TF Views

This is why I tend to avoid buying loose G1. I will buy re-issues in some cases. But, figuring out what is broken or not is more than I am willing to do for the hobby.

Dom

I can certainly see that. I've been refurbishing old G1 bots for so long though that most of the time I can tell what needs fixing just by looking at it. I once even completely disassembled an entire Fortress Maximus. As it turns out, it had... residents.

o_0

Shockwave wrote:I can certainly see that. I've been refurbishing old G1 bots for so long though that most of the time I can tell what needs fixing just by looking at it. I once even completely disassembled an entire Fortress Maximus. As it turns out, it had... residents.

Hah! I think I recall this one. That's hilarious.

Shockwave wrote:I can certainly see that. I've been refurbishing old G1 bots for so long though that most of the time I can tell what needs fixing just by looking at it. I once even completely disassembled an entire Fortress Maximus. As it turns out, it had... residents.

What kind of residents? Did you have some bugs living in the thing?

A few baby spiders. I found the remnants of "apartments" for their larger counterparts that once inhabited it. Needless to say, everyone had been evicted by the time I was done with it.

Shockwave wrote:A few baby spiders. I found the remnants of "apartments" for their larger counterparts that once inhabited it. Needless to say, everyone had been evicted by the time I was done with it.

It's like some sort of bizarre quasi-horror episode. If Fort Max had been in season three, he could have totally been infested with crazy giant spider creatures. And that would have totally been my favorite episode, too.

That would be part of what was cut out from what was supposed to be the 5 part episode "rebirth". The episode where Spike "finds" Fortress Maximus, the abandoned Hive city and has to clear the alien spiders out of it.

Shockwave
-Retconning is fun!

I'll put the AHM Vol 3 reviews here, since it's actually Spotlight vol. 5, even if it's not marketed as such.

Blurr
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this particular story, because from the promos I had read it sounded way too obvious. I found though, that despite its simplicity, it's a very enjoyable slice of both Cybertron's history and Blurr's history as well. Blurr's always annoyed me in the past, but this particular origin story strips Blurr of his annoying hyper-nervousness and fast speech patterns and sets him up as a star athlete from pre-war Cybertron. I don't normally consider racecar drivers as athletes, but since Blurr drives himself and runs I guess he's the exception.

So what we have is a self-absorbed celebrity ("I don't watch the news, I am the news"), basking in his fame and living the high life, until it's all taken away from him. Both sides try to recruit him, but in the end he chooses the high road and his better impulses and takes the Autobot side, thanks to a good recruiting speech by a pre-Prime Optimus. Who reminds me a bit of Animated Prime, probably just because he has a mouth.

The art is nice and clean and effective, and the story's simplicity is its strength.

Drift
Ok, I get a bit of a 'fan character' vibe from Drift, but not enough to cripple either him or the story. And this definitely fills in some holes in AHM for me, such as just how badly Perceptor was injured and who did it.

So Drift is a former Decepticon turned Autobot. I gathered that much from AHM, but the information about the third faction was new, and it's an idea I'd like to see explored further. Perhaps the entire planet didn't choose sides, but the Autobots and Decepticons are just a portion of the planet's entire population. It's also interesting to see Drift talk about the past and what both the Autobots and Decepticons were like before the war and how much it would take to get back. It ties in with Kup's speech about the Matrix being their way back, and shows that McCarthy has some ideas about just how much both sides have changed. I guess if I were a raging fanboy I'd be screaming about how bad McCarthy's writing and characters are, but I'm not and I enjoy both. I think he has some good ideas. So sue me.

Another very nice touch is the way other races view Cybertronians. "They're a plague everywhere they go." They're hated and feared at the same time, to the point where Drift has to disguise himself in order to interact with the natives. We haven't had much in the way of a third party commentary on the Transformers' war before. It makes sense, given how destructive they are.

Metroplex
Spotlight: Throttlebots, anyone? This was a fun issue, and it was good to see the return of Sixshot, as well as an explanation of how he was freed from the Dead Universe bots. I had picked up that Megatron obtained space bridge technology from Sixshot, and I wonder if the gestalt technology for Devastator was obtained the same way? It would make sense. Sixshot is, as usual, unstoppable... until Metroplex stomps him like a bug. Awesome. I love the idea of an Autobot whose arm is the size of one of Greenville's high-rise office buildings, who can humble even the mighty Sixshot. If they had to shrink down Fort Max, at least they left Metroplex big. But what's he guarding?

andersonh1 wrote:I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this particular story, because from the promos I had read it sounded way too obvious. I found though, that despite its simplicity, it's a very enjoyable slice of both Cybertron's history and Blurr's history as well. Blurr's always annoyed me in the past, but this particular origin story strips Blurr of his annoying hyper-nervousness and fast speech patterns and sets him up as a star athlete from pre-war Cybertron. I don't normally consider racecar drivers as athletes, but since Blurr drives himself and runs I guess he's the exception.

So what we have is a self-absorbed celebrity ("I don't watch the news, I am the news"), basking in his fame and living the high life, until it's all taken away from him. Both sides try to recruit him, but in the end he chooses the high road and his better impulses and takes the Autobot side, thanks to a good recruiting speech by a pre-Prime Optimus. Who reminds me a bit of Animated Prime, probably just because he has a mouth.

The art is nice and clean and effective, and the story's simplicity is its strength.

Blurr was the first thing from McCarthy that I read, and IIRC it may have come out before AHM. Either way, it's 'awesome.' Drugsex machines!