Void Rivals #3 Review

Hi, I'm Phil Lamar, voice of Green Lantern and

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Hello everyone and welcome to the pull bag. This

is TFG1 Mike and this is episode 534 of the pull

bag. This is Void Rivals number 3. This was pre

-edited for Jesse Early's... Matrix Prime YouTube

channel video that he did where we were talking

about Skybound Entertainment's Void Rivals number

3 so not editing for me on this one just throwing

it in here so people can hear it and thank you

so much for listening episode 535 where we continue

on with the Transformers Marvel run will be coming

up next after this but please everyone check

out Skybound Entertainment's Void Rivals, it's

a cool new series that we are really enjoying.

Now, on with the show. Hey, everyone, you're

listening to Void Rivals Rundown number three.

I am Jesse. I'm joined by TFG1 Mike. Hello, hello.

Hello. Yeah, we're still doing this. This is

the third rundown of the comic here. We still

don't have a name for this thing yet. Well, yeah,

for your lovely YouTube channel here, we don't,

but I'm just putting it as an episode of the

pullback after the fact. And the thing is, is

that I don't remember seeing whether this is

a full ongoing, a five -issue minis. I don't

remember between the last time we recorded and

now. And yeah, we are continuing on with Void

Rivals. Number three, like you said, for anyone

who doesn't know who's been living under a rock,

written by Robert Kirkman. Art is done by Lorenzo

DeFelici. The colorist is Matt Matthias Lopez.

And the letterer is Russ Wooten. Yeah, so as

you were saying that, this is an ongoing comic

series. Okay. Which kind of, as we get to the

end of the synopsis here, I got a question about

the ending of this comic. Okay. All right, so

again, this is Void Rivals number three. I'm

going to do a quick synopsis here. The first

one here comes from ImageComics .com. So it says,

Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felice's new shared

universe debuts a monstrous new villain. Fighting

for their lives to return to the Sacred Ring,

Derek and Celula face a new threat, Capture.

And they're not the only prisoners on this ship.

So a quick rundown here from my notes. So Derek

and Celula pick up the fight with a Skuxoid from

the last issue. So if you didn't read number

two. Go back, read number two. You can listen

to our breakdown of that here on my video or

up on geekcastradio .com. From there, Derek is

taken down by the Skuxoid, who in turn is taken

down by Salila, who appears to be a really skilled

fighter, not just a pilot. The two escape the

Skuxoid and run to the ship looking for a place

to hide. They stumble upon a room with a giant

robotic scorpion they have to fight. Salila holds

her own fighting it while she lures it into a

mechanical door, which Derek is able to smash

it with. Afterward, they hear a voice from a

nearby prisoner cell. It turns out to be a Quintesson

Executioner. Quintesson quickly tries to befriend

the two as they rush to try to escape using the

Quintesson ship. When they reach the ship, they're

met by the Skuxoid who explains that the Quintesson

can't be trusted. Upon further research, the

Skuxoid has learned that Derek and Salila are

not enemies after all. So Derek and Salila are

able to make a deal with the Skuxoid, giving

them a ship and then leaving the Quintesson there

with Skuxoid. After a few days on the ship as

they near the Sacred Ring. Salila seemingly turns

on Derek, leaving us with our issue three cliffhanger.

So where do you want to start? I guess we can

start with the Quintesson because you had questions

all about the Quintessons. Yeah, I mean, so going

back to the Transformers, Transformers the movie,

right? So they call essentially all those beings

that we see when Hot Rod and Cup are kind of

captured. They're all referred to as the Quintessons.

And Quint, right, means five. Right. And really

all we see there is one character who has the

five faces. But again, everyone's referred to

as a Quintesson. So we did a little research

before this. You sent me some notes. I was able

to find some notes as well. The character we're

introduced here within the comic that we also

see in the movie is referred to as the Quintesson

Executioner. Actually, is it the Executioner

or the Prosecutor? Are they wrong? Is it Prosecutor?

