(UK) Armada #3
Chris McFeely
not... ungood, in it's own way.
First up, this issue's cover confirms what I've been suspecting for a while
now - Geoff Senior has totally, utterly, incontrovertibly lost it. I mean,
my God.
The comic strip of the issue is now no longer one, long tale, but two
shorter stories - one which follows on from the main strip of the previous
issue, and a back-up strip of the same length (7 pages each), "Tales of the
Minicons," which is apparently to be a regular feature. The main strip,
"Deep Trouble," picks right up from the end of the previous issue, and sees
the kids venture into the caves where they found the Minicon ship, to
recover the ship's locator log, which will allow the Autobots to track down
the other Minicons scattered across the planet. The log, incidentally, is a
Minicon panel in this comic. When the kids find it, Demolishor arrives,
having been sent to find the log himself, and a brief scuffle ensues. Rad
gets Demolishor to follow him by running off with the log, and lures him
into an unstable part of the cave, where the Decepticon gets caught in a
cave in. The kids escape, but unfortunately, the locator doesn't make it
out.
The art has improved somewhat since the last issue, though the promise new
inker has still yet to emerge. Still, Bambos Georgiou tries harder with this
issue, and the inking is much finer and more detailed - it's more evident
that these are Andy Wildman's pencils this time. Close-up images of the
characters are especially well-inked, but long-shot views tend to lean more
towards the "looks like ass" category. The colouring is also more subdued
and not as garish this issue, but that may be just because of all the earthy
rock tones.
In summary - still being written down for a younger audience, needlessly so,
but it's a marked improvement. It still has a long, long way to go.
The "Tales of the Minicons" strip, "Just a Memory," sees High Wire, Grindor
and Sureshock follow the kids after school hours, trying to learn more about
Earth and it's customs. High Wire watches as Rad, Fred and Billy are kept in
after school to complete a science experiment, and is reminded of how he
worked to develop a clean way of waste processing on Cybertron, but when
Fred and Billy make Rad's experiment explode, he grabs them and pulls them
out the window, remembering how the Decepticons "turned the skies black with
smoke." Meanwhile, Grindor watches Carlos show off at the skate park, and
recalls how extraordinary feats were looked highly upon on Cybertron,
swapping himself for Carlos's skateboard and using his jets to perform some
suspiscious tricks. Rad and Carlos meet up with Alexis, who tells them that
Sureshock crashed the observatories mainframe trying to upload vast amounts
of data into it. The Minicons apologise, and Rad tells them they've got a
lot to learn, but he's there to teach them.
A bit syrupy in moral, but on the whole, a geuinely interesting look into
the lives of some of the Minicons before the war. Inking and colouring by
the regular team, with pencils by Keiron Ward, whose art is attractively
cartoonish, working comparatively better with the sub-par ink and colour
work than Wildman's does. I will be glad to see some changes in the inking
and colouring, as it truly is preventing the pencil work from attaining it's
full potential.
The rest of the issue is made up of factfiles on Demolishor and Blackout, a
board game, a competition to win Red Alert toys, a quiz, the usual colouring
page, and a poorly-drawn poster of Super Optimus Prime. The letters page of
this issue contains no suspect names this time around...
Today's child-bribe... I mean, free gift... is a "secret soaker watch" - as
you might guess, a hunk of plastic with a digital clock face on it, on a
plastic strap that you wear around your wrist, which squirts water. I
genuinely plan to take a hammer to it at the earliest opportunity.
So, to sum up - the comic is slowly improving. The "Tales of the Minicons"
could prove interesting in the future - I imagine Furman will use it to show
us what other Minicons in other parts of the world are doing, which could be
quite enjoyable. It's unfortunately, however, that this means the two strips
themselves are now quite short, which will undoubtedly make for some rushed
stories. I am, at least, encouraged to stick with it for now.
Chris