Transformers Titans Return Review

Hi, this is Dan Gilbazan and you're listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Welcome to The

Pullback. Join us as we dig on our latest comics

and discuss them with a rotating panel of the

GCRN crew. So sit back and enjoy this week's

Pullback. Hey everybody, this is Dan Kilbazan,

voice of G -1 Bumblebee, and you're listening

to All Things Transformers. Hello and welcome

to The Pull Bag! This is episode 148 of The Pull

Bag. It kicks off Autobotly August. It has been

four months, ladies and gentlemen, since myself

and Ryan Anfield Merkley talked about Transformers

comics, more than meets the eye, and robots in

disguise, book formally known as robots in disguise,

whatever you want to call it. We are back to

talk more Transformers this - month here in August

on the pull bag and all things Transformers.

Tonight we've got Titans Return, so we're going

to wrap up More Than Meets the Eye and Robots

in Disguise. After that we're going to be doing,

and you don't know this yet because I haven't

told you, we're going to be doing the Primacy

Trilogy or the Autocracy Trilogy. So that's going

to happen this month. Lady Rek is going to join

us for Sins of the Wreckers. You and I will do

Angry Birds Transformers, and then somebody will

will do the Dinobot trilogy punishment redemption

and salvation So there's that so yeah, that's

what's happening here in August That trilogy

good since the records ended up really good I

have not I have not read it yet. It did not start

out well issue to issue, I didn't find it read

very well. And as for the AC trilogy, well, we'll

get into that momentarily. Alright, so before

we get started here on Titan's Return, I have

a rant. And the rant is to whoever the IDW trade

paperback editor is, whoever assembles the comics

in trade paperback form, whether it be digital

or physical media, please take out the multiple

versions of revolution previews oh my god yeah

they're not in the physical trade so they are

in the digital and it pisses me off oh yeah you

know that yeah i think i got these uh digitally

issue by issue basis but I mean I don't I generally

don't go back and reread the digital ones that

I just use the physical copies for these shows

and anytime I reread it because I can sit in

the bathroom where I do my only good thinking

I certainly don't do any good thinking on these

podcasts I don't know that sounds like a personal

problem to me oh boy so Titans return this is

the one shot plus 56 and 57 of each of the transformers

and more than meets the eye the end of both series

too because the transformers becomes optimus

prime yeah The more than meets the eye becomes

lost light and then we get a third which is till

all are one Which was really good and then got

the axe after 12 issues. Yeah which really sucks,

but I mean part of that is The relaunch of these

types. So one of the comic things that's happened

with IDW is they love they pulled the Marvel

and DC bit of Let's relaunch and start over at

one Well, that didn't work well for IDW. No.

Lost Light and Becoming Optimus Prime lost a

significant chunk of their readership and then

just till all or one was it did fairly well as

Windblade, but then the Relaunch of it as an

ongoing didn't fare too. Well either Revolution

did not pan out nearly as well as they wanted

resulting in the cancellation of What got canned

everything wrong mask or not mask. Yep, you name

it. It got shit canned and then yeah gem which

sold well is also being relaunched and then there

was a report that idw went uh 1 .2 million dollars

in the hole which a lot of that has to be well

not has to be a lot of that is paying for licensing

fees and then the books not panning out combined

with yeah they lost a bunch of readership in

the transformers books uh they'll be fine but

they're gonna have to concentrate on stuff that's

selling or critically acclaimed and Yeah, I mean

revolution was just a disaster for this company

It was not a good idea just to be blunt Oh, I

should mention revolution for anyone who doesn't

know They decided to do a Hasbro shared universe

And so that means they merged ROM, Micronauts,

GI Joe, Mask, and Transformers all into the same

universe. The merger that nobody asked for, because

listen, I grew up with Mask, it was great for

its time. But nobody was clamoring for a mask

comic the original mask comic got shit -canned

after nine issues, by the way And that was at

the height of its property of its popularity.