Yeah, the Executioners are the... Yeah, that

doesn't look like... Oh, you're right, you're

right. Yeah, sorry. Okay. The Quintesson Prosecutor,

yep. Yeah, the Quintesson Prosecutor, because,

yeah, so the way that I see this is that Quintessa

is the name of the planet, regardless of, you

know, obviously... logically Quint means five,

whatever, but Quintessa is the name of the planet.

They say the name of the planet several times

in the movie. They are all Quintessons, just

like Earth is the name of our planet and most

humans are all Earthlings kind of thing. Like,

that's the only... Logic, I can see, is to calling

them Quintesson Judge, Quintesson Bailiff, Quintesson

Executioner, Prosecutor, Scientist, etc. It's

just, that's their race, I guess? I don't know.

That seems very odd. Well, it is fiction, and

it was 1980s fiction, so who knows? So, I mean,

if you don't have a picture of this guy up, he

essentially has an alien from the alien movies

sort of head. right sort of elongated backwards

um and he's got like tentacles for arms and just

like the uh the five -faced quintesson he's got

like uh some sort of i don't know power booster

thing in the bottom so he can float yeah he's

got a jet type yeah thing so that's kind of the

description of what he looks like um but i think

back in was it the last episode maybe was the

first one um where i i thought maybe we would

see a quintesson as a character who pops up and

Here he is. Here he is. That's right. So I guess

as a character from the Transformers universe,

I mean, is this one you were happy to see? Is

there another character you wish you would have

saw? I think what they're doing here, because

the other thing is, since we've done the last

one, I believe SDCC had happened, and they had

done a... Maybe we talked about this last time.

I don't remember, but they did a, uh, the skybound

transformer panel recap from San Diego comic

-con. I don't remember if we talked about that

or not. And the only thing I'm going to bring

up here is that, um, uh, let's see, Robert Kirkman

created giant building blocks for Johnson to

work off of story -wise. So Kirkman created the

building blocks for this and Johnson is using,

I mean, he's a good writer or whatever else,

but Kirkman's writing this. So if Kirkman's making

the building blocks, I like the small, like if,

Void Rivals is supposed to be this brand new

sci -fi space series that has hints at other

things that are happening somewhere else at some

point within the skybound entertainment. Transformers

Energon Universe. I'm perfectly fine with that.

I like these kind of... I don't want to see Derek

and Salila come up against Thundercracker or

whatever. I don't want to see... I like the way

that this is going where you're seeing random

bits of oh, here's a Skuksoid. Skuksoids were

from Season 3 as we talked about last issue.

Here's the Quintesson Prosecutor. What the hell

is he doing imprisoned with this other... The

funny thing about the Skuxoid is, like it says

in this comic, the Skuxoid is only doing it for

the money. He's not doing it for anything else

other than to get paid. And if he ain't getting

paid, then he ain't going to do it. Well, so

I got another question for you. Sure. In the

first issue, we saw Jetfire. Yep. In issue two,

right, we saw the Skuxoid still in this one.

We saw the Quintesson in this one. We know that

the Transformers comic, which is debuting in

October. right um is kind of i presume based

on what we've seen of a preview is set kind of

back in that 1984 time period yes so it is completely

set in yes it is yeah uh i saw again it was another

panel or another breakdown or whatever oh here

it is uh yeah it's basically 1984 One of the

Q &As was the Autobots are navigating this brand

new world to them, Earth, for the first time.

No plans to tie in other Hasbro properties, visionaries,

and humanoids at this time. What I loved about

this Q &A response, clear separation between

what Paramount does with Transformers and what

Skybound is doing. They do have plans to republish

older comic content from IDW and Marvel, so there

is that. And Skybound, even though they're starting

with the 84, 85 Transformers characters, they

are not limited to those with their Transformers

comic. Kirkman jokes that he wants to get Bulkhead

into the comic. Is it confirmed anywhere, though,

that the time period, I know they're starting

with the 80 -45 figures or characters, but is

it confirmed anywhere that the timeline for the

comic is actually set in the 80s? I don't think

so. Well, my question for you was going to be

was, okay, we saw Jetfire in the first issue,

and he took off seemingly to go somewhere, right?

