Nick RocheReseñas
Autor de The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Volume 1
Reseñas
The Transformers. Volume 1. More than meets the eye por James Roberts
My only wish is that Nick Roche gets to do more TF work. Brilliant coda to the IDW-verse as a whole and especially to the Wreckers.
Does the author have children? Because their dialogue felt forced and not authentic. I also didn't like how they were drawn - like adults almost - so looking at them made me cringe. Also, the main character kept using nicknames for his child, and they were almost always different. Scoops, Scooper, duck, chicken-something, and there were others. None of them were explained, just seemingly used for no reason at all.
The story itself has potential, but the adults were acting like kids themselves, so that was annoying. It was like everything in this issue was backwards. Kids that looked like adults but sounded like babies (which is younger than how they're portrayed), and adults that dared each other to do stupid stuff. "I dare you to go into the dark scary space and touch the back of the wall..." blah blah blah. (Not an actual quote, just me sarcastically paraphrasing.)
I already have the second issue for this series, so I might read it, but I really don't want to. (★★⋆☆☆)
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Having enjoyed IDW's first two Wreckers comics, somehow I still missed the existence of a third, Requiem of the Wreckers until it was too late: the one-shot wasn't at my local comics shop, and wasn't even available at my usual aftermarket web site. It was collected in this trade paperback, but this trade paperback also collected the first two Wreckers miniseries, which I already owned, and I wasn't about to pay $20 for a collection of eleven issues that I already owned ten of. But then the collection appeared in my LCS's $5 discount pile on Free Comic Book Day, so of course I went for it.
I'm actually really glad I did. I liked Last Stand of the Wreckers and Sins of the Wreckers the first time around, and I'm not going to re-review them here, but I liked them even more a second time around, with a firmer grounding in Transformers lore, and knowledge of where the stories were ultimately going. Small details became significant with foreknowledge in mind, and reading Last Stand and Sins (and Requiem) back to back made how it's all one big story much more apparent. (Poor Guzzle.)
Requiem is a fitting end for the whole saga, bringing together the villains of the first two stories, and tying off a lot of emotional and character threads, especially for Impactor and Springer, whose relationship is one of the backbones of the series. Kup is dead, so he can't feature like he did in the first two, but Roche turns that into a virtue.
I also appreciated the presence of Verity Carlo throughout. Verity was there when IDW's continuity began, so I'm glad Nick Roche kept her character going once Simon Furman left, and gave her an ending as IDW's entire universe drew to an end.
Roche is oft-praised by Transformers fans, I think, but probably still not praised enough. Of course he knows his continuity and stuff, and we like him for it, but even better, he understands character and theme. This is a saga about the damage war does, and how we need friendship to overcome it, and what the appropriate bounds of friendship allow for and what they do not. How do you forge an identity that meets the expectations your friends place upon you when the entire universe seems to be conspiring against you? This informs every character arc, every story beat. He also has a way with big crazy ideas, and his art is incredible stuff. James Roberts (co-writer on some of Last Stand) justly gets a lot of praise, but Roche is surely the talent of the IDW era. I hope IDW keep him involved in their new era, or that he goes on to do his own incredible stuff. Or you know, both.
Wreck and rule!
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1 
Stevil2001 | Aug 17, 2019 |
Stevil2001 | Aug 17, 2019 | I got this from a humble bundle.
1 MeditationesMartini | 7 reseñas más. | Nov 7, 2018 |
MeditationesMartini | 7 reseñas más. | Nov 7, 2018 | 
I suspect of Sins of the Wreckers what I also suspect of the story to which it is a sequel, Last Stand of the Wreckers: it will improve on a reread. There's a lot going on, and though I've gotten a lot better at reading Transformers comics than I was a couple years ago, I still struggle when a book throws a ton of new characters at me. Sins of the Wreckers picks up from the events of The Transformers, Volume 8, where Prowl went missing: Arcee has found him, and he's on Earth for some reason. Plus, Verity Carlo is back!