So Yeah, so and by the way, I read those they

were way more adults than the cartoon show and

like characters died and stuff like that it was

Very different. But anyway, I have not read the

mask series yet. I wanted to and I will eventually

but I have not read the mask IDW series yet yeah

i haven't read it uh i've read the first issue

of it and then i read the revolution tie -ins

for it um uh they are hilariously bad so so so

it's about on par with the tv show yeah i mean

they go into bits like explaining why you know

miles manheim is called miles mayhem and just

The names are hilarious. The dialogue is hilarious.

It was a good property in the 80s for a kids

series. It's not something that's translated

well into adulthood. And I'll do respect to the

writers, because I'm not trying to pile on them.

But I don't think anybody could have done a really

good job with this. this is just not a series

you know nobody's clamoring for a rated r mask

series or you know it was an odd choice and then

micronauts and rom i barely even remember and

i lived through the 80s i mean again like why

whoever chose these it's very odd i mean the

series from the 80s that people remember there's

basically three You know, there's the one we're

talking about. GI Joe, everybody remembers. Now,

GI Joe under IDW has had a huge problem sustaining

a reader base. I mean, it's been canceled numerous

times. So I don't know that a comic is viable

for it. And then the other one, people remember,

well, well, two more. There's Thundercats and

He -Man, but they don't have the licenses to

those. Yeah, that's DC. And, you know, and let's

face it, Jim is another one as well. I mean,

yeah, sorry, I should have, you know, I don't.

I'm not sure the recent movie points to there

being like a huge fan base But there's obviously

enough for the comics because the comics have

done they've been IDW's highest seller aside

from Ninja Turtles Yeah, and the Turtles has

done well because a Ninja Turtles are doing pretty

well on TV Even though it's not a tie -in and

then be the series has just been really good

and consistent And I don't know hasn't renamed

itself 12 times and keeps starting over at one

See, that's the thing with the Turtles my buddy

Joe Reed and I actually review them here inside

the pullback We've been reviewing it for years

now. That's the thing with the Turtles. They

don't you're right They're not going to read

number. I I've talked to verbatim Burby wow Bobby

Kernau several different times And he has said,

and I've talked to Tom Walts, the writer, he,

but they both have said the ideal goal is to

get to 100. And they're, I think they're already

up to 72 or 73 or whatever it is now. The thing

with the turtles is it's a whole universe that's

inside of itself. And if they want to do other

stories outside of the ongoing, they set up mini

-series like the Casey and April mini -series

or the Krang Utram Empire mini -series or the

Dimension X mini -series, the five week event

that's going to be happening here. and then they

set up a second ongoing called Turtles Universe

where they can tell whatever kind of stories

they want but the main ongoing TMNT that has

been going since 2012 has a continuous line that

you just don't want to mess with yeah and so

getting into Titans Return yes Titans Return

attempt to Shoehorn in something into the IDW

verse and this time more than meets the eye sort

of takes part but Does it in a way that doesn't

sort of interrupt all their storylines and that

kind of thing? Yeah The other series are not

so lucky no So, I mean So the story for Titans

Return is Sentinel Prime has returned. This ties

into autocracy, which I'll get to in a second.

But Sentinel Prime is back. It turns out he was

what's called a Titan master, which is basically

a headmaster, but can control the Titans. And

it turns out, oh, that's what Blackrock was the

whole time. And so he goes and kidnaps Blackrock.

and they create an army of undead titans, the

ones that were on Luna 2, which Fort Max and

Co. were left on back in More Than Meets the

Eye, and sends them to Cybertron to take it over.

Yeah, and I mean, I basically just summed up

the whole series great, but I have a number of

problems with it. One is the tie -in to autocracy.

which makes no sense because autocracy monstrosity

those work okay if you consider them three like

alternate universe kind of fun G1 cartoon -esque

books if you try to put them in the IDW continuity

they don't work at all yeah it doesn't fit in

with continuity characters meet each other way

before They were supposed to in the IDW verse.

