Starting off with the covers for #4 - there are 8 in total. Overkill, yet again. How much money does IDW want from each of their readers?
Anyway,the regular cover features Jazz, Arcee and Snake Eyes - nothing really special about it. Subscription Cover A has some dude - even after reading the comic I'm still not sure who he's meant to be - with some teeth round about him - awful; just awful.
Subscription Cover B has various characters from the various properties all walking/running quite merrily to the right - this is a full wraparound cover and I think is meant to join on with the other issues. It's ok.
Subscription Cover C is red and black with a Micornauts character in silhouette. Ok, but not relevant to M.A.S.K. so not interested. Subscription Cover D - another one of the toy figure carded box style with Arcee and Snake Eyes - probably the best cover of the lot.
Retailer Incentive Cover A - has Snake Eyes fighting off Micronauts. This is very "computerised" in it's design and I'm not overly fond of it.
Retailer Incentive Cover B - another red/black cover with Optimus Prime - on a par with Subscription Cover D.
Retailer Incentive Cover C - what the actual.... designed for 5 year olds.... Awful!
When we get into the comic itself, M.A.S.K. doesn't make much of an appearance in it. Miles Mayhem is seen to be pivotal to the story line and we, yet again, have Matt Trakker whinging like a 5 year old child as it's becoming apparent that he and Miles Mayhem have different agendas.
As expected, with the Revolution 5 part series is linked to the other Revolution comics there are references all over the place that refer to other comics in the series.
This "suggestive selling" is pretty poor. If you want to make a 5 part series - make a 5 part series and don't go on off shoots in a poor attempt to sell more of your comics. Few of us are interested.
Moving onto #5 - the best thing I could say about it is - thank fuck it's finished!
Again, we have another 8 covers..... This time I bought more of the comics as there was more "M.A.S.K." featured on them.
The Regular Cover features various characters including Matt Trakker and Miles Mayhem wearing Spectrum and Viper respectively. It's an ok cover, as it's the original versions of the characters and not the new and unimproved versions.
Subscription Cover A has the same dude as on Issue #4. Don't really get it...
Subscription Cover B is another of the walking to the right wraparound covers - has Matt Trakker and Bruno Sheppard on it. Again, not a bad cover.
Subscription Cover C has the original Viper Mask floating above a decapitated body. I'm guessing it's meant to be artistic - just looks terrible.
Subscription Cover D is another of the Toy Box Covers with Miles Mayhem on it along with Baron Karza. Not as good as some of the other issues covers, but ok.
Retailer Incentive Cover A looks like another computer designed cover - has Viper on the front - again, I'm not a big fan of it.
Retailer Incentive Cover B - from the thumb print image in the inside back cover of the comics I have, I can't actually make out what/who is meant to be on this.
And, finally, we have Retailer Incentive Cover C. Another one for the 5 year olds. Has Matt Trakker and Bruce Sato on it. Which is pointless as Bruce Sato isn't even in the comic.
M.A.S.K. plays more of a role in this issue and it's the first time that all of the properties are in the comics as part of the same action. Up until now, the first four issues only really cover parts of stories featuring some of the characters from some of the properties. It was very disjointed as they all seemed to be doing their own thing and had their own story lines.
Issue 5 brought them together - but was still an extremely disjointed story and I was left scratching my head so many times as the story just didn't sit right or make any sense whatsoever.
When the news about the new M.A.S.K. Comic first filtered out - I set an expectation bar of what I wanted to see and what I hoped to see. As more and more information started filtering through - including the news of throwing all of the properties into the mix and see what happens, the bar of expectation got lower and lower.
Despite my bar of expectation being so low, some how, IDW managed to Limbo right under that bar without event touching it.
As a M.A.S.K. fan, I'm sorry, but this whole Revolution Series was a mistake. We now have M.A.S.K. vehicles that look nothing like the originals nor modern vehicles - they are simply Cybertronian Clone vehicles.
I have nothing against Transformers, but they are two separate and unique entities and should remain so. M.A.S.K. was popular because it was believable - we've seen James Bond Movies, it's easy to accept a car that can turn into a submarine or a motor bike that can turn into a chopper.
Mixing M.A.S.K. with aliens and giving them futuristic looking alien tech - that's so far removed from M.A.S.K. that it doesn't work.
I'm afraid that,overall, the Revolution Series didn't do justice to any of the properties and reading it I actually felt embarrassed to call myself a M.A.S.K. fan. If this is what IDW have done in the Cartoon, I had to see what goddamn monstrosity Paramount are going to make for the big screen.
What are your thoughts? Please leave a comment below or over and my M.A.S.K. Comics Facebook Page.
#assembleMASK #MASKcomics #DIC
#MASKcrusade