And we've got some other characters that we know

from the world of Transformers that we saw in

issue two and then here in issue three. If the

Transformers series is taking place in the 80s,

do you think what we're seeing here within Void

Rivals may be a completely different time period?

Maybe some point in the future? Again, we saw

Jetfire, but he had crash -landed there, had

been there for who knows how long. Maybe he was

there at some point in the future that we will

get to within the Transformers comic series.

I'm not sure. I really am not sure. I don't remember.

If the first two issues, if a date or a year

was ever set for Void Rivals, like, I don't,

like, it doesn't even say, I mean, we pick up

issue three right where issue two left off with

them facing off against the Skuxoid. So it doesn't

really have a previously on, and this is the

year 2157 or whatever. Right. And I don't remember

the first two issues specifically saying a date

of a year at all. So, yeah. I'm going to be an

ass here and assume that it is sometime before

1984, 1985. From what I've seen and what I've

heard Daniel Warren Johnson talk about, he was

on somebody's podcast, YouTube, whatever, I don't

remember. But he did say that it was a 84, 85

starting point. So it is after... the Autobots

and Decepticons leave Cybertron, the crash lander.

He's basically there. He's basically starting

a new G one essentially with the comic. Okay.

I just thought it'd be cool if they did. I just

thought it'd be cool if they had like some time

shifting where we thought it was taking place

at the same time to end up not being. Yeah. I'm

not sure. I, again, the void rivals characters

feel to me like they are any other character

from like, and I'm only saying this because that's

what I remember, like when the Skuxoid goes into

the port in season three, when the Skuxoid is

in season three of the cartoon, like all the

other species of peoples that are there, the

Skuxoid, the Viscariot, it's like going into

the cantina in Star Wars. You have all these

characters together, and I'm assuming that Derek

and Salila are not. characters from the future

or the past or whatever timing i'm assuming it's

all in the same timeline unless the creators

tell us differently so okay yeah i was just kind

of curious what your thoughts on that were yeah

i guess so so overall i guess how do you uh what

did you think of this this issue i think it's

good i think it's you know comics have this this

tendency to do maybe one or two issues of story

building kind of thing. And then they'll do an

issue like this one, number three, where it's

mostly there is story building, but it's mostly

an action scene. And I don't have a problem with

that at all whatsoever because you need clear

separate for me. I need clear separation with

story and action. I need, you know, some story

and then, Hey, guess what? We're going to go

fight this guy or we're going to do this or we're

going to do that or whatever. So. This being

more of an action issue, I like because things

are actually happening. Things are actually being

done with these characters. And they're basically

trying to get away from the Skuxoid or whatever

they're doing with the Skuxoid here. So I like

it. I think it's fun. I think it's really fun.

So I'm sort of a mixed bag on this one. I do

like the action. I'm a big action heavy type

person. But I felt like overall it didn't really

advance the story much, which again, I talked

about last episode here. When you've only got

so many panels, we've got to wait a month to

tell the story. I'm kind of disappointed by that

because this is 22 pages? Something like that,

yeah. Oh, I'll talk about something in just a

second. Yeah, this is 22 pages of the... story

here and uh really all they did was leave the

scuxoid but and we learned about a quite a song

yes they okay but that's two story points like

you're learning a little bit about the scuxoid

like he well like i've already said he's made

mention of the fact he's only doing this to help

his he's doing the bounty hunting to get money

for his wife and kids to be able to eat kind

of thing. He's doing it to survive kind of thing.

So that's one story point. Yeah, this is only

22 pages, but most comics' story are 22 pages

for single issues, and I think it does a good

job of, like, once they free the Quintesson,

get on their ship, and I'm jumping way ahead

here, we kind of have a little bit more of, like,

between Derek and Salila. Oh, come on. How can

you be so negative? I don't know about you, but

I am. I was pretty sure we'd be dead by now.

