Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volumes 8-9 Review

Hi, this is Margaret Scott, the first female

writer in Transformers Comics, and you are listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Welcome to The

Polebags Back Issue Classics. Join us as we talk

about comics from yesteryear, from DC, Marvel,

and more. So open your ears to hear our discussion

of the older continuities, as the Back Issue

Classics are also what's in The Pull Bag. Look!

It isn't even damaged! Oh shit! What are we gonna

do now? Hello and welcome to The Pull Bag. This

is AutobotlyApril, Back Issue Classics. Once

again we're here to talk about more Robots in

Disguise, Not -Rid, X -Rid, whatever you want

to call it. The book formerly known as Robots

in Disguise. We're here to talk about Volumes

8 and 9. I am of course TFG1Mike. Joining me

is Ryan, the Uneven Flow Merkley. Hello, sir.

Yo. Yo. So, yeah, Combiner Wars is over. Yay.

And, uh... Marvel has me, like, annoyed at events,

so... And the IDW stuff, let's be honest, hasn't

always worked, so... Yeah, yeah. I can't decide

which one of the train wrecks is gonna be the

worst out of the three. Dark Cybertron, Combiner,

or... revolution revolution I haven't even read

it yet so I've tried reading synopses in the

end because the individual issues are just painful

hmm all right so we're here to talk about writ

eight and nine volumes eight and nine volume

eight first of all collect issues 42 to 45 Yeah,

42 should have been in the Combiner Wars trade

because that's the Combiner Wars epilogue Yeah,

it would have been nice, and I think it would

have helped it a lot too because I so Yeah in

terms of story. It's basically just an epilogue.

It's Most of the major players and some not major

ones like RC and Galvatron But yeah most of them

conversing so we get you know prowl and prime

talking slash prime punching prowl which Good

Lord, talk about long -deserved. Now what did

you think of that action, because that's Livio's

art. That's fine. When it's one -on -one and

he doesn't have to do the cutaway panels, like

he did in Combiner Wars, I think it's quite clear.

It was just the smaller panels combined with

a lot more going on like this is a much slower

sort of fight It's because neither of them is

really trying to kill each other. Yeah, no But

yeah, it all works. Yeah artwork wise Livio stuff

is really good here. I mentioned before I think

he's a great artist. Yeah, just sometimes his

action can kind of fall apart and In this one,

there's not many moving parts, so I think it

worked perfectly here. The rest of the art, too,

is solid. I really like how Galvatron is... I

like how Galvatron and RC are designed here.

Different artists have had very different interpretations

of both of them, and this one works for them.

Yeah, I got a little wonky with RC. the trade

went on but after Getting used to seeing her

like the problem I had and I don't know if it

was because she kept putting on the stealth paint

Or if they just kept changing the colors in daylight.

She's pink in darkness. She's like black with

pink bits. Black with pink, yeah. Yeah, so I

don't mind it. I'm not going to take a point

off of my score because of it. I'm just saying

it took me a while to get used to it. Just to

get the creative out of the way, written by John

Barber, obviously. Art by Andrew Griffith and

Livio Remindelli. Colors by Josh Perez and Livio,

as well. Letters, as always, Tommy Long. Yay.

Yay. I like Andrew Griffith too. He's another

one of mine. If it weren't for Milne and Livio,

I actually like them pretty much all. I could

sit here and list them all because I really like

Sarah Stones as well. I don't know. I think I

just like all their art. I'm not even going to

bother finishing my earlier thought. what i was

used really good though yeah a lot like the interactions

all click the dialogue and everything else it's

clear what's happening yeah it's it's very very

clear and very very interesting to see how this

all is going to end up for um for them and you

know i thought at one point earlier when we were

in rid six and seven that something had happened

to astrotrain but no he's all right I thought

he died already. No, that's much later. Yeah,

I know. Poor AstroTrain. Yeah, poor AstroTrain.

I just love seeing him. I really do. As for the

records, yeah, I do actually like him. And I

like how he's portrayed in these books. But on

the opposite side of that too, it's another thing

that just annoys me that Galvatron just uses

his troops. throws them away etc etc again it's

an issue because i wonder why would anybody follow

this guy yeah he's terrible i mean especially

what he's doing to sky warp oh yeah he's literally

using him to death yeah that's just ridiculous

um but no i've ever since i was a kid astro train

and to slightly lesser extent blitzwing but astro

like the triple the the first triple changer

is i knew whereas her interval in blitzwing and

i love the hell out of them in the cart feel

cartoon and in the original toys was there was

always my favorite of the bunch and often never

really got a lot of time uh... and get what you

want in this series really really very he's not

you had one episode focusing on in the uh...