The Wreckers are reassembled to track down Prowl. Like Last Stand, this is a messy story in a good way: a lot of secrets, a lot of screwed-up people in a screwed-up world. I've been getting pretty sick of Prowl over in the series formerly known as Robots in Disguise, but put him in the murky world of the Wreckers, and he works much better. (Nick Roche's more sophisticated writing probably doesn't hurt either.) Prowl is as messed up as Kup and the Wrekcers. Arcee is messed up too-- she's a good fit for the Wreckers, and I'm surprised it took IDW this long to put her in combination with them. And Verity's messed up too. Not that she was ever terribly well-adjusted, but this war has screwed her up as much as it has all the Cybetronians in this story, and she can't escape it any more than they can... even though it's over.
If there's a complaint that I have, it's that it's mistitled. Though everyone in this story has sinned, the focus is not on the sins of the Wreckers, but Prowl and Verity and a couple others whose appearances are spoilers. The Wreckers themselves are kind of background players in this drama. If Roche does another Wreckers story in another five years, I hope Impactor et al. can step into the foreground more.
Everyone in this story has some kind of desperate plan to try to free themselves from the sins of the past... none of them work. Every character from the key players to the bit-part antagonists has a goal and a meaning within the larger picture, that lines up thematically to create a greater whole. More than Meets the Eye might be the best-written Transformers ongoing story, but Sins of the Wreckers is probably the best self-contained Transformers comic. Last Stand tugs at your heartstrings more, but Sins is better crafted, showing the effects of five years' artistic development for Roche.
Roche is a good writer, but he's a great artist, and Sins of the Wreckers has got to be the peak of his work, especially when you combine it with Josh Burcham's colors. Horrific, dynamic, touching, he creates Arctic vistas and nightmarish hellscapes with equal ease. I wish it was getting the same deluxe hardcover treatment as its predecessor, because it deserves it.
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Dark Prelude collects the last six issues of IDW's The Transformers Spotlight series, which apparently tie into the upcoming Dark Cybertron event. I read it here, between volume 4 of More than Meets the Eye and volume 4 of Robots in Disguise, which turned out to be a pretty good spot to read it, as some of its revelations are brought up in Robots in Disguise, Volume 4.
I previously struggled with collections of Transformers Spotlight issues, finding it difficult to invest in fragmentary stories of robots I knew nothing about. I had a much better time reading Dark Prelude, which we can probably attribute to a few things:
- I know a lot more about Transformers, especially the IDW G1 versions, than I did even a few months ago, so I have more context for these characters.
- James Roberts, John Barber, and Nick Roche are better writers than Simon Furman and Shane McCarthy.
- Most of these stories plug into areas of Transformers history I actually know something about: the Orion Pax story, for example, takes place after the flashbacks in More than Meets the Eye, Volume 3, before Autocracy. Two of the stories take place during More than Meets the Eye itself, which is nice.
- Though each of these is a standalone, done-in-one tale, there's an ongoing narrative about the Titans that you can follow. In the first story, the Decepticons learn about the existence of the Titans. The second is about a group of Decepticon Titan Hunters, following information from the first story. The third reveals that the Titan Hunters succeeded, and stolen Titan technology was used to rebuild Megatron. The fourth features Bumblebee dealing with the ramifications of that. The fifth has the same group of Titan Hunters from the second boarding the Lost Light. The sixth takes place simultaneously with the fifth, and also reveals a new perspective on an event from the first. A perfect loop! And all the stuff about the Titans of course ties into recent events in both More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise, where a Titan appeared on Theophany and then Cybertron in turn.
I guess somewhat predictably, two of the highlights were the ones by James Roberts set during More than Meets the Eye (specifically, during volume 2), both with his trademark combination of character work and humor-- though "The Reluctant Specialist" is perhaps more outright farcical than anything Roberts has actually done during More than Meets the Eye itself, given things like the Rodimus Star, which Rodimus gives out to reward people as brave as himself: "You know, you can't choose when fate decides to test your mettle. I could've ignored the urge to lead you all on a quest to find the Knights of Cybertron. I could've turned my back on destiny and said, 'Go find another hero.' Instead I rose to the occasion. Yesterday, Highbrow, Chromedome, and Brainstorm followed in my footsteps--and that makes them all worthy recipients of the Rodimus Star."
