IDW Comic: Heart of Darkness - reviews and thoughts

[Sam]

So, did anyone pick this up and read it? If so, what did you think of it?

I wasn't too impressed by the art style, but there's definitely worse stuff I've seen (some of those panels in All Hail Megatron were quite crude).

I didn't find the story all that interesting, but it's not too bad, so I may go ahead and get issue 2. Storyline gets a 7/10 from me, art would be 6.5/10.

SPOILERS START...
I found the whole "undead universe" thing to have a bit of a passing resemblance to the "Chronicles of Riddick". Also wonder if Arcee is a match for Galvatron (probably not).
SPOILERS END...

[Grievous]

Out if all the Transformer comics too be released this year
this was the one I was most looking forward too...and...
I'm disappointed beyond belief...

While the story is okay...the art is simply a joke...
:eek:

Now while I freely admit that I could do no better...
the artwork is just silly...I cannot believe that this
mini-series about Galvatron and "the boys" has
pretty much been ruined from the out set.
:mad:

Seriously...can we just get Nick Roche drawing
every Transformer comic from now on...at least
then they'll actually look good...

[bassbot]

or EJ Su, Guido Guidi, Andrew Wildman... etc!
So many artist choices and the new guy fails on his first outing.

The art drew me out of the story, which wasn't terrible. And having Arcee and Hardhead back now is good timing imo

[GoktimusPrime]

Just read these comics today... Thoughts:

+ Art: Forget the crappiness, the inconsistency really bugs me. Sometimes they have small eyes, other times they have big eyes, sometimes Cyclonus is lavender, other times he's more purple... it's like Kung Pow Enter The Fist "Your shirt is red... your shirt is blue."

+ Story: feels a lot like Transformers Generation 2! Let's compare...
* In HoD Galvatron guided by the Anti-Matrix, peers through time and space to view the past and discovers a malevolent dark force that absorbs life, with a particular taste for Cybertronians. / In G2 Optimus Prime guided by the Creation Matrix peers through time and space to view the past and discovers a malevolent dark force (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Swarm_%28G2%29) that absorbs life, with a .
* In HoD Galvatron insists that Autobots and Decepticons must unite to fight against the darkness. / In G2 Autobots and Decepticons [url=http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/5/5b/Dirge_DeathSwarm.jpg]unite to fight against the darkness (]particular taste for Cybertronians[/url).
* In HoD Galvatron's enemies are skeptical of his claim. / In G2 Optimus Prime's enemies are intially skeptical of his claim.

I enjoyed this story back in 1993*, even with Manny Galan's dubious art (but at least his art style was consistent!)... but this time round... meh.

---------------------------------------
*Although apparently even Simon Furman isn't too proud of his writing of G2 given his suggestion to disregard G2 and continue G1 from where he'd finished it.

[Lord_Zed]

Just read these comics today... Thoughts:

snip/

I enjoyed this story back in 1993*, even with Manny Galan's dubious art (but at least his art style was consistent!)... but this time round... meh.


So same old same old, that's kinda the problem with Transformers comics thse days period. I yearn for something new, but I don't know what that is because everytime the new writters try something new it ends up just like something old.

[i_amtrunks]

Story is better than anything else IDW have tried to persuade us is worth reading in the past two years, it ties into the Furman stories more than the ongoing/more recent stories, which should be interesting, do IDW intend to go back to the large universe based story Furman was writing, or head back (again) to an Earthcentric snail paced story?

Art is laughable and all over the shop, but as a series, so far it is far more interesting and sci-fi than Zombie horror like I was expecting...

[GoktimusPrime]

I like that panel where they broke the Fourth Wall when Galvatron was falling through realities and saw various versions of himself, including different versions of G1 Megatron and Galvatron, Frank Welker, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, and even a MISB G1 Galvatron toy! :D

[Gutsman Heavy]

The art is by some web comic guy, so yeah, it's crap.

[GoktimusPrime]

The artist is Boo (tfwiki.net/wiki/Boo) and s/he's done TF art before for some of the TF Animated comics. His/her art style is okay (but not fantastic) for Animated, since it's quite cartoonish, but just doesn't suit the 'Neo-G1' aesthetics of HoD. Gah.