original series yeah disease and summer buddies

And I was going to say the Autobots side for

the triple changers, like Sandstorm and Broadside

really didn't get much. Obviously Springer is

the main one that... And he only used his auto

change, his third mode like once or twice. He

used it for moving. He's like never a car. Yeah,

he's never a car. To be fair, if you could be

a helicopter, why would you be a car? You know

what I'm really surprised at, and I know this

is probably for time, and I know we're getting

off topic here, folks, but since you brought

up Springer, I'm surprised in Only Human that

they did not try to get his helicopter mode transformed

into the car mode. That's what I'm really, because

I know you know this, but for anybody listening

that doesn't know this, in the G1 episode entitled

Only Human, Cobra Commander comes in and finds

a way to get the Autobots' souls out of their

metal bodies and make them human. They he basically

becomes Ursula before Ursula was a thing anyway

So Back to rid Next issue yeah All right next

issue. We sort of get back to normal in terms

of we're back to the original sort of storyline

The next one is dominated by Soundwave and cosmos

Yep. And first of all, I really liked the Fleshing

Out of Cosmos' character, who I really like,

and as much as I love Soundwave in this book,

man, his characterization near the end of this

issue is really off when he basically just dashes

drones to Cosmos, which is why Cosmos won't join

him. Mm -hmm, but I mean Soundwave was the one

that was fighting for equal rights to The To

you know his cassettes Ravage in particular because

I mean Ravage has a beast mode which is looked

down upon especially by Galvatron which by the

way Again, why does anybody especially Soundwave

following this guy because he's a bag of dicks

to Soundwaves friends, but anyway, yeah So that

was weird to me. It just felt a little off. I

realize Soundwave doesn't think the people of

Earth are sentient or mean anything or similar.

He believes they're inferior to Cybertronians.

But yeah, the rest of it didn't make sense to

me. So that was the only... uh... downer in terms

of the stuff between the two of them and it's

not a major points are really like the sandwich

cause most of yet and then we get to the humans

ok before we get to the humans this is the issue

where soundwaves taken to the the commune right

here yeah so what i liked about this was number

one Winslow like I don't remember the last time

I saw laser beacon buzz saw in the same place

maybe ten years ago and animated Maybe I doubt

it. No because they had ratbat and laser beacons

the key TARS But It was always it's weird to

me see laser beacon buzz saw talk to each other

Basically stat lore and wall door. Yeah, they

pretty much are and I and I like that But it

just, I don't know, it's just kind of weird.

I think Soundwave needs to put on his black paint

job and rename himself to Sound Blaster because

he essentially became Darth Vader in this issue.

This is most impressive. That was hilarious.

Oh lord, so funny. What else did I have for this

one? Yeah, was this the one where we see Starscream

going out of his mind? Or is that the next issue?

No, not this one. Okay, that's the next issue.

Okay, I'll talk about that next issue. There

are no appearances of anyone on Cybertron. This

is all... Oh, that's right. This is all Earth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Earth slash immune -based crew.

Yeah, that's what I like about this. You know,

you can talk about the humans here in a second.

That's what I like about RID at this point because

they are on two different planets. The story

is on two different planets that... Depending

on where where barber wants the story to take

place next That's what the issue folk like one

issue focuses solely on earth Then it might have

hints of Cybertron and then the other the next

issue may be all Cybertron with a few various

hints of earth I think that's very well done

Okay, let's talk about the the shitty humans.

What's up with the shitty humans. I just don't

like black rock I think his dialogue is annoying

Anytime he's on the pages. I just want to hit

him The next problem is, and with it, I don't

know how with it I'll get into it. So, one of

the differences, so in here, one of my annoyances

is he has a habit of referencing stuff that is

essentially pop culture, which I'm not a huge

fan of in these books. Before anyone goes off

and says like well you love This stuff from James

Roberts who can constantly use his pop culture

Roberts has a tendency to use stuff. That's essentially

timeless though. We'll talk about it more in

the next Set but I mean when you reference something

like Cheers That's okay to me because that's

something you know a hundred years from now Cheers

is probably still gonna be remembered pretty

fondly. I mean yeah It's the place where everybody

knows your name and honestly seriously when I

first started reading these oh so many years

ago As soon as I saw McAdams and the way it was

laid out Originally in more than meets the eye

in those very first volumes. That's the first

thing I fucking thought of was Cheers And obviously

we get the amazing which somebody has turned

into a song on YouTube, which is wonderful Jingle

for swerves to the tune of everybody knows your

name. It's fantastic. But anyway So the difference

here to me is just you've got these timeless

references versus you have black rock using references

to you know ICP skits and stuff that oh boy,

I mean Maybe you know hundred years from now

juggalos will be remembered, but it'll be It'll

be for voting Donald Trump in office and not

now anyway Not not anything good. Oh Yeah, I

I don't understand black rock I don't like him

Now to be fair, I'm not sure we're supposed to

like him. Oh Obviously, but yeah, I mean I'd

argue we're not but the problem here is the other

human characters are already unlikable enough

through You know the actions and dialogue and

the fact that they're essentially depicted as

morons. Yeah Well, the funny thing is is that

later down I think it's in the next issue or

whatever the hell it is, but As we go along in

Blackrock's part of the story, when he goes to

that secret jail later, I actually kind of am

on Spike's side here. I would rather root for

Spike in this trade specifically than Blackrock.

