Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers Review

Hey, this is Springer. I've got better things

to do tonight than die like listening to the

geek cast radio network Welcome to the pull bags

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 Hello

and welcome back to the Autobotly August coverage

of IDW Publishing's Transformers comics here

inside the pull bag and also featured on all

things Transformers. I am one of your hosts TFJ

and Mike. Joining me to wreck and rule is Lady

Rek. Hello. Howdy. And joining us is Ryan and

even Flo Merkley. Hello sir. What do you mean,

what? I haven't done that in a while. I know.

It's been good. Yep. Today we all get sinful

with the Wreckers as we are looking at Sins of

the Wreckers written and drawn by Nick Roche

with colors by Josh Burcham. For those of you

who don't know, the Autobot strategist Prowl

is missing, drawn into a familiar web of vengeance

and manipulation. Did you have to say web? Yes.

Yes, they did. It's on the back of the book!

You know, the Autobots darkest - It's really

the inside of the book, not the back. Honey,

honey guy. The Autobots darkest secrets are about

to be exposed by their greatest human ally. The

Wreckers lie in tatters after the trauma of their

last stand. And their leader Springer, the only

person Prowl trusts to rescue him, is in a coma.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Right there. We're

in a wrecker story. Uh huh. Uh huh. We don't

call for cleanup. We don't call for backup. We

call for cleanup. Yeah, there's a lot of cleanup

that needs to be done right now. So before the

podcast before we started recording I just read

this I had not read this when it first came out

because I don't read comics when they first come

out anymore I wait until I eventually do Yeah,

well, you know But obviously lady wreck, you

know, she is the huge wreckers fangirl So incredibly

busy. I haven't had a chance to read everything

in the trade, but yeah. Yeah. So I remember when

I was getting ready to set this episode up, it

was before Ryan. It might have been after Ryan

said he was interested in doing it with us. And

oh, boy. Oh, you meant the podcast. The podcast,

you dummy. So. I then at some point a couple

months ago or a couple weeks ago, I forget when

it was, I messaged Lady Rek on Facebook and I

said, you need to pick your favorite five covers

out of all five issues of all the covers. And

she's like, how dare you ask me to do that? This

is torture. Do you have that list, by the way?

Because I'm like, I don't even remember what

I sent you now. It's somewhere, I don't know

where it is. Uh oh. It won't be here for the

show then, right? No, the art will be the covers

you chose, once the art's made. Let's see here,

it was... I'm starting to get hate mail from

people now. Number one was the sub cover. Don't

worry, there's nobody listening. Yeah, really,

ain't that the truth. people listen to this podcast

no if anyone is listening I want you to post

what Mike's actual biggest sin is I would argue

it's either listening to Nickelback or evaluating

films based on their trailers I'd say those are

his two biggest sins How many times do I have

to tell you people this? That's the point of

a trailer is to make a initial judgment of whether

you want to go waste money on it in the theater

or not. Really? I thought a review was based

on the actual final product, which I get paid

to evaluate. I guess I've been doing this wrong

all these years. I better send those checks back.

Wait, I was just going to say for me the trailers

have always been just the tease to get you at

least put your foot in the door. If they don't

tease you and you don't put your foot in the

door, you're like, whatever, right? You can see

that. All right. So how do we want to break this

down? I don't know. I was just enjoying making

you feel bad. Yeah. Well, it's what Canadians

do best, make us Americans feel bad. Oh, damn.

I know, right? Can't help being better. Don't

look at me. Whoa. Some strong words there. Is

it bad of me to say that my ancestors came from

Canada? Did you know that, Mike, before you put

me on this podcast? No, I really need a beer.

It's bad that you left. It's bad that you left.

I can only assume there was some sort of Russian

collusion, though. Thanks. Okay. Wreckers, how

do we want to break this down? Hopefully we get

to it before we wreck the podcast. Yeah. I'm

pretty sure we lost what little audience we already

had. Well, we could do it in order like we usually

do. Yeah. Issue number one. Let's go. Definitely

not start with issue number five. No. We could

go backwards and do a cliff jumper. Five, four,

three, two. I will preface this that I'm not

sure how... I'm not sure how Last Stand read.

in individual issues. I ended up getting the

last stand of the records fairly late, I think

after the first three trades of More Than Meets

the Eye and RID were out. Reason being, Costa's

run turned me off of reading forever. Sorry,

go ahead. Actually, I think it was Shane McCarthy's

stuff first, and then I tried to get back into

it with Costa and then off. But anyway, so I

didn't I didn't read Last Land in individual

issues and ended up picking it up in trade much

later. It was kind of my jumping on point for.

The IDW verse post Simon Furman's run and. In

the end, the, so the trade for Last Stand of

the Wreckers is fantastic. I would put it up

there with some of the, some of Roberts's best

trades as, well, I mean, he wrote this too, but

anyway, some of his best work as the best Transformers

trade period. But I don't know how those individual

issues read when I read Sims of the Wreckers

individually I I don't know if it's because of

the time frame. It was released in for anyone

who doesn't know this It was not released in

a particularly prompt matter manner. There were

delays on it There were some personal issues

like the usual kind of stuff that happens with

comics But for whatever reason, it just, I don't

know, it didn't grab me. I like it much better

in trade. I think it works a lot better in trade.

