May 29, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode the Skuxxoid takes center stage as we review Void Rivals #19! All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions! Order our exclusive Skybound Transformers #1 comic with cover art by E.J. Su! Want some TransMissions swag? Check out our online shop, powered by TeePublic! Show Notes: If you enjoy TransMissions, please rate us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! These ratings greatly help podcasts become more discoverable to other people using those services and is an easy way to help out our show. Contact us: Continue reading
The post Alt Mode 444: Void Rivals #19 Spoiler Review appeared first on TransMissions Podcast Network.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:32):
Welcome to transmissions alt mode,
the podcast that talks TV.
I'm your host, Charles,
AKA big C and I'm joined by
the excellent transmissions team, Jeremy,
AKA Yakko.
Hey, how's it going?
And Daryl, the Cybertronian beast.
What's happening.
Let's talk Transformers.
(00:54):
All right.
As always,
we start off the show by
thanking our Donatrions,
those lovely people who
support us on Patreon and PayPal.
Thank you all so much for
continuing to support us
and contribute to the show.
And welcome back to one of
our Donatrons who has come
back and resumed their subscription.
So thank you, Ken,
for joining up again and
(01:15):
also returning to the Discord as well.
So Ken, welcome back.
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate your
support and we look forward
to hanging out with you on
the Discord as well.
So great job, Ken.
Welcome.
And of course,
thank you to everyone else as well.
And if you are not in an HON
and would like to become one,
just go to
(01:35):
transmissionspodcast.com slash support,
which includes some bonus content,
like our bonus show, We Like Big Bots.
And we've got fourteen
episodes of We Like Big
Bots available on our Patreon page.
More coming this year at some point,
according to Dr. Pants,
and we hope Daryl.
(01:55):
So look forward to that.
But in the meantime,
catch up on all the other
Big Bots episodes with
Daryl and Dr. Pants,
showing off all the bots in
their collection.
we've also got our
transformers live play rpg
podcast empire of rust this
week was episode one thirty
six seraphim shrugged and
(02:16):
that's available for
everyone at
transmissionspodcast.com rust
you can download that right
now next week next monday
will be the bonus uncut
version of episode one
thirty seven that will be
exclusively for donatrons
And then a week from Monday
will be the regular version
of episode one thirty seven
(02:37):
out available for everyone.
So look forward to that.
We've also got our exclusive
Skybound Transformers number one comic.
You can get that at our website,
transmissions podcast dot
com slash comic.
We've got the cover art by E.J.
Sue.
So this is our exclusive
comic cover and version
that is available only from
(02:58):
transmissions podcast.
So check that out.
And we've only got a couple
more days left on our May
promo code for toyhacks.com.
So use that code MAYDAYCON
to save fifteen percent off
all your purchases at toyhacks.com.
So you've only got a couple
(03:18):
more days that expires on
May thirty first.
Then next week we will have
a brand new code for the month of June.
So stay tuned for that.
But right now that code
MAYDAYCON still works for you.
So enjoy.
And, uh, that's all for promos.
So let's get into the show
and get right into our comic review.
(03:38):
All right.
We are looking at Boyd rivals number.
This is, um,
written by Robert Kirkman and
new artists starting this issue.
Uh,
Connor Hughes is taking over the art
(03:59):
duties.
Colors by Patricio Del Pesce,
letters by Rush Wooten,
and editors Ben Abernant.
The story begins on the
Skuxoid's rockeroid,
where Rekgar and some of
his fellow Junkions are
watching as the two halves
of Skuxoid are generating
(04:19):
their respective other halves.
Once the two are more stable,
Rekgar has the ship tow the
rockeroid and takes all of
them back to the planet Junkion.
on this planet, when they get there,
the two scuxoids are taken
off on a stretcher by Rekar
and the other two Junkions
as someone is looking on
from the shadows inside the ship.
(04:41):
Later, Scuxoid wakes up with a shock,
asking where his wife and kids are.
The other Scuxoid,
who was made from the top
half of the original,
tries to calm him down,
and he says to ignore the
scar on his face,
but he explains that they're both Scuxoid,
but not the original.
The newly awakened one doesn't believe him,
but he remembers everything so clearly.
(05:04):
The other one laughs in his face,
and then he explains that
he remembers being in the same situation.
The wife and kids that they
remember were never theirs.
They were the wife and kids
of what he calls the original.
Then he explains that when
they lose a big enough
piece of themselves,
it grows a whole nother scuxoid.
They have all the memories of the original,
(05:25):
which are the strongest ones,
sometimes overriding their true memories.
This causes confusion and
makes them forget
themselves for a short time.
Like what happened to
scuxoid on his rockeroid.
It never fully goes away,
but he says that he gets used to it.
Then the first Skeksoid
looks around and realizes
that he doesn't know where they are,
(05:46):
when suddenly Akronis,
who was left to die on the
ship by the other Cobra Law team,
attacks them from above.
