The 3-page preview of IDW Lost Light #14 is available and it seems quite an interesting issue.
The preview surfaced via Action And Adventure Twitter, IDW Website and Itunes. It’s flashback time! This is the beginning of a two-part story with a previous story which gathers fan-favorite characters like Shockwave and Scorponok after they left Garrus-9. Problems will come when they cross paths with the DJD.
Transformers: Lost Light #14
James Roberts (Author) • Brendan Cahill (Artist) • Jack Lawrence (Cover Artist) • Nick Roche (Cover Artist)
MACGUFFIN QUEST! The Scavengers have never had it so good. The war is a receding memory, their patchy service records have been forgotten, and the five of them can roam the galaxy as they please. All’s well that ends well? Not quite. Because unbeknownst to Krok and Co., their next adventure… will be their last.
Don’t forget to grab your copy this 7th February when this issue is available. You can read the preview images after the jump and then sound off at the 2005 Boards!
Starscream Gaga
What comic were you reading? The immediate reaction of the Wreckers to finding out they were facing Overlord in LSOTW was literally a character whispering "This is not happening… this is not happening…". He handily beat down the entirety of the Wreckers, then survived having bombs injected into his bloodstream and detonated and only was defeated when he willingly gave up after being told Megatron was dead. Overlord was no more overpowered in MTMTE than what was already established. Keep in mind his entire reason for existing was to kill ENTIRE PLANETS.
BadBadNotThisd
Hey! That\'s Skip! Glad to see him before he gets part of his head blown off…
hardlurk
That Tyler the Creator tweet about Cyber Bullying but instead of Cyber Bullying it's Tarn's Voice.
SMOG
I agree. It does seem a bit unlikely for him to forget something that important, especially considering his personal history with Glitch.
THOUGH… if we wanted to cut him some slack, we can remember that Shockwave was actually buried and dysfunctional on Earth for 13,000 years, after which he was immediately defeated by the Dinobots and arrested by Ultra Magnus… so it's possible he's not up to date on who the new "Tarn" is, or how far Glitch/Damus' powers had grown.
zmog
raindance773
I think a lot of people were thinking that Shockwave wouldn’t have been dumb enough to talk to Tarn in the first place, and would have known the extent and range of his powers, or would have a plan if he got into trouble talking to Tarn.
SMOG
I confess that I also sort of wanted to see Shockwave outplay Tarn on this one. And in a sense, he did… he had Monstructor and Bludgeon in his back pocket. That's a heck of an equalizer!
And Tarn's neurotic bureaucratic approach to carrying out his duty clashing with Shockwave's sense of efficiency and logic, is at least consistent with Shockwave's personality. Irrational thinking does confound him.
zmog
Danny-Boy
That was Optimus Prime #14.
Mattymo
That’s how I felt with this preview. Reading the 3 page preview made me say “oh shit! Shockwave ran into the DJD after Garrus 9!” I’ve been imagining that for 6 years what the woulda been and seeing Shockwave hobble to the floor and wondering how he got out…
“Was it reinforcements?”
“Did he bargain saying he would return to the fold because he could fix Megatron?”
And my favorite “did he reverse Tarns ability and turn it on him or the entire division and let them go if they took him off the list?”
Nope. He shot the phone and got away.
This is Shockwave! The dude that is responsible for like 90% of the IDW verse! He took out the Dinobots single handily! LITERALLY!
He would have had a plan to take out Tarn if they crossed. He was one of his students. Even in his spotlight he says he will be labeled a deserter and didn’t care.
SMOG
Well, I know Furman's run was a long time ago, but let's remember that Pretenders like Bludgeon and (even more) Thunderwing are actually supposed to be insanely super-powered in IDW. Probably on par with a Phase-Sixer. And then add in Monstructor, the "first Combiner".. who was so terrifying that he tore through Omega Supreme like an old sack of garbage. If the DJD were going to run from anyone, it would be a gang like that.
( let's all just try to forget that short story where Monstructor got one-shotted by Perceptor… please? )
Well, I mean… the DJD were brutally massacred by Megatron.
And here, they're running from previously-established long-time powerful characters, not Mary Sue OCs… so, does that feel better at least?
It's not just a Roberts thing. Remember Starscream defeating Sixshot (the first Phase Sixer we met) with a kill command? Phase Sixers were already nigh-unbeatable before Roberts came to IDW. But when you have a villain who's physically almost invincible, you need something like that to bring them down. It's only logical. Having someone just punch them to death renders all the effort of building them up worthless.
Tarn's killer voice occasionally shows off just how powerful he potentially could have been. However, I like consistency. When the DJD first appeared, they were REALLY scary. But then after that point, we never got a clear image as to HOW powerful they were, or why… beyond a kind of hand-waved plot device about how they were juicing on Nucleon or whatever. By the time they fell, I wasn't really sure what made them special at all.
