One of these days I will find out what all these people keep running after on these covers.
Freex #1
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (July, 1993)
“Freaked”
WRITER: Gerald Jones
PENCILER: Ben Herrera
INKER: Mike Christian
COLORIST: Paul Mounts
LETTERER: Tim Eldred
EDITOR: Chris Ulm
I think I mentioned the liver biopsy I had to go through this week, but I was able to get content on time this week. However, I wasn’t able to come up with a Jake & Leon this week and for this week’s Clutter Reports I had to watch someone going over why people enjoy decluttering videos and apply it to my site. It’s not been as productive as I would like but it’s better than I expected.
What’s happening this week? Outside of the Free Comic Inside I was expecting to have last week and the latest chapter of Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders, I don’t know. I’m still waiting for the test results, and to see what new spores of madness the storytelling industry has forced upon the universe this week, and I’m STILL trying to get into a work schedule without all these @#%#$%^#$ interruptions. So I’m not sure what else is coming but hopefully it will be worth your time and readership. Have a great week, everyone!
I’m going to do something rather different for Saturday Night Showcase on the heals of the Transformers One trailer (which I reviewed) and the upcoming airing of the first war episodes of the original The Transformers in theaters, which I’m hoping is why those episodes aren’t currently on their official Hasbro Pulse YouTube channel at the moment and will be returned after. Otherwise I need to make alternate plans for my previous SNS posting of the original miniseries. I’ll know after the theatrical airings are done in May.
Season one didn’t give us a whole lot about the history of the “Great War” as depicted in the show’s continuity. It had to set up the series and introduce the first few batches of toys characters first. Season two and part of season three is when we finally started learning about the war between Autobots in Decepticons. Tonight I’m going to show you those episodes, but there’s a catch. Some of them were part of a multipart episode. One is a part two of two while another is part three of five, and yet I’ll not show every part because that would be too many videos on one page. The rest are done in one stories, though.
Instead my focus is on the parts of the episode that just go into the history of the war, when it started, how long it went on, and the history of Cybertron prior to the war, with looks at their very origins. You’ll be getting the history the same way we did as kids back in the day, but not necessarily the stories surround it because that’s not the point of tonight’s showcase. Don’t worry, it’s really easy to find this show on many streaming services, though it does mean spoilers for at least one episode that gets the finale posted here. Then again, if you’re even here I’m not sure why you’d be here if you haven’t seen the whole series. Much of this was also covered in the Transformers: The Basics episode on the Great War in various continuities, and I will not be including season three’s segments discussion Transformer history. This is how the viewers learned it in the way we learned it originally. There’s only (insert number here) episode to go through but we learn quite a bit. Let’s begin:
Sequels have become a fact of life, even for stories that don’t need sequels. Not that the sequel on its own is a bad thing simply for existing. Some beloved movies are sequels to other movies, even lesser movies. Author James Harrington breaks down three different types of sequels, one that’s needed, one that can work, and one that just wasted everybody’s time.
(l to r: Windblade, Bumblebee, and Rubble)
Whenever a new Transformers universe is created I try to give it a chance to give me a good first impression. Transformers is my favorite fiction because the very concept allows for change while still having a core idea…at least under good writers who convince me they care. I have had disappointments. The Michael Bay films went down in quality as time went on rather than up. IDW had the same problem but actually started rather good in the 1.0 version. The Skybound stuff seems to be just for adults and screw the kids, which is a running theme in kids nostalgia as of late. EarthSpark just kind of bored me and I saw many of the ideas in the early episodes before I dropped out done better in other series.
So like a lot of my childhood loves now in the hands of the unloving, Transformers has had more disappointments in recent fiction than making me happy. It’s like the good stuff died with Cyberverse, and that’s a show that had to grow on me. Still, I was willing to give Transformers One a good chance. It’s made for kids. It’s not tied to EarthSpark as far as I can tell, or the Bay style Transformers. It could be good.
The trailer dropped earlier this week, putting my plans for discussing those other “Aliens” to next week because I have the urge to discuss this trailer…and why I don’t like it.
“Excuse me, miss, I’d like to return this tie.”
Blue Beetle #57
Fox Features Syndicate (July, 1948)
Only a few more issues left to go. Once again the cover focuses on the “True Crime” angle rather than the title character. I did a peek ahead and Blue Beetle takes center stage again next issue, along with some other oddities we’ll get to. As for now, let’s get today’s three main comic stories out of the way.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 