AllSpark Almanac and AllSpark Almanac II Reviews!

Well, it's toot-my-own-horn time again. The Amazon.com reviews for both  Allspark Almanac and  The AllSpark Almanac II keep rolling in!

Starting with the first Almanac, we're now up to an amazing thirty reviews!  It took about a year, meaning we're getting a little more than one every two weeks.  What's really incredible is that every one of the 30 reviews is five stars.  Thanks, guys!

Moving on to the second Almanac, we just got our tenth review today, and it's a doozy!  It's a repost of a review that uber-fan Tengu posted over on allspark.com.  It's really very very lovely.  One highlight was this line: "I really believe that Transformers Animated: The Allspark Almanac 2 is perhaps the best literary tribute the show (and toyline, actually) could ever ask for."  Thanks, Tengu!  (For those who don't know, Tengu was the writer of several of the BotCon Wreckers comics back in the day, so I hold his opinions in particularly high regard.)  By the way, yes indeed, all ten of the AAII reviews on Amazon are five stars.

Man, I'm in a good mood!

So, guys, use the links above to buy the books if you haven't already.  You'll thank yourself!

The Ark Addendum - Attack of the Autobots (part 2)

Continuing from last week, the rest of the background models from Attack of the Autobots. 

The evil Autobots proceed to menace Doctor Harding at the Space Center, a building with rather interesting architecture.  Meanwhile, the Decepticons go after the real prize, the satellite atop the Titan rocket. 

I rather like how detailed the mission control model is, and of course the rocket itself is pretty cool. 

Review: War of the Worlds, the series ep 28

The twenty-eighth episode of War of the Worlds, the series is titled Breeding Ground. A medical supply shortage sends Harrison to the Metro Hospital, where he stumbles upon an alien breeding program.  An old friend of his is helping the aliens implant seeds of the Eternal into human hosts, including a rather likable old lady named Kate Barrows.  Though the team manages to abscond with her, she escapes and returns to her hospital, where she delivers the first Morthrai to be born on Earth.  Her physician, Dr. Justaine, is killed off by the aliens for his trouble, but they allow her to live on with the memory of her loss. 

The Good: Quite a lot, actually. The acting was great all around, especially Helen Hughes stint as Kate Barrows.  Before her ulcer perforates and she winds up in the hospital she seems sort of carefree despite the lack of her welfare check (the department is on strike) and her pile of bills.  Unable to have children, her maternal instincts have been directed towards her career (in her youth she was a dancer of some renown, Champagne Katie) and her cat.  After she's checked into the hospital without insurance, miserable, she just exudes pain, but Ms. Hughes doesn't overplay it.  The character is doing her best to be stoic.  After she's impregnated with an alien seed, she becomes confused but ecstatic.  Finally, once the aliens abandon her and take their offspring with her, she's broken, sitting alone in her house with a cured ulcer but a loss she had never before known.  Her arc is complete, leaving her physically better off but emotionally broken.

The directing was also quite nice in this episode.  I rather like how creepy some of the shots were, including the first silhouetted appearance of Ardix and Bayda.  The tension stays high this episode, with some rather poignant moments to offset the horror. 

Hey, speaking of Bayda, last seen in Doomsday, it was nice to see the return of Ardix's accomplice.  I wonder if they were purposfully going for names evocative of the alphabet, or if that was a happy coincidence.  In any event, I like this sort of continuity.  There was great dialogue between them, especially when they observed how humans treat their elderly and their diseased "like so much refuse."  They also explain away some of the logical faults of the episode with some rapid fire-dialogue.  "We should have done this at our base," she scolds, but he rebuts that they don't have the equipment.  "We should have cloned the doctor," she continues, but the doctor is too old and sick to survive the process he replies. 

This episode is the first one where the "Almost Tomorrow" is starting to live up to its potentials.  The shortage of 'Megacillin', off-hand references to another Senator skipping bail, level-five pollution alerts, and of course the Georgetown Epidemic.  The latter was an important motivating factor in the episode, as Doctor Justaine was a brilliant surgeon who tried to help out with this Epidemic, only to later find out that it was a man-made disease that got loose.  He lost all his patients, leaving him broken, and later found out that he was infected with the disease.  The aliens offered him a cure, temporary as it turned out, which is why he was willing to sell out other members of humanity.

