Comic review: More Than Meets The Eye season 2: #28 onwards

[i_amtrunks]

Ha that's funny.

You know that it takes over a month to produce a comic? Lettering, colouring, editing and getting Hasbro's okay. It all takes time.

At Marvel in the 80's the comic you read would have been in production 8 months in advance

Fully aware that it takes months to produce a single comic. That's why this issues artist Rojo would have had more time that Milne, since Milne has had issues back to back as well as events and cons to get to as well.

[Sky Shadow]

You know that it takes over a month to produce a comic?

That's not actually right. It takes over a month to produce some comics. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley produced 110 consecutive issues of Ultimate Spider-Man in less than seven years, producing about sixteen issues a year.

[GoktimusPrime]

Love the smaller focused crew in issue #31, it's a character driven bottle episode with next to no action, but lots of dialogue and character building.

I'd say it does have action, more in the form of intense emotional action that has the audience at the edge of their seats! And I personally didn't mind that there wasn't any transforming in it, since they're within the confines of the Rod Pod. What gets me is when the Transformers have the opportunity to transform, and in that situation, transforming would make more sense (than say, running), but they don't. This issue didn't present the characters with any scenarios that would have solicited the use of alt modes, so I'm fine with it.

Some of the lettering was rather sloppy though, and 'Ravage' was misspelt as "Ravege" when Megatron was touch-talking* with him. Which kinda felt like a character spoiler for me -- okay, now we know that Megatron's defection is a feint, but I kinda wish now that I didn't know this. It would've made his eventual betrayal of the Autobots all the more shocking, as until now, I actually believed that Megatron had reformed. And it's kinda disappointing in a way too, because I wanted to see Megatron actually change into something more noble... and give others (like say Galvatron) more of a chance to shine as the primary antagonist for the Autobots.

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*I found that this was pretty interesting. For those who may not know, tactile signing is actually a real thing - it's how people who are both blind and deaf communicate (e.g. Australian tactile alphabet).

[Paulbot]

I think their conversation is ambiguous. Ravage is surprised to see Megatron trusted, Megatron acknowledges that he's still got a long way to go - not that it's necessarily a trick, he might actually be trying a new path and its something Ravage would be questioning.

[Paulbot]

Also, if Megatron was rusty in that language he may have misspelt Ravage accidentally, hence that's not a creator mistake but a character's mistake. No-prize worthy?

[i_amtrunks]

I didn't take Megatron and Ravages hand speak to indicate that he is faking his change of faction. Only that he has a way to go to garner their trust.

Hopefully Ravage is not there to spy on Megatron for Soundwave, that'd be too obvious for James Roberts.

[bassbot]

A very enjoyable issue, although Nautica's banter about her name bugs me. It seems that IDW's insistence on embedding the Transformers with Anglo-Terra-centricism is continuing... despite the fact that Nautica has _never_ been to Earth and wouldn't have had contact with Earth languages (let alone Modern English). And please don't tell me that this is all meant to be in "Cybertronian" and that it someone "translates" to Modern English, because I find that incredibly unlikely. It wouldn't even translate over to most other Earth languages, let alone to an alien language. *deep.sigh*

Nightbeat busting Swerve's auditions was hilarious. And the word "Crewditions" is something that is far more plausible because you can believe that Cybertronian languages could have portmanteaus - i.e. combining whatever the Cybertronian word for "crew" and "audition" is into a single word, e.g. if the word for crew is "hop" and the word for audition is "splat," then they could make "hoplat." But the whole thing with Nautica's name seems too implausible to me.

On the other hand, it was interesting to see how the voiceless "th" vowel is difficult for some Cybertronians to pronounce (re: "Eart"). It's believable that the Cybertronians would have borrowed the English word for "Earth" to describe it in their own language (similar to how some words in Australian English (especially some place names) are borrowed from Aboriginal languages, e.g. Parramatta, Joondalup, Wollongong et al.). I appreciate stuff like this - it helps to remind the audience that the Transformers are otherworldly aliens... but then the Nautica thing flies in the complete opposite direction.

In this video - about halfway through - James directly responds to this point. I never have a problem because they're aliens so I go with his point. Everything from their dialogue to the symbols on the ship is translated for us.

[bassbot]

I think their conversation is ambiguous. Ravage is surprised to see Megatron trusted, Megatron acknowledges that he's still got a long way to go - not that it's necessarily a trick, he might actually be trying a new path and its something Ravage would be questioning.

I also got this ambiguity. Perhaps he's making sure Ravage doesn't get off'd by Tailgate.

[Paulbot]

I missed it until just now, distracted by Whirl's avatar in the art and sitting in the cinema waiting for AOE, but in #30 Brainstorm is seen getting around his faceplate by "drinking" his fuel by pouring it directly into his fueltank by an arm port.

[Lordy]

Just read the latest issue - #32. Oh wow

Absolute destruction wrecked by the DJD. It is interesting to pin point when the DJD attacked the Lost Light, but will be interesting to see what the fall out is.

I loved the pairing up of characters, like Skids and Getaway, Nightbeat and Nactica and Megatron and Ravage. I found the discussion Megs and Ravage were having was very interesting and hopefully sets the tone for Megs for the rest of the IDW universe.

And Rewind is back!