"The Waiting Game" has a nice comedy moment where Hoist makes fun of Roberts's own writing foibles. Swerve says there's nothing to know about Hoist other than that he's green, but Hoist retorts, "You know why you can't get a handle on me? Because I'm an ordinary person. I'm normal. I'm just a mid-ranking maintenance engineer who takes each day as it comes. I'm not particularly chatty, handsome, or clever, but you know what? I get by. I manage. So don't dismiss me just because--unlike all your pals on the Lost Light--my personality isn't the product of a crippling psychological disorder." But, of course, in the end, Hoist does turn out to have a "crippling psychological disorder," one that in a nice turn of events, allows him to save the day on a landing party gone wrong.
Other than those, I particularly enjoyed Nick Roche's contribution to the volume (which he writes and draws, he's a talented man), where Megatron wakes up after one of his many resurrections (it apparently takes place between two issues of the IDW ongoing only known as The Transformers) and has it out with Starscream over what a terrible job Starscream did running the Decepticons during his absence, picking up from aspects of their relationship discussed in volumes 2 and 4 of All Hail Megatron, and leading into Robots in Disguise, Volume 4, when a resurrected Megatron will once again complain about Starscream's leadership. Roche's characterization of both Starscream and Megatron here is fascinating: Starscream is filled with self-loathing over his failure, to the extent that he needs Megatron to punish him, while Megatron wants Starscream to live up to his ideals, and so bullies Starscream in a way intended to make him "better"-- but actually likes Starscream more than he lets on.
It's great stuff, deftly executed by Roche, and I can already see how it affects their strange relationship after the war in Robots in Disguise.
Overall, this is a nice set of stories, revealing new characters to me (I hope we see more of Trailcutter and Hoist in More than Meets the Eye), and adding extra shades to old characters (like Bumblebee, Megatron/Starscream, and Thundercracker). I look forward to discovering how this sets up Dark Cybertron going forward.
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This is one of those books that you keep laughing aloud at, and your wife is like, 'what's so funny,' and you're like, 'um... it's a Transformers comic?' The new status quo for IDW's Transformers is that the Autobot/Decepticon war is over, and both sides have returned to Cybertron, along with the "NAILs," the nonaligned Cybertronians who fled the chaos of the war. So there's a lot of conflict between these three sides. The Autobots don't know how to exist in a world without war, the Decepticons are all in prison right now but that can't possibly be sustainable, and the NAILs don't see the Autobots as having any more legitimacy than the Decepticons. The first issue here sets up the basic conflict, which seems very ripe with storytelling potential, and it ends with Optimus Prime abandoning Cybertron, his argument being that he's a living symbol of the war, and peace can never truly come to Cybertron as long as he hangs around.
This leaves the remaining Autobots conflicted about what to do. Rodimus wants to hunt down the mythical Knights of Cybertron and implore them for guidance; Bumblebee wants to make a go of it on Cybertron, mending the conflict between the three sides. So once Rodimus's Lost Light takes off, the book essentially splits, with More than Meets the Eye following the Lost Light and Robots in Disguise staying on Cybertron.
More than Meets the Eye is the whole reason I started this project to read IDW's Transformers comics in the first place, and one year in, I've finally got to it. It's quite possibly everything I could want out of a Transformers comic book: a group of scrappy underdogs united on an improbable quest. There's Rodimus, the eternally optimistic leader who always plunges into lost causes; Drift, the ex-Decepticon who has the passion of the convert; the rulebound and distrustful Ultra Magnus; the moody and morose Cyclonus (who comes on board by accident); Ratchet, the doctor who's lost his optimism and his confidence; Rung, the genius psychiatrist who seems put-upon; Tailgate, who accidentally slept through all six million years of the war; and Swerve, who talks a lot and never stops making jokes.