I've mentioned it before, but I think that Kincaid's battlewagon is pretty cool.  It features in an extended battle sequence where an alien tries to run them off the road.

In that same sequence, Harrison completes his journey to action hero.  Though he's been handling weapons for quite a few episodes now, I believe that this time is the first time he'll actually discharge a handgun at an alien.  Even now, he hesitates and has to be goaded on by Kincaid.  Given the airing order flub that this one represents, that means that it took him four episodes to transition away from his pacifist roots that he managed to more-or-less hold onto in season one to his new season two persona.  As that the season is only 17 episodes long, that's nearly a quarter of the story devoted to this evolution. 


The Bad: Let's start with coincidence, again.  Suzanne gets sick, prompting the team to look for medicine.  Harrison happens to know a brilliant but broken surgeon who might be able to get him some, and just so happens to be in the hospital when the first victim of the alien breeding program goes on a rampage. 

Suzanne mentions that the aliens have done breeding experiments before.  I'm wondering exactly what she's referring to. Unto Us a Child is Born springs to mind, though really that was an accident and the team knew it.  My Soul to Keep involved aliens attempting to breed, though no humanity was involved.  There were plenty of experiments done on humans in He Feedeth Among the Lilies, though those resolved around the immune system.  I wonder if McCullough commingled some of those events in her mind, or if there were some other alien experiments foiled off-stage.  This isn't a horrible 'bad', by any means, but as continuity nods go it's not great either.  I guess points for trying, though.  In a similar note, this episode unfortunately aired after Terminal Rock, which references 'only one breeding success.'  Whoops, guess they flubbed the airing orders there.

The Ugly: Alien surgery, though not nearly as gruesome as some of the S1 material, still counts as ugly in my book.  I couldn't tell from Youtube, but it seems that the alien surgical tools are variations on their three fingered hand, which is a nifty idea. 

So, there you have it.  Aliens attempting to incubate their young in human hosts.  It's not QUITE an idea we've seen before, as I point out above, though it's not a wholly new idea either.  However, it's saved by its execution.  Aside from how the team finds out about it in the first place, which will unfortunately be endemic this season, it's really quite solid. Let's hope that there are more like this ahead.

AllSpark Almanac at Auto Assembly!

I've got some news that I find incredibly exciting.  This year, both Bill Forster and I have been invited to Auto Assembly, Europe's largest Transformers convention.  As I haven't been to England since 2006, I'm extremely excited to get the chance to go back and mingle with the terrific fan community out there.  In addition to hanging around and making a nuisance of ourselves all weekend, we're tentatively planning to use our time on Sunday to give a brief presentation on some behind-the-scenes artwork from various generations that hasn't been published before, before shifting to a traditional Q&A session.  

Other great guests include Derrick Wyatt, Garry Chalk, Scott McNeil, Simon Furman, Nick Roche, Guido Guidi, and many more.  This looks like a must-attend convention if you're native to the British Isles.  If you were at all on the fence about coming to this con, I strongly urge you to preregister now, as the spots are filling up quickly and there's no worse feeling than having to turn someone away from an event like this.  I have to extend my warmest thanks to the convention organizers and especially to Steve and David Mapes from Transformers At The Moon for making this happen.  I love smaller conventions, so it really is quite an honor to be invited. AA at AA... feels like a natural fit, doesn't it?

TFWiki Work

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Stronterom

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Crocodillo

Booyah.

(Still not really sure of the fiction header on the Crocodillos.)

Review: Marvel G1 #60: Yesterday's Heroes!

The sixtieth issue of the US G1 Marvel Comics run of Transformers is called Yesterday's Heroes! The creative line-up is unchanged from the last issue, meaning that we have a tale brought to us by Furman, Delbo, Hunt, Massara, and Yomtov. The cover is by José Delbo.