The first Skeksoid thought
he killed him with his blaster,
but Akronis says that only
his armor was killed.
As the Skeksoid tries to evade the attack,
Rektar returns,
and he becomes the new
focus of Akronis' attack.
(06:07):
Though his sword does
nothing to the robot and
from behind Rekgar,
the Skeksoid yells that
Akronis' people left him to die.
Then Rekgar just places his
hand down on top of Akronis,
keeping him subdued but not hurting them.
Realizing that there's no victory here,
Akronis yields and Rekgar lets him up.
(06:29):
The Skeksoids are shocked.
Why is he letting this guy go?
Rekar says that they have
nothing to fear but fear
itself and that they're all
junk on the planet.
The Skectoids are frustrated
by not being able to
understand what the Junkion is saying,
but Acronis realizes and translates.
He says that Rekar sees
everyone there as equals.
(06:51):
Then he realizes that Rekar
is speaking the way humans
on Earth speak and that TV
broadcasts must make it out here.
And then he's happy that his
people were never caught up
with this technological poison.
Then Rekgar looks up and yells, the plane,
the plane,
as the mysterious robotic
figure who had been spying
on the Skeksoids for a
while now chooses to attack
(07:12):
with a blaster.
It engages the Junkions
while the Skeksoids try to get away,
but then suddenly it flips
from the Junkions' grasp
and tosses a device towards
the Skeksoids that stuns them.
The newly awakened Skeksoid
asks what this new
mysterious figure wants and
(07:33):
simply says that it will
all be revealed in time.
Negronus wants to know if he
means that it can be
revealed to the Skeksoids or to everyone,
but just as quickly as he arrived,
the mysterious figure uses
a jetpack to launch him
with the Skeksoids in tow
to his ship above.
(07:54):
Aboard this ship,
the first scuxoid has
awakened and demands to
know what's going on.
Their abductor simply orders
them to be silent or be
silent from points of pistol at them.
When they get to their destination,
which seems to be another rockeroid,
they're ordered to come and
find purpose and meaning in
life as a part of the army
of scuxoid alpha,
(08:15):
as we see an older scuxoid
standing in front of an
army of thousands of other scuxoids.
Yubi continues.
So this issue, one,
saying Skuxoid so many
times is very tiring on my tongue.
(08:35):
We gave Void Rivals a pretty
rough review with issue eighteen.
And this one being solely
focused on Skuxoid from
beginning to end was a
breath of fresh air.
I really enjoyed the story.
I know it's a break from the
(08:58):
main story in the series,
but we've been getting just
like a page here and a page
there of the Skeksoid story
and getting kind of
this full kind of um taste
of what's going on I really
enjoyed it I liked getting
the junkions involved it
(09:18):
makes sense at first I
didn't know what was going
on with the whole
regeneration thing because
you see like tiny legs on a
big body and big legs on
with a tiny upper torso
And so it was just like,
until have you see them
both fully regenerated?
I was like, okay,
I thought the junkie ons
(09:39):
were doing something to them,
but it was a, it was a fun story.
Um, the,
I did also have to go back and
look up the, the person I was saying,
mysterious figure, um,
I dug through the TF wiki
trying to see if it ever
had a name and that's what
(10:00):
they called it.
It has not been named yet.
So it's the robot character
with like the TV for a head.
Um,
so I was just calling him a serious
figure until we have a name.
Um, but really neat, um,
kind of concept of what
they're doing with scuxoid
and kind of a tragic figure, but,
(10:24):
I really enjoyed it,
and it looked like Acronis
is going to be hanging out
with the Junkions from now.
So I don't know.
This was just a really fun
kind of single story.
I think the letters page
says we'll get these occasionally.
And the art I thought was really good.
I actually think I like the
(10:44):
art a little bit better
than the last artist.
It just...
It was a little bit cleaner to my eyes,
but it was still great.
The coloring made it match
the tone of the previous books.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book,
and I was really happy to
(11:05):
see it after the last issue.
Charles, let's go with you first.
What were your thoughts on the book?
Yeah, I mostly agree with you.
I mean,
I like the fact that I know this
was a scuxoid focused issue, but I mean,
Rekgar and the Junkions
were a big part of this too.
And it was great seeing them there,
seeing multiple designs of
(11:25):
the Junkions in addition to
Rekgar and having the talk
TV thing brought back in.
And Robert Kirkman did
really capture the Junkion
voices really well.
I thought he did a really great job with,
you know,
putting those TV,
making those TV phrases relevant for,
you know,
what they were saying and everything.
(11:46):
And then, you know,
I think it's a bit of a
stretch that the Cobra Law
guy is familiar with TV broadcasts,
but okay, whatever.
I mean, I think the Cobra Law...
He was familiar with the concept.