And yeah, just like Last Stand, it ends up being

a really good individual trade paperback. Amy,

Nicole, Heather and I talked Last Stand way back,

this was two years ago at this point, in episode

114 of The Pull Bag, so it's been a while since

I've looked at Last Stand, but you're right,

when we reviewed it, we reviewed it and tried.

Like I said a moment ago, I do not read comics.

I don't want to sit here and say I don't read

them for fun, but that's kind of like I read

them so I can talk about them on the podcast.

I have fun while I'm reading them, but I don't

just buy a comic and read it and then not, you

know, do anything with it. I wait and I make

plans for the podcast to read stuff and then

talk about it with my friends. So it's one of

those things where I had gotten Sins of the Wreckers

number one and two, but then all the Delays and

you know, whatever personal issues were happening

with the creative team I don't know and that's

not something we need to even talk about but

it's one of those things where After the first

two issues. I'm like, okay Well, I'll wait till

the next one and then it kept I think issue three

was the one that got delayed and delayed and

delayed and then I think issue four came out

and then issue five got delayed because of Whatever

was going on in Nick Roche's life at the time

And that's fine, I'm not criticizing it. No,

yeah, no, and I'm not criticizing it either.

I'm basically saying that I only had the first

two issues when it first came out. And I just

said, you know what, I'm just going to wait for

the trade. And I think I got the trade on one

of the Transformers sales that Comixology was

having. So I prefer reading the IDWs. I think

part of my point too was flat out just that.

I only read that well in issues, period, whether

or not they came out on time. It's one of those

books that works better when you can sit down

and read the entire thing and get the whole picture,

partially because, I mean, there's a lot of mystery

and backstory slash flashbacks involved in that

actual trade. Amy, you're the tiebreaker here.

I came in on reading Transformers just before

Last Stand of the Wreckers hit. So I was actually

around with the single issues. I thought they

read fine. But then again, I'm all right with

waiting. I kind of look at issues as chapters.

And so when it doesn't really, to me, it doesn't

finish until it gets to the whole end of the

whole. Every issue that came out, I was waiting

for the next very happily. to find one way or

the other. In terms of like, there were some

delays even with last hand as well because there

just happened to be a volcano that went off right

in the middle of trying to publish them. And

that delayed things for one an issue. And then

I don't remember if there was another delay after

that. But yeah, let it not be said that there's

ever any delays when it comes to. putting out

anything with records because so far it's two

for two now. Just, you know, heaven and earth

just seems to to move in that direction. I mean,

in general, it happens to like even the major

Marvel titles have, you know, constant delays.

I mean, the two biggest examples were Civil War,

the original that got delayed. incredibly heavily

because of art and then of course the legendary

one which is Hulk Ultimate Hulk versus Ultimate

Wolverine which was delayed roughly four years

so wow is that the biggest delay in comics history

i'd have to look it up i don't know off the top

of my head it's gonna be up there yeah don't

ask me either You expect me to do research on

the stuff I mentioned? Yes, I expect you to know

your shit It's like it's like stick says get

your shit together So anyway the bulk of what

anybody needs to know from this series before

this is basically just that Verity has the recording

of the, however it's pronounced, Acquitas, I

don't know. Acquitas. Acquitas, thank you. Trials

from the previous Garrus 9 intervention slash

breaking everybody out. And really, this is not

a bad trade in terms of it's not bogged down

super heavily by stuff that happened in previous

issues or even previous Transformers stories.

I mean, R .C. just kind of appears even though

she's on Earth. Well, she's on Earth doing something

else at the same time as this was going on, but

it doesn't really matter. It just works. I mean,

her background basically is just the fact that

when she became part of the mainstream again

and she was Prowl's kind of pit man or hit woman.

And she comes into this pretty much just like,

hey, where's Prowl? Because we need some we need

to have a conversation. And most of it's going

to end with me wanting to stab him. As with everybody

in the IDW verse at this point. Pretty much,

pretty much. But Prowl has an extra dose of that,

just because Prowl is just an evil character,

as it is. Mister, I'm gonna do whatever I'm gonna

do, and you know what? Consequences be damned,

that's him. Last time we did... Sorry to interrupt,

but the last time we did this, two years ago...

After I read it I grabbed several of Springer's

lines and I sent them to Neil Ross to do promos

for us because I we had just got an interview

with Neil Ross and I Thought about doing that

with some of the prowl stuff asking Mike but

I can't ask Michael Bell to do this prowl because

this is this prowl is just so in some ways better

because he's so much more there's so much more

to he's not washed not that the original was

washed out but like there's he you love to hate

him but you you you at a lot of points you find

out that his existence is kind of necessary to

a point which makes it you love it but you hate

it but you love it it's like this nice little

dynamic that you're like he's a total asshole

and he ever all of his ideals are just like ah

dude you just need to stop but you also find

a way to agree with the fact that his existence

and the way that he does things at points is

kind of necessary and like and like the other

logic based character in the idw universe shockwave

he pretty much is he and shockwave are the two

most important characters in the Transformers

universe, really. I mean, they kick off the majority

of the events in one way or another in ways that

even Optimus Prime and Megatron don't. And I

mean, Soundwave, or Soundwave, whoops, Shockwave,

literally seeded a lot of the events that would

be important in the IDW universe. way back in

his past and Prowl with his sort of organization

and scheming basically put everybody in the position

they would end up being in where we see them

so I mean the two of them very much are they

really are the most important part of the universe

for IDW and one of them kind of got his comeuppance

and that was shockwave Obviously, because I mean,

he's dead, at least in theory, he's dead. In

theory, in theory. We don't know for sure. Bumblebee's

okay, but anyway. It depends on what you've read.