And being a web artist is no excuse for inconsistencies in one's own style. There's greater artistic consistency in Penny Arcade, Shortpacked and Homestar Runner!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y227/goktimusprime/avatars/1-up.jpg

[Gutsman Heavy]

True, but the 100 million other web comics are generally poorly drawn tripe, like this comic!

[liegeprime]

I like the cover art of some of the comics. They come up with various alternate covers anyways so I pick up the ones I like. As for the inside art... hmmmm...I prefer the art in the ongoing series, there are a lot of inconsistencies considering its the same artist..... sotry wise, well I just can't picture a non crazy Galvatron :p well, I guess since it's an alternate reality (IDWverse) Galvy I guess he could be sorta hero-anti hero in status.

[GoktimusPrime]

True, but the 100 million other web comics are generally poorly drawn tripe, like this comic!
Yeah but you usually don't have to pay $6-7 for the privilege of reading online tripe! ;)


As for the inside art... hmmmm...I prefer the art in the ongoing series, there are a lot of inconsistencies considering its the same artist.....
I know!! G2 had inconsistent art within the same issues, but that was because each issue was broken up into two parts, and each part drawn by different artists (Manny Galan, Geoff Senior). But at least each artist was consistent to themselves. It's not as if Manny Galan drew Transformers with wires hanging everywhere on one page, then made them "wireless" on the next only to have them dangling again on the following page!

Boo's art in HoD is like the story in Revenge of the Fallen -- haphazard and inconsistent!! :o


sotry wise, well I just can't picture a non crazy Galvatron :p well, I guess since it's an alternate reality (IDWverse) Galvy I guess he could be sorta hero-anti hero in status.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time for Galvatron. Remember in G1 when he helped instigate actions against Unicron... e.g. awakening Primus, launching the first strike against Unicron and inspiring the panic-stricken Autobot-Decepticon Alliance to rise up against Unicron etc. -- but the key difference it seems (so far) is that G1 Galvatron did all these seemingly altruistic things for his own self-purposes! (I love that line where after awakening Unicron Galvatron thinks to himself, "Even Gods can be fooled" ;)) - whereas HoD Galvatron seems to be more selfless. But then it could be argued that IDWverse Galvatron has never really been an inherently selfish agent anyway - cos even previously he (and all of Nova Prime's crew) were ultimately serving what they considered to be their calling from the Dead Universe. Even now he's following the calling from the Anti-Matrix rather than serving his own personal agenda... which doesn't make him as fun a character as G1 Galvatron (who doesn't love a self-centred bugger of a villain? ;)) -- but on the other hand it does make him more distinct from G1 Galvatron, which one can understand. Don't want everything here to be a rip off of previous continuities, right? :rolleyes:

[Fonecrusher]

I've thought about picking this up but I just wanted to know when in the current timeline is it set? I'm up to Ongoing #16 right now, and I'm wondering if is this a stand alone pick up and read series or should I read the newest Ongoin/Infestation issues?

[GoktimusPrime]

The story pretty much picks up after the whole Dead Universe/Gorlam Prime saga. The events in Infestation appears to occur after Hearts of Darkness - so you don't need to read that first.

[griffin]

Check tfwiki.net - they had a timeline a few months back when someone here was asking about the order, and they're likely to be updating it with each issue's release.

[GoktimusPrime]

Hnn... I'm experiencing problems accessing TFwiki, but here's the URL:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/IDW_timeline

And here it is at Teletraan 1 in case anyone else is having trouble accessing TFwiki:
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/IDW_timeline

[SMHFConvoy]

I actually like this series. DnA do good stories and they're working from Furman's, "tion" ark.

[Paulbot]

The story pretty much picks up after the whole Dead Universe/Gorlam Prime saga. The events in Infestation appears to occur after Hearts of Darkness - so you don't need to read that first.

Turns out Infestation occurred between panels of Heart of Darkness.

The art was a problem with this series. The odd and inconsistent drawings of Galvatron and his troops was one thing. The colouring didn't help sell the scariness of the situation or bad guys either. Everything was so bright. This could have been a two-parter I think, or a double-size "Alpha" issue or something.

Definitely not recommended reading in my opinion for the Chaos story. Read the Hot Rod focused issues of the ongoing instead.