And I think because he was
one of the Cobra Law people
(12:06):
that was allowed to go out.
But when they did the same bat time,
same bat channel, like tune in tomorrow,
he didn't get that.
And he was like,
I guarantee we're not going
to know what's going on tomorrow.
Yeah, that was good.
Yeah.
And but yeah,
the whole scuxoid thing is very weird.
(12:28):
Yeah, having scuxoid be this kind of like,
what are those plant worms
that that you cut them in
half and they grow into two things,
you know?
Okay.
I mean, yeah, like it was, it was,
that's interesting.
I mean,
it raises a whole other set of questions.
Like, is this,
(12:49):
is this something that his
entire species can do?
Or is he just like a one
like science experiment guy
who was created in a lab,
like the original scuxoid.
And then he's, he just has been, you know,
I guess the original
scuxoid has just been
cutting off pieces of
himself and having them grow up and,
grow his army or whatever
but um I did like finally
(13:10):
getting the this mysterious
robot guy I think the first
time he showed up was in um
the energon universe
special from last year yeah
so uh finally having this
guy show like oh he's I
guess he's working for
scuxoid alpha and that's
why he's has been tracking
the the scuxoid that we
know and love I guess
(13:31):
Um, so that's fine.
I mean, and having the Clover, our Cronus,
the Cobra law guy getting,
getting some stuff to do was,
it was good.
Um, yeah, I thought it was,
I thought it was a, it was a fun issue,
uh, self-contained and a complete story.
Like they didn't draw, drag out the,
you know, the scuxoid,
like they mentioned the original scuxoid.
(13:53):
And then immediately by the
end of the issue, we see, oh,
there's scuxoid alpha.
And he's actually,
he looks like he's pretty old,
so he must've been around
for a long time.
So having that, that one mystery, you know,
tied up at the very end of the issue.
I thought made for a, you know,
a good self-contained story.
So,
but it leaves the door open to see
where it's going to go next
(14:13):
and how it's going to tie
into the main story.
So I thought that was, that was nice.
And yeah, in the letters column,
Robert Kirkman mentions how
the scuxoid thing kind of
took on a life of its own.
Like it was originally just
supposed to be a throwaway character,
but he just fell in love
with scuxoid and gave him
more and more stuff to do
(14:33):
until now he gets,
he gets his own solo issue.
Cool.
Daryl,
what were your thoughts on the book?
Mine differ from your two a bit.
I enjoyed the idea that
(14:54):
Skuxcoid had this ability
to regenerate because of
the fact that he's a
character from the G-One
cartoon where we really
don't get a lot of
Backstory on him so that I appreciated the,
uh, the, the, a bit more backstory.
So, you know, we, we got a bit about,
(15:16):
about his, uh,
this family that he's been
fighting for that he really isn't his.
And then, uh, you know,
And the fact that if you cut
off a big enough chunk,
it grows another body.
I appreciated that.
That was an interesting
little tidbit to kind of
add to the scutsoid mythos.
(15:38):
But for the most part,
I thought the issue was pretty dumb.
Future books,
future issues of Void Rivals...
may make this issue make
more sense and make it more important.
But as of, as it stands right now,
(15:59):
I felt like it just did.
It was kind of stupid.
Um, it just, it didn't do anything for me.
The Cobra law guy, he was there.
He fought the, uh,
you know, the,
the Rekar held him down and
he gave up immediately and, you know,
and there was, there was no fight.
(16:20):
Um, the, uh, once he let him go, he's like,
okay, cool.
You know, we're good.
We're good now.
You know, I,
I figured the Cobra law guy
would have been, you know, uh,
as soon as he got let go,
he would have either tried to escape or,
uh, or try to kill the Scuxoid again, but,
uh, no, he just, uh,
you know, he's just like, okay, cool.
(16:40):
Well, I guess we're, uh,
we're on a team now.
Right.
So, you know, it just,
it made no sense that they
just kind of teamed up
right after he tried to kill him.
I kind of, I, you know,
I agreed with the Scots
white at the time.
He's like, well, wait a minute.
This guy just tried to kill us.
You know, um, the, the,
(17:01):
the voice of Redgar, I did find was, um,
as like, uh,
They kept using phrases from
the eighty six movie,
which you could pick out
and and that was fine.
But I would assume that.
their language would include
many more phrases.
(17:22):
If they talked TV, they would,
they would have to have
numerous other phrases to use.
Right.
And so the amount of, of,
of phrases that they use in
the book that matched the
movie seemed odd.
Yeah.
To me.
I mean,
it seems like in the years between
(17:43):
then and now you could have
thrown in some of those phrases.
Yeah.
Right.
So they were walking dead phrase.
That would have been fun.
That would have been kind of fun.
Like something about Carl or
something like that.
That would have been hilarious.