I agree with you there. He's a master at building anticipation and tension, but always seems to rush his conclusions, and it feels anti-climactic and not very satisfying.
After Dying of the Light, I had to take a break from Roberts. He never quite makes good on the big reveals. I got tired of the meta-commentary on the fandom, and the constant anti-climaxes. I haven't bought an IDW title since then, and I used to be his biggest fan.
zmog
Mattymo
That’s the problem I had when we got Overlords origin in MTMTE. In Wreckers he was a big bad dude but the Wreckers still had faith they could beat him. That’s why they were sent. MTMTE came along and made him completely unbeatable and had to use knowledge to beat him which I appreciated however he was still way too overpowered.
Same with the DJD. Way too powerful which lead to people asking, “why not just have them and the phase sixers on the frontlines of every battle?” “Why not give Tarn a megaphone and start talking?” “Why not have Tarn hack into the Autobot central communications like he did on Deathsaurus’s Warworld?”
And ofcourse someone will say “actually it’s been established it hurts him” yeah yeah shut up he was still gonna do it to 500 cons on a ship and he didn’t care about the the pain.
It’s the problem I’ve always had with roberts writing. Too much build up, too much time spending people standing around and then “ALRIGHT WE NEED TO RUSH IT NOW! WRAP IT UP WRAP IT UP WRAP IT UP!” And then you get 5 page epilogue text story like remain in light. Granted that happened once but it still shouldn’t have happened. Spend less time in the jail talking and give the story time to end.
Remain in light has a satisfying ending and the way the DJD went out was clever but most of his story’s seem like they just gotta rush the finale and the bad guys he creates are just awfully too powerful to be anything but unrealistic…in a comic of cars turning into robots lol
pnova
Didn\'t ANdrew do a Tryitcon cover for this issue or was it Optimus?
Hadlen_Weltall
I think it's one of Roberts' tropes, the Bigger they are… the easier they fall.
Remember Overlord's massacre on the Lost Light, halted by one little ….. "Til all are one."
Negativedark
So Bludgeon and the Monstructor Six scared off the DJD? This proves they are weak against combiners, pretenders or pretenders who combine.
Though seriously I'm wondering if we'll get the Irony years down the road of someone having the DJD be brutally massacred to show how powerful and scary their OC bad guy is.
And sorry Nickel, but the Decepticon's have a long history of doofuses and loonies. I mean look at some of the original bios. You're just seeing another side of that coin.
GoLion
That's an interesting question. Yea, the shoddy work that goes into this book at times is why I stopped reading it a while ago.
Even Milne's art couldn't really get me to enjoy Roberts' work again — it's just not that great on deeper examination.
sharkrainbow
oh yeah! i went back and re-read those issues [which is what i should have done before asking] and i'm back on the same page now.
@ y'all quibbling about wanting 'context' for shockwave and scorponok instead of the Loser Club, can we get real a bit? Shockwave has had SO much context – his whole mysterious senator tragedy/turning the universe into a black hole thing, that was a powerful and moving piece of work. It's great to see him in a flashback gettin' down with the baddies but come on, more context? what do you really need?
and if you think for a second that this opening scene isn't going to have Consequences through the rest of the book in some way i can only say we must have been reading a different comic.
Mattymo
It’s been a year and half since the reveal and while it was a mystery to the audience it wasn’t a mystery to the IDW-Verse. It’s like Shockwave, he’s called Senator now because of the reveal.
Don’t be irked by it. It’s nothing.
If anything it’s Roberts going “okay knock it off with you people still thinking it’s roller. It never was.”
Because for the love of god there still are people who think Tarn was roller and Elegant Chaos changed it even though it didn’t or people who need their brain looked at and think he always was even though Roller now in the damn book.
Chromia76
That's Agonizer. He owns the museum the Scavengers are in. I *think* he's an original character, but uses a differently colored version of the TR Sixshot toy as his character model.
optimusmegas
worse…..with nickel….
hopefully grimlock murders that awful character so we can have one less roberts fanfic oc nonsense
NanakoPreame
This could have been a perfect issue to give new readers some context on Shockwave and Scorpanok. Instead we get "crazy shanagens" with the loser squad.
Driskull98
Looks decent, but one thing that's annoying me is how obnoxious they're being with Tarn now that he's dead and his identity is revealed. It's very heavy-handed with the "I think I'll call you Damus" and him taking off his mask for no reason. Kind of ruins the character's remaining aura of mystique when you just parade around his true face and name all the time. It's not a dealbreaker or anything, but it's a minor nitpick at best.