You know, so we have some characters here. It's

just that the action in this takes over a little

bit more, but I'm always the one that has problems

with pacing in comics at times. If things happen

that I just don't think should be happening or

I just don't get it, I got this pretty easily.

It's like... fight the skuxoid escape oh wait

before we escape there's another mysterious voice

and then there's this one -headed tentacle jet

firing prosecutor quinto okay well so now who

can we trust we trust the skuxoid or do we trust

the quintesson and blah blah i don't know i think

it worked yeah i just wish the pacing was uh

a little bit quicker in terms of like overall

story yeah so Last panel here, or last page,

sorry. So Leela seemingly turns on Derek. What

do you think is going on there? I do not know,

but I can't wait to find out. So the lead up

to this is they're approaching the Sacred Ring.

Sacred Ring is split essentially into two, one

for each one of their races. And they're each

going to basically go their own separate ways

so that they're not landing. together in one

side of the ring. And this is when she seemingly

turns on him and uses some sort of electric zappy

power from her staff and knocks him out. So I'm

wondering if she's going to sort of take him

to her side of the ring as a quote -unquote prisoner?

I don't know, I guess. Yeah, no, I don't know

what's going to happen with her, why she did

the... the thing to Derek and what, whether she's

taken in prisoner and Hey, so far they've kept

each other alive. Who knows? Right. Yeah. So

I'm, I'm almost wondering if, if that's kind

of what's going to happen, she's going to take

them to, to her side. If you go see what pages

is on again, I'm looking at the digital version

of the comic. Me too. If you go to page 30, right,

we get the cover for void rivals. Number four,

someone sitting on some sort of throne there

based on the colors. I would think it would be.

uh on solilo's half of the ring yeah uh so so

yeah like i've said i'm almost wondering if she's

going to take him there as a sort of quote -unquote

prisoner but if you know essentially knocking

him out was a kind of sort of a way to kind of

help protect him i think she's still i think

she's ultimately still going to be working with

him they're going to be working together but

i'm wondering if she's just kind of doing this

uh i guess for her benefit when she does take

him to her side of the ring my thoughts would

be that he would essentially be a prisoner but

that she would help him kind of once they're

there. Yeah, maybe. I'm not sure, but... Again,

this is an ongoing series, so I can't see them

being... Being foes here, I think they're going

to continue to team up as the series goes on.

Yeah, I think this shocking cliffhanger kind

of thing is, number one, we're at the third issue.

