Via Previews World we have the IDW Transformers Vs Visionaries #5 Preview to share with you.
This is a 5-page preview of the last number of this five-issue crossover comic miniseries. The battle that will decide Cybertron and New Prismos future is coming to an end.
Transformers vs. The Visionaries #5
Magdalene Visaggio & Fico Ossio
The final fate of Cybertron! Leoric and the drill team, on a mission to stop the destruction of the planet, reach the core—only to be met by Virulina and her Darkling Lords! Now, the two sides are locked in a final battle to determine whether Cybertron sees tomorrow. Everything comes to a head in this thrilling conclusion!
Expected Release: May 02, 2018
You can download the preview as a pdf file here, or you can read on to see the mirrored images of the preview. Let us know your impressions at the 2005 Boards!
MGX
I hated that NOW Mags remembered that the Visionaries could cast spells. We actually see Virulina and Galadria using their STAR Comics' magic! Unfortunately, it's an afterthought. I didn't think they could cast their classic spells until the final issue mentions this…this would have been better back in issue 1.
Speaking of Virulina, Leoric was all set to assassinate her earlier and now, he lets her mope around in a corner and not as a prisoner?
Leoric got his ass kicked by Virulina — again. This series was truly the IDW Virulina show.
Arzon cut into the bomb…but it turns out to be a superficial wound.
Ironhide is dying…but Galadria remembered "an old healing spell" to heal him.
Waspinator is transformed…only for it to not matter.
Ugh. I'm so glad that this is over.
If IDW revisits Visionaries, I hope they learned from the epic failure of this series. Use the original designs (or even recognizable/tweaked designs) and lore, but expand upon it further. Keep all of the old stuff, just add more diverse Spectral Knights and Darkling Lords to the original roster. Researching Visionaries isn't like researching the entirety of G1 or G.I. Joe; Visionaries has 13 22-minute episodes and 6 issues of a comic. A new writer, artist or editor could easily catch up to speed in a day, if not an afternoon.
Ateam_WFCTX_117894
No
Ateam_WFCTX_117894
Yes, visually they are completely distinct from humans. You make a great point.
Focksbot
It's a BFG reference, no?
Digger
No offence to your spelling but lol.
Bass X0
No they're not. They are aliens who have never been to Earth.
Digger
So where are the transformers?
Megastar
I actually like the Visionaries characters more than the TF ones.
Ateam_WFCTX_117894
That's because the visionaries are human beans.
Bass X0
You're absolutely correct. Spot on! I completely agree.
It would certainly grate on the viewers if it was turned into the cartoon.
You want an actual good Transformers and Visionaries cartoon experience, simply watch one episode of the 80s Transformers cartoon and one episode of the 80s Visionaries cartoon. You would have a far more enjoyable experience.
captain N
This would be a grate cartoon.
Deadend
If they had more time to explain it in prequel form, it could have worked though on the new armors. They're battle ravaged, and resources deprived. Something you would actually expect from the degradation of their previous armors to this dystopia now where they're stuck on an alien world entirely with their city. To them, what's a resources rich world as their planet was torn asunder from their years of fighting and the overuse of magic, the draining of their resources in a perpetual war.
The designs are a really good concept that speaks to that. Whether the writing fully explains that, or now with the IDW reboot, them having a chance to go back to a prequel series to build up to that, is another question. But in concept and design, it is a very good idea in how it expands on the length of their struggles and the adventures we haven't as yet read or know about. Like Leoric's visual degradation into a more primal lion humanoid design seems like some influences drawn on from the toon where he was forced to go lion and back to human repeatedly rapidly. Something that even when he was saved was remarked how he had no scratch on him as they were warned how dangerous that'd be and the physical toll it could take or might change a person.
This Leoric looks like more events like that took their toll on him physically. Which goes back to that aspect of how long they've fought on their world, and how ravaged their armors are to being pieced together from what they can into something new from the bare resources that were left after years of struggles to the point they outright lost their planet.
Personally, I like the designs and the stories untold aspect those designs evoke. It's rather disappointing though that now we won't get to see those stories that led to this armor evolution/degradation for them. Those seem like stories with rich potential and character growth. Like we're seeing the finale of a 100 issue run, without having the previous 100 issues to know how it got like this. Where they were left with this last resort that put them in this position.
Black Convoy
Well, full preview via Preview World:
TRANSFORMERS VS VISIONARIES #5 (FEB180438)
Direct link to PDF file here:
https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/Prevue/FEB180438
Mirrored images
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SG Roadbuster
the art is passable on the humans. but it does the robotic cast no favors at all.
Focksbot
I think Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblance applies here. IDW's Transformers is a clear 'relation' to G1's. You can count up the similarities between the characters and the concepts, and even if you knew nothing about Transformers, you'd conclude that they're variants of each other.
IDW Visionaries departs from Sunbow/Marvel Visionaries in so many ways that you'd be forgiven for thinking that the only thing Mags Visaggio had to go on was a list of names. They're not knights, they're not technology users, this preview is the first time anyone has mentioned the use of 'spells', and the characteristics of each of the cast might as well have been re-rolled on a D&D character sheet.
I disagree with the above criticisms of the art though – it's solid and occasionally dynamic. Could have been perfectly good with a better writer.
Focksbot
WRITING TIP #204: If part of your plot revolves around characters having a special talent or ability, try to create as much mystery and confusion around the uses and limitations of that ability as possible. That way your audience will be kept in the dark as to what is possible and not possible within the rules of the fictional world. In your final act, in a daring twist, have the character explain (but only vaguely) how their ability works, retroactively justifying either its use or non-use at vital junctures in the plot. This way your audience will be able to go back and read the story again, armed with a new perspective!
Thundermania
"You know how they liked Shining Armor?"
"Yeah it seamlessly blended the two universes while telling a good story."
"Learn nothing from that, don't split the panel-time equally, put the shocking death in the first issue, put some obscure characters in there but don't characterize them at all, remove all redeeming factors from the new group and while you're at it call Knockout's conjunx Breakdown."
GoLion
In hindsight I like it.
fishpop
I agree with all of this but i've bold'd specific points i strongly agree with:
Livio's art is hard to comprehend some, if not all, of the time. (I first saw his art during Dark Cybertron since i started reading/keeping current with IDW starting with DOOP/Phase 2)
Shining Armor was really good!
My memory of Revolutionaries is fuzzy but i don't remember hating it so it must have been at least okay imo.
"Continuity Ninja" XD
First Strike was an interesting inversion of the Earth/Cybertron invasion relatioship but then…
"Oh hey; Kreiger was a wizard that's meant to be the Merlin-looking mofo from Visionaries and he's made a city appear inside Cybertron"
(Took half an hour looking for an appropriate pic due to crap internet before i remembered this one)
VvTF has legitimately made me angry when i've read anything to do with Virulina. Her smug, conniving face makes me A B S O L U T E L Y L I V I D ! ! !
Also, she killed Kup for no reason other than to be a total bitch.
I really miss TAAO.
It was about politics mostly, which i normally cannot tolerate in the slightest, but Windblade & Co, or more accurately; the writer, made it realy engaging.