Don't blow everybody's minds yet. If you haven't

read one of the, which I recently reread it thinking,

oh yeah, that's right. But yes, Bumblebee is...

Maybe okay, we don't know what's going on. We

were, yeah. But I kind of like the fact that

it was still... Oh, Brian! Damn it! No, no, no,

it's something they'll come back to. It's something

they'll come back to, if John Barber has anything

to say about that. Yeah, I would hope so, yeah.

But yeah, it's, uh... We're just in the waiting

game right now to find out where it actually

goes, if they come back to this or not, but I

think they will. I'm pretty sure that they will.

But yeah, all you're saying about Shockwave and

Prowl is absolutely right. We've never seen Prowl

suffer the consequences of his actions aside

from, you know, he gets a talking to from Magnus.

Chromedome throws him off a cliff, which wasn't

nearly enough of a beating he needed. And of

course Max kicks him. And then, yeah, the worst

he got was the somewhat knockdown drag out with

Optimus Prime. Punch to the face and then he

gets away. It's like, ah! Well, he gets dragged

away by Rattrap, yeah. I think the only thing

wrong with Sins of the Wreckers when it comes

to Prowl, he doesn't flip any tables. True. He

doesn't probably. So Prowl's disappeared, and

we kick off with Cup and RC looking for him.

And they find a number of items on his computers,

slash... not a lot of info on his whereabouts

on their computers at the same time. And they

insinuate this, is that any number of people

could have him. Most of the usual suspects have

been ruled out, but think about it, all the years

that Prowl has... burned bridges anybody could

have them at this point that list would be very

long if he was starting to hint at who it could

be i'd be like uh yeah yeah so eventually they

get turned and i don't think i don't think the

god the villain incense would have been listed

among there except very very low down on the

on the list because if he had known that this

guy was going to come back i'm pretty sure he

would have put him at the top of the list right

so they get turned on to verity's trail in the

end, but also not before we get a brief sort

of flash to what's up with Impactor, Guzzle,

and then Roadbuster, who are all hanging out

on debris. That's the Wrecker space station,

which I believe we see for the first time in

the IDW verse. Guzzle is... Well, A, Guzzle's

sort of gone nuts. B, by the way, it's never

explained, but why the hell is Guzzle like six

times the size he used to be? I never figured

that out. Anyway... It goes back to his tech

spec, actually. Yeah, I know. It's just in -universe

for some reason. Yeah, he's just... Since we've

seen him, he pretty much upgraded himself to

the max. It's just I'm not sure how he did it

since impactor only has one hand maybe you worked

on himself It's like the it's the old walking

dead question of how does Rick put on all his

shirts? So We find out again that you know, there's

been no change in springer he's still comatose

comatose on boards debris Then we flash back

to Cup and RC and this is the point where they

figure out that, you know, something's going

on with Verity. They get a recording from Prowl

who basically... I mean, it's a fairly... Prowl

clearly knows he has a lot of enemies since he

mentions it. Yeah. And just, you know, asks them

to find Springer. And yeah, he's the only one

he trusts to find him. Surprisingly enough. After

all the things that he's put him through Well,

he hasn't tortured springer quite as much but

Until you get to the end of this yeah, I remember

um I Remember when this go what was it bot con

Amy? I don't know there was some one of the transformers

conventions when this first came out You would

either post it in the in the group chat or somewhere

on Facebook or something here and look preview

and I remember the preview pages ended on The

prowl hologram message thing and I'm like, oh

wow. Okay I Love Nick's heart in this so far

through it's quite good and that's not surprising

it's one of the best artists on yeah I've said

it before when we were recording the stuff for

more than meets the eye and not our ID and that

is just that all of the artists and colors and

Tom Long on lettering for IDW are fantastic When

I talk about art being down or not as good as

somebody else's, it's not saying much because

the art is always so great that even stepping

down to really, really good is a step downwards.

Yeah, I mean, with the entire stable of artists

that IDW has that work on the Transformers books,

whether it's Josh Burcham, Josh Perez, Joanna

La Fuente, it doesn't matter who it is, Priscilla,

Alex, any of those people, you know, Casey Coller,

any of those guys and gals, they all bring their

own unique take on whatever the story is. And

that's just... Such a great thing to do, I think.

Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. They

all have their own flavor. They all and they're

passionate about what they do. I mean, not that

not to say that others aren't, but they're not.