Um, but you know, there's so, so yeah,
(18:04):
so that, and then
Like this,
as far as moving the story along,
it really didn't do much of that.
It just created,
it added a lot of backstory
for the scuxoid, which I already said,
I appreciated.
Um, it, you know, it gave us the, uh, the,
the planet of junk and the junk eons,
(18:26):
which, you know,
I think we'd already seen.
No, I don't think so.
I think we got at the end of
the last issue.
He showed up like after,
like on the rocker Roy, but we,
that we didn't really get any,
I'd have to go back and
(18:48):
look through the issue,
but is it just wreck are in
this other minion or are there other,
there are two other ones.
There's two other ones.
Okay.
Um, so, uh,
I would expect if once they
arrive at their planet and
he's got a bunch of other people there,
like, or a new,
(19:08):
like prisoners or something,
I would expect there to be a bunch more,
you know, in one panel,
we see three other ones.
Okay.
So there are more, but the really,
the only ones we get
details of are the ones that had toys.
Gotcha.
(19:29):
So all in all,
I thought the book was fairly dumb,
but I agree that I like the
art better than the last artist.
But I stand by my comment
that I believe this book
may end up being more
important with information
(19:52):
provided in future issues.
But that's left to be said.
Standing on its own as a single issue,
I'm not a huge fan.
Yeah, one thing I'm wondering,
you know how like in like
the eighties and nineties,
they would do like the
fifth week of a month would
(20:13):
have the annuals or something special.
I wonder, I'm not seeing,
I'm not sure what week of
the month this was,
if it's the fifth Wednesday
or if it's just the fourth.
Um, but you know,
I wonder if every few issues, I mean,
he said this is going to
happen occasionally,
hopefully not more than once a year,
(20:34):
but maybe like quarterly or twice a year,
we get one of these
standalone issues that
takes one of the side
stories and advances just
that little bit where, you know,
more than a couple of pages
we get in a regular book.
This is the fifth week of May.
(20:55):
Because the first the first
was on a Wednesday.
Okay, so Thursday was a Thursday.
So it's only the only four.
There's only four Wednesdays in May.
Okay, but it's still the fifth week.
There's a I mean,
the first was a Thursday.
So I mean,
you had three days in the first week.
Okay, well, I mean, and yeah,
(21:19):
I don't know.
It's half a week.
It's half a week.
Slightly less than half a week.
I don't know.
It was just a thought.
But still, I mean, I'm wondering, like,
the next time we get one of
these standalone issues,
would it be the Cobra Law
people or the Quintessons or something?
Just getting...
just a little bit further on
(21:41):
that one story,
but the regular books are
going to be the frustrating
here's a page of the
quintessence now on to the
but Christopher Penn So
just a quick look at my
calendar as I'm on my computer here, July,
October and December have
five Wednesdays in them.
(22:03):
So
get ready for Transformer
Wednesdays from Skybound.
So I mean, I'm, you know,
I hear your criticisms, Daryl, I'm,
I'm still like, I, I, you know,
even though this doesn't
move the overarching story
along very much,
(22:24):
I like having a single issue,
like kind of side story,
self contained issue,
even if it's doesn't really
tie into anything.
And
I know,
but we like different things
because you like story and I like fights.
So yeah, I mean, that's fine.
I'm just we're not going to agree on this.
(22:45):
I didn't say we had to.
So that's fine.
damn it charles stop trying
to make me agree with you
it does look like this
issue has a sketch cover so
if you're in with the
sketch covers this issue
has one um as they do with
like many of the new story
(23:05):
arcs I want the ej sue
cover but that's like cover
f so I probably won't yeah get that one
That's the wreck are the good,
like nice clean wreck guard design.
Like Lorenzo D Felicia still
gets the cover.
Yeah.
The EJ Sue cover is a one in
one hundred variant.
(23:26):
So good luck with that.
Yeah.
Maybe if I just emailed EJ Sue,
like you can,
did you get any of those
that you're willing to part with?
Yeah, there's a, um, there's a cover.
D is a one in twenty five.
is a pretty cool looking uh
(23:46):
uh wreck car riding a uh
riding another junkie on
cover it looks pretty
badass yep yeah that's
another thing they didn't
transform in this issue did
they nope no but yeah they
(24:07):
were there and transformers
or cybertronians
So anyway, that's the comic review.
I think, um,
this book continues to be
frustrating to me overall,
but this issue was fun.
Yeah.
(24:28):
All right.
Well, uh,
let's move on to some media news.
All right.
And, uh,
you're in the uk then
transformers one is
available for streaming for
you in the uk um you can
(24:48):
stream it now on paramount
plus in the uk it's rated
twelve plus um yeah uh enjoy it's uh
It's been out for a while.
If you haven't been able to
stream it before,
you haven't been able to
check it out over finding
(25:08):
it on the high seas, it's there.
I mean, it's been there for a while.
