IDW Spotlight: Arcee (Spoiler warning)

[Sam]

So, what did you guys think of this?

I wasn't really that happy about how they made her into a psycho fembot.

I had wanted to see her supposed brief stint at the hazardous chemical factory.

Just felt that for once I was keen to see some pre-war Cybertronian life / story. I don't mind if during the course of the story they made her into a soldier, but not a psycho from the start.

[GoktimusPrime]

It took me a while to warm up to it, but I did like how they made her a crazy psychotic beeotch and completely took her away from all the other girlie stereotypes that this character copped in G1.

The G1 Arcee origin story IMO was the worst piece of crap ever written by Simon Furman (who otherwise is my favourite TF writer). Her appearance in Season 3 was mediocre, ended by the cruel fate of being binary bonded to Daniel... and in The Headmasters she was nothing more than the Autobot Headmasters' freakin' receptionist! "Arcee! Go fetch Fortress and Chromedome a some tea and coffee!" -- she was like those bridge bunnies in Macross.

I also like how it tied in a lot of elements from other Spotlights. The references to Nova Prime and Jhiaxus are also sweet references to G1 and G2. (although Nova Prime is called Prime Nova in G1)

What also impressed me was the Autobots' prison. Previously we've always seen Transformers being imprisoned like humans. Placed in cells, and often it's too easy for them to break out (e.g.: Bludgeon, Octopunch and Stranglehold) or for someone else to bust them out (e.g.: Hellbat --> Guyhawk). I like how they've made good use of the fact that their prisoners are NOT humans... in fact, NOT organic life forms so instead of detaining them in cages or cells, they simply imprisoned their extracted Sparks! How cool is that?!

And their shells are stored separately - disassembled! So aside from the fact that it's a heavily guarded, secured and fortified prison, there's the fact that the prisoners' Sparks are physically removed from their dismembered bodies!!

Aside from the amazing security this provides, it also helps to create and remind the audience that of how otherworldly the Transformers are - and I've always liked it when writers portray Transformers as being truly alien. To that end, I also like how Arcee resents the whole "gender" thing amongst Transformers and also explains why they have "genders" in the first place.

I really liked the scene where Fortress Maximus is speaking to Arcee with her body disassembled... reminds you that they are machines. It reminds me of Dr. Slump where Arale-chan's head would talk to Dr. Senbei or her body would talk to him without a head. It also looked a lot like other classic robot science fiction like I, Robot, The Positronic Man and A.I.



IDW's Arcee is very much an entirely different creature to any other Arcee. But other than that I quite like the character. (^_^)

[i_amtrunks]

I loved it from the get-go.

I wouldnt call it a Spotlight though, it didnt really focus on Arcee all that much, but it was an integral part of the IDW Furmanverse, it sits alongside Shockwave, Prime and Galvatron as the real "must read" Spotlights.

Don't want to go into too much detail, but I loved the character, loved all the cameos (Banzaitron!), loved the dark and angular art style and colouring.

Have a few questions and thoughts that are more spoilery, I'll leave them till more people can nab the comic.

[GoktimusPrime]

I wanna see Banzai-Tron in action... I hope that they'll make him just as cool as he was in Cybertron Chronicles.

[Paulbot]

I think it's now clear that the idea that Spotlights are standalone stories is pretty much out the door.

The new design of Arcee is nice but I didn't like Fort Max's implied new alt mode. And some of the cameos annoyed me because they seemed really out of place and I don't think there's room for those stories to be told (outside mosaics maybe?)

[GoktimusPrime]

fwiw I think that Verity and the new Arcee are HAWT!

I think it's now clear that the idea that Spotlights are standalone stories is pretty much out the door.

...were they ever stand-alone? IMO they've all been interlinked to some degree.