I get the sense in any time that I've ever talked

with them. It's more than just a job. It's a

passion. Yeah. And it shows it really bleeds

through their work. But I'll tell you right now,

John Barber, no more six artists on one dark

Cybertron. that was too much it's because it's

an event i know but still almost most all events

have more than have more than their fair share

of artists and colorists yeah so to end out and

close out the issue quickly uh cop and rc Jump

stakeout and Verity stakeout is Sort of guarding

over slash watching over Verity. He was the police

car We saw at the end of last stand of the wreckers

and he's there. Well, I mean he's there through

Magnus he mentions being being a deputy of the

terrorist accord however, the Acting terrestrial

cord person is now Fort Max, but I guess nobody

told stakeout that anyway Hasn't come through

the email yet. Oh, yeah, and even then I mean

Max probably wouldn't you know have him change

or anything in the end they all get to make a

long story short they all get confronted by Springer

and the newly reformed Wreckers consisting of

Roadbuster, Cup, Springer, Guzzle, Impactor,

and I guess Hubcaps kind of tagging along. I

don't think he's a actual member of the Wreckers,

but... Yeah, I agree. We'll see why he's along

later. I do want to say though, before we get

this final reveal in the first issue here of

Springer, it's like... The alarm goes off. What

is that intruder? No, that's medical. It's Springer.

And we see the, the, cause Cup had a talking

to him earlier. Like wake your ass up. You know,

yes. And, you know, see, you know, has seen the

last page of this first issue being, you know,

Springer in the wreck. Cause it's like, Oh God,

that's so cool. Having said that, it didn't occur

to anybody else to order him to wake up. I mean,

come on, guys. Okay, but who would he listen

to, though? I guess Roadbuster's terrible stories

weren't enough to wake him up. Whirl trying to

choke him didn't work, but nobody decided to

just say, why don't you get up? Because it's

different. It's coming from Cup, who has been

his mentor. Oh, I know, I was joking. The cup

was kind of out of commission himself. Yeah,

which is we finally get closure on that kind

of, but that's much later. Yeah. Mm hmm. So,

yeah, issue one ends with the group shot. We

jump off with issue two into the first of our

flashbacks to the past, kind of showing prowls.

Previous life slash things that he's the daydream

Yeah It's a combination kind of everything yeah,

he wishes prime actually saw you know didn't

think of him as a piece of shit, but It's hard

not to Yeah, and I guess I you know once we find

out that it is a dream sequence kind of thing

Guess as soon as I saw the the webs I should

have guessed who who the character was gonna,

but I still didn't guess I Should have but I

didn't I didn't even think about it because because

they bring up this one character from prowls

past Methuselah or whatever but it's one of those

things where okay, so that's a new character

to me reading this and Because like I said, it's

been about two years since I read Last Stand.

And OK, we'll see where this is going. And by

the time we get to what the eventual reveal is

later, it's like, oh, wow, I so did not see that

coming at all. This is also the first time that

he's ever been in the IDW verse as well. So it

wasn't, I mean, there were a lot of speculation

at the time. But yeah, there's only such a short

list on that. So. It's because his name, and

then a bunch of other things, are puns on different

spider sub -species and species. So a lot of

people kind of figured that, OK, it's tarantulas.

It wasn't too hard, yeah, to figure out who it

was. But at the same time, it was like, because

after, well. If you're reading all of the other

stuff that's going on in Robots in Disguise and

Optimus Prime, the lead up to Optimus Prime,

where they rebranded and then called it Transformers.

But originally, after the war is over and we

split off and have more than meets the eye in

Robots in Disguise, all of the unaligned characters

that they're calling unaligned are, you know,

Beast Wars. Characters and characters that have

never been in IDW that they're bringing back

into you know the full continuity of IDW as being

unaligned characters and so that we're getting

new ones all the time and Tarantulas had not

been brought in yet so the fact that he showed

up was like I think was also a win too because

a lot of fans wanted him back So no, I liked

it. I just I was not expecting it. I don't want

anything wrong. I don't not like anything about

it. Yeah. Unexpected. It was also unexpected

because we hadn't seen him yet. So it was kind

of good to at least it wasn't unexpected. It

was a win. It wasn't an unexpected reveal that

ruined everything like the doctor being a woman

anyway. So, oh, Jesus, you didn't spoil somebody.

Yeah, this will air in August so they'll they'll

know by now And they said the next female, the

next doctor's a female, went, oh, thank you,

Twitter, for the trending spoiler there. I got

it even if I didn't want it. But I mean, OK,

but this is nothing to do with comics. Well,

Doctor Who does have comics, but it's one of

those things where all the other doctors have

been men. The fact that the 13th doctor is a

woman, is that really a... We don't know what

kind of doctor she's going to be. We don't know

what kind of stories, because the other part

of that is Moffat is gone. I am the most casual,

not even a Doctor Who fan, and even I know that

Moffat was running the thing for the first, you

know, X number of years. But, I don't know. Anyway.