I think that it came out in
theaters a little bit later in the UK.
It did, yeah.
Officially,
it is now available for
streaming in the UK.
So there you go.
(25:31):
And we got a businessy business news.
Gaming involves gaming.
So I'm going to pass it over
to our gaming expert, Dr. Charles.
Did you forget who I was?
I thought I heard a P sound
(25:52):
starting and then realized
Dr. Pants was down here.
Yeah.
Yeah,
so apparently Hasbro's CFO and COO
Gina Gooder sat down at
this year's JP Morgan
Global Technology Media and
Communications Conference.
That is not her in the
(26:13):
picture there if you're
watching the video.
So they talked about they
have an upcoming AAA game
with Sabre Interactive.
but they have not actually
revealed what franchise
this game is going to be in.
So this was announced in
(26:34):
February that they're
partnering with Saber Interactive,
and Hasbro is investing in
the development of the game.
They are also doing their own video games,
a hundred percent building, supporting,
publishing, and investing.
but no more information
about what actually they're doing.
(26:55):
And then they also mentioned
that John Hite is being
appointed as president of
Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming.
So that is the picture there.
That is John Hite in the
picture right there.
I don't know if that's going
to have any effect on any
future Transformers-themed games,
but of course,
Wizards of the Coast is
(27:16):
riding high off of Baldur's
Gate III from a couple of years ago.
That was a big video game
that made a lot of money
and also was very popular,
although that was developed
by Larian Studios,
so that was not developed
in-house by Wizards of the Coast.
It was a licensed game that...
Larry and Studios did,
(27:37):
and they actually are not
on board for doing another
sequel to that Baldur's Gate game.
So there might be a Baldur's Gate four,
but it will not be
developed by the same studio,
Larry and Studios.
But maybe Hasbro or Wizards
of the Coast is shopping it
around to see if it'll get
done somewhere else.
I guess we'll see.
Although that has nothing to
do with Transformers, but...
(27:58):
You know,
maybe that Saber Interactive game
is potentially could be a
Transformers game, but we have no idea.
Although, you know,
this is coming off the
heels of our the previous
AAA game for Transformers
Reactivate already being canceled.
That was a licensed game
that was canceled by the
studio working on it when
it just basically the
(28:18):
development got out of scope,
got out of hand and didn't
really come together, unfortunately.
So.
I don't know what's gonna happen.
We have really no idea if
there's if there's going to
be any big support for
future Transformers themed games.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
But yeah,
(28:39):
that's the business inside scoop
on Hasbro gaming for the future.
So good luck.
I mean,
the only thing I can say is that
generally when a
corporation decides to take
(29:01):
all of their assets and decide,
I'm going to, you know,
instead of farming this out
to a company that actually, you know,
does this work professionally,
we're going to take this
in-house and we'll do this ourselves.
In my experience, that ends up horribly.
So I expect the games to
(29:22):
come out of Hasbro.
to be horrendous.
Hasbro makes horrendous games.
It'll probably be like the
stupid little mobile games.
Oh my god, I hope not.
um anyway that's that's what
I'm I'm assuming is what's
going to happen there um
this uh john height uh
(29:43):
being appointed the
president of wizards of the
coast I mean and digital
gaming so wizards of the
coast obviously is I know
them more for magic the
gathering um and uh that is
something that uh is really keeping uh um
Hasbro and wizards of the
coast of float right now.
Um,
(30:03):
that makes money like you would not
believe.
So, um, yeah, the,
but they have a mobile game
and a PC game and an app
and all that stuff that works very,
very well and makes an
awful lot of money.
So they don't need to really
mess with that.
So, um,
but I believe they have a movie
coming out too.
(30:24):
That's being, uh,
it's being worked on too.
So all of this kind of gathering movie,
Yeah,
there's a Magic the Gathering movie
in development.
So it might be starting to shoot soon.
I don't know.
I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's in development for sure, though.
So, yeah.
The huge success of the
(30:44):
Dungeons and Dragons movie,
they're going to take it
one step further and go
into Magic the Gathering.
So, yeah.
Anywho... Satire detected.
Um...
Thanks for the assist, Charles.
And that's it for media news.
(31:04):
All right.
Well,
and that will take us to the end of
this episode of transmissions alt mode.
So of course, at the end of every episode,
we give a shout out to our
masterpiece donate runs.
These are the folks who
continue to support the
podcast at our highest level on Patrion.
And that's why they get a
mention in every episode.
So thank you once again to
John for X seven, good.
And Steve C you guys are awesome.
(31:28):
And everyone else out there
watching and listening,
you're awesome as well.
Hope you enjoyed our review
of Void Rivals XIX this week.
Why don't you write in,
let us know what you
thought of the issue and
what you think of the
Energon universe in general
going forward.
This week,
we had actually two Energon
universe comics come out.