I mean it was never intended to be part of the

universe Yeah, and for some reason they decided

to try to shoehorn it in I think is a giant mistake

because the characterization ends up being way

off especially for prime and Megatron Yeah It

just doesn't work that well and to be honest

as an IDW story. They're not good Yeah as standalone

like fun stories. They're not bad. You could

do worse. But yeah putting them in continuity

is a huge mistake and it just This series just

kind of fell flat sentinel isn't very interesting

and we don't Spend enough time with him for him

to be all that interesting I think the idea of

sentinel for me since I I've only been reading

IDW since Death of Optimus, well, since Death

of Optimus. I didn't read the Mike Kosta run,

so... I think the idea of Sentinel in this is

interesting, that the body of Sentinel, the personality

of Sentinel is a shell. At least it's not the

tick. I mean, I like Sentinel in Animated, but,

you know, I think here they did a little bit...

better of a job um they basically did a minimus

ambus thing with him here a little bit yeah um

sorry the japanese head masters where the robots

were the heads and the bottom part was just a

shell and that's probably where this comes from

yeah uh yeah it just yeah I love how the the

news people are like the Autobot security services,

and I'm like really seriously You're going to

name it the Autobot security services. You're

going to name a Transformers thing ass really

I mean that's kind of like all -star Superman.

Well the crossovers have all been asked actually

talk about the book now I guess first of all

it should be noted that Livio last name unpronounceable

Remindeli yes still too hard I'm easily confused

what can I say does the interiors for the bulk

of the series yep and you know I'm occasionally

critical of his action scenes and that kind of

thing he did a perfect job on these I had no

trouble following what was going on at any point

with his artwork and if anything I like his interiors

more than the more than meets the eye interiors

which comprise the last two books in this trade

yeah I think the thing with Livio's interiors

is his style. It's a polished G1 style and by

that I mean he's not trying to remind us of 1984

or any of the stuff that was in the Sunbow cartoons

but that's where he's getting his inspiration

from. Like if you look at Optimus you know in

several of these panels yes it's idw optimus

yes it's not specifically sunbow g1 cartoon optimus

but the flash and the bang and the the way the

colors are done in the way the livio draws them

it just looks so cool it looks like something

that popped out of the 80s cartoon but it's a

little bit more defined than what the cartoon

was Yeah, and I think his humans in this actually

work pretty well as well, too But we have the

same problem I had with a lot of Not our ID and

that is the human characters are just not a lot

interesting and yeah Black Rock's whining was

boring to me and annoying to me in the previous

books now with him as sovereign I could care

even less also we get a few retellings of sequences

that were in the revolution books or at the end

of the last of the transformer series yeah and

to me those are kind of wasted pages and you

know i don't i hate comparing the two writers

i really dislike doing this but they're both

in the same book so I pretty much have to compare

that to how Roberts uses the first few pages

of each of his books where it's sort of a rehash

it's read alert kind of remembering past events

but it's extremely important to the plot because

they're not the past events aren't exactly as

they were in those books And there's a reason

for that that's actually part of the storyline.

The other thing I like about this is the storyline

in the More Than Meets the Eye, which is the

last two books, consists of Prowl arriving on

Luna 2, and he has an idea of what Sentinel Prime's

up to. And so he gets help from Fortress Maximus

and Red Alert and Cerebros. And it all ties into

more stuff we've seen in More Than Meets the

Eye. So for example, one of my favorite parts

of this book... I have two favorite parts of

this entire trade and they're both in the more

than meets the eye books One is as soon as Prowl

comes through the spruce bridge fort max kicks

him while still in car form Because of course

max is still pissed off about garris nine for

obvious reasons So I like again like they don't

forget about that storyline just to do this crossover.