Ooh, that's painful. I know. Ain't it though?

Yeah. But, alright, what else we got for this

one? Don't have a lot else. I mean the artwork

here is solid again. They get some I like I said

before likes the interaction between cosmos and

sound wave Because that's not an interaction

you would normally see no and one thing about

these trades Are this portrayed in particular?

There's a lot of interactions that work pretty

solidly like next time we get needle nose and

tracks Two characters who I mean needle nose

uh... was in you know early r i d and uh... why

do people only text me when i'm reporting something

i swear breaking bad over there that's my text

uh... notifications this week so uh... needle

nose was only in the first volume really and

even then he was only you know we really knew

about it was he was bad and he hung out with

horrible who you know got blowed up real good

so we had the bulk of the next issue in fact

is their interactions and Yeah, the next issue

is the first time we get Starscream seeing yeah

Bumblebee and talking to him. Oh my god my heart

broke. I'm like no I Understand why it's there

and I like that. It's there because it adds to

Starscream but Like I forgot that that hat like

cuz I hadn't Well, I shouldn't say I forgot because

I never actually read these singly so but I Figured

okay. It's IDW Bumblebee is dead They're not

gonna do you know, but Bumblebee is essentially

the uncle Ben of the series They're not gonna

do any weird. Oh wait. Yes, they are It hasn't

been that long It feels like it has anyway no

comments about uh that's a spoiler for much later

oh crap um see yeah we see more of star scream

and we get a little bit there's not a whole lot

yeah And we get this nice little thing where

it's RC and Galvatron and the whole thing between

Earth and Cybertron because Soundwave is trying

to get all of the Decepticons to come up to the

Commune and whatever else and Galvatron is going

to use that for nefarious purposes obviously.

Well we don't actually see Galvatron here. Brawl

is essentially recruiting for him. And in the

end, its brawl and needle nose are essentially

restarting Megatron's Decepticons. But I mean,

led by Galvatron, they're kind of more just thugs.

To be fair, some of them were under Megs as well,

but I'm just saying. So yeah, I mean, yes, this

is the issue, though, with the invite to the

commune. We get a lot of RC in this one as well,

too, including a amusing scene where, yeah, she

has one of Starscream's Badgeless in front of

him and kills him. Mm -hmm. Yep, she kills him

like she kills everything. Just reminded me of

some of the stuff with Ratbat. Yeah, good ol'

Senator Ratbat. By the way, this is another solid

issue with a number of different interactions.

Obviously, RC and Starscream don't chat too much.

And like I said before, we really haven't seen

anything of Needlenose and Trax, much less the

two of them interacting with one another. And

supposedly they're brothers? Yes. Oh boy. Can't

you see the resemblance? Yeah, one has a faceplate,

one doesn't. I don't know how the spark brothers

thing works. Don't look at me. I don't know.

But yeah, in terms of the actual plot, this one

is more just kind of tightening the screws and

building. I don't know. Still works for me. I

still liked it. I thought the dialogue and stuff

really works well in this issue. Yeah, it does

and it's What I'm liking about Barbara's writing

here is that he seems to because we're past The

exact I don't know if the guy has anxiety over

planning events I would assume any any person

in that position would because you have to get

so much into so little of a thing But we're past

the point of him having to worry about What to

throw in what not to throw in what to how to

tell the story how not to tell the story in here

You can kind of go back to you have the aftermath

obviously of combiner wars But you can kind of

get back to a baseline of where you want your

transformer story to go I also think this this

trade is split much better than the previous

one in terms of we essentially get one full issue

of you know, Cybertron. And then, you know, this

issue, for example, that we're talking about

now is Cybertron. But we earlier had the one

which was the commune slash Earth, mostly Earth

-based characters. And then earlier, before then,

it was another Cybertron. And next, by the way,

we moved to Earth or Earth's orbit again. So

I think it just works. Barber is kind of at his

best when he can just work with individual pieces

and kind of click it together a little later.

And in terms of balancing location, it's almost

the same sort of thing. Like even when RID, the

first five -ish volumes, I'd still say is his

best work so far. And even though it was the

same location, it still focused on different

areas or characters during that run. You'd have

an issue from Ironhide's point of view. And that's

what I like about it, yeah. What I like about

RID is that what you're saying is when you would

have a specific character narrating the issue

and giving you their point of view on the events

that are unfolding. Yeah, like later. We'll have

RC doing that And I think one of the issues too

is it depends on the characters because to be

blunt That's another reason to me why the human

point of view ones in the previous trades didn't

necessarily work because the humans aren't the

best characters and their perspective is Not

the smartest no No It's just not Speaking of

which hey, let's join the humans again in the

next issue. But anyway We yeah, so the next issue

I mean opens with your favorite character thundercracker

chatting with Marissa and Oh, man Other woman

whose name I can't remember now. That's not good.