So both Void Rivals XIX and G.I.
(31:48):
Joe number seven came out in the stores.
So we'll actually review G.I.
Joe number seven next week.
So look forward to that.
Daryl especially is looking
forward to that.
Can't wait.
We'll see.
We'll see you then.
All right, everyone.
Have a good time.
(32:09):
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Later.
Welcome to transmissions alt mode,
the podcast that talks TV.
I'm your host, Charles,
AKA big C and I'm joined by
the excellent transmissions team, Jeremy,
AKA Yakko.
Hey, how's it going?
And Daryl, the Cybertronian beast.
What's happening.
Let's talk Transformers.
(00:54):
All right.
As always,
we start off the show by
thanking our Donatrions,
those lovely people who
support us on Patreon and PayPal.
Thank you all so much for
continuing to support us
and contribute to the show.
And welcome back to one of
our Donatrons who has come
back and resumed their subscription.
So thank you, Ken,
for joining up again and
(01:15):
also returning to the Discord as well.
So Ken, welcome back.
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate your
support and we look forward
to hanging out with you on
the Discord as well.
So great job, Ken.
Welcome.
And of course,
thank you to everyone else as well.
And if you are not in an HON
and would like to become one,
just go to
(01:35):
transmissionspodcast.com slash support,
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And we've got fourteen
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More coming this year at some point,
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and we hope Daryl.
(01:55):
So look forward to that.
But in the meantime,
catch up on all the other
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Daryl and Dr. Pants,
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we've also got our
transformers live play rpg
podcast empire of rust this
week was episode one thirty
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(02:16):
that's available for
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you can download that right
now next week next monday
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And then a week from Monday
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(02:37):
out available for everyone.
So look forward to that.
We've also got our exclusive
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You can get that at our website,
transmissions podcast dot
com slash comic.
We've got the cover art by E.J.
Sue.
So this is our exclusive
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that is available only from
(02:58):
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So check that out.
And we've only got a couple
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So use that code MAYDAYCON
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all your purchases at toyhacks.com.
So you've only got a couple
(03:18):
more days that expires on
May thirty first.
Then next week we will have
a brand new code for the month of June.
So stay tuned for that.
But right now that code
MAYDAYCON still works for you.
So enjoy.
And, uh, that's all for promos.
So let's get into the show
and get right into our comic review.
(03:38):
All right.
We are looking at Boyd rivals number.
This is, um,
written by Robert Kirkman and
new artists starting this issue.
Uh,
Connor Hughes is taking over the art
(03:59):
duties.
Colors by Patricio Del Pesce,
letters by Rush Wooten,
and editors Ben Abernant.
The story begins on the
Skuxoid's rockeroid,
where Rekgar and some of
his fellow Junkions are
watching as the two halves
of Skuxoid are generating
(04:19):
their respective other halves.
Once the two are more stable,
Rekgar has the ship tow the
rockeroid and takes all of
them back to the planet Junkion.
on this planet, when they get there,
the two scuxoids are taken
off on a stretcher by Rekar
and the other two Junkions
as someone is looking on
from the shadows inside the ship.
(04:41):
Later, Scuxoid wakes up with a shock,
asking where his wife and kids are.
The other Scuxoid,
who was made from the top
half of the original,
tries to calm him down,
and he says to ignore the
scar on his face,
but he explains that they're both Scuxoid,
but not the original.
The newly awakened one doesn't believe him,
but he remembers everything so clearly.
(05:04):
The other one laughs in his face,
and then he explains that
he remembers being in the same situation.
The wife and kids that they
remember were never theirs.
They were the wife and kids
of what he calls the original.
Then he explains that when
they lose a big enough
piece of themselves,
it grows a whole nother scuxoid.
They have all the memories of the original,
(05:25):
which are the strongest ones,
sometimes overriding their true memories.
This causes confusion and
makes them forget
themselves for a short time.
Like what happened to
scuxoid on his rockeroid.
It never fully goes away,
but he says that he gets used to it.
Then the first Skeksoid
looks around and realizes
that he doesn't know where they are,
(05:46):
when suddenly Akronis,
who was left to die on the
ship by the other Cobra Law team,
attacks them from above.
The first Skeksoid thought
he killed him with his blaster,
but Akronis says that only
his armor was killed.
As the Skeksoid tries to evade the attack,
Rektar returns,
and he becomes the new
focus of Akronis' attack.
(06:07):
Though his sword does
nothing to the robot and
from behind Rekgar,
the Skeksoid yells that
Akronis' people left him to die.
Then Rekgar just places his
hand down on top of Akronis,
keeping him subdued but not hurting them.
Realizing that there's no victory here,
Akronis yields and Rekgar lets him up.
(06:29):
The Skeksoids are shocked.
Why is he letting this guy go?
Rekar says that they have
nothing to fear but fear
itself and that they're all
junk on the planet.
