[REVIEWS] G.I. Joe: Frontline #15 (Going Home), Transformers Generation 1 Vol. 2 #1-6 (War and Peace)

Nathan P. Mahney's THE WHOLE STORY Review Column #6

No I didn't fall under a bus, nor did I succumb to a flesh-eating
virus of some description.  The reason my review column hasn't been
seen for nigh on a month is a mere whim of scheduling - none of the
comics I buy have had storylines finish.

As you may or may not know, my column is the one that reviews complete
story arcs instead of individual issues.  Archives can be found <A
HREF="http://www.geocities.com/npmahney/ReviewIndex.html";>here.</A>

THIS WEEK'S REVIEWS

G.I. Joe: Frontline #15 - "Going Home"
Transformers Generation 1 Vol. 2 #1-6 - "War and Peace"

G.I. JOE: FRONTLINE #15
"Going Home"

Story: Gary Phillips
Pencils: Jeremy Love with Mike Norton and Tim Seeley
Inks: Cory Hamscher with John Larter
Colors: Matt Cossin
Letters: Dreamer Design
Graphic Design: Mike Norton

THE PLOT: G.I. Joe team member Stalker is on leave, but when his
step-son gets involved with gangs, Stalker finds it difficult to
separate his army life from his home life. Can Stalker stop his
step-son from running with the gangs?

THE VERDICT: When I heard this was going to be a solo Stalker story, I
was looking forward to it. Stalker's always been one of my favourites,
and he was never a character that suffered from overexposure. When I
saw the cover my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened. Another story about
family in Frontline?

I have to say that my fears were unfounded. Phillips crafts a
surprisingly enjoyable tale about Stalker's family. He's absolutely
nailed the character, especially his inability to think like he's not
on duty.  When Stalker has to make a conscious effort not to use army
time, it rings true.

The other characters apart from Stalker don't really get much time to
climb out of cliched territory, but that's to be expected in a single
issue story. Phillips gets away with it by allowing Stalker to
interact with the cliches in entertaining fashion.

The only real problem with the story is that it feels to short. The
end is horribly rushed, to the point where I didn't even think it had
ended. It would have benefitted from an extra issue for certain.

Rating: 7 out of 10

TRANSFORMERS GENERATION 1 Vol. 2 #1-6
"War and Peace"

Writer: Brad Mick
Pencils: Pat Lee
Inks: Rob Armstrong
Backgrounds: Edwin Garcia
Layout Assists: Ferd Poblete
Colors: Espen Grundetjern, Alan Wang, Rob Ruffolo(#1, #5, #6), Gary
Yeung (#3, #4, #5), Pat Lee (#5, #6), Ramil Sunga (#5, #6)
Letters: Paul Villafuerte (#1-3), Ben Lee (#4-6)

THE PLOT: While the Autobots and Decepticons have been warring on
Earth, Shockwave has unified Cybertron! The Autobot and Decepticon
factions are no more, and Cybertron is at peace. The Earth
Transformers are labelled as war criminals, and brought to Cybertron
to face their crimes. But what is Shockwave really up to? And can
Optimus Prime make peace with his brother Ultra Magnus?

THE VERDICT: Are you one of those people who's been bitching about the
decompressed story-telling in modern comics? If you are, you'll love
Transformers: War and Peace.

Bloody hell, this comic moves quickly. So quickly that they obviously
didn't have room for major plot points in the story, so they squeezed
them into the recap page. Honestly, read the recap page - you'll miss
things if you don't.

Pat Lee's art doesn't help. It looks really nice when it's on a cover,
but inside it's a confused and jumbled mess. There are a lot of panels
that I stared at for several minutes before throwing up my hands and
saying "bugger it." Bumblebee could be sodomizing a goat in some of
these panels and I wouldn't know it.

That said, there's actually a pretty good story to be told here
amongst the clutter.  The concept of our Transformers as war
criminals, with Cybertron at peace, is intriguing.  Optimus Prime's
conflicts with Ultra Magnus are very good as well.  Brad Mick knows
the characters very well, and he gets a lot of conflict out of them. 
He also knows how to use minor characters effectively, even using
Reflector in a logical role.

As a miniseries in its own right, though, War and Peace is a failure
because it doesn't wrap up so many of it's plot points.  It really
should have been the first arc of the ongoing series - it's pointless
without reading what's to come, and what's to come will make no sense
without this.

Despite all of my gripes, though, I must say that I enjoyed the series
immensely. I think a lot of that comes from familiarity with the
characters.  I really wanted to mark this higher than I did, because I
enjoyed it so much.  As I'm trying to approach this from the point of
view of a Transformers newbie, it gets marked down.  Transfans,
though, should disregard the low mark - trust me, you'll love it.

Rating: 6 out of 10

- Nathan P. mahney -
Writing: www.geocities.com/npmahney
The Whole Story Comic Reviews:
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