Crowl and a spiderweb. Yeah. I feel like we probably

should just do a whatever podcast because usually

I mentioned my single line tangents and then

just move on Accepting it as like the off -handed

joke or whatever it is, but for some reason we're

having discussions about them I'm gonna have

to stay on point for once this sucks. Yeah, I

know right stay on point fool Issue two I'm gonna

sum up in well it's your fault you're the host

issue two I'm gonna sum up in record time then

so the God damn it now I can't remember the pronunciation

again. It's been too long. Just call him by his

name. No, I meant... No, no, not that. I meant

the files get stolen from Verity. Equitas. Thank

you. Anyway, they get stolen from Verity. Cup,

it's discovered, has a setup within him that

allows Prowl to take control of him, see through

his eyes and speak through him. So our heroes

slash wreckers get... a quick update on Prowl,

where he is and who's holding him or at least

his idea of where he is because he's not entirely

sure. And in our previous sort of flashbacks

to where he is, it's either dark and he can't

see anything or he's stuck in the noise maze,

which more on that momentarily. So, in any case,

the bunny rabbit that has stolen Faride's backpack

gets eaten by a whale, as one does. When you're

a rabbit, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, and

in this trade, we discover... That's always a

bigger fish. Sorry. The rabbit's not a fish and

the whale's not a fish. I know, I know, I know.

It's terrible. Anyway, so we discovered that

the beasts in question, including a polar bear

that appeared earlier, are all actually Transformers.

These are not Beast Wars era Transformers, which

is interesting. I thought it was interesting

that this is our first introduction to Carnivac

and some of the others from G1. Yeah. But I mean,

it's not super important if you are not well

-versed in Generation 1. So anyway. No, you didn't

need to know any of that. Because I mean, like

when I first read this, I didn't know either.

But it's just basically, just think of it as

this, is if you don't know any backstory, it's

just another group of Transformers that the Wreckers

are up against. And the whale turns out to be

Tidal Wave. And so they end up attacking Tidal

Wave in an attempt to get uh the files back slash

they're fairly certain at this point the prowl

is within tidal wave and that's kind of where

we end off on this issue so does tidal wave have

pinocchio and geppetto as well why not i mean

we're already we're already referencing all this

other you know pop culture why not yeah sure

it's got you know Geppetto and Pinocchio as well.

I thought Pinocchio was the president currently.

Hey! His orange nose doesn't grow that much.

No, it's just when you master lying. I guess

it's not a lie if you believe it though. Issue

3. This time we get an actual full -on flashback

that is not Prowl's imagination. Mm -hmm. And

we see his, we sort of see his relationship with

Tarantula slash Mesothla, Mesothlis? Yeah, Methuselah

something. Just call him Tarantula. Tarantula.

Tarantula? Shut up. So, meanwhile though, the

Wreckers, or at least Springer, RC... hubcap

and road buster oh and verity have entered tidal

wave and are stuck in the noise maze which messes

with the transformers basically all of their

senses and their minds it doesn't seem to affect

verity uh we will eventually see and how they

kind of get through there is it doesn't affect

hubcap at all uh finally prowl comes face to

face with the newly renamed tarantulas So I can

stop trying to mess up the pronunciation of everything.

The rest of the records consisting of Impactor,

Cup, and Guzzle are foiled as Tidal Wave is finally

able to transform and go back underwater. And

at this point, Impactor figures out slash remembers.

Exactly what it is. They're up against and decides

to go back to debris with everybody We discover

that the thing stuck in tidal waves transformation

cog, by the way, unfortunately, it was poor stakeout

which I like stakeout and then he gets off like

it seems to be a record tradition though that

Somebody new in the series gets off early. We

had rotor storm. Yeah who you know overlords

took a real liking to That's putting it mildly.

So we get the first really long discussion between

Prowl and Tarantulas at this point in which we

learn that Tarantulas is looking for someone

as well as he really wants Prowl to work with

him. Which, you know, who wouldn't want to work

with Prowl? He's such a good, dependable, loyal

guy. And yeah, I mean that's the bulk of the

issue which this one ends up being a really wordy

issue You know, I'll talk about a little bit

more after I finish the summation But anyway,

so we end the issue with a hubcap is immune in

the noise maze This is important because we finally

figure out that hubcap is Not on our hero's side

More on that next issue and then be impactors

grave for whatever reason contains a portal into

the noise maze Which is awesome Yeah, and tarantulas

has captured everybody again because yeah, we've

figured out that hubcaps know that Wasn't on

their side. He was working for slash with tarantulas.

Yep I think the thing with the reason why issue

3 is so wordy is because out of a five -issue

miniseries you have to have some sort of exposition.

You don't really want it in the first... I know,

but you don't really want it in the first two

issues because you have to set up the story for

everybody that has never read any of this stuff

before. It's not a complaint, and it doesn't

have to happen after the Tarantulas reveal. I'm

just saying that... There's a number of philosophical

debates contained within this book, and a lot

of that is on the different nature of everybody

involved, most notably Prowl, who has the habit

of Prowl will aim the gun, but will never ever

pull the trigger. He's the guy that's responsible

for everything, but never has to experience the

consequences, whereas the Wreckers are the complete

opposite. They experience the consequences of

Prowl, shockwave, Megatron, Prime, whoever is

in charge, they're... They're usually the ones

pulling the trigger. Yeah, they're the ones that

have to live with everything. But even to a certain

extent, Prime... Or die. Yeah, wow. They can't

die with everything. But even Prime and Megatron,

I mean Megatron had to come to terms during More

Than Meets the Eye with the fact that his orders

and what he's done has resulted in billions and

billions of... Deaths on his hands complete with

genocide in certain Scenarios, and he finally

comes face to face with that and that's you know

the issue between them is Even though prime cares.