We need to do something besides random. I don't

mean random as in to be insulting, but random

Transformers guest appearances. We need to do

something with these characters. We need to,

like was said earlier in the comic, she's not

just a pilot, is she? Kind of like there's more

to it. Jesse, damn it. There's more to her than

meets the eye. God damn it. I was hoping not

to have to make that reference. But like, and

that's the thing is that who knows, maybe she

is doing this to protect him. Maybe she is doing

this. We don't know because she just does it

there. And that's what I like. She just does

it. There is no like, oh, hey, by the way, I'm

going to knock you out now. What? Like there's

none of that kind of stuff like suspense. And

I think that's good because comics do need suspense,

especially if you're starting a brand new title,

a brand new universe with these characters, specifically

the void rivals characters specifically and whatever

their lovely ring is between the two races. So

yeah, I. I don't know. I'm digging it. I'm really

digging it. So I think that's all I've got here

for issue three. Is there anything else you wanted

to bring up? It's a series that I'm invested

in to the point of I'm perfectly fine doing it

this way, whereas normally I would be like, no,

I'm waiting for the trade. No, I want the whole

story at one time. It's like the old Netflix

model, like stream everything all at once kind

of thing. But no, this is fun. figure out a day

and date to record these and this is awesome

and yeah it's uh hopefully everyone's joining

us for these as far as like getting to read the

comic for themselves because what comics needs

today in my personal opinion is something new

and fresh yet familiar and i think that's what

void rivals is we were introduced to new characters

and new races yet there's a Rockaroid or a Skuxoid

or a Quintesson Prosecutor or whatever, here

and there and everywhere. So, yeah, that covered

issue four. September 20th can't get here fast

enough. The last issue before Transformers number

one? Yep. So they're probably, I don't know,

again, I'm being an ass here, assuming things,

they're probably going to ramp up a little bit

on the Transformers stuff in issue four, but

who knows? Yeah, maybe they'll either introduce

something Transformers related within that, or

maybe they'll give us another more extended preview

at the end. I'll have to make sure to check the

end of that. I always read to the end of the

book, no matter what, just in case. Cause I forget

stuff. Like I, I'm like, when you said there

was a preview, I'm like, wait a minute. Another

one. Was there another new one? Cause I'm, I'm

all Steve and I run a transformers podcast. There's

not at least out of the news that we pay attention

to. There's not many things that we miss. And

I'm like, wait a minute. Oh, right. Yeah. The

one from the thing and the whatever. So yeah,

no. Lesson learned for me. I'll go to the end

of the show. So I guess in closing, there's two

other things I wanted to mention. One's a complaint.

Okay. Other than what I just talked about story

-wise. This isn't a complaint about the story,

but specifically the letter type for the Quintesson.

Again, I read on the digital version of the comic.

I have an iPad here. The iPad is roughly... At

least the size I've got is roughly about the

same exact size as a regular comic book. The

dimensions are slightly different, but that's

about the size. So I don't really do any zooming

on the panels or anything. I'm reading it kind

of full page. And at that view, I had a hard

time reading some of the characters for the words

for the Quintesson. excuse me the a and r that

was very hard for me to distinguish between a

couple a couple of those within the the words

that he was saying uh so i was like i'm on page

what page am i on here page 13 uh the quintessence

says after you have aided in me returning to

my ship and the very first time i was reading

that i'm like after you have righted me i'm like

righted me The A &R looks very similar in some

aspects there. As I got to the Quintesson, I

had a hard time reading some of the text. In

that instance, I had to zoom in to read it just

because of the way the characters were. That's

really my complaint about that. The other thing

I wanted to mention is so far, at least from

what I was able to find online, this issue has

not sold out yet like the first two. So I don't

know what that means for the series going forward.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe it'll be

sold out here within a day or two. But I did

notice that it had not been sold out yet. We've

not gotten word that it is going to be reprinted

yet. And if it is going to be reprinted, we don't

have any pictures of what those covers might

look like at this point. Yeah, they'll probably

do that a little bit closer to the time, maybe.

I don't know. Let's see. Because the first two

sold out the same day it was released. Yeah,

pretty much. I'm not sure. I would imagine that

if this does sell out and there's a reprint,

it's probably going to have the Quintesson on

the front. Probably. Most likely. Yeah, I do

not see anything here that says... Yeah, it's

just number two was number one and number two

were the sellouts. Yep. And I don't think...

that we're quite literally 30 days away from

Void Rivals number four, and really? League of

Comic Geeks has a preview already? Well, that

doesn't surprise me, but hang on, give me a second

here. Okay, maybe they don't have... Wow, it's

just listed there. They don't have... They have

the cover? Yeah, they have the cover. They don't

have any interiors. Okay, so they've got at least

up to issue five on the covers, and the issue

five cover is very... So Image Comics might have

this as well, but StadiumComics .com does have

the little blurb. It says, The climactic return

to the Sacred Ring. The Energon universe continues

here. Thrown before the highest authority for

their crimes against the Sacred Ring, will Derek

and Celia's newfound alliance hold strong? Let's

hope. I'm putting the cover for issue five into

our G chat there. I'm loving that purple. That's

all I can say. It does look like he's a prisoner.

Yes, he's very much a prisoner there. All right.

So who knows what's going to happen. And Dracula

lurking in the background in the shadows. Yeah,

Dracula, Darth Vader, something like that. Probably

not. But, well, no, that guy looks like he's

too tall to be a Sharkticon. He's an Energon

vampire. Yeah, that could be. Who knows? I'm

still waiting for Energon to be – like they're

calling it the Energon universe. I'm waiting

for the actual Energon to be actually introduced.

