REVIEW DW G1 #8: Extermination
Enfilade
Overall, I was rather disappointed with this issue. IMHO, sloppy
handling ruined the great, creepy, Lovecraftian aura set up by the
prior issue. There were some technical difficulties as well--a few
word bubbles superimposed on the image instead of being on white
backgrounds, which was confusing and made them easy to miss.
Jazz, Marissa Fairborne and her troops try to blast their way through
the strange Insecticons that explode with gooey splats. Badly
outnumbered, Jazz grabs Marissa and flees after the other humans fall.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe find a cavern of "eggs."
Shockwave is annoyed that Bombshell's haste might ruin his invasion
plan (the first phase being seen in "War and Peace." Bumper manages
to escape his bonds when the Insecticons are busy with Shockwave.
Bumblebee quits the Autobots and shows up at Spike's house. Spike is
less than happy to see him, now that he and Carly have a young Daniel.
He wnts to get on with his life.
The Lambor brothers plow through Insecticons but they're no match for
Shrapnel!
Great, SUPER CREEPY scene where Marissa and Jazz find the remains of
cattle...and humans...in an ad hoc butcher shop.
According to Jazz, the Dinobots followed a team of Decepticons (the
Insecticons) to Earth, looking for the crashed Ark. The side bar says
"See "Rules of Extinction." Unfortunately, I know of /no item/
entitled that, which leads me to guess it will be in an upcoming
comic, or perhaps the annual coming out this December.
Jazz and Marissa fry the bug-eggs!
Kickback is concerned. He talks to Shrapnel, pointing out that lately
Bombshell has been leading the group and Shrapnel has been letting
him. Bombshell was also quite willing to cut off Shockwave earlier.
This is the best scene in the issue, IMHO.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are imprisoned but are released by Bumper
who has found out how the cerebro-shells work.
Jazz is about to be mangled by the Insecticons for wrecking the
eggs...
Bumper saves the human commandos. the Lambor Brothers battle the
INsectcions and meet up with Marissa and Jazz, but then they all have
to face...the townspeople under Insecticon control! Luckily Bumper
uses the hypno chip to cause feed back that knocks Bombshell out of
the fight and frees the mind-slaves.
***
while the AUtobots are not willing to fight the humans, Marissa is...I
dunno, the last page of a bloody-handed Marissa seems to have been
going over the top at trying to prove how tough she is. In the first
issue she was gutsy; in this issue she's a little /too/ violent IMHO.
Why the heck did the Insecticons capture the Lambor brothers instead
of killing them? How did Bumper get out?
The end was too rushed, and somehow this whole issue had the feeling
of one of those mediocre season 2 eps. Sure, lots of fun but what's
the point? After the scene in the slaughterhouse, the issue went
downhill.
And being referred to an outside story that hasn't even been HEARD OF
in previews yet, let alone released, was /really annoying./
Let's hope MEgatron whips things into shape when he returns next issue
:)
--Enfilade