Because of the impending Turkey Day, you get your comic review one day early! Don't thank me, thank the guy that created stuffing!
The new
issues of both Robots in Disguise and
More than Meets the Eye, the two
newer Transformers titles from IDW came out this week. This left me with a decision to make on which
one to review, but to avoid any spoilers given that More than Meets the Eye is finishing up a three-part story arc this
week, we’ll go with Robots in Disguise #11.
Cover-
Being a
standard IDW book, there are multiple covers for the title. I chose cover “B”. This cover depicts the character Arcee
fighting what looks to be generic Decepticons.
Arcee is one of the only female transformers and Casey Coller does a
great job of not only showing her power, but distinguishing her from the
bigger, bulkier male autobots. Even without
the pink color scheme and the lipstick (really? lipstick?) Arcee still has a
feminine quality about her that helps her stand out. It doesn’t hurt that she is written in this
series as a pretty bad-ass assassin too, which this cover just helps to distinguish. The design of the cover is very interesting
too as the circular path of the flaming electro sword is cut by both Arcee’s
figure and the gun that she is holding (which looks like a Rob Liefeld special
out of a 1991 X-Force book). The gun does a great job of pointing to the
focal point of our cover though: Arcee’s face.
Joana Lafuente, the colorist on
the cover does a good job of utilizing the electro-flame sword and its path
through the air as a light source. I may
have made her blue eyes a bit more prominent in order to get her face to pop
even more, especially since it is backlit in the orange glow of the electro
sword. Regardless, this is a very solid
cover that utilizes both design and color to create a quality illustration.
9/10: Not only a well done cover in terms of execution, but
it is also nice to see a cover depicting a Transformer that is not necessarily
one of the “major” characters.
Story-
Robots in Disguise is interesting in
that it carries far more plotlines than any of the other Transformers comics
being published. You could seriously
branch this series off into at least one, if not two others and it would work
just as well. That being said, the
“previously in” page is nearly essential to make sure you remember what happened
in each issue. This one is no different,
especially considering the fact that last issue was a time-jumping jumble
starring Optimus Prime that only hinted at parts of the main story that John
Barber is telling here.
One of the
interesting parts in this series is that each issue, except for the two
focusing on Optimus, are generally told through the eyes of one of four
Autobots: Bumblebee, Prowl, Wheeljack or Ironhide. This issue takes a break from that and uses
Starscream as the “narrator” which works really well as he is not primarily
“Megatron’s bitch” in this book as he is in most other Transformer’s
fictions. Barber has done a good job of
really fleshing out the character of Starscream, and even though it is hard to
trust his true motivations knowing what we all know about him, the fact that he
is more than a one note character anymore really makes this book work and
provides more than just the standard good vs. bad, black and white conflict.
The most important thing with a big team book like
this is properly identifying the characters, especially since many of them look
similar aside from a different paint job.
True, many of the people that are going to be regular followers of the
books are well versed on the different characters, especially the ones that are
primarily used here, but by subtly slipping the names of the characters in here
and there, it assures that any new or less fanatic readers are not playing a
guessing game or spending the majority of their time on Wikipedia trying to determine
who is who. Barber does a decent job of
this. He could go all Chris Claremont
and tell you who everyone is along with their alt mode in each initial
appearance of the book and that would actually not be too intrusive if he kept
it to the main players, but this way he provides us the information while
allowing us to avoid breaking the flow of the story. While a dossier would be nice, it is not a
necessity and Barber does a great job moving the story along while interjecting
new characters (to that issue). A book
involving a huge cast like this is not easy but Barber handles it with ease.
Now, the
meat and potatoes of the story: Barber
continues his story of the three political factions on Cybertron, all hoping to
gain rule through free elections. This
is where Starscream the character really shines as he has always been a master
schemer, and really that works best in a political setting. This issue mainly deals with the way
Starscream is handling the Decepticons, led by Shockwave, and their plans to
ruin his bid for leader of Cybertron.
The uneasy alliance that he makes with Prowl, who in turn uses Arcee as
his main weapon against the Decepticons, is sure to backfire but it also keeps
the mystery on Prowl chugging along.
Prowl seems almost Judge Dredd-ish in his upholding of the law and the
fact that his right hand, Arcee, is basically an assassin just adds another
level of intrigue to the character.
The most
stunning revelation actually shouldn’t be much of one at all. It was hinted at two issues ago, but nothing
was confirmed until the last page of this issue, and it’s a doozy.
The one
main problem that plagues this book is just the amount of stuff going on. This does not really bother the casual reader
that just picked up this issue, but two issues ago the dinobots and Ironhide
were out in the wilds of Cybertron where they encountered the aerialbots,
combined (seemingly against their will) into the form of Superion. This was interesting and made for a great
cliffhanger. After waiting an extra
month because last month was an Optimus issue, I come to find out that there
are no revelations about Superion or the dinobots. Not only are we waiting for that cliffhanger
to resolve itself from two issues ago, now we have a new, even bigger one at
the end of this issue. Barber does a
good job of weaving the web, but a little closure of some sort would have been
nice after the two month wait.
8/10: This is a book
that combines political intrigue, action sequences, and transforming robots. Plus it has many of the more well known
characters from the mythology which makes it fun for young and old fans alike.
Art-
You would
think that it would be difficult to create the illusion of emotion using a
robot, but that is exactly what Guido Guidi does here. The transformers in this book have more
emotion than many human characters in other comic books. He does a decent job of varying the angles to
aid in the storytelling as well. The
relative absence of shots pulling far enough back to depict the feet of the
Transformers is a little odd, but the level of precise detail required in
drawing these characters could contribute to the lack of longshots. The backgrounds are pretty sparse but the
group shots and action shots are very well done.
I am not
wild about the colors by Priscilla Tramontano.
She gets the colors right, no doubt, but it seems like she is too
concerned with making sure that parts of each character “lights up” be it their
eyes or somewhere on their bodies, and this becomes distracting after a few
pages. It also seems like with the
overwhelming amount of purple in the Decepticons that she would make the
background in those scenes a little less so.
7/10: Good art
suffers a tad from lack of backgrounds and a few coloring missteps. This is not a poorly drawn book and the fact
that such detailed characters do not become jumbled messes proves to me that
the art team has done an admirable job.
A decent transformation but seems pretty generic, almost like the old generation one toys
so...much...purple
Overall- 8/10: Initially I enjoyed More than Meets the Eye more than this book, but with the emergence
of Arcee and the intrigue behind both Starscream and Prowl, this title is
quickly becoming my favorite of the Transformers books currently being
produced.
Have a great Thanksgiving, to all of you that celebrate, and to those that don't, eat a turkey anyway.
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