He doesn't always have to see the consequences

of his actions He doesn't even know that some

of these are being made in his name. Yeah like

the Dinobots atrocities that we'll talk about

in the Whatever you want. I'll call it the meant

series slash Dinobot trilogy But I mean, he didn't

know about stuff like that or he had a vague

idea of it and Megatron somewhat similarly with

the DJD. But in the end, it makes them similar

to Prowl in that they're not the ones actually

pulling the trigger in those scenarios and doing

it, but it's still on their orders. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, yeah, a lot of this book. is an examination

of that and to a certain extent that kind of

spiraled out of Last Stand of the Wreckers, which

was a lot less philosophical, but the same questions

were always there because everything happened

on Prowl's orders. Prowl didn't care about the

people involved either. He didn't care that Fort

Max was there being tortured for three years.

It was just the revelation that the files could

get out and That's what prompted him to finally

send somebody or do something about it. And so,

yeah, it's more of Prowl's douchebaggery on display.

Well, it is. And I mean, that's what a lot of

this series is about. And so in the third issue,

yeah, it's a full examination of Prowl's actually

got to discuss some of his decisions and things

he's done in the past. Which usually he's free

of, because, you know, like you said. Consequences

are not usually the thing that he has to deal

with. It's the records or whoever he sends out

to deal with those consequences. He usually just

picks up the pieces afterwards and moves on.

Yeah. So. Yeah. So fourth issue, everyone has

now come together at this point as debris itself

is brought into the noise maze by cop impact

or and goes all which causes the entire area

to completely. Begin just collapsing Yeah, and

it's able to get everybody free and we kind of

get the the beginning of the final battle is

at this point and Everybody is kind of fighting

everybody Which works really well in a wreckers

book, this is basically how it all devolves at

some point either way uh we got uh earlier we

had the flashback to road buster and how well

essentially it's how he became a wrecker a but

b also some of the atrocities that he had committed

and that have been mentioned in other series

finally get shown he killed a bunch of his own

cadets because he was hearing voices in his head

turned out it was Tarantulas in his head he thought

it was mortalis who by the way is one of the

transformer sort of gods that get worshipped

and get mentioned once in a while most notably

in more than meets the eye but yeah in the end

road buster gets killed by tarantulas in much

the same method and tarantulas kind of just sort

of says he's going to recapture everybody and

experiment on them Because that's what he does

I guess I guess I don't know this was Screw it.

I'm just gonna jump straight into the last book.

Well, wait, no, no What I'm saying is when I

said I guess is more so when you said Oh tarantulas

says oh, I'm just gonna experiment and are on

everybody I'm like, I I guess that's what he's

gonna do because that's something weird to everybody

No. Well, and he also goes out of his way to

help Verity too, so. Yeah, we discovered that

he's cured her. Which is kind of the only nice

thing that he does in the whole thing. To a certain

extent. I mean, he's like, oh, OK, how magnanimous

of you. Yeah, so sort of. I mean, jumping to

the main issue at hand here, the other good thing

he did was bring Springer life. Springer is a

synthetic transformer. He is not created by any

of the means which Transformers are normally

created which traditionally is the matrix or

some type of spark hotspots Again, usually a

result of the matrix But all of the methods we've

ever seen it's not like the old cartoon show

where you could just build a transformer and

Somehow it would just work as a transformer like

the Dinobots Or, you know, take old jetliners

and spaceships and take them in front of a giant

computer and, you know. At least there was some

mythology there. It always bugs me. DinoBots,

by the way. They just build these robot dinosaurs

and suddenly they're Transformers. I think that

was because there wasn't a lot... As a child,

I was a nitpicky prick. What can I say? You still

are, I mean... I didn't say I grew out of it,

I'm just saying. And you're right, but see, the

thing of it is, is, you know, that's what, season

one, season two, when Wheeljack builds them.

Yeah. So, they didn't inject any of the Cybertronian

mythology. Either way, it doesn't matter. Either

way, it doesn't matter. The Constructicons have

three different fucking origins. I mean, come

on. throughout that whole series you know so

it's one of those things where they showed up

after they were built which is my favorite yeah

they didn't really so with the dino bots and

with a lot of the the creation of a lot of the

other ones it's like before the before the movie

and all that they didn't really have the stories

of them the mythology because the the Cybertronian

origin stuff doesn't happen until you know we

get that infamous scene where you know Rodimus

short circuits himself and goes inside the matrix

in five faces of darkness you know we didn't

really have any of that in the first two seasons

of the cartoon so I don't know So in any case,

this is a big deal because in IDW's Transformerverse,

the creation of Transformers is generally considered

to be exceptionally difficult or requires a number

of different circumstances. And I want to come

back to that a little bit later, but I'm going

to finish this synopsis. Again, long story short,

the group of Wreckers are able to eventually

overcome tarantulas who is able to mass displace

himself and becomes a gigantic spider, they're

able to help bring down the entire place by making

tidal wave essentially overload himself. and

again jumping around a bit we get closure on

the so it was guzzles friends that were killed

by cup way back in spotlight cup we knew this

in the end of the wreckers but he was never actually

confronted him about it or anything like that

well finally he does and it ends up costing him

his life as impactor kills him before he can

kill cup and Prowl that's too bad. But anyway,

so also impact or kills hubcap Earlier so impact

or by the way racking up the old body count in

this is series He's usually the the one that

pulls the trigger for Prowl by the way Yeah,

and that's so he's kind of used to that Yeah,

and that's the main discussion here and he literally

does it with hubcap. Although Prowl was kind

of coming around to his thinking Yeah, but Peral

was just going to sit there and just kind of

point a gun at him. And it was just like, no,

no, I'm not going to give you a chance to think

one way or the other whether or not this is good.