Yeah the other wacky The best part about this

is Buster trying to chew off his finger. I love

that dog. I think I said this last time when

we did RID, I may or may not have, but I know

this will never happen because I don't think

Marvel and IDW are ever going to team up, but

I'd love to have just a single one -shot issue

with Buster and Hawkeye's pizza dog. They did

team up though because we had the Transformers

Avengers crossover. Oh, really? Okay. Well Yeah,

that's true that was IDW anyway In terms of this

too. Well to be honest, by the way Buster might

be the smartest earth -based character Speaking

of which We moved to black rock and spike starting

their conversation Yeah where black rock starts

to show off some of his plan which involves Cybertronian

writing which you know then we cut to Jetfire

figuring that out as well there's code with old

Cybertronian in it that's ancient and the code

keeps changing yeah and so we get a number of

our earth -based crew in this case it's Jazz

and Cop heads to the Arctic Where the signals

coming from well, it's near the South Pole so

the Antarctic sorry, but anyway, yeah And where

they get attacked by gigantic Ramjet looking

Yeah human based and human controlled as we eventually

find out Yeah, yeah which promptly like you know,

tears Jazz's limbs off, which probably hurt,

and doesn't do any good to, well, they may chase

Skylinks away. Yeah, I've never really been apologetic

to Skylinks in any continuity, but damn, what

happens to Skylinks in this trade is just, just

so wrong. This trade is just kind of left alone.

It's not that bad all the way slams into the

so while this is all going on to something attacks

the Ship in orbit which sideswipe RC alpha try

on are all remaining on yep, and it gets kind

of blown to bits And yes guy links slams into

the shield which is activated around it Accidentally

which is what resulted in it being blown to big

bits and we discover you know through all this

unsurprisingly that black rock has kind of controlled

all this uh... galvatron you know comments that

he knew all of this was happening and he had

manipulated events and we kind of ends on a we

end on a you know cliffhanger with you know the

ship's in trouble jazz and copper down skylinks

is down And it looks like Galvatron and Co. are

going to get their hands on the space bridge

that's sitting on this ship. The Ando trade.

Yep. Pretty much. Now, Soundwave wants the space

bridge, but Soundwave wants the space bridge

for peace. Because Soundwave wants to use the

whole thing to get everybody, not just Decepticons,

not just X Decepticons or whatever, Nails, whatever.

you get everybody is that he wants to go back

to the norm before megatron kind of perverted

the decepticon cause wants to go back to the

original way it was supposed to be and that's

all well good and fine but Galvatron's not gonna

let that happen. Galvatron's a fucking psycho.

And Galvatron is openly pontificating in front

of Soundwave. Soundwave, who, like even if Galvatron

were chatting on Earth about it, could hear him

anyway, because I mean, his hearing's that good.

But still, like, he's openly doing it, and Soundwave

doesn't go, uh... What? Yeah. That's what it

didn't... you know it's what so i still like

this trade overall but i think barber when all

of the pieces are actually moving albeit you

know not super quickly i think he handles that

stuff really well but yeah there's some issues

here i mean you sound waves characterization

is a little weird at points yeah i think i mean

the human characters are always seem to be dumb

no matter who's writing them so Think my favorite

part from sound wave outside of the Darth Vader

line was when cosmos asked him How am I supposed

to get in contact with you? Just say my name.

I'll hear you And he does yeah, yeah, that's

the next trade But yeah volume 8 like I said

the fallout from combiner wars pretty much with

the epilogue and then you know the whole thing

with With the rest of the story with sound wave

and the stuff some of the minimal stuff on Cybertron

I like this trade. I think this is a much improved

trade over volumes. Oh, yeah seven I actually

really like eight as well, but I mean, yeah,

I don't want to get into Well, that's what i'm

saying. Well, I don't want to get into that.

Yeah Yeah, but like or sorry nine as well. Sorry.

Yeah But yeah, this is a huge improvement to

me. Yeah Yeah, 9's coming up next here in a moment,

folks, but we'll get to that a little bit later.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that as a whole though,

these two to me are much improved over a... Sort

of plotting six and seven that didn't necessarily

have a payoff Yeah, I mean to be fair IDW as

a whole whether it be Roberts or Barber the payoffs

haven't always equaled the extremely good setups

Yeah, but it's hard because these two are really

good at ratcheting up tension and using a lot

of different Methods to make you sort of feel

something on the way up. So Yeah, absolutely

they are. Volume 8, I would probably give it

a 4 out of 5. Yeah. I don't remember what I gave

6 and 7. It's definitely higher than both of

those, but yeah, I think that's fair. You know,

I liked all of the art. There wasn't really anything

with the art that I didn't like. And like I said

earlier, I think Barber's writing has gotten

back to a point of where he's more comfortable

focusing on the story he wants to tell, not just

have to shove 120 characters into 200 pages of

a comic book. Yeah, he is a really good writer.