The Skectoids are frustrated
by not being able to
understand what the Junkion is saying,
but Acronis realizes and translates.
He says that Rekar sees
everyone there as equals.
(06:51):
Then he realizes that Rekar
is speaking the way humans
on Earth speak and that TV
broadcasts must make it out here.
And then he's happy that his
people were never caught up
with this technological poison.
Then Rekgar looks up and yells, the plane,
the plane,
as the mysterious robotic
figure who had been spying
on the Skeksoids for a
while now chooses to attack
(07:12):
with a blaster.
It engages the Junkions
while the Skeksoids try to get away,
but then suddenly it flips
from the Junkions' grasp
and tosses a device towards
the Skeksoids that stuns them.
The newly awakened Skeksoid
asks what this new
mysterious figure wants and
(07:33):
simply says that it will
all be revealed in time.
Negronus wants to know if he
means that it can be
revealed to the Skeksoids or to everyone,
but just as quickly as he arrived,
the mysterious figure uses
a jetpack to launch him
with the Skeksoids in tow
to his ship above.
(07:54):
Aboard this ship,
the first scuxoid has
awakened and demands to
know what's going on.
Their abductor simply orders
them to be silent or be
silent from points of pistol at them.
When they get to their destination,
which seems to be another rockeroid,
they're ordered to come and
find purpose and meaning in
life as a part of the army
of scuxoid alpha,
(08:15):
as we see an older scuxoid
standing in front of an
army of thousands of other scuxoids.
Yubi continues.
So this issue, one,
saying Skuxoid so many
times is very tiring on my tongue.
(08:35):
We gave Void Rivals a pretty
rough review with issue eighteen.
And this one being solely
focused on Skuxoid from
beginning to end was a
breath of fresh air.
I really enjoyed the story.
I know it's a break from the
(08:58):
main story in the series,
but we've been getting just
like a page here and a page
there of the Skeksoid story
and getting kind of
this full kind of um taste
of what's going on I really
enjoyed it I liked getting
the junkions involved it
(09:18):
makes sense at first I
didn't know what was going
on with the whole
regeneration thing because
you see like tiny legs on a
big body and big legs on
with a tiny upper torso
And so it was just like,
until have you see them
both fully regenerated?
I was like, okay,
I thought the junkie ons
(09:39):
were doing something to them,
but it was a, it was a fun story.
Um, the,
I did also have to go back and
look up the, the person I was saying,
mysterious figure, um,
I dug through the TF wiki
trying to see if it ever
had a name and that's what
(10:00):
they called it.
It has not been named yet.
So it's the robot character
with like the TV for a head.
Um,
so I was just calling him a serious
figure until we have a name.
Um, but really neat, um,
kind of concept of what
they're doing with scuxoid
and kind of a tragic figure, but,
(10:24):
I really enjoyed it,
and it looked like Acronis
is going to be hanging out
with the Junkions from now.
So I don't know.
This was just a really fun
kind of single story.
I think the letters page
says we'll get these occasionally.
And the art I thought was really good.
I actually think I like the
(10:44):
art a little bit better
than the last artist.
It just...
It was a little bit cleaner to my eyes,
but it was still great.
The coloring made it match
the tone of the previous books.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book,
and I was really happy to
(11:05):
see it after the last issue.
Charles, let's go with you first.
What were your thoughts on the book?
Yeah, I mostly agree with you.
I mean,
I like the fact that I know this
was a scuxoid focused issue, but I mean,
Rekgar and the Junkions
were a big part of this too.
And it was great seeing them there,
seeing multiple designs of
(11:25):
the Junkions in addition to
Rekgar and having the talk
TV thing brought back in.
And Robert Kirkman did
really capture the Junkion
voices really well.
I thought he did a really great job with,
you know,
putting those TV,
making those TV phrases relevant for,
you know,
what they were saying and everything.
(11:46):
And then, you know,
I think it's a bit of a
stretch that the Cobra Law
guy is familiar with TV broadcasts,
but okay, whatever.
I mean, I think the Cobra Law...
He was familiar with the concept.
And I think because he was
one of the Cobra Law people
(12:06):
that was allowed to go out.
But when they did the same bat time,
same bat channel, like tune in tomorrow,
he didn't get that.
And he was like,
I guarantee we're not going
to know what's going on tomorrow.
Yeah, that was good.
Yeah.
And but yeah,
the whole scuxoid thing is very weird.
(12:28):
Yeah, having scuxoid be this kind of like,
what are those plant worms
that that you cut them in
half and they grow into two things,
you know?
Okay.
I mean, yeah, like it was, it was,
that's interesting.
I mean,
it raises a whole other set of questions.
Like, is this,
(12:49):
is this something that his
entire species can do?
Or is he just like a one
like science experiment guy
who was created in a lab,
like the original scuxoid.