Boom. He killed it. So what I want to come back

to is and again, going back to the Peral never

has to deal with consequences or anything. I'm

curious what everybody thinks. So in the end,

Tarantulas created Springer and. and he discovers

that he's alive, and that's really all he wanted.

If Prowl hadn't hidden all of this from him and

done his usual kind of Prowl thing, would any

of this have happened? I mean, Tarantulas doesn't

seem like the most stable being in this series,

but in essence, Prowl did kind of take his son

essentially away from him. Yeah, and just sort

of rate and just sort of raise them as his own

because again It was another piece on a chessboard

the prowl could use later on Mm -hmm, which is

funny because it's the also the only person he

trusts so Yeah, it's it's one of those things

it's just like well does even Springer know that

and he doesn't yeah, yeah by the end we finally

we realized that yes bringer really doesn't and

Yeah, it's So overall, I mean this series is

really good It lives up to the legacy created

in last stand of the records. I'd say without

being heavily burdened by Having to read it.

So, I mean, there's definitely references there,

you know stuff like road busters past Guzzle's

history with comp and of course, we see iron

fists corpse briefly or physitron whichever you

prefer but even without all of that there's still

a it works really well on its own and I completely

instead of splitting that up into a and b just

said it all as once so ignore the fact I said

yeah I mean What was out during this time what

else was that like what storylines were going

on not ongoing not our ID We had side swipe and

RC trapped on the arc in the middle of nowhere

Boy that resolved well for side swipe didn't

it? Stop A year and a half later, so anyway There

was that, and then in More Than Meets the Eye,

everybody was stuck on the Necrobot's planets,

which resolved really well for Skids and Ravage.

Not really. If you read Last Stand, if you're

a fan of the Wreckers, like Lady Wreck is, and

like we all are, but she's die -hard, obviously,

folks. I mean, she's obsessed. She has an unhealthy

obsession with a couple of the creative team

members. I have no idea what you're talking about,

but in certain platforms, creative team members,

if James Roberts told me to, like, spend the

night with him, I would, I mean... Okay, on that

are on that list, like Trent Reznor and a few

others, but, you know, it's important that, uh,

oh, sorry. So, anyway, um... We are on the podcast,

this is being re -recorded. Yes, this is... We

are not re -recording any of this! She's been

too busy she's got three kids and she's trying

to go to four different conventions this year

and All right, so what I was So what I was trying

to say in the beginning before this went completely

downhill was that to me going back and reading

this I think you can read this without reading

Last Stand, however, I think you should read

Last Stand, because it is very, very well done,

and it is... at some point Nick might go back

to do another Wrecker story, who knows, I don't

know. I asked about the on -goings at the time

because I was wondering if any of that stuff...

had any hints of what was going on here and it

doesn't seem like okay well that's what I'm saying

it doesn't so it doesn't really matter you can

read these five issues by themselves and not

feel like you're missing anything that was going

on in either of the ongoing to the time that

this came out more than that I just say that

if I were to recommend to transformer trades

without Asking that people get into the entire

series or any others. These are probably the

two I would even going back to a lot of the old

Transformers stuff Like I have all the old UK

trades and the Marvel trades these two as you

know in particular last stand to be honest Stand

up brilliantly on their own without even any

prior Transformers knowledge and I've loaned

them out to people who have said holy cow This

is one of the better, you know graphic novels.

I've read who don't know anything about Transformers.

So yeah, I highly recommend both of them. Absolutely.

I completely agree. That's the glowing endorsement

right there. I would definitely, and I've done

the same thing too, where I've given out issues

and have gotten people into Transformers just

because I did that. So amen. Yeah, and like I

say, I enjoy both of these. I give Last Stand

a bit of an edge just because I love Tarantulas.

I think he's great in this. Oh, but good God,

I love Overlord. He has such a childlike joy

and sadism that it's almost refreshing because

there's nobody else like that in Transformers.

He's just such a joyful jerk to everybody. And

then when he reappears later on, his brilliant

conversations with Tarn, I mean, I just love

that character. Yeah, I agree. So what you're

saying is, is Overlord is essentially your long

-lost brother? Maybe, but my asshole -ishness

doesn't result in repeated death. Well, there

is that. Overlord pushes people to kill their

best friends. And make them enjoy doing it. Yeah.

creepy yes but that's overlord yeah actually

to be honest very different variations i mean

even after reading sins i'm like can we just

call the the subtitle to this daddy issues yeah

basically i mean both characters have their own

one of them is the father the other one yeah

desperately wants megatron to pay attention to

him yeah Well, I mean, even on a lot of characters,

looking at a lot of characters, daddy issues,

relationship issues, we got issues here. Yeah.

