[showka]

Is anyone reading this? Escalation and the previous six issue arc Infiltration have been my favorite Transformer related things since the movie. The stories aren't serious or realisitic so much as they're believable instead of insultingly dumb. Kind of like the Batman Animated Series, they explain a lot of stuff so that it at least is convincing within its own world.

[GMB]

I read the first issue of Infiltration, decided it wasn't my thing because apparently human characters in TF stories will always irritate the hell out of me unless they're gibbering semi-primates with clubs.

Then I read Beast Wars & dug that a little bit more--the focus was where it needed to be and was a nice enjoyable self-contained read.

Stormbringer . . .ehhh. If only there hadn't been a flashback every other page, I might have found it easier going, but I liked what they were doing insofar as filling in the background of Infiltration and the like.

I haven't picked up any of Escalation because IDW's cover prices mean I pick up maybe one title at a time from them and that's it. If it's downplayed the humans somewhat (God, that hacker girl got on my nerves in a record two pages) and the inlking of an actual direction's presented itself, I might give it another shot.

[showka]

I actually like the humans, because (as I think Simon Furman said) the Transformers all to often blows its wad early and we get panel after panel of giant robots fighting over a city. For a long time I never understood why the Transformers was set on Earth besides the fact that the robots needed their Earth vehicle alternate forms. Infiltration not only makes the Earth setting believable, it uses the setting to make the entire story more interesting. In doing this, it has to use human characters. In Infiltration especially, they drive the story.

I think the big problem is how cliched the human were. I don't mind the alien conspiracy guy, just because he's an adult and even though he has the most wacky premise, he never really acts like a tool. The girl isn't that bad most of the time but her premise is too corny. Thankfully its only dealt with occassionally, and maybe watching so many episodes of Batman recently have made me realize that characters like this don't have to ruin a comic book for me.

The only human I flat out don't like is that mechanic guy. He's super poorly realized and is drawn like an ugly muppet. Seriously, I wonder if Simon Furman even told the artist the mechanic kid was going to be a major character because he's drawn worse than any other human being in the series.

Speaking of drawing, I personally love the artwork. It didn't look that great at first, but either the artist is getting better or I've grown on it because it looks fucking wonderful now. There's a sense of realism, or maybe restraint in the drawings that just hasn't been present in anything related to the Transformers ever (the new comics are more bombastic than even the original cartoon show). In fact, thats probably what I like most about this comic in general, its all reasonable. Cool shit happens when cool shit is suppossed to happen, and it doesn't try too hard all the time.

I think even people who thought Infiltration was too slow will like Escalation. The pace is the same as Infiltration but more stuff is happening now. Also, the more gets revealed about how the plot and how the Transformers operate the better everything is.

A few times I got to the comic book store only to find the new Escalation wasn't there, and in my desperate whoredom I bought both the Beast Wars and Evolutions TPB. I have to say I'm dissapointed with them.

Beast Wars wasn't bad, its just not that interesting (sort of a side-story to the original Beast Wars cartoon, which I was never really watched). The art is fucking great though. The Predicon leader Magmatron looks awesome - he transforms into three seperate dinosaurs, and is drawn wonderfully.

Evolutions has a great concept and a wonderful first three pages (interesting design on the pre-awakened Transformers) but a story that moves slowly before reaching an abrupt, bullshit ending. The designs are neat. There's awesome pictures of Megatron and Prime in the concept art at the back of the book but - SPOILER ALERT - they aren't even in the story!

I didn't know that Stormbringer was a prequel to the Infiltration / Escalation series until it all the comics had come out, so now I'm waiting for the TPB to get released. I had no idea it would take as long as it has.

They're also running the Spotlight series as a kind of companion piece to Escalation, but most of the issues of that I've read seem like a huge cop-out. It takes the subtle, slow pacing of the main series and just rips it to shreds in order to show robots fighting on various random, cliched alien planets. To read them and still enjoy the "main" series requires constructing a mental wall within my mind that certain disturbing thoughts cannot pass. The Shockwave issue was fucking great though, and I like the way they draw Ultra Magnus.

[GMB]

Ehh. . .whether it's my lower standards (I have no problem with pages and pages of TFs whomping the shit out of each other) or the fact that Armada and the other shitty TV series they've done lately have had such annoying human characters it's soured me on the idea of creeping vermin in general, the humans always seemed like some unneccessary "identifying mechanism." That, plus when human characters are combined with Furman's writing (he has some ratehr grating writing tics) they just feel super-annoying to me. But that's just my opinion.

E.J. Su's still drawing the main series, yes? He's compenent enough, but his stuff doesn't quite have the punch TF artists like Figueroa and Guidi bring to the table, to me, anyways. Lord knows he's several orders of magnitude better than anyone Marvel could get on the damn book. Or Pat Lee.

Re: Stormbringer--you're better off waiting for the trade with it, however long it takes. I liked it, but that thing was a mess to read monthly. Even DW's G1 series wasn't as flashback-happy as that.

Beast Wars and Magmatron was pretty awesome. My only complaint was the lack of Rampage.

The preview pages of Evolutions and Spotlight hadn't exactly excited me, but I'll pick up Escalation and see if it's improved after a rocky start.