I like that. There's resolution. They talk about

you know the loss of the lost light crew etc

etc like this all ties in and i like that the

other moment by the way is fortmax tries to flip

the switch on the titan and can't do it and prowl

despite being much physically weaker is able

to easily because of course it's just like a

table And so they get to reuse that panel of

Prowl flipping a table, which is wonderful. I

love every time they do that. So. Yeah, that

is funny. That was funny. But anyway, yeah, they,

you know, use the Titans. One of which suspiciously

the one they use suspiciously looks exactly like

Fort Back's the toy to try to stop the Titans

from going through the space bridge and Attacking

Cybertron directly. Yeah, I don't think that's

suspicious at all as far as it look That's the

problem with this Hasbro shared universe stuff

is that I think whoever's in charge at Hasbro

wants to be able to bring those franchises back.

Let's face it, you said it yourself a few moments

ago, GI Joe as a comic is almost languishing.

Yeah, which is on because it's actually been

well written. I'm not trying to state anything

about the quality of it because by all accounts

it's been quite good. It hasn't caught on with

readers. And I think the reason is, when was

the last movie? When was the last cartoon series?

The last cartoon series was at least three or

four years ago. I just don't think G .I. Joe

is a franchise right now that Hasbro is marketing

towards kids. They're trying to market it towards

collectors. Haven't heard of any GI Joe merchandise

that is not collector base that is not something

that You know, we didn't get 30 years ago or

something like that or whatever And transformers

has become this kind of weird Merger of the two

because a lot of Titans return and combiner wars

was pretty clearly based on stuff for the fans

Yeah, like the Gestalt's coming back Fort Max

coming back, you know, that's not really stuff

strictly for the kids but yeah it's interesting

that they've managed to sort of keep a franchise

going and readership sort of going you know despite

it bottoming out because of the renumbering yeah

um so in transformers 56 you know we get to a

point where we meet the new boss of the edc general

joel colton Okay, so Marissa's out of a job.

Don't get me started on the humans in these books.

It's so frustrating. Just go for it. Mean it's

just frustrating to me because how many times

have we seen the the humans don't see a difference

between the transformers And the humans think

they're all bad and blah blah blah. This has

been done before to death It's also makes all

of the human characters. Just look Come just

look like complete idiots I mean the fact they

have no concept that you know it was the Decepticons

who by the way, you know, they signed the treaty

with way back in Our ID Yes, you're 28. Yeah.

Yeah, they don't recognize that like oh, yeah

It was the Decepticons that you know eliminated

a significant portion of Earth's population and

Did all this stuff and they're like, no, no Autobots

are just as guilty blah blah blah like I Just

I have a hard time caring about them if they're

all gonna be that dumb. Mm -hmm Yeah, I Don't

care about any of the humans in the end in this

book. I Mean that's a problem. I mean at least

the focus isn't on them here. Yeah, I care about

Marissa because she's constantly and consistently

been Depicted as the only character that seems

to have a clue but yeah She's the only one yeah,

I mean I care about Marissa to a certain extent

but Like her little sidekick there, whatever

her name is. I don't care about her. I like because

I only like this because They're doing the whole

revolution shared universe thing I like that

they put general Joe, you know in charge of the

EDC that we you know get to see a member or slash

former member of of the Joe team or the guy that

it was named after kind of thing, you know in

with the Transformers, you know as far as fighting

against them, but Overall, I mean, Spike, whatever.

I mean, Spike was ruined in the foster run and

there's no redemption for him. He's just a garbage

character thanks to that. And I don't know, I

mean, they can, I don't, you know, they don't

have a choice. I mean, they may as well use him,

but I just don't think it's going to improve

with him. No. So, we get into issue 57. I love

57's main cover, Optimus and Soundwave. I think

that is so cool. Yeah, the side -by -side of

the faces. The split. Which is really good because,

I mean, they're alike but still significantly

different. It took me a half a second until I

saw the eject button on Soundwave. I'm like,

who the hell is that? Who the hell is that? I'm

like, oh, it's Soundwave. I don't know why it

took me a half a second. He's one of my favorite

G1 characters, but whatever. So in 57, we've

got Optimus. Again, the opening couple of pages

here, the very first page after the roll call.

