The Four Color Media Monitor

Polygon's leading "expert" on comics commentary wrote an awkward puff piece about the new Transformers comic illustrated by the aforementioned Daniel Warren Johnson, and admits she's not especially familiar with the source material, and not even the subject of one of his own writings:

I don’t know anything about professional wrestling, but Daniel Warren Johnson’s gonzo wrestling comic Do a Powerbomb was one of my favorite books of the last couple years. It’s got killer art, a story full of heart, and roller-coaster stakes.

I don’t know anything about Transformers, either, but Daniel Warren Johnson’s Transformers #1 hit shelves this week. Having read the issue, I hope die-hard Transformers fans are excited. But I’m hoping even more that this is my gateway into understanding the space robots that turn into cars and stuff.

Despite Transformers’ hold on culture, I’ve never really found the right entry point into the franchise’s sprawling continuity — an irony for Polygon’s resident expert on superhero continuity. But if Daniel Warren Johnson can make me care deeply about a foreign subject once, I bet he can do it twice, because if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s translating his enthusiasm.

That’s a trick that isn’t just about good action and the rule of cool — although Johnson is superlative at that. It’s not just that he’s gonna show me Optimus Prime suplexing Starscream, complete with beautifully rendered sound effects and palpable kinetic motion. He’s also gonna make sure I know why Optimus is a good guy, even if I’d never heard of him before.

Transformers #1 starts at the beginning: A fresh new continuity on an earth where a couple of teens have hopes and dreams about art school and becoming astronauts, and have never heard of Autobots or Decepticons. Or at least it seems that way — I thought the teens were original characters at first, but I looked it up and it turns out that Spike and Carly are are some real OGs!

So I can’t rule anything out! I know just enough about Transformers to know I don’t know anything about Transformers. [...]

Which explains picture perfectly why her shoddy puff piece ends up being so muddled and grating. I'm sorry, but while it's obviously possible to make a decision based on a review, not only is this decidedly not one, it's only had the effect of discouraging me from taking a look at territory that's already been explored back in the mid-80s, and while not perfectly, still a lot more interesting than what came more recently, which is far more woke, and downright insulting in the supreme. One can only wonder why the reviewer presumably couldn't get into the original volume launched by Marvel during the Bronze/Iron Ages, and of course, must we immediately assume this new volume will be okay for consumption just because it's a rebooted continuity? The short answer is "no". The part about originals is also confusing, because the character of Spike Witwicky was first created back in the mid-80s too, and I think so was Carly. But what's that got to do with meritocracy? Despite any claims she may make to that effect, I looked at the artwork and it's actually kinda rough-looking (Johnson did admit earlier he had difficulty envisioning the best design for the robots). As a result, this whole item comes off sounding more like forced promotion for the sake of the publisher, regardless of quality.

And with that, I'd say this sums up yet another of Polygon's shaggy dog jokes of a comics commentary that does little good for the medium, let alone the toys this comic is based on. I hesitate to think what any GI Joe "reviews" they may have in store will be like, if this is the best they can offer when it comes to robotic stars. People who otherwise know nothing about franchises that're decades old by now don't qualify for comment on them as a whole. Come to think of it, nor do they qualify for comment on superhero fare.

Labels: history, indie publishers, licensed products, msm propaganda