And then, I mean, his current stuff on Optimus

Prime has... Marvel as well, too. I've enjoyed

that but you know, yeah, I've just rhymed been

quite good as well. So I Have not had a chance

to peruse the new stuff yet. I need to get through

all the old stuff first folks So we're gonna

take a quick break we're gonna come back with

volume 9 of not rid after this we are back here

inside the pool bag this is out of bali april

transformers robots in disguise not red x -ray

wherever you want to call it uh... volume nine

oh boy volume nine volume nine is interesting

wasn't it yeah i mean uh... so eight It's tough

because to a certain extent 8 felt like it's

the volume where a lot of things are happening

I mean I mentioned that and 9 feels like it's

mostly building so it almost ends up feeling

a bit like a holdover until we hit 10 which was

of course 10 will encompass the 50th issue of

Next rid our ID, whatever the heck you want to

call it. So that was sort of the big Milestone

issue and then the other Problem slash thing

going on is the fact that the series was also

ending because they wanted to restart after Revolution

happens Calling it just the transformers again.

Sorry. No it became on to this prime prime at

that point. Yeah Restarting at one again. Yeah

Stop restarting at one everybody. I find it really

annoying Okay, but you got to admit IDW held

out for five or six years. Come on now that You

know, they're not Marvel. They're not DC. They

don't just do it to make money so Well, that's

why they tried to but I know that's why they

probably didn't work because their sales fell

off a cliff Anyway, so as we go through this

one as it opens I love the opening with Galvatron

and Prime being the opposite ends of the spectrum.

I thought that was great Yeah, I'll comment that

the art here. It's Sarah Pitcher de Roche Doing

the bulk of it. The only one is the final issue

of this trade which is 49 is It's back to sort

of the usual artist Andrew Griffith Yeah, I love

Sarah's art. I think her art is great. Yeah,

I mentioned this a few times that in general

I'm like everybody at IDW's art I really think

they have assembled a cadre of artists whose

stuff feels different from each other Yet still

encompasses sort of you can tell it's the same,

you know universe and that kind of thing and

just I don't know just it works really well everybody's

really good at what they do yeah absolutely so

as we go through this one there are a lot of

good lines in this I was not expecting as many

good quotes as as barber has given us in this

one because the whole juxtaposition of this trade

for me is optimus is trying to build this council

of worlds and and it's not exactly going so well

and we've got the black rock stuff we've got

the sound wave stuff and all of that we get Galvatron

trying to you know allow the Decepticons to take

back the universe the subtitle for this storyline

four -part storyline is conquerors don't run

displays a measure of why people would follow

here i know that's been a theme of harps on a

few times but he actually finally constructs

a half decent speech here that you know it is

going to get his troops can fired up and that

kind of thing And so yeah for once he actually

displays some element of Yeah of leadership in

some form or another And sound wave he had to

close it all off, too. Well, I mean a we get

a camion Introduced here a LRM, I believe yeah

the pronunciate is the pronunciation so anyway

she gets introduced as prime as a conversation

with her because Being from Kamenis and not being

one of the other three we've seen previously

who have been off -planet She idolizes optimus

prime. So he has a conversation with her to try

to basically get her to describe him Yeah, or

how she sees him in other words, so how the rest

of cabinet sees him and we get a bit with sound

wave continuing to try to Build up his commune.

Yeah, I love When wind blade and prime are out

This is right before they meet aileron they're

out trying to stop the Well, it's actually right

when they meet her you know, they're trying to

make peace between people who believe in the

primes and people who don't, and it's this whole,

you know, thing, and I love Windblade's line,

Dino bots, always Dino bots. Yeah, we'll get

to why that is when we do the one -shots. Yeah.

But anyway, yeah, and then the last thing I wanted

to point out too, it's always exceptionally enjoyable.

to hear from Starscream in a John Barber comic.

And he's terrific here. He has a brief conversation

with Bumblebee. And they discuss the fact that

Rattrap's gonna stab him in the back first chance

he gets. Which I like. I'm slowly getting used

to Optimus' design. There have been times when

Andrew Griffith has done it and there have been

times when others have done it in the past couple

of trades that I just His robot mode just kind

of irks me a little bit sometimes, but I'm slowly

getting used to it. There's There's a panel that

I loved in this it's where aileron goes to kneel

before prime And in the background you see wind

blade just snickering. I think that's hilarious

his look changes kind of subtly especially the

chest you know where he's got that split yeah

it's either you know more or less pronounced

depending on who's drawing it also he becomes

more or less kind of boxy yeah i'll say this

though like no matter who's drawing him i find

at least you can see the robot mode and that

kind of thing One of the things that always bugs

me with, you know, Pat Lee on the Dreamwave stuff,

that's, you know, when Pat Lee actually drew

stuff he was credited for, anyway, was the proportions

were always off and there was no way you could

get a truck out of the guy. So at least you can

see, you know, the... the way he's built in this,

but yeah. Yeah, and then later there's a page

where he and Alaron are traveling. They're headed

out towards the Sea of Rust. Yeah. Which they

get to in the next issue. Yeah. There's a point

here where they're having that conversation again

and he, Optimus, transforms and I can see, specifically

in his, I don't want to say shoulder pads, but

his shoulders, I can see where the sides of the

top of the cap would go and all that and everything

else. I think it's done very, very well. And

some of the lines that Optimus has in this I

think are great. I think it's some of the best

Optimus writing that I've seen in a long time.