I love Livio's art with Optimus here, with him

laying on the ground and then, you know, starting

to get up. I think the backgrounds are done well

on that. I think Optimus looks great. He looks

like he's about ready to turn gray, but he doesn't.

He gets up off the table. Alpha Trion looks,

he looks like he's a mess. Yeah, I know like

I said the artwork works really well for me overall

in these and Yeah, I know a Lot of the battle

sequences in the books are fairly well done like

the stuff with RC yeah works really well and

then yeah the Later stuff in the issue. You're

talking about with I mean sound wave gets a blade

Through his midsection. Yeah, we bafflingly finally

get an explanation of what happened to blitzwing,

etc, etc Which why the hell is it in this book

and not? Do any of this before revolution it

didn't even make sense whatever don't care And

yeah, I mean So because of that not much happens.

So, I mean they kidnap sent or they sorry sentinel

kidnaps prime and sound wave And runs off with

sovereign, which is actually blackrock. That's

sovereign is his transformer name. Yeah and runs

off with him who's a titan master and yeah, I

mean that's how the RID stuff ends. So basically

what happened was sentinel appeared roughed up

some people to go get some things including some

stuff from Alpha Trion and then to go get Blackrock

and then he just lack of a better term fucks

off and goes to I mean not much happened considering

that was you know two full books we had a lot

of stuff that ties more into revolution and it

tied into this book and I think that's a It does

the writer and the writing and disservice to

try to tie stuff together that really doesn't

belong. It's like I said at the end, you know,

when we did the Volume 10 episode a couple months

ago, when we talked about RID Volume 10 and More

Than Me and CI Volume 10, I thought Volume 10

was the end of not RID, whatever you want to

call it, the Transformers book, the barber book.

Yes. I thought that was going to be the end.

With issues 56 and 57 in it because I knew from,

you know, I'm on IDW server. I'm on their media

list. Whatever I knew there were two more issues

and then I know it, you know, no, we're going

to have it all tie into Titans return and revolution.

And it just doesn't feed. It feels like 56 and

57 go nowhere. I mean, we get some great characterization

between Optimus and Soundwave and seeing the

two of them work together. Yeah, just at the

end of 57, really. I mean, that's the bulk of

it. Yeah, I mean, we see that, and I like that.

The fact that Blackrock can transform between

robot and human is a little... That's very odd

and random. Mean that's taking headmasters to

a whole new level honestly Disappointing aspect

is then you read the last two issues and They

actually feel like a continuation of lost light

and part of that's the characters Yes, I had

long wondered what happened with Max and red

alert and everybody it was nice to see them again

it was nice to see a resolution of Fort Max and

his problems with Prowl who arrives on planet

to warn them that sentinels there and we discover

sentinels already arrived and red alerts is a

Sleeper agents for sentinel prime and that's

the reason for all of his paranoia and his issues

That happened in more than meets the eye and

we saw in past flashbacks in other books as well

The ending here to rid or not rid or whatever

you want to call it. It's lackluster at best

like you said Getting into more than meets the

eye. James is on writing as always. We've got

Priscilla Tramontano on the art for 56 along

with John Lafuente on colors, Tom B. Long on

letters with Edits done by John Barber. Obviously

IDW's publisher is Ted Adams So yeah What happened

to Rodimus and company? Well, I mean, that's,

you know, that was what Lost Light's going to

be at this point. I was fine with that because

two issues is not enough to sum up everything

that occurred in that book. I think it was smart

to let the denouement for More Than Meets the

Eye be some of the characters we've left behind

and to give them some closure. Yeah, I just felt

kind of No pun intended. I just kind of found

felt lost and I couldn't find the light with

these two issues I get it that James is giving

us answers for the last five years or whatever

from the you know Because I read his letter at

the back of the book About you know, we've finally

given you closure you can stop screaming at me

now and this thing And I thought the letter the

letter you wrote was great But reading these

two... It's also being sarcastic, too. Well,

obviously. It was meant to close off some of

the storylines, which it does. It does, yes.