 The cover leaves me colder than it should.  Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee look up as an orang samurai leaps down at them, sword drawn.  There's nothing wrong with the rendering, but the composition isn't so much action-packed as it is confusing.  We're supposed to get the impression that the Autobots are at the bottom of a shaft, but havign the white floor and colorful walls makes the eye confused about where to go.  Bludgeon's back is to us, which robs us of some of his impact.  Perhaps to try to compensate for some of the flaws of the cover, there are a lot of words on the cover.  "Introducing: BLUDGEON!" is written above the logo.  We're also informed that "They're Back! Jazz! Grimlock! Bumblebee! The Classic Pretenders!" Neither one of the above blurbs are particularly prominent, but you can't help but notice the box stating that "The Autobots have three great heroes...", which is answered by a word bubble from Bludgeon stating "BUT NOT FOR LONG!" I do rather like how Bludgeon's sword slices through the logo, though. 

The issue itself, though, is nothing but solid.  We open on a scene that had not yet become cliched, Optimus Prime despairing over the loss of a friend.  He has a dialogue with a semi-sentient computer about Ratchet's choice from the last issue, with the emotionless computer applauding Ratchet's one-life-for-three choice and Optimus bemoaning the endless grind of self-sacrifice. Furman goes over-the-top here, but not in a bad way.  Rather, he's delving into the mindset of Optimus Prime in a way that we haven't gotten to see much of, at least in the US.  Delbo's art manages to be expressive through eyes and body language.  I especially like the third page, where a dejected Prime straddles the page, breaking out of his panel both above and below.  It makes him seem isolated and alone.  He decides that he's done, he's had enough.  He has the Autobots land the ship on the moon and just walks out into the lunar landscape.  Hot Rod, though, has a plan.  He's going to fire up a Mark V Guardian droid and have it pretend to run amok. 

Predictably, the robot ACTUALLY runs amok, prompting Optimus Prime to return and kick some robot ass.  Delbo's art really shines here, as does Massara's lettering.  The fight is punctuated by some great lettering effects, and I rather love the expressiveness of Kup's exclamation mark to the left.  As Optimus fights the droid, he philosophizes as can only happen in a comic book.  "Of course, I'd been fooling myself! Giving up wasn't the answer! Giving up is never the answer!" He concludes the fight by cycling back to the beginning of the issue, asking the computer if it understood the lesson that he himself had just learned.  The computer, indeed, picked up on the moral of the story.  "The heroes of yesterday provide the motivation and impetus for the heroes of tomorrow."  It's a nice little self-contained plot, taking Prime on a brief emotional journey and giving us some great action along the way.  I rather like the reuse of some UK concepts, this time the Guardian Robot.  It's a newer model, but it's recognizably of the same ilk as the droids seen in early UK plotlines.  Neat.

The other plotline of this issue is the resurgence of the Autobot resistance. With Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee leading the way, the Autobots have started to take back the night.  We get two pages of them just tearing through Decepticon opposition, while simultaneously introducing a few new characters.  There is quite a bit of exposition here, but Furman cleverly mixes it in with the action to hold our attention.  Heroes back, will be heading to the main battlefield, Earth, Decepticons are on the defensive.  Simple, but effective.

Naturally, all this  activity has attracted an official Decepticon response.  The Decepticon leader, Thunderwing, doesn't want to see his hard work slip away, and so sends Bludgeon, Octopunch and Stranglehold, the Mayhem Attack Squad, on an Autobot hunt.  As much as I love all of these characters, the artwork here lets the story down a bit.  Thunderwing's body language makes him look like he's slumping.  He seems like a rather decadent figure here, far different from the dashing and competent leader we'd come to know in future issues.  Meanwhile, the Mayhem team winds up looking stiff and weird, rather than monstrous and frightening.  Undead samurai and tentacled creature from the deep should be terrifying, but by copying the character moedl a little too closely they became rather dull.  And, um, there's Stranglehold.  He's just a dude.  It was a very weird choice, on Hasbro's part, to break from the concept of 'Decepticon Pretenders are monsters, Autobot Pretenders are humans' here.   I can't help but wonder if Longtooth was originally going to be the Decepticon in this assortment.  However, that's neither here nor there, and certainly not the fault of anyone on the Marvel side. 

