Creator Commentary: Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters #2 with Mairghread Scott
Wednesday, June 12th, 2013 1:20PM CDT
Category: Comic Book NewsPosted by: El Duque Views: 18,400
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PAGE 1: What's your approach to Kickback in this series? How do you make him different from other versions of the character?
MAIRGHREAD SCOTT: I wanted to preserve the voice Kickback had in the FALL OF CYBERTRON videogame. It was a really distinctive speech pattern and a lot of fun to write. Beyond that, I just wanted to make him wheedle-y enough to be a fun Decepticon, but responsible enough to be a believable leader.
PAGE 2: With so many fights in Transformers, how do you try and make each one a little bit different? Is it a big challenge?
MAIRGHREAD SCOTT: “Who is in the fight” and “where are they,” are the most important aspects of a unique fight scene. Can someone fly? Are there narrow places in the room to hide? Also, not everyone approaches a fight the same way. I think Kickback is happy to let others soften the Dinos up for him while he uses his speed to finish them off. Someone like Grimlock would never fight that way. Whenever I get stuck writing a fight scene I go back to those questions: who and where.
PAGE 3: What’s driving Sludge this time, after events in RAGE OF THE DINOBOTS and the FALL OF CYBERTRON comics? How has he changed as a character?
MAIRGHREAD SCOTT: In “Rage” Sludge was the ’bot with no problems, which is odd ’cause he was left to die, twice. You don’t just “not mind” something like that. So in this story, I wanted Sludge to actually face his past and move beyond it. This fight is the tipping point for Sludge to do just that.
PAGE 4: If you could pick a new alt mode for Sludge, what other Dinosaur would you pick?
MAIRGHREAD SCOTT: An Ankylosaurus. Sludge is a more defensive-minded fighter than the average Dinobot and I’d have his tail turn into a hammer in ’bot mode. It’s always fun to have design elements multi-task like that.
PAGE 5: If we go back in time and give Sludge the same choices, do you think he would still become a Dinobot or choose to go a completely different route?
MAIRGHREAD SCOTT: Well none of the Dinobots had a choice in the matter. I know that Sludge would never have left his friends to go into a fight without him, but given the choice I don’t think that Sludge would have become a Dinobot. In fact, if it weren’t for the caste system and the war, I don’t know that he’d have become a soldier at all.
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Posted by Henry921 on June 12th, 2013 @ 10:06pm CDT
I realize Sludge is kind of a flat character, but Fall of Cybertron gave him a reason to be angry at Grimlock, and that's just being swept under the rug. As nice as it is to know Scott has thought about all this, it's a shame to see it resolved without ANY substantial character conflict.
Posted by CaptainMagic on June 13th, 2013 @ 12:07pm CDT
Henry921 wrote:Fascinating insight about Sludge... that is, as usual, briefly addressed and then never brought up again.
I realize Sludge is kind of a flat character, but Fall of Cybertron gave him a reason to be angry at Grimlock, and that's just being swept under the rug. As nice as it is to know Scott has thought about all this, it's a shame to see it resolved without ANY substantial character conflict.
I think it's a bit of a leap to say everything is resolved now between Sludge and Grimlock. The first issue did a pretty good job of presenting Grimlock as massively unstable, even compared to previous Grimlocks. That means at some point in the future he won't be so understanding when Sludge doesn't listen, and then we'll see that anger come boiling over. Plus, it wouldn't really make sense for these two to come to blows this quickly just because an Insecticon makes fun of Sludge when they've been successfully keeping themselves in check for so long. Just give it time.