Review - All FAIL Megatron #16

And so it ends ... God, how many times have we heard that before? But as Simon Furman constantly reminds us, "It never ends." For once a cliched Furmanism fits the situation. IDW have dragged this maxi series out to 16 issues, so let's see how they wrapped it up.

The Art: For "The Man of Steel" (a: Guido Guidi/ c:Josh Burcham), the art is pretty well done at first glance. Guidi's strong lines and good use of storytelling are fully demonstrated in the 11 pages. Josh Burcham, using his more clean, semi-flat color style (maybe to suggest the new order and peace on Earth?) to enhance Guidi's lines. But upon closer inspection, Guidi seems to have done a sloppy job on several pages. The inks look rushed and unprofessional, with  minimal detail. On other pages, they look fine, and on other pages still there is a lot of shadowy hatching that looks weird in the brightly lit scene of Spike's hospital room. But overall it looks pretty cool, especially the scenes of Ravage with his glowing eyes. Next, "Hidden" (a: Chee/ c: Moose Baumann). This one has much better quality art, even though I've never been a fan of Chee's style. Not enough realism and he's bad at perspective.  But the shadowy art suits the mood, and Chee tells Zander Cannon's story well. Newcomer Moose Baumann's bright, surreal palette fits the story in its slight nightmarishness. The shot of Optimus Prime and co. standing over the humans looks just fraggin' awesome. Better job done than "The Man of Steel".

The Story: "The Man of Steel": the story is good in itself, but is essentially just a small exposition of what happened to Spike after All Hail Megatron. The fight scene with Ravage leaves a lot to be desired; no ouchworthy impacts, and no sound effects at all. Is this what you call an action scene Mr Costa? Well, I don't. The story's only salvation is Spike's dad Daniel Witwicky (role reversal lol)being named as the new head of Skywatch. Oooo ... so not bad, but not exactly good either. I'm left disappointed upon finishing. And "Hidden"? Well, unlike the art for this story, the quality is terrible. This is not a good start for new writer Zander Cannon (pray he does better in the Bumblebee mini). The story has no substance whatsoever. So Bumblebee gets spotted by some humans and gets a bit dinged up. Who really gives a slag? Not me. But a funny little bit of this story is the readouts on BB's optic viewer. "Range 20m", "Zoom" and such. Lol. So, worse than "The Man of Steel", which is saying something.

Errors: Quite a few in this one. Firstly, the nurses fawning over Spike are dressed in traditional white with red cross outfits that are never worn by modern nurses. WTF? Second, Chee draws Bumblebee, Ratchet and pretty much all the Autobots in robot forms perpetuated by Guido Guidi. So Bumblebee isn't in his IDW body. Ratchet has Animated Ratchet's sign on his shoulders, and Prime has wheels on his hips. Why must Chee draw them this way? Also, the Colonel seems to imply that Agent Red (former head of Skywatch) was not American. he looked and acted very American to me. Maybe he was Russian (Agent "Red get it?")? Then again, American government agencies are notorious for being run by foreigners.And lastly,  one of the bashed-up Decepticons found in NY was Thrust (he was pictured). How did he get to Earth? The last we saw of him was when his Nebulos infiltration team was attacking Thunderwing. This is probably not an error but is nontheless a bit weird. Nothing else that I've been able to identify so far.

Verdict: a despicably low quality end to what I think was a great series. The art, although quite good, didn't make up for the sub-par plot. Rated 8 out of 10.

Posted by Fanbot at 4:59 pm, FRIDAY 30 October