Max mentions to Prowl that the reason he doesn't

just outright kill him is because of Rung's work

with him. Is Rung the only character from Lost

Light that shows up in these two issues? Well,

I mean he showed no because I mean we get flat

Wrong is sort of a half flashback half new dialogue

Okay, I mean to be fair. So is the scene with

rewind which was really nice. So rewind was the

reason he's on the outside of the ship with Yeah,

many issues ago we find out why and we find we

you know we get to see red alert finding his

illegal videos of transformers dying yeah uh

so yeah again like i like that that kind of another

portion of this ties into something that happened

that we never saw in the series yep i like that

we get all the tie, you know, all the loose ends

tied up, I think that's great, but you know what's

gonna happen. He's just gonna create more loose

ends in Lost Light. He's gonna give us stuff

in Lost Light that he won't. But that's what

you do with an ongoing. I mean, he didn't end

the story for Rodimus and Co. I like what he

does, which he essentially ends the... I mean,

essentially, he ends people's or character storylines

and the storyline for skids, for example, he

discovered his past and everything else. That

was the end of him and literally the end of him

because I mean, he died. He died. But that's

the whole, you know, that's the point of him,

essentially, that, yeah, he. you know he ends

the storylines and then yeah in a lot of cases

that's the end of the character and i'm fine

with that uh he that's why i wonder about some

of the other characters in lost light now because

he's ended a lot of their character arcs you

don't brainstorm i like him but i mean brainstorm

could in theory die at any point and his sort

of character arc is is done So yeah, in this

we get the closure on Red Alerts and Fort Max's

character arcs. Yeah, I mean who knows maybe

they do something new with them later on or it

opens up more questions and that kind of thing

but I love the art in this. I think the art in

this is really good. It's not It's good for more

than meets the eye For you know the art that

we've had with Alex and everything else, but

if I'm comparing The two the four issues in this

comic between the not written the more than meets

the eye I prefer Livio over over Priscilla On

art, but they're two very different stories and

two very different things, so I'm okay with it

I don't dislike Priscilla's art. I think, you

know, looking at the way she does Rung, I think

Rung looks great here. He's hilarious. Yeah,

they do some of the characters better than others.