I recently read that G. K. Chesteron once observed that the opposite of "funny" wasn't "serious," it was "not funny." (Who knows if he actually did; I can only find paraphrases and attributions, not an original, in a cursory search.) More than Meets the Eye is a book that lives by Chesterton's dictum: it is both serious and funny. I could past dozens of different panels into this review that made me laugh, but there's very much a serious idea beneath all of this. Even though they're robots, these are a group of people who have been affected by war in a myriad different ways. These are real people, and I am finally really clicking with all the different personalities of IDW's Generation One Transformers. It turns that when you write them differently, I actually can tell a bunch of robots apart!
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1 Stevil2001 | 7 reseñas más. | Feb 18, 2017 |
Stevil2001 | 7 reseñas más. | Feb 18, 2017 | 
The Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »
Long before the Transformers Humble Bundle came along, I'd heard of Last Stand of the Wreckers. It was described in hushed tones, as one of the best Transformers comics of all time-- and even one of the best comics of all time, full stop. And what I knew of it indicated it would appeal to me, as it is about a group of second-string robots fighting for their lives. So when I got the IDW Transformers Humble Bundle and Last Stand of the Wreckers wasn't in it, I took a gamble and purchased it-- not just in paper, but in hardback, so confident was I that I would like it.
Thankfully I was correct. Last Stand of the Wreckers takes a group of some of the worst Autobots out there and assigns them to the Wreckers, the amoral Autobot commando team with the highest mortality rate of any Autobot unit. My favorites were Pyro and Ironfist. Pyro's toy was a "redeco" of Optimus Prime's, and so the writers turn this into a point of characterization: Pyro modified himself to look more like Optimus, and spends his time making dramatic poses and trying to come up with mottos. Ironfist is a fanboy who writes up detailed accounts of Wrecker missions under the pseudonym Fistiron... only despite that, there's something darker going on with him no one knows about. (Except for Prowl, because Prowl knows everything.) Plus Verity Carlo, the young human who befriended the Autobots in Infiltration, is there too.
These characters are sent into a former Autobot prison that's been conquered by a depraved, rogue Decepticon. A lot of them don't make it. I don't think it's as amazing as people say (probably because I still struggle to distinguish robot characters on sight, and this volume has more than most), but it is very good. The real heroes are the people who don't think it matters, and do the right thing anyway, even if they're not always doing the right thing for the right reason. This is definitely a book about heroes.
It's made even better by the fifty-plus pages of backmatter, which includes multiple prose short stories adding depth and nuance to the characters. These I read over a few days after finishing the main comic, and they left me wanting to reread the book all over again with these new insights in mind. These stories show that, like the best characters, even second-stringers are more than meets the eye.
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The whole idea between both volumes is that the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons has finally ended with the Autobots in charge of Cybertron (a Cybertron that has changed as a result of something that happened just prior to the beginning of these two stories, and something that I'm not at all familiar with). Since the war, more and more Transformers who had fled Cybertron in the wake of the war are now returning, and see no need to have either faction on the planet anymore, as both Autobots and Decepticons are equally seen as responsible for the destruction of the planet. However, the Autobots don't see it this way and want to set up a new government to try to keep another from happening. Optimus Prime sees himself as the most visible sign of the war, so relinquishes his title as Prime, returns to calling himself Orion Pax, and exiles himself from Cybertron, leaving Bumblebee in charge. Meanwhile, Rodimus sees no point in giving up their heritage and starting over so decides to travel from Cybertron in search of the Knights of Cybertron. This is where the series splits into two.
More Than Meets The Eye follows Rodimus and his crew in search of the Knight of Cybertron, while Robots in Disguise deals with Bumblebee trying to reestablish something of a government on Cybertron and dealing with the disillusionment felt by just about everyone over this, especially the newly returned, unaligned Transformers. I've read about the More Than Meets the Eye title from several sources around the internets, and it turns out that they weren't wrong about the title. It combines a pretty decent story with some great character development and just enough wit to make something that's actually fun to read. Robots in Disguise is intriguing as well, given the way the series is dealing with the repercussions and aftereffects of the war. Overall, both series are surprisingly good (I think it would be easy for most people to write off Transformers as a whole, but these are legitimately good comics), but I did find that I enjoyed More Than Meets The Eye more. I'm really glad I bought into this most recent Humble Bundle and will be gladly reading the rest of the volumes.
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