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Date Posted: 3/09/02 8:00:11 GMT+10
Author: Dark Star
Subject: Re: Armada #2! (spoilers): Some info that might help sort something out.
In reply to: Goktimus Prime 's message, "Armada #2! (spoilers)" on 31/08/02 21:16:59 GMT+10

>The artwork has continued to impress me. Great use of
>forced perspective once more (much gooder than Pat
>Lee's). The CG colouring and effects are nice,
>although sometimes I think that there needs to be more
>old fashioned inking done. e.g.: on the second page
>where we see Optimus and Hot Shot standing around,
>they look too super-imposed, suffering from a comic
>book equivalent of "blue screen" syndrome and not
>being matted onto the background well enough. This
>could have been simply fixed if they'd given them
>strong black shadows beneath their feet. There are
>shadows there, but they're not strong enough IMO.
>I also like how we're seeing more of the Transformers'
>personalities arising -- although on the most part,
>they are pretty one dimensional as Omega said.
>Although the Mini-Cons tend to have deeper personas.
>But hey, it's still early days -- so far all of these
>Transformers have demonstrated MUCH more personality
>than any of the Transformers in the DW G1 comics!<<

I think one of the reason that they have little personality in the G1 series is that the writer Chris Saccari(is that spelled right?) might think that most people know the personalities of the characters by now. Only Thing is that once more, on the Dream wave message board at least, the posters are ranting about the size of Prime and the others. (Sigh)
>
>I was expecting Red Alert to be portrayed as a Ratchet
>type character, but it was interesting to see that he
>was more like Perceptor -- being distracted by
>technical details and needing to be reminded to stay
>on task. Personality quirks make characters
>interesting. Megatron is the typical conquerer
>archetype -- and boy does he love shoving his hip
>forward! Yeah baby! The imprinted footprints on the
>bridge looked cool, though I'm not sure what the
>purpose is -- which is a storytelling flaw. Nothing
>should happen without a reason. There might be one
>later, but so far, it makes no sense. That's not
>necessarily a bad thing -- Simon Furman and Bob
>Forward often made seemingly irrelevant references in
>their stories, that would only make a whole lot of
>sense later on.<<

Or it just could be to show how much larger, or heavy Megatron is to Prime. And if you noticed with this issue, Prime Apparently has never met Megatron before in his life. "The Name is Megatron. I suggest you Remember it." Said while cracking Prime's face plate.
>
>>Sparkplug's rescue was an interesting side story. I do
>like how the plot switches between the two stories --
>the story of the Autobots/Decepticons and that of the
>MiniCons. I liked how they used the Air Team, as so
>far they've been the ONLY Armada toys I've played with
>so far! (:<<

Heh I agree. And I like the way that the Air Team has a sort of comidic presence in the way they react to one another.
>
>>The cinematic technique used in this book is pretty
>good. I do like the scene when the Air Team tell
>Sparkplug of their plan to free all the other
>MiniCons.
>
>The junkyard looked very cool -- lots of detail. And I
>like that flying garbage ship in the background --
>nice touch! The fact that the Transformers are used a
>drone to dump their rubbish shows how unpopular that
>zone is, making it an ideal hideout. And kudos to
>ExcelonZero for pointing out an Easter Egg in the
>MiniCon hideout -- near where the jetpacks are lying
>int he corner is a frame hanging from a shelf -- it is
>the MiniCon insignia without the "M" in the middle.<<

Oooo, strange. Gotta look for that my self. (Just wish DW would have a letter page.)
>
>>I like how Raiz has drawn the generic robots in Cyber
>City to actually look Cybertronian, and not like
>generic Asimov-esque droids like Jose Delbo used to do
>them (shudder). Although they lack any prominent alt
>mode kibble like Geoff Senior used to include
>(remember that one generic Autobot we all confused for
>an Autobot Clone?), at least they do look like
>Transformers -- albeit very plain ones.
>
>But this also kinda shows that Cybertronian society is
>divided into castes -- you have the common populace
>who look rather plain. Then you have the Autobots, who
>seem to be viewed upon as the warrior class. When the
>Decepticons attacked, NONE of the common class
>Transformers even bothered attacking or even fleeing.
>The responses were "Where are the Autobots?" and "Why
>isn't Optimus Prime helping us?" -- clearly indicating
>that not ony were the Autobots above the common class,
>but that they had an obligation to serve and protect
>the classes beneath them; much like the romantic
>imagery of the Knights of Europe or the Japanese
>Samurai. And in certain periods of history, the
>Knights and Samurai were indeed benevolent and good to
>their people -- yet the Decepticons represent what the
>warrior class often did in many other periods of
>history (e.g.: the Crusades); mass pillaging and
>conquest. So in effect, the Autobots and Decepticons
>are both different aspects of the same caste.<<

Creepy, no. Jedi vs. Sith perhaps?
>
>As portrayed since the first issue, the MiniCons are
>the underclass... possibly even the Untouchable Caste
>(which would explain why nobody had ever bothered to
>experiment with their potential to augment the power
>of the warrior caste until recently -- which shows
>great initiative on the part of the Decepticons,
>possibly out of desperation though). <<

