23 pm

Terome wrote:
I'm sure more SF-minded writers can go back and make something of these societies. For now, the original goal of extending the universe seems to be going well.

Yeah, I was thinking that. There is a real potential to expand the universe here but what is niggling me a bit is that I dont think Scotts writing syncs with the other two main writers. Not that Barber and Roberts are so in line, but the windblade stuff (both the original and the current series) feel like more of a throwbck in their simplicity. Its not helped by an art style that while fine really sticks out. You're getting a lot of new characters introduced and I think a better (hmm, that sounds harsh) artist would work.

But dont misunderstand me, I didnt find the issue terrible. Just feel a slightness to Scotts stuff which would sit better alongside McCarthy or Costa (thats not meant to be the backhanded compliment it reads like, I swear) rather than the more complex stuff that Roberts and Barber are aiming for.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 12:32 pm

It's true, this does seem slighter and perhaps skewed younger. I'm okay with that though because at the end of the day it means that Dinobot or whoever can pop up in MTMTE without the need for a whole song and dance to be made. The specifics of Beast Planet culture aren't terribly important - just that some exist to be played with later on.

I wonder if Till All Are One will be more obviously targeted at younger readers. There's room enough for something like that. The resemblance to the Robots in Disguise animated show and the presence of Windblade, who has an important role in that show, can't hurt either.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 2:58 pm

I'd say it's a little more straightforward (though as the basic format is the villain and hero are having to work together in an uneasy alliance where the former is the legitimate government and the later is potentially going to overthrow them is hardly standard kids stuff), but that probably says more for how dense the other two comics are than being a slight against this.

Now it's been fully confirmed in ExRID that Starscream sees dead people, I suspect that book is heading for some sort of a climax with his storyline, one that might see a drastically different status quo for the new book.

Death's Head · Post by **Death's Head** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:20 pm

Selkadoom wrote:Its Nickle's homeworld. Was completely leveled by organics.

It's just occurred to me that James doesn't name things by accident - so there must be a reason her homeworld is called Prion. It can't just be so I can make an appalling joke.

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 4:25 pm

Death's Head wrote:It's just occurred to me that James doesn't name things by accident - so there must be a reason her homeworld is called Prion. It can't just be so I can make an appalling joke.

Perhaps after Virus prions?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:26 pm

Though it's equally possible James didn't name the planet, the colonies and their world building seems to be very much a team effort.

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 3:42 pm

We never got around to making one of these did we? Well I suppose We could all gripe about/compliement it here then

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 1:25 am

Kinda thought I was the only one still reading this. Still dislike the style of art but this was one of the better issues, even though it kinda just ends and with the change in name and relaunch in the new year it seems like this series has been a bit of a flop. For me, it's too simplistic in its approach but the overall arc and ideas are interesting. I think the moving away from a single character focus will help and I'm curious how much room they'll allow for Scotts ideas.

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 5:09 am

Red Dave Prime wrote:Kinda thought I was the only one still reading this. Still dislike the style of art but this was one of the better issues, even though it kinda just ends and with the change in name and relaunch in the new year it seems like this series has been a bit of a flop. For me, it's too simplistic in its approach but the overall arc and ideas are interesting. I think the moving away from a single character focus will help and I'm curious how much room they'll allow for Scotts ideas.

I keep tabs on it if only for my Starscream fix and I admit that Its not as good as it could be but the ideas for these colonys hold some water to me and I enjoy seeing Windblade and Screamer play the intrigue game against each other with pulling in different world's

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:19 am

The art felt very rushed this month, after enjoying Howell's work on the series thus far a lot of the panels looked either half-finished or over stylised. I don't know if this was the result of last minute changes to try and wrap the series up; just general deadlines catching up or simply the artist flexing their own style a bit more after inheriting a look from Stone and it just not working for me.

In the issue itself, I really liked the Starscream/Windblade stuff, which nicely continued Scott's strength of dealing with Cybertron stuff along "I know you're a bastard, but we've got to move beyond treating each other as bastards if we're going to have peace" lines.

I also liked the bait and switch over Elita One and the THRONE OF DEAD AUTOBOTS that made me groan so much when reading the last bit of Combiner Wars. The idea they're just maximising limited resources and paying tribute to their heroes by using them as furniture was brilliantly daft and yet yet still made a warped sort of sense. Hopefully whatever DARK SECRET she's holding won't undermine this.

The real problem, and I've been saying this for four issues now, is that this is an ongoing suddenly turned into a miniseries and that hurts the structure of the whole thing. There's not really a resolution to anything and basically it just sort of stops. Obviously it was too late to avoid this even if changes were made to try and tighten things up, but I do wonder if Till All Are One will be hampered by being Windblade 2 issue 8 rather than the fresh start a series completely kyboshed from the off by the structural flaws in Combiner Wars needs.

Oh, and that cliffhanger was terrible. "Here we are, a bunch of guys who've never interacted with him in IDW continuity are really pissed about the death of Swindle! Just in time for his resurrection and for all of us to promote out Combiner Wars toys! Because launching this series with a Combiner Wars promotion worked out so well, let's do it with the next one as well!"

Selkadoom · Post by **Selkadoom** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:34 am

Upon second reading I have to agree with Dalek on how the art does seem to be rather subpar at times in this one and overdone at others.

As for Carcer and its crew I was happy to see Obsidian and Strika and that lovely cheesy line about Terminating, but on the whole I enjoy the silliness of each of the different groups and the whole heros into coffee tables thing is enjoyably stupid.

Though I am curious how deep they'll dig into the unused franchises and characters for the colonys

TFARCHIVE FORUMS

Transformers: Windblade Vol. 2

Windblade 6

Windblade #7