Fort Max, for example, looks a lot less detailed

than under Milne. But I mean, everybody's got

different... designs to them or versions of those

designs yeah I'm not a huge fan of these but

also I mean she essentially had to do it seems

like fill in kind of late so yeah it's not easy

to when you're following up somebody who essentially

created a lot of the designs for the characters

in Alex Milne so yeah that's very true I think

it's mine and I feel you know, I feel really

bad for And now I can't remember his name prep

the artist on lost light because I mean he's

taken a ton of undo Oh Jack was his name. Thank

you. Yeah Lawrence Jack Lawrence Who I think

has done a good job and he's improved as he's

gone on because I mean, you know You compare

some of the old sir these stuff to his later

stuff and it took him some time, right? Lawrence

started off on this and immediately everybody

jumped on the poor guy Well, you know why that

was right? Yeah Behind the scenes the replacement

was not well done unfortunately man that happens

a lot in comic books Where people aren't told

they're not on a book. Yeah Yeah, I think you

know for readers For people that may not be in

the know like we are at times For someone just

who is a fan of James Roberts and Alex Milne

and picking up more than meets the eye at their

shop And you know getting oh it's getting a relaunch

so that means everybody's going to the relaunch

book okay cool and then they pick up lost light

number one they see that awesome cover of shattered

glass erotimus i'm sorry real real erotimus and

shattered glass colors um and then they see oh

jack laurence is the where's alex and that that

was my first reaction when i read this list i'm

like what happened to alex Titans return this

trade just feels like The the the one -shot itself

feels like it's an alright story The RID stuff

feels like it Kind of wrapped up, but still left

things unanswered and more than meets the eye

left It didn't leave anything unanswered it finished

up. What you know the stories that James wanted

to tell I think my issue with it is Is that I

thought Rodimus and company were gonna be in

here somewhere But they're not So outside of

wrong and rewind but those like you said are

flashbacks I Honestly think the volume tens are

better endings for these series Yeah, I mean

I'm okay with I feel like Roberts tied it in

better to his book than Barber was able to. Barber

also had more he had to do with these though,

so it's an unfair comparison, no offense to Roberts.

Well, I mean, John, and like you said, John always

has to, because The Transformers is the everything

book that's where they put all the events and

everything else, and I think that saddles John

so badly. I think it really does. I would love

to see them honestly give him a separate series

that he can do his own thing and have somebody

else write the main Transformers ongoing for

the Transformers series because... Yeah, I've

said this before. I mean, Barbara is a fantastic...

He is. ...writer and I absolutely love his work

on other books. And yeah, I almost feel like

it would be kind of nice if he could. Well, actually,

he does get to write Transformers stuff unencumbered

by a lot of this with the Dinobot trilogy, which

is, I would say, his best work and some of the

best IDW. Actually, some of the best Transformers

comic work period. I would put it right up there

with some of Roberts's best. So, I mean, yeah,

he's a fantastic writer, but man, trying to work

in you know, hundreds of issues now of continuity

between, you know, Furman's original run, then

into, you know, the Shane McCarthy, then Mike

Costa, and then, yeah, 50 -some odd issues of

more than meets the eye and RID, which is his

own. And now trying to jam the C, whatever you

want to call them. Trilogy into everything. I

mean I Feel bad for the guy. Yeah, I'm one thing

he doesn't get nearly enough credit for by the

way is how few screw -ups There are for continuity

and everything else He amazes me how much like

I could not keep this straight That's why they

call him captain continuity But yeah, I really

like when he's able to kind of cut loose and

just Do whatever he wants though. And yeah, I

kind of miss I'm sure he misses that and Roberts

has been lucky in that They've kind of let the

events leave him alone. Mm -hmm. So yeah, it

just Think because more than meets the eye lost

light whatever you want to call it. I think it's

because the fact that It's I mean both books

started off as very strong stories five years

ago I mean, you know you had the political stuff

on Cybertron with bumblebee and Starscream and

mental Hawk and all that and you had Rodimus

and company going off to find the Knights of

Cybertron going on a quest and all that I think

That's the reason why they necessarily leave

Robert's aloneness because half of the time his

book is out in space. It's not confined to having

to be on Cybertron or Earth or Caminus or whatever.