The Decepticons manage to track the Autobots back to their lair, thanks to irradiated fuel set up by Thunderwing.  (Ah, now we're starting to see how Thunderwing's mind works.  No dilettante him, no!)   They're just in time, too, because the Autobots are about to transit to Earth. Emirate Xaaron wishes the blessings of Primus on the group, prompting Bumblebee to remark that he had forgotten the Transformers even had a God. After some very heavy handed foreshadowing, Bludgeon intervenes just as the space bridge activates, fiddling with the controls and sending his squad and Autobots alike deep into the heart of Cybertron.  What do they encounter there, but.the aforementioned Primus!

It's all terribly exciting, though more than a bit contrived.  Since Furman's been on this title for five issues, you'd think he could have dropped some Primus hints beforehand and then more casually mentioned them here.  Of course, the idea of Primus (as well as the Mayhem Attack Squad and Emirate Xaaron) was  already well established over in the UK, but since most of his US audience wouldn't know that it's still rather clumsy. It's also quite odd that a random space bridge jaunt with Earth as the destination would take them right to Primus, but since that actually could be some sort of divine intervention I've decided to give it a pass.

For all the logical contrivances, though, it's actually an intriguing development.  Whereas Furman's first arc was rock-solid but rooted solidly in what had already been established in the book, this new one is starting to look like it's much much deeper.  A God of the Transformers... how fascinating.  I also rather like the narrative structure here, with a complete story about Optimus in the foreground and the Primus stuff brewing in the background.  One quibble, though; Thunderwing and Bludgeon will go on to be some of the most memorable characters from the Marvel series, but in this, their introductory issue, they're fairly underwhelming.  I suppose that Furman had rather a lot to do in 18 pages, though, and at least the seeds of greatness are here, though buried very very deep. 

Next issue, we're promised "The honest-to-gosh origin of the Transformers," which sounds fantastic.  Only, they missed a trick here.  "honest-to-god" would have worked better in context.  In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that that's what the copy originally read, until someone higher up decided not to risk offending their readership or said readership's parents.  Yesterday's Heroes! is is available in IDW's   Classic Transformers Volume 4, and it comes highly highly recommended.  Order yours today.

Houston, we have a Winner!

As some of you know,  The AllSpark Almanac II (order it today!)  features a massively difficult crossword puzzle.  I don't mind saying that I spent about three or four weeks working on that thing.  It's designed to be completely solvable and to have as much overlap as possible.  To make it work, I needed a few non-TF words, but I tried to use Transformers clues for those words whenever possible.

Since it's a crossword with almost 150 words, I figured that I'd try to make it worth your while and ran a contest.  The rules were this: you have to get every answer correct, solve the word jumble, and then send me a picture of yourself holding the book.  (You have to put a face on the contest, you know?)

Well, as it turns out it took 15 days for General Tekno to blow through this thing.  Congratulations to our winner!  He even beat out Chris McFeely, who had decided not to enter the contest but was a few clues shy anyway.  The very last clue to be solved was 118 across, Syli.  That's a real currency, btw, not a Transformers reference.  In honor of that, General Tekno made up this cartoon:

 (Oh, and apologies for some late night crossword bungling, but 118 down doesn't exist - it should have be 119 down, which is the blank square immediately to the right of 118.  Unfortunately, there already IS a 119 as an across square, so that makes it, um, 118.5.  Sorry, guys!) 

Oh, and if you have no intention of solving it yourself, the answers are here.  General Tekno (and, to a lesser extent McFeely) proved that it can be done!  Congrats, guys.  I'll be getting in touch with you about your prizes.

PS: do ya get the word jumble? I thought it was a newspaperishly bad little clue. "Neutron laser demagnetizer cannon," weapon of choice of Action Master partner Screech, who is oddly described as an eagle scout.