*Shudder* You have a point there, kinda cruel on the Part of the Autobots who normally are the virtuous of the group.
>
>>The fight scenes are much better choreographed in this
>series than in DWG1 (shudder). Also, the premise that
>the MiniCon augmentation makes the Decepticons
>stronger and faster than the Autobots makes it more
>believable for them to do more exaggerated moves --
>such as the way Starscream is utterly ignoring Hot
>Shot's right arm, the way Demolishor is totally
>ignoring the rest of Scavenger and Red Alert's bodies
>-- smashing their heads together at a speed so fast,
>there was no time for them to react. It's often said
>that over-dedicated techniques have the inherent flaw
>that they leave the combatant vulnerable if the
>opponent is faster and/or stronger than you --
>however, if you are the one who is undeniably stronger
>and faster, then you can afford to use extremely
>dedicated and exaggerated moves, as there is little
>danger of the opponent being able to move fast enough
>to counter -- or even if they could, the Decepticons'
>endurance may be such that any attempt at damaging
>them would be negligible. Of course, this is my own
>personal presumption. It would have been nice if the
>comic had some kind of narrative which clearly
>explained this. In fact, the narrator in this comic
>seldomly says anything, which does have its
>disadvantages.<<

I think I can explain the reasoning for this. To put it bluntly, at Image caption's that give the "Meanwhile" sort of perspective outside of places and such is frown upon. Don't know why though. I think Chris is expecting the comic to play as a movie, where you don't have a narration and such. However, I agree with you that it would help to put some information either in a caption or in the dialoge. Would be quite simple for someone to explain it, or perhaps their waiting till the third comic to explain why it is the Cons are stronger, faster, more adgile. Although I have to give Kudos to Raiz for being able to give a visual pointer arrow, if you will, in the way the panels flow. :)
>
>>Decepticon HQ looks cool, especially with that
>holographic insignia. Though... it is kinda stupid if
>it's meant to be a secret base. The MiniCon's attempt
>to break into the base was quite comical. In fact, the
>Air Team seem to be the comic relief in this issue --
>and not in a stupid sense like Wheelie or season 3
>Grimlock. These guys are funny, but their plans work
>(at least most of the time)!<<

The Marx's brother's perhaps? And I think the holo insignia was a send up to the cartoon series where the Cons had their base on the side of the mountian and the symbol was out for all to see. :) Or perhaps the Decepticons have grown egotisitcal with their recent success with the minicons and figure that no one's going to be dumb enough to attempt a rescue.

>
>>>Visual error: the jetpack that Sparkplug uses -- when
>we saw it lying on the floor at MiniCon base and when
>Runaway hands it over to Sparkplug, the right side is
>blue and the left side is silver/gray. When we see
>Sparkplug take off, the right side is silver/gray and
>the left side is blue!! Then two panels later, we see
>that the colours have switched yet again with the left
>side being clearly gray/silver!! Also, notice that
>when Sparkplug is flying around, in the second panel
>of the page when Jetstorm and Runaway and ducking
>down, they're UNCOLOURED! And why were all the
>MiniCons PINK when they were incarcerated? Yomtov!!
>While we're on the issue of colour, are Megatron's
>teeth white or red? Cos they seem to fluctuate
>throughout the book...<<

Their white, and I suspect timeing may have been the reason for the fluxuations in the coloring and such. I'll go into detail further down.
>
>The way they "zoomed in" on Megatron talking to
>Optimus with his hand on Prime's neck was a bit
>disappointing -- the whole "let's copy, paste, zoom
>and crop the same image over and over again" is kinda
>lazy. It would've been if they made Megatron's
>expression change from a snarl to a maniacal smile
>when he says, "Because Cybertron is mine now."<<

Cheers to that. (Gotta keep this all in mind when I send out my ideas to the comic publisher.)
>
>Again, the second melee of fighting at Cyber City
>looked cool -- I liked how there was several fracture
>marks and cracks all over the Autobot's bodies; the
>way that Hot Shot made a long groove in the ground as
>he slid along (which must REALLY hurt considering that
>it's paved with metal! -- this should've been further
>emphasised with lots of sparks flying around Hot
>Shot); and I like the way Cyclonus throws Scavenger.<<

Effective fighting is the hardest thing to do in comics for the writer, as you can't really go into to much detail if you want the artist to have the freedom that they like to have when drawing the book. And that sometimes can lead to a very ill fight indeed. (Especially if the fight is a one two knock out sort of deal.)
>
>The way the story ended in a cliffhanger was nice --
>and I do like how Cybertron looks more "bronze" than
>silver from space.
>
>Overall I thought this was a pretty groovy issue. My
>main complaint is that it came out too late!! What?
>Two days before the end of August? And I only picked
>up my issue yesterday!
>
>Can't wait for issue #3 -- and here's hoping that
>it'll be more PUNCTUAL.<<

I'll guess late September.
>
>Hey, it's September now, where the SLAG is G1 #5??<<

Answer: Apparently with all the conventions that Dreamwave has gone to (three in Canada, and four in the states including Botcon and Wizard world Chicago) they have slowed up the production. Pat Lee has said that it would be soon though...but then again were talking about a company that was once a part of Image, so....you have to take in the quick rate that they produce their books. :< This also explains why Armada was so late. :b Stinks doesn't it.

My only guess is that if DW takes a break from conventions that perhaps the books will be out on time. (Or if they had someone like me writing it, then the thing would be out before schedule.)

DS

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