Well even our ID I think fared better because

it didn't feel the need to tie in everything

from previous runs in our ID. It was only when

it got relaunched into season two when they returned

to earth that we got all this the tie -ins Yeah,

yeah, we got all the stuff like okay. We got

a tie -in, you know spikes involvement Okay,

we got a tie -in like and yeah, it was just all

this stuff that all of a sudden they decided

It was decided had to be brought back into it,

which It just it hasn't done the series any favors

Nope. Not at all. On a whole 0 -5 scale, what

would you give Titans Return? Uh... See, there's

the problem. I mean... There's the rub! Well,

it's a coincidence that I've intentionally not

talked about the book nearly as much as I do

normally when we do these shows. Because I wasn't

a huge fan of it. Mean as it I Feel like you

almost need to separate it, but I mean as a trade

Probably gets around the two out of five I'm

right there with you as a trade paperback Titans

return with the one shot with Transformers 56

57 one meets the I -56 57 it gets about two two

and a half somewhere around there for me not

necessarily more for you, but the digital stuff

the digital editors for IDW could have figured

out a way to only have that revolution thing

in there once because it's not multiple previews

of the revolution thing it's the same damn preview

of the revolution prelude because at the end

of every part of that that they put in there

it's miles mayhem so I know it's the same damn

preview because i have the revolution preview

separately on comixology um i've liked the transformers

events to a certain extent i liked dark cybertron

on the second reading of combiner wars i liked

it slightly Maybe a half of an edge more than

Dark Cybertron, a little bit. It's not as good

as Dark Cybertron was, but Dark Cybertron for

me, having six artists on one book is a little

much. Even if all six people are doing different

time periods, it's still jarring to have six

different artists in one book. I'm not even sure

if I'm gonna read or cover Revolution on the

show. I'm just not... Was excited for mask at

first, but I'm just not now I just have Yeah,

if I was going to rate Transformers 56 57 on

Just an individual scale rating for each issue.

I'd probably be a three and a half each More

than meets the eye, maybe a four each, but overall,

in the trade by itself, on a whole, it's a two,

two and a half at best. That sucks, but... Yeah,

I mean, the events it's been... As the series

goes on, unsurprisingly, the events have more

things they have to work into them and more continuity,

so it's not surprising that they're getting weaker

as time goes on, so... You know, in theory, if

they do another one in a year or so from now,

which is a distinct possibility. Well, you know,

January, February, and March of next year are

not far away. Yeah, it's going to get worse,

most likely, which really sucks. Yeah, assuming

they continue it. But I mean, at the rate they're

going with readership dropping, I would hope

they realize that... this is a mistake that they

should seriously consider getting back to that

earlier sort of season one stuff and maybe just

be less burdened with continuity the best way

to do that by the way is to get the hell off

earth yeah because just oh it's been kind of

bogged down the second they went back there and

again we've seen this a hundred times before

i mean they're on earth in every continuity yeah

they are i don't care anymore you know one of

the things that drew me to the idw comics especially

after uh the death of optimus crime Last stand

of the records sort of jump on point Is the fact

that they were at peace at that point and it

was something we hadn't really seen before And

I was I just remember how disappointed I was

when season two of our ID They immediately went

back to earth, which is exactly what we've seen

a number of times before Absolutely I thought

that the That the whole wind blade thing with

her coming in I thought that was nice. I liked

those series Yeah, which is why I really like

The till all are one book. Yeah, and I would

argue it might be the best of the three Since

the relaunch, but of course it got the axe. So

I got the axe And I'm glad I did not, I'm glad

I went back and read this stuff in trade. You

know, when we did Auto Body April four months

ago, I said then, and I'll say it now, I had

to step away from Trent. Like, it was somewhere

around the beginning of season two for both books.

For More Than Meets the Eye and Red. I dropped,

by issue 30 of both books, I was just like, I

have zero interest. And going back and having

us do those again and read them in trade and

all that, I think it was better for me then.

But I cannot read Transformers comics single

issue anymore. I just can't. I read Lost Light

single issue. But yeah, More Than Meets the Eye

in particular, I've always felt reads a lot better

in trade. In trade, yeah. And to be fair, it's

not the only series. Jason Aaron, as much as

I love his writing, almost all of it reads much

better in trade. Another guy I absolutely love,

Greg Rucka, his work always reads better in trade,

et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of writers

like that now, especially long form ones. Yep,

absolutely. All right folks coming up next week.

We've got we're gonna go back Back to the future

I guess and we're going to talk about Flint and

Dilly and is it Chris Chris Metzer? Meltzer yeah,

I'm sorry Chris Flint Dilly's Autocracy trilogy

episode 149 as I said at the beginning of this

show is gonna be autocracy Then we'll do monstrosity

and then 150 will be primacy uh... so we're gonna

be talking about completely different transformers

stories and we'll see how that rules around uh...

where can people find you online sir at nightbeat

on twitter yeah there you go yay you remembered

uh... make your greatest game in the comics and

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