Where he goes and says something about I've let

enough leadership is the burden hardest to bear

And later he says that I am the face of war which

Yikes optimus That's not good, but dumb sad optimus

sad optimus What were you thinking what do you

think of the whole thing wit with soundwave in

the commune and all that stuff I like Soundwave's

ideas and by the way it makes sense for his character

particularly after everything that's happened

with Megatron. I go back to I don't like it in

terms of he should never have trusted Galvatron

because Soundwave isn't that stupid and Galvatron

has the habit of muttering you know dumb shit.

In front of sound waves a guy who in this issue,

you know can hear cosmos from forever away. Yeah

Yeah Like that that kind of bugs me too, but

I mean in terms of the character the concept

of a commune and trying to live in peace as well

as his Desire to not follow the primes which

we don't necessarily See as much in this trade

as we do in the later one, but it all makes sense

Yeah, so I Like sound wave in these I like his

progression and I feel like it's pretty it's

fairly earned Yeah, it is. I think it is very

very earned so we I think Yeah, and I think one

of the things that Barber does best is when there's

three factions with the Transformers. We saw

it in RID with Metalhawk and the Nails and then

the Autobots and the Decepticons. Here we have

Soundwave who's sort of an offshoot and then

we have the Autobots and Decepticons still. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and it's fun because you have so

many, like you were saying earlier, in the earlier,

you know, we had Metalhawk and... and the Nails

and Bumblebee and the Autobots and Starscream

and the Decepticons, now it's a whole other way

of thinking where you have Soundwave and the

people that want what he wants and then Galvatron

and the Decepticons and also Starscream and his

agenda, seeing Ghost Bumblebee and everything

else. it's just one of those things where i'd

never really like i remember when the cover for

one of these issues came out where it's sound

wave and cosmos on the cover where i never would've

thought that sound wave and cosmos would be a

team up we would ever really get to see that

actually works very well and it does uh... in

the second part of this uh... second issue for

this trade we get we get more of Soundwave Cosmos

in the beginning, but then it switches to Thundercracker,

and Blackrock, and all that boring earth crap.

The bulk of this issue, aside from Soundwave

and Co, is... Well, the two major issues are

Prime and Aileron meet the Torchbearers, who

can merge to form Victorion. Yep. Another combiner.

They sort of challenge Optimus. They don't really

seem to believe in him at this point. Et cetera.

And the other issue is the Decepticons on Cybertron

make a push for the space bridge and begin attacking

the crew on the Ark that we saw was disabled

in the previous issue, or sorry, previous trade.

And those are sort of the main things going on.

I like the whole thing with Optimus and the Torchbearers.

I think that's fun. I think that's really, really

well written. And again, Sarah's art is just

because you have completely new characters in

these Torchbearers. And you get to do some sort

of new design. it's just very very fun and interesting

and cool and you know you said earlier about

the Decepticons and and them taking over the

space bridge and everything else and of course

this is where brother versus brother comes in

because it's tracks and needle nose yay hello

tracks basically just get shot and then you know

needle nose kicks him while he's down but yeah

yeah tracks gets shot needle nose kicks him Which

it kind of reminds me of Starscream kicking Megatron

from from the movie. Yeah And again, I am just

so totally creeped out by ghost B I Just We've

had him we've not had him for so long and now

Starscream is starting to see him and I understand

it's their way of getting bumblebee back in the

comics without you know resurrecting him which

is fine but it's just kinda kinda freaks me out

a little bit sometimes well they didn't want

to resurrect him yet so yeah so we get the combiner

victorian we get the fight between her and optimus

prime and then she's like no more fighting and

you know well it's prime that points out that

she's not gonna kill him yeah She basically just

wants to hear sort of his side of the story in

terms of, you know, holding the Matrix and that

kind of thing. She believes she should hold the

Matrix, or is the rightful heir to it. Because

everybody seems to believe that Optimus is a

false Prime. And I'm sure all the other haters

out there will say the same thing about Rodimus

one day, too. Anyway. So we go back to the ship

RC and Alpha Trion and sideswipe and It's weird

seeing sideswipe in the comics I don't remember

the last time we saw him outside of the the more

recent stuff here now, but We doesn't appear

much in Dark Cybertron just as a background character

But of course he was fairly important in our

ID because RC to prove her loyalty stabs him

to the wall But as eventually we learned she

didn't kill him or stabbed to injure him severely

and he's part of their Plan to get away from

Megatron Yeah so we go back to this ship and

and Needlenose and the Decepticons get aboard

it and they're gonna take the Ark and we go back

to the Commune with Soundwave and Cosmos and

Skybite and a bunch of other people and Galvatron

comes in over the thing and says, you know, Soundwave's

like, and then Peaceful Ray and Indeed It Shall

sound like, well, Galvatron's lying to him, obviously.

