Comic a Review: Sins of the Wreckers

[GoktimusPrime]

The true identity of Ostaros came as a complete surprise to me!

New theory about the meaning of the name "Ostaros": the word "ostaro" means "skeleton" in Esperanto. This may be a reference to Ostaros being the first of a new breed having been built from "bare bones." Or perhaps a reference to Ostaros being the underlying structure for Springer.

Anyway, I now know two words in Esperanto, the other being the word for 'yoghourt' (Yakult).

[SMHFConvoy]

So does this mean that Rattrap handed Prowl over to Tarantulas after the Combiner Wars epilogue in Transformers? (formerly RID)

[i_amtrunks]

I want to know what Ye ramifications are for Springer now.

Is this why he came to just in time for Prowl to be saved? Is he programmed to obey Prowl much like Kup had been?

More questions than answers again. It's a good story, a very grey one, another one making Prowl super shady which was only touched upon really in the main books. I think it will read far better in one sitting than it did piece by piece.

More of an espionage thriller as compared to the all out action vibe of Last Stand.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

So, I just finished reading this (the whole bunch at once), and yeah...a bit of a mixed bag. What it did well it did very, very well, but what it didn't do well was not good. And unfortunately gets worse the more I think about it.

Spoilers btw.

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Tarantulas was great. Really well done. I loved Tidal Wave. Carnivac and friends were pretty sweet too, and the beasties' design was also very, very good. Up until the end, it was well-written, and I was genuinely interested to see where it was going.

But.

It kind of seems like it was trying too hard, and - in contrast - the story didn't really take advantage of the already ample resources it had. Tarantulas' designs/inventions are/were revolutionary by Cybertronian standards, but they all just get blown up with his base/the Noisemaze. Prowl's glimmers of conscience are potentially a really interesting topic/character trait/narrative feature, as is the relationship between Prowl and Mesothulas, but neither ever really gets explored in all that much depth. The biggest thing that annoyed me, though, is that the series seemed to just throw away a lot of significant stuff for not all that much impact. Kup/Prowl's mind-link thing? Nup, it's gone now, and the only real consequence is Prowl getting punched again. Hey, Guzzle's still gunning for Kup for his pals all getting killed, he's been waiting all this time for his revenge, and...oh, wait, he's dead. Verity Carlo's dying from radiation exposure, from the Wreckers' previous mission to Garrus-9, and...oh, look, she's better now! Thanks, creepy scientist guy, I sure didn't want to see how something like that might have gone down with the tight-knit Wreckers, especially not their feeling-responsible-now leader Impactor. And Springer...Springer. Springer's mysterious new origins just didn't 'feel right'. Springer isn't a minor character, he's a major character from the G1 cartoon series and one of the major Wreckers. He has a well-established personality and role, which just doesn't work with the cheerful-looking tabula rasa we see in the comic. The TPB notes say that the original draft was going to have Prowl kill Ostaros, and that Nick Roche rewrote it after the editor pointed out that Prowl doing bad things wasn't shocking anymore. That left him with Ostaros as a loose end, and he tied it up with Springer. But it just feels forced somehow, and also sort of messes with a pretty iconic character. I really think the potential of an artificial Cybertronian could have been put to better use, and that Springer was sort of a poor fit for the smiley little protoform. Heck, Roche could have used Stakeout, which would have added to the tragic aspect of how he wrote Tarantulas.

It's less that it was bad and more that it had so much potential, which ultimately just got wasted in a rush to wrap things up and/or for the sake of having a plot twist. I can't help but feel that trying for a better story and more consistent characterisation with bit less 'significance' and/or shocking reveals would have resulted in a better comic all around.

[GoktimusPrime]

I don't see how Springer's G1 persona should affect his IDW persona. They're two completely different continuities, and IDW have made far greater deviations with other G1 characters which Springer would pale in comparison by (e.g. Swerve, Brainstorm, Getaway, Prowl, Star Sabre, Dai Atlas, Spike - heck, even Megatron - etc.). Yet IDW have given us the most G1-accurate representation of characters such as Hasbro Overlord, Thundercracker, Hubcap etc. IDW always just pick and choose which characters they want to remain G1 faithful to and which ones they want to just massively deviate from. And Springer's origins doesn't contradict with any previous IDW canon (unlike say, Megatron's origin in the G1 cartoon ).

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

It feels (and actually sort of was) shoehorned in, is what I was getting at. A poor fit. As always it's just my opinion, but there it is.
In the case of, say, IDW Prowl, it still sort of works with his G1 self - logical, calculating, dispassionate, needing to be in control/on top of of situations. Likewise for Brainstorm - a chatty font of ideas. Star Sabre I can let slide since 1) he was really just the archetypal flawless hero in Japanese G1, meaning he didn't really have much of a personality to begin with and 2) the 3 pillars of society (medicine, law, religion) gone wrong thing is pretty clever. Star Saber worked as a religious extremist, and Prowl works as a rational-to-a-fault scheming puppet master. Even Megatron still seems like Megatron, albeit an older, more tired Megatron. Plus, most of the 'altered' IDW characters are relatively minor, at least from a Western G1 point of view. Getaway, Swerve, Tailgate...they were all pretty much nobodies until Roberts got hold of them. About the only 'established' character that springs to mind who's really, really different from their G1 self in MTMTE is Cyclonus, and personality-wise he's basically a different character altogether.
Springer's not minor, he has a well-established 'tough guy' character (which by its very nature also incorporates a certain degree of 'ordinary working bot'), and the adaption here doesn't really work IMO. It's like if Pokemon had started with Gyarados, and then - playing it seriously mind you - decided it started out as a Magicarp in a later release.

[GoktimusPrime]

But IDW established that Springer has no memory of being Ostaros. So whatever personality he had before is irrelevant because he was essentially born anew when he was rebuilt as Springer. At least IDW explicitly explained this, unlike say G1 cartoon Optimus Prime whose entire persona changed when he transformed from Orion Pax. Still had his memories of being Orion, but had a complete change of personality. Now you could argue that Optimus Prime's personality changed because he had a near-death experience as Orion Pax and learned from his grave error, fine... but then what about Rodimus Prime? He magically changed from this impulsive and rash Autobot to becoming this stoic and matured sage-like character after being transformed by the Matrix. And when he loses the Matrix he becomes his old impulsive self again! And this happened in both the G1 cartoon and the comics.

Also, his old smiley self as Ostaros is arguably reminiscent of the softer side of Springer's G1 persona, which he often showed towards characters like Arcee and Daniel etc. And we know that IDW Springer has a soft side to him too when he momentarily left the Wreckers to go and rescue Kup, which I felt was a beautiful "To Sir With Love" moment between Springer and his former teacher.