So I think it's interesting that this is one

of those that proves that Nick Roach can stand

up with Robert's and some of the Furman classic

stuff as one of the best Transformers writers,

period, in any medium. And I think it's interesting

that over the last few years, a number of people

have done that. Roberts, you know, came out of

nowhere years ago to, in my opinion, be the best

Transformers writer we've ever had. And since

then, I mean, Barber, I love his work on the

Dinobot trilogy. I think that's some of his best

period. That being, what is it? Punishment? Punishment,

redemption and salvation. Redemption and salvation,

that's it. I absolutely adore those trades as

well and now yeah Nick Roach who initially I

think his best stuff was Just the cup step spotlight

then he you know comes out with last stand and

there was some question You know, what did he

write? What did Roberts write? And it turns out

hey wait, they're both great writers. Yeah The

reason why it was so good is because they both

They both know each other they've been friends

for years even be prior to their writing together.

So There there was of course the inside joke

it was you know, Rochert's, you know Between

one or the other but quite literally they they

they both are in their own, right? very very

good writers and Their work stands for plenty

of it stands for itself. So absolutely All right,

so what would we give last stand Ryan zero to

five Last stand well last and not last. Yeah

sins I don't think there's a big enough Difference

in terms of quality. I would actually give it

a five as well. I know this is one of the best

transformer trades period And yeah, I mean He's

good he's good What about you, Amy? What would

you rate Sins? I would absolutely give it a five.

On a rating of from one to five, right? Yeah,

zero to five, yeah. Yeah, gotcha. I would put

it in the five range. Yeah, it's probably gonna

be fives all around. I really did enjoy it. I

thought it was a fun Transformers ride that you

didn't need to have to have read. You know two

thousand other issues to get what was going on

I mean you just have to go back and read last

stand to get kind of the the introduction but

even so you know this picks up at the very beginning

to where They set it up nicely Yeah, like you

said I mean you don't have to have read last

stand But it's highly recommended if you read

sins and like that you're really gonna like let

the last stand as well. Yeah, so I think that's

been another area that IDW's really excelled

at. It's a lot better if you know the history,

but in particular each of the individual writers

have crafted a series or franchise that you don't

necessarily need to have read everything. Barber,

Scott and Roberts have both done a fantastic

job with their individual ones and just it's

good writing. It's not dependent on, you don't

need 300 years of Men history to build off of,

they just tell good stories and have excellent

characterization really in each issue. And we

just got a jumping on point for the two main

series. And I mean, Till All Are One, which I

would argue is the best of this sort of short

running series so far, has only 11 issues under

it. So I mean, they've created good jumping on

points too. Yeah. But I find it outstanding and

incredible that IDW has written a number of really

good stories that can really be read in pretty

much any order, essentially beyond Last Stand.

I think the earlier stuff doesn't work as well

on its own. And to be blunt, even long form isn't

as good a quality as the later stuff. Yeah, this

really the past five six years of Transformers

has been the best the fiction has ever had overall

Absolutely It's definitely a good time to be

a Transformers fan of reading comics. So if um

There's somebody out there that this great jumping

on point. Um, and then it just gets better from

here Yep, absolutely Alright, where can the people

find you online Amy? You can find me online at

lady of rack Twitter Twitter at night beats on

Twitter There you go. We shouldn't forget this

time. I am also at TF2 and Mike on Twitter. You

can follow the pull bag on Twitter It's at the

pull bag fall at geek cast radio for all the

other network updates uh... next week ryan and

i are going to be going to uh... piggy island

to transform the uh... angry birds so that's

what's coming up next week in auto bali august

uh... angry birds transformers so that's gonna

be fun uh... it's a majorly good well barbara

wrote it i mean you know what what what an angry

birds transformers crossover i don't expect much

from crossovers period so how have you never

read this amy i just never got around to reading

it when it came out i i had a newborn and i just

it's just gotten put off put off oh yeah i'll

get to that someday I mean, to be fair, if I'm

including a list of the classics with which people

need to get to reading, Angry Birds Transformers,

despite the fact I just said it was good, probably

not in the top 100 trades. I'm just gonna call

- Well, no, but, I mean, she - she used to read

all kinds of stuff, and I know she's been busy

the last few years, but like, I mean, come on!

about a month ago so don't give me too much grief

oh yeah i haven't good i i just finished and

you haven't not written yet yeah no i haven't

even read it yet so do you even know what happens

to megatron uh i know what happens to megatron

at the end of more than meets the eye but okay

there you go so you haven't seen you're not up

on it no you haven't seen him completely dismantled

really not yet I can't believe Swerve beat him

up. Stop it. That was a shocker. Oh lord. Alright

folks, we're gonna get the... I love that thing.

Speaking of which... We are getting the heck

out of here make your greatest game in the comics

we'll catch you next week with angry birds transformers

with Ryan and I and Yeah transforming. I don't

roll out or something who knows I don't Should

have been wreck and roll for this episode it

probably should have rock and roll Just heard

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