That's just... the way Galvatron is. And this

one ends with Buster attacking R2 -D2. Well,

and Doc, but anyway. Yeah. He's not attacking,

they're chatting. Yeah. Oh, that's, yeah. But

I mean, come on, Doc. if if he was formed a little

bit differently he does kind of look like an

r two units uh... was basically upside down r

two uh... so we have the next issue where conquerors

part three uh... Buster art. This is essentially

pizza dog folks. Anyone's read the old Hawkeye

series? From Marvel that's essentially what this

issue is is pizza dog Yeah, dog can buster Decide

to go and rescue the captured and severely injured

Autobots which consists of Jetfire cop Skylinks

and jazz who we saw get banged up again in the

previous trade And they were sort of Being drowned

slash killed slowly and yep, whatever the heck

it is that black rock put them in I can't remember

the name. I know it's at the start of the trade.

But anyway, yeah so yeah, they helped them escape

and Yeah, I mean that's the bulk of the issue.

Yeah, though at the end we see the humans Also

sort of escape slash takeover from black rock

And then, yeah, we should have Galvatron show

up with Skywarp and grab Blackrock, who he says,

welcome home, my Cybertronian brother, too. Yeah,

that, um, that wasn't weird at all. So we learn

that Blackrock is a Cybertronian. Yes. Okay,

then. Um, yeah, I... thanks titans return yeah

really i love the art in this though the art

in this is so good like the scenes where they

finally find the room where busters like bad

water very bad water just the whole seeing all

the autobots in there because of the dialogue

or because the characters involved in the dialogue

the art has to be good yeah and it was so i mean

that helped a lot because that first chunk of

the book like it's more than uh it's roughly

two -thirds of the book are the buster and doc

sort of story and if the art doesn't work on

that then two -thirds of the book just fails

miserably so yeah it worked well in the end yeah

very much so and then Part four opens up with

Galvatron and Skywarp and poor Skywarp guy oh

That guy just was not so bad. Yeah, but anyway.

Yeah yet is the keyword there. He's not completely

translucent yet What that's later on that he

is completely translucent, so we basically get

yeah, the first few pages are updates Yeah, Galvatron

has busted in to go take Blackrock. Next is on

the Ark, where everybody is under attack. And

lastly, the Space Bridge room on Metroplex is

under attack from the rest of the Decepticons.

And so there are two portions of the... Issue

that really bugged me and I'm not sure entirely

whose fault it is. Okay one of them is the bit

with tracks where Windblades like Oh tracks is

still alive and seems all happy Listen here in

the middle of a gigantic firefight. I realized

that You wanted to say that you know, he was

alive and okay but random exposition in the middle

of it was probably not the best. And then the

one that really bugs me is Sideswipe gets hit

with a grenade and then blasted at close range

by Brawl, who proclaims him to be deceased. That

bugs me because in the next trade slash issue,

Sideswipe will show up, the bulk of him will

be intact. He'll be put into a coma which he's

still in currently in this series But in any

case, I mean man, it's one of those, you know,

how much does it take to kill a transformer?

And it seems to vary or really bugs me when they

do stuff like that because Sideswipe takes way

too much damage here to possibly survive Versus

Ravage getting, you know, split in half by Tarn

Which kills him But, Side Swipe's okay from,

you know, eating a grenade at close range, then

being shot at close range. I don't know. Yeah,

bugs me when they do stuff like that. Yeah, that's

not cool at all. Also, the Decepticons take time

to stomp and shoot him up, but nobody, you know,

stops to shoot up RC when they incapacitate her.

Yeah, it's almost like Sideswipe has an Ironhide

moment. Yeah, Lux says he's fine. Ironhide gets

blown apart. Such heroic nonsense. Yeah, so I

mean after that to the next sequence we get a

page of Soundwave figuring out that, you know,

he was completely used. And then Cosmos thinks

that... Sound wave was in on it, which he wasn't

Yeah, we know that but to be fair. Yeah cosmos

all evidence You know ie controlling a space

bridge and that kind of thing does kind of point

to him but yeah Galvatron just wanted the space

bridge to Have as we saw in the other scenes

have a number of his Decepticons pile through

so he actually gets reinforcements on earth And

then beyond that, I mean, Prime and co. arrive

on Cybertron just in time to keep the Decepticons

from overpowering everybody in the room and help

round them up so that no more come through. Prime,

with the help of Victorion, comes to the conclusion

that they need to end war for good. Yeah, you

think? Eh, might be a good idea for Optimus.