Well, I mean you said that we saw it in the first

issue, right? Yeah. They just never refer to

it as Energon. Yeah, they just never refer to

it. So who knows? Yep. So yeah, I think that's

all I've got. Awesome, awesome. Very cool, very

cool. All right, so plugs. What do you got to

plug? Let's see. Go over to geekcastrea .com.

You can check out all of our content there. We've

got 500, and this will be episode 534. We've

got 534 episodes of The Pullback. We've got 400

and something episodes of all things Transformers.

We've got Altered Geek. We've got Cinema Geeks.

We've got all kinds of geeks and stuff and all

that good stuff. I am still riding out that storm.

Before they X everybody out, I am at TFG and

Mike on X. I'm on Threads. I think it's TFG and

Mike Presents, which is the same as Facebook.

I'm on Blue Sky, but Blue Sky is, like, why can't

they just have an at name? Why does it have to

be TFG and Mike dot Blue Sky dot this dot that?

Like, just have one. Make it simple, stupid.

Well, it's because you can come from it from

multiple servers, so you have to identify what

server you're on. You could even have your own

domain name, for example. So you could have geekcastradio

.com. So you could have tfg1mike at geekcastradio

.com would be your Blue Sky name. You just have

to set that up. That's too much work. But yeah,

that's where you can find most of our stuff.

All right. Well, you can find me on YouTube.

If you're listening to this or watching this,

you're already on my YouTube channel. If you're

listening to it, you may be on geekcastradio

.com. But you can find me on YouTube at youtube

.com slash matrix underscore prime. I don't really

push out too many. toy reviews anymore. It's

mostly just a hodgepodge of different shit. Sometimes

it's stuff like this. Sometimes it's like how

to make dill pickles, which is surprisingly one

of my highest rated videos. It's funny you're

mentioning your lovely YouTube channel here.

I was actually looking at your... I'm like, oh

my god. His... highest viewed video is like a

decade and a half ago at over 2 million views

yeah that's the that's the transformers the movie

2007 concept camaro bumblebee yep that's what

it is yep uh yeah that's still my highest rated

uh or highest viewed highest viewed yeah um but

yeah i still occasionally get like uh some new

comments on there and i'm like people are still

watching Yeah, so again, if you like anything

on my channel there, go ahead and subscribe.

You can also find me on Blue Sky. I am at Jesse,

J -E -S -S -E, early E -A -R -L -E -Y at B -S

-K -Y dot social. I started an entire Transformers

feed over there. The network didn't have it.

I created it. It's up there. Anything you want

to find Transformers related will show up in

that feed. Blue Sky doesn't have hashtags yet.

But I know that is something they are currently

working on. So if you go there, you get an account.

If you type any word that's got the word Transformers

in it, right? So even if you do hashtag Transformers,

it will show up in this feed. So you can follow

that feed. And if you need help finding that,

let me know. I can share the link with you. But

yeah, again, it shows everything on there. There's

quite a few. What I find about Blue Sky is that

there's quite a few artists that kind of have

moved over. to that network. And I'm starting

to see like a lot of custom artwork for transformers

pop up in this feed. So very cool. It's got a

lot of stuff out there. I saw you just shared

the geek cast radio links on there. I've got

to go ahead and like those yet, but I saw you

that you did share those out there. So yeah,

again, you can find me on blue skies. So I think

that's it. I think that's it too. All right,

so until next time when we'll be taking a look

at issue four. Again, the last issue before Transformers

number one. All right, so I think that's it.

Until next time, this is Jesse signing off. This

is Mike. Catch you later. All right, folks, there

you have it. As always, for the pull bag, visit

geekcastradio .com. You can check us out on X,

Facebook, and all that other good stuff. I've

been TFG1 Mike. He was Jesse Early. We will catch

you next time here inside The Pull Bag. Remember,

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