Comic a Review: Sins of the Wreckers

[i_amtrunks]

After a lengthy absence, the Wreckers are back.

Penned by Nick Roche with colours by Josh Burcham, the story picks up years after the events of "The Last Stand of the Wreckers". In fact the story is set rather recently, after Prowl was beaten by Prime and after Rattrap secreted him away.

Prowl has gone missing, and it is up to Kup, Arcee and the no longer required Wreckers to find him.

It is another five part series running across the summer of 2015-2016.

[i_amtrunks]

Well, well , well...

What a fantastic opening chapter. This comic is incredibly written, it gets it's hooks into you straight away and drags you along. The issue reads more like MtMtE in terms of being very character focused but it still felt like a quick rad (even though it wasn't).

Unlike its predecessor, this comic is not stand alone, in fact background knowledge of the previous Wreckers series and at least an understanding of the current series would be beneficial. The series seems to have taken place just after the end of the Combiner Wars series, after Prowl is ferreted out of custody by Rattrap and before Blackrock initiates his attack on the Earth based Ark.

I would fathom a guess that this whole story will tie back into the AHM Coda issue 15 that Roche wrote all those years ago where pretender tech was utilised to restore Kup after his ordeal on an alien planet.

We get a couple of interesting developments, Kup blacks out when Prowl goes missing and has an affinity for his "tech", connecting him to Prowl as he was / is a puppet of Prowls thanks to the Pretender tech.
We also get to see what has become of The Wreckers in peace time, and it is not sitting well for them.
Lastly, and most interestingly to me, we see Verity Carlo, who is wracked with sickness and has just re established contact with her Cybertronians bodyguard.

It all ties to the data slug Verity is in possession of with the Aequitas trial data that she is threatening to expose, which would most likely reignite the Cybertronians war.

Imam incredibly excited by this series, it is both fresh and different and yet seems to mesh very well with the current stories.

Bring on the next four issues!

[bassbot]

I really enjoyed it for it's own story, but yeah it seems like it will have a lot that will tie into previous fiction. Roche and Burcham nailed the art too!

[GoktimusPrime]

I really liked this issue. I like the idea of peace being the thing that kills off the Wreckers, and how they need conflict to 'survive.' Which is really quite sad, because even Megatron and Starscream seem to arguably be better at adapting to civilian life than the Wreckers!

It's also a really poignant allegory for the true nature of war. For example, we're often taught that in wars like WWII, we had "good guys" and "bad guys," but even the children's series Horrible Histories points out that both sides committed terrible atrocities, and more recent movies like Fury and Inglourious Basterds have attempted to portray WWII in a more historically accurate unflattering light (the DVD special features for Fury shows how they consulted with actual WWII tank crew veterans, and much of the barbarism shown was based on their own experiences). And although Inglourious Basterds is a highly fictitious story, the Basterds themselves are actually based on real people. I think that Agent Fowler's description of the Wreckers in Transformers Prime is an apt one; they're black ops. They operate outside the normal chain of command. And yet when that chain of command no longer exists, they are unable to operate. The psychology behind the way that the Wreckers seem to also be making up their own micro-societal rules (re: Guzzle's crime and punishment) is interesting. Makes me wonder what the Wreckers would turn into if they were ever isolated... would there be some kind of nasty Lord of the Flies stuff happening?

[doublespy]

I haven't really followed Nick Roche's work since LSotW. But looks like he got better at inking, and he's always been good at shading. The line art looks very sharp and crisp.

[Paulbot]

[ I've spoiler hidden things in this post because this issue is newly out and with the holidays people might not have been to their comic shops and you should buy and read this comic before you look at spoilers. ]

Just read issue 2 and big spoilers ahead, but I was not expecting that there'd be Maximals! or that Carnivac would be one of the Wrecker's adversaries!! or a triple-changing Tidal Wave with a whale mode!!!

After issue 1 only one thing seem obvious and cliched (Verity's pregnant) and issue 2 seems to back that up even further (but I'm not sure why that would be a plot point for this series).

I wasn't totally sold on this series after issue 1 but am generally suprised by issue 2 and look forward to issue 3.

[GoktimusPrime]

As someone who would always rather the use of an existing toy, I would've liked to see them use Orcanoch. I suspect that this character shares nothing else with his original namesake beyond just the name.

Also, IDW keeps on misspelling "damn" as "damm," but they can spell "condemn" correctly. And I don't accept that it's a censorship thing, because IDW have used far worse words than "damn" in their TF comics -- words that I cannot even repeat here. Words that I wouldn't use IRL!

[Paulbot]

As someone who would always rather the use of an existing toy, I would've liked to see them use Orcanoch. I suspect that this character shares nothing else with his original namesake beyond just the name

The only Orcanoch bio I can find suggests it is an AI not an actual Transformer and it doesn't have a robot mode, and it's a dolphin (and much smaller than a whale) so wouldn't have been a great choice for this role. And if you're going to have a 'bot be a giant aquatic animal they chose well and I hope it gets made into an actual toy in the Titans and/or BW20th line.

[GoktimusPrime]

Fair call. I would love to see a BW Tidal Wave get made as a toy as we've never had a whale TF before! Although the one beast mode that I really, REALLY want to see is a chicken. I'm serious.

[i_amtrunks]

I like where this is going, and loved the introduction of beast based Cybertronians, if only for them to be wiped out!

Surely the big bad that has Prowl is IDW verse Tarantulas? It's not spoilers and I cannot be the only one thinking it, the mad cackling and the webs with the tech organics? Although I do wonder who broke Prowls connection.

I loved Tidal Wave being a huge whale, I would buy that Titan or leader class toy in a heartbeat, and I've been very finicky and sparse with my tf choices of late. I did love that he was super sensitive and that he didn't have a robot mode. Both amusing and a way for the Wreckers to get on board, I am glad we aren't having four issues of setup and one to conclude.

Guzzle has lost his marbles completely, ripping apart Polar claw like he was ripped apart in The Last Stand of the Wreckers. Also not sure if Carnivac spoke to Impactor or not, hope that gets resolved or mentioned again if it's some kind of hypnosis or something.

Come on issue 3!