We also get, earlier before we get to the Optimus

stuff, we get the other side of the Galvatron

takeover scene with Skywarp. And Skywarp sends

them to China. At least they can get away with

being in China on the comics. In the end this

all leads to a gigantic Confrontation between

Galvatron the troops who did make it through

the space bridge and onto the ark which has crashed

in China and Optimus Prime appears and declares

that earth has been annexed into the Cybertronian

Council of Worlds and That earth is under his

protection and he does so with you know victorian

and superior and backing him up with a number

of troops yeah and i once again i love this art

i don't know like the only my only complaint

about the final page of the trade of issue 49

Is optimus is holding a giant flagpole with an

Autobot flag? That's the only thing that bugs

me about it the rest of the page is great I don't

know maybe he keeps those in the in Metroplex's

In Metroplex's space bridge room just for such

an occasion. I don't know That's a weird one.

Yeah, the only other thing I'll say too is I'm

kind of disappointed that the confrontation Between

primes Autobots and the Decepticons in the next

trade which will you know get to in a later episode

but Man, like primes kind of got the upper hand

here considering his two combiners on his side

Yeah, there's very little reason why the confrontation

lasts more than you know the next issue Which

I guess is something I should bring up in that

trade but yeah in this one like man he's really

piling on with the troops because We've seen

it a number of times that in general it's immensely

difficult to try to take out a combiner. So yeah,

having two of them there as well as a whole bunch

of your troops, that's a lot. He's got an army,

yeah. Starscream has two doesn't he's got the

aerial bots and no to superior on was with optimus

Who is the other one that well Starscream has?

Devastator most notably that's right as noted

earlier during the combiner wars discussion,

Devastator's difficult to control because he's

not very bright. And even though Scoop is subservient

to Starscream, it doesn't mean the other five

constructicons are. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true.

Not Rid volume 9, I really enjoyed it. I think

what made me enjoy it a lot more than volume

6, 7, or 8, and I enjoyed volume 8, which we

talked about earlier in this episode of the podcast,

but it really is Sarah's art. I love her art

style. It's just so fun. It's fun. It's very

G1 -esque without needing to be G1 -esque. It

has that style of it, though. John's writing

in this is great because I love where the story

is going. I love how he was able to introduce

the Torchbearers. And I know it's going to come

up later in the Distant Stars trade when Amy

and Nicole and I eventually get around to doing

that, but as far as Victorion's origin and all

that, but it's just one of the things where I

didn't feel like after reading this story in

volume nine that I needed to, that's one thing

John did well with this. He introduces the Torchbearers

here like it's nothing. that you need to go back

and read seven other issues for. And then they

turn into Victorian, which I think was very well

done. I think he's got a lot of story to juggle

though. I mean, we've been talking about it.

here in the volume nine portion of this episode

you've got Optimus and his thing you got Starscream

and his thing Galvatron and you got four core

working parts of the story and he makes it work

well but he makes it work well here but this

is also not the payoff and yeah we'll discuss

that in the next trade but yeah yeah oh boy uh

what would you give volume nine zero to five

Give it the same as as eight Which I'm pretty

sure I gave an eight. I remember, right? Either

way, it's a solid eight. Okay Yeah, I'll give

it a Seven and a half maybe maybe I maybe even

give it an eight and a half because you know,

so basically four and a half really Because the

art is good There were parts of the story that

I was kind of losing focus on but then it brought

me back in immediately with When I generally

read through it, I don't find the The story changes

hard But it's when I go back and I'm looking

through it to refresh my memory and it's like

oh that was fairly quick We had one scene with

that character and now we have six scenes with

these characters, but that's just me more so

than anything else so Alright folks that's gonna

do it for us here in the pull bag on this Autobot

late April Episode where can the people find

you online sir? That's nightbeat That's on Twitter.

I am a TF2 and Mike at GeekCast radio for the

other network updates You can also follow at

the pull bag for those updates as well next time

around we Head back to the lost light because

we'll be more than meets the eye volumes eight

and nine for for for the next episode and then

after that we get when the c i and read volume

ten so who knows how james roberts is going to

uh... destroyer hearts and minds now so i don't

know well yeah we we know you are now but i don't

know yet uh... boy make your greatest in the

comics we'll catch you next time just heard the

latest episode of the pullback the gcr ends comic

review and discussion podcast there are several

ways to get in touch with us and leave feedback

for the show you can visit the website keycastradio

.com where you can comment on the episode and

all of our different podcasts you can rate our

show on itunes be sure to leave us feedback call

the voicemail line 502 -526 -5821 Please remember

to tell us the show you're leaving the message

for, and your name. Become a fan of us on Facebook

by searching Geekcast Radio Network. Send us

an email feedback at geekcastradio .com. Follow

us on Twitter at Geekcast Radio. So until next

time, make your great escape into comics and

unleash the geek in you.