Comics
Review: ‘Mars Attacks The Transformers’
Martians! Team ups! Double crosses! Lasers blasting! Explosions! Witty banter! Giant yellow boots! Don’t trust Mars to do anything but terrorize and entertain you at the same time! This fun issue feels like a classic wacky episode of the original Transformers cartoon but in comic form as Mars Attacks The Transformers One-Shot.
WRITTEN BY: Shane McCarthy
ART BY: Matt Frank
PUBLISHED BY: IDW Publishing
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: 23 January 2013
This enjoyable issue is at the same time honoring and poking fun at the classic Generation1 series. The dialogue from everyone is spot on with a dash of commentary you never realized was missing until now. Writer Shane McCarthy knows his characters well and has fun with them and the story as a whole. As usual, The Decepticons lose and are carted away which is the typical setup to any Transformers story. Then, Mars attacks! The Autobots quickly discover that Martians are no pushovers…just ask Ironhide.
I can absolutely see this as an episode of the original run of the TV show. I grew up watching the series and played with my when I watched trying to re-enact the action. Every now and then, there would be one episode where the focus shifted to someone else for the Transformers to team up and battle. They never made toys of them. If they had Martian toys back then, I think it would have been a good addition to my toy army.
Martians are visually so different than everything else in this world that it makes for some great artwork by Matt Frank. All the characters readers know are there with a lighter and emotive look which is a great touch. Each ‘Bot and ‘Con are given their big moments to smash each other and Martians too. This issue is bright and fun. The one-shot is executed as good as it gets.
Are there any lesson learned here? Don’t trust Martians. Megatron is dangerous at any size. Cosmos IS useful. Autobots will always fight Decepticons. A well done-in-one issue indeed. Autobots, Roll out!
3.5/5 Skulls
Reviewed by: Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
IDW Dark and Paramount recently joined forces to launch limited comic book tales set in the worlds of Smile and A Quiet Place, and we’ve learned today that they’ll continue hanging around in those franchise universes with two brand new limited series tales.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed this afternoon that IDW Dark’s Any Given Smile debuts in September, while A Quiet Place: Rising Tides arrives in November.
First up, from writer Stephanie Williams and artist Pablo Collar, Any Given Smile puts a football-themed twist on Parker Finn’s successful Smile movie franchise.
The five-part limited series is “set in January 1995, during the American Arena League football championship game in St. Augustine, Florida. The rising superstar of the Sharks, backup quarterback Dupree, is feeling the pressure from his teammates, the fans, and also the city’s gambling underworld, to whom he owes a considerable debt. Meanwhile, a sports journalist investigates a string of suicides that may be connected to the big game. At the very least, they are connected to a sinister entity that preys on the minds of its victims.”
From writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow, A Quiet Place: Rising Tides will also be a five-issue limited story. The comic book tale “brings the creatures to the Florida Keys, where a father-daughter duo attempt to survive on water in a houseboat.”
EW further details, “This tense family reunion coincides with the arrival of the vicious creatures that hunt through sound. Grace and her dad find safety on the open ocean, but she’ll have to make landfall sooner or later; the father’s oxygen tank and their supplies are running low, while a hurricane swiftly approaches.”
Learn more about both comic books over on Entertainment Weekly.
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