Tales of the Fallen started off very well with the spotlight shone on fan-favourite Bumblebee. The story was enjoyable and the art very nice to look at. But all this goes out the window with Tales of the Fallen: Sideswipe. Before we get into the review, let me direct your eye to the cover, left. Art and colors by Alex Milne, and he has done a great job on it. Great colors and art-nouveau design. Bit disappointed about the lack of a name on it, as was with 'Bee's cover. This title has been seen in some versions of the cover, but unfortunately has been omitted for the release. Why, IDW, why?The Good: Well, Moose Baumann, who colored about half of the comic, did an excellent job at enhancing Carlos Magno's artwork. Very well done. And, um, well nothing else really. See below for details ...
The Bad: Man, I don't even know where to start with this one. Carlos' art did the job alright as usual, but his detail quality went extremely downhill here. In Sideswipe's flashbacks, the cybertronian-altmode Transformers were drawn very generically, with no real deviation from each other. They looked like badly drawn Bionicles. Next up, Simon Furman's writing (Chris Mowry did the previous issue); I know that everyone says he has very predictable and cliched storylines, but this is just ridiculous. There is virtually no substance to the story other than "Sideswipe's pissed at Demolishor while Demolishor slags a couple city blocks and escapes to fight another day". This is definitely the worst issue I have ever read. The stuff you get on Free Comic Book Day is better. But at least there was a decent amount of internal monologue, which is more than can be said for Shane McCarthy's Spotlights. But this issue still sucks majorly.
The Ugly:In his first appearance in the comic, Demolishor is drawn pain-stakingly toy-accurate, with wheels formed from his folded out treads and no fingers on his shovel-hands. However, when he shows up again later, he's instead drawn the way he appears in the movie, with fingers and separate tires.
Verdict: Absolutely disgusting. This is Simon at his very worst (something I've never seen before) and Carlos' sub-par artwork fails to impress. Rated 6.5 out of 10.
Posted by Fanbot at 5:17 pm, SUNDAY 20 September
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