Going Backwards - All Hail Megatron #12 review

And so it ends ... well, at least until Coda and the ongoing series comes up. But for All Hail Megatron, the train stops at 12 issues. And what a wired journey it has been. A wonderful and intriguing strart quickly descended into a chaotic, inconsistent creative team that failed to impress at all. In the words of Christopher Lee; "let's see what the damage is..."

SYNOPSIS: A synopsis of this issue is available here at TF Archive.

THE ART: They've really done it this time. The creeative team really, really sucked in this issue. Guido for once does all the art, but the one man who has made this mess of a series bearable--Josh Burcham himself--has practically disappeared out of the issue. For the first 7 pages or so his awesome colors grace the pages (IDW previewed this to fool us into believing Josh was doing all of it, the deceitful skidplates), but then James Brown has to step in and completely ruin it with his sub-par coloring. He basically just does flat blocks that make Guidi's lines look messy and unprofessional. On top of that he makes loads of coloring errors--see errors section for the full story. So the art is terrible and frankly makes me sick. A despicable end. Good riddance to this issue.

THE STORY: I a rare display of half-decency, Shane doesn't actually do a bad job. Some good plot twists (Thundercracker saves the day!) and a story that feels reasonable. But Spike being a douchebag to the Autobots when they just saved NY from certain annihilation? Spike, you are a disrespectful spawn of a glitch. And Megs not killing Ops but leaving him to die (therefore not being able to confirm Op's death) is kinda creaky. And he killed off Hunter! I loved that guy. He was just starting to become an interesting character too. So for once, Shane McCarthy saves the day with this issue. But his convenient plot devices leave a bad taste in the mouth. Disappointing.

ERRORS:In the description of the Coda issues, #16 has Bumblebee's story as a second "Story 1" rather than "Story 2". Also, Guido Guidi is misspelled as "Guido Guido". When Prime talks to Spike on page 21, he's probably supposed to start with "Your people are free," not "Our people". James Brown continues to demonstrate his coloring fails by coloring the sides of Bumblebee's face yellow in one panel, making Thundercracker's vent-boobs boobs blue (they should be light grey), and Skywarp's vent-boobs dark grey (they should be light grey). Get it right, Brown.

FAVE QUOTE: Devastator: "No! You will not defeat Devastator! You are nothing!"
Omega Supreme: "Wrong. I am Omega Supreme!" [Omega gives his considerably more awsesome version of "I'm Batman."]

VERDICT: So, the damage is -- bad coloring, yucky messy art,  and even more convenient plot devices. Not better than last issue, but somehow more satisfying. But overall a sub-par end to what seemed to be a cool series. Next month: well, now it's on to reviewing all my old issues. See you soon. Rated 6 out of 10.

Posted by Fanbot at 4:17 pm, TUESDAY 24 November