All Hail Megatron Coda #13 to #16

[Paulbot]

Thought I'd start a new thread for these four issues and leave the last thread for people who read the second trade to comment.

The first issue of the new series starts with an Ironhide/Optimus Prime chat. It kind of feels like an extended Mosaic and is very much a discussion with a few flashbacks thrown in. Both aspects are interesting. The art though... Adopting the movie feel is not too bad. The added complexity to the robot modes isn't too far removed from what we saw in the earlier IDW series. It's just the faces. Well for me it's the teeth (and Prime's retractable faceplate) that just look wrong.

The second story has more traditional looking character models, but the style and colouring make me think of the earliest Transformers tie-in books. I prefered it when I saw the previews in black and white, but it grew on me. The story features the giant Astrotrain as seen in TFTM but somehow makes him seem even bigger than in the film.

There's a throwaway line describing the tapes as Soundwave's children. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally as it clashes with Megatron: Origin (even though I tend to view that as an Dreamwave comic published by IDW). If it is I think it's the first time in canon that Soundwave has been called a parent to the tapes, and that's an idea I've personally never been a fan of.

I generally like how these two stories seem like two short Spotlight comics and look forward to the next three issues.

[kup]

so it's out? cool.

Sorry didn't read any of your post to avoid spoilers

[Paulbot]

Yes #13 was out last week I believe. No real plot spoilers in my first post.

[i_amtrunks]

Week before actually!

Got a mate to nab it for me when it came out, and I still have not read it, that's how bad the impression the 5 page preview gave me.

Might go find it and read it now, no good footy on yet and there's 15 minutes before the cricket starts!

[i_amtrunks]

Might go find it and read it now,

And what a waste of 5 minutes.

First story was... well boring. Sure it is nice to get a bit of depth to characters, (especially after the cartoon portrayal of characters used in AHM) and in that aspect its a decent but not outstanding story. However Ironhide and Optimus have been heavily featured in IDW stories already. Had it been a lesser known pair (Springer and Kup perhaps) it would have been far better.
Art is atrocious, and if I knew this was the direction IDW were heading in, I'd drop their comics right now.

The second story written by Mike Costa gives us a better idea of what to expect from the ongoing series, Starscream is back to his infiltration style character, a complete 180 change from where he was at the end of AHM (which was so very out of character for him in everything IDW), Kind of glad to see him back to scheming while Soundwave remains ever loyal. Also interesting that Starscream grabbed the Matrix.
Liked the little mental note about Razorclaw, and the splinter factions, ties into the "-tion" stories and other transformers lore in general.
Art was different, but in a good way, I actually enjoyed the change for the shorter story, but certainly something Id not like to see in the ongoing.

Both stories had an extended Mosaic feel to them, a nice change of pace, but I'm sure I will be sick of it come AHM #16, for what really is a series to tie AHM into the "-tion" and future ongoing series, a problem that should never have occurred in the first place.

[Blink90210]

I believe Mike Costa is going to do the on-going Transformers comic and based on what he's written, I've sure it'll be ok. As I said to PB two weeks ago, I'm not a fan of the teeth and the way the eyes are done and I really hope I can look past it because it really is distracting for me.