And then he's, he just has been, you know,
I guess the original
scuxoid has just been
cutting off pieces of
himself and having them grow up and,
grow his army or whatever
but um I did like finally
(13:10):
getting the this mysterious
robot guy I think the first
time he showed up was in um
the energon universe
special from last year yeah
so uh finally having this
guy show like oh he's I
guess he's working for
scuxoid alpha and that's
why he's has been tracking
the the scuxoid that we
know and love I guess
(13:31):
Um, so that's fine.
I mean, and having the Clover, our Cronus,
the Cobra law guy getting,
getting some stuff to do was,
it was good.
Um, yeah, I thought it was,
I thought it was a, it was a fun issue,
uh, self-contained and a complete story.
Like they didn't draw, drag out the,
you know, the scuxoid,
like they mentioned the original scuxoid.
(13:53):
And then immediately by the
end of the issue, we see, oh,
there's scuxoid alpha.
And he's actually,
he looks like he's pretty old,
so he must've been around
for a long time.
So having that, that one mystery, you know,
tied up at the very end of the issue.
I thought made for a, you know,
a good self-contained story.
So,
but it leaves the door open to see
where it's going to go next
(14:13):
and how it's going to tie
into the main story.
So I thought that was, that was nice.
And yeah, in the letters column,
Robert Kirkman mentions how
the scuxoid thing kind of
took on a life of its own.
Like it was originally just
supposed to be a throwaway character,
but he just fell in love
with scuxoid and gave him
more and more stuff to do
(14:33):
until now he gets,
he gets his own solo issue.
Cool.
Daryl,
what were your thoughts on the book?
Mine differ from your two a bit.
I enjoyed the idea that
(14:54):
Skuxcoid had this ability
to regenerate because of
the fact that he's a
character from the G-One
cartoon where we really
don't get a lot of
Backstory on him so that I appreciated the,
uh, the, the, a bit more backstory.
So, you know, we, we got a bit about,
(15:16):
about his, uh,
this family that he's been
fighting for that he really isn't his.
And then, uh, you know,
And the fact that if you cut
off a big enough chunk,
it grows another body.
I appreciated that.
That was an interesting
little tidbit to kind of
add to the scutsoid mythos.
(15:38):
But for the most part,
I thought the issue was pretty dumb.
Future books,
future issues of Void Rivals...
may make this issue make
more sense and make it more important.
But as of, as it stands right now,
(15:59):
I felt like it just did.
It was kind of stupid.
Um, it just, it didn't do anything for me.
The Cobra law guy, he was there.
He fought the, uh,
you know, the,
the Rekar held him down and
he gave up immediately and, you know,
and there was, there was no fight.
(16:20):
Um, the, uh, once he let him go, he's like,
okay, cool.
You know, we're good.
We're good now.
You know, I,
I figured the Cobra law guy
would have been, you know, uh,
as soon as he got let go,
he would have either tried to escape or,
uh, or try to kill the Scuxoid again, but,
uh, no, he just, uh,
you know, he's just like, okay, cool.
(16:40):
Well, I guess we're, uh,
we're on a team now.
Right.
So, you know, it just,
it made no sense that they
just kind of teamed up
right after he tried to kill him.
I kind of, I, you know,
I agreed with the Scots
white at the time.
He's like, well, wait a minute.
This guy just tried to kill us.
You know, um, the, the,
(17:01):
the voice of Redgar, I did find was, um,
as like, uh,
They kept using phrases from
the eighty six movie,
which you could pick out
and and that was fine.
But I would assume that.
their language would include
many more phrases.
(17:22):
If they talked TV, they would,
they would have to have
numerous other phrases to use.
Right.
And so the amount of, of,
of phrases that they use in
the book that matched the
movie seemed odd.
Yeah.
To me.
I mean,
it seems like in the years between
(17:43):
then and now you could have
thrown in some of those phrases.
Yeah.
Right.
So they were walking dead phrase.
That would have been fun.
That would have been kind of fun.
Like something about Carl or
something like that.
That would have been hilarious.
Um, but you know, there's so, so yeah,
(18:04):
so that, and then
Like this,
as far as moving the story along,
it really didn't do much of that.
It just created,
it added a lot of backstory
for the scuxoid, which I already said,
I appreciated.
Um, it, you know, it gave us the, uh, the,
the planet of junk and the junk eons,
(18:26):
which, you know,
I think we'd already seen.
No, I don't think so.
I think we got at the end of
the last issue.
He showed up like after,
like on the rocker Roy, but we,
that we didn't really get any,
I'd have to go back and
(18:48):
look through the issue,
but is it just wreck are in
this other minion or are there other,
there are two other ones.
There's two other ones.
Okay.
Um, so, uh,
I would expect if once they
arrive at their planet and
he's got a bunch of other people there,
like, or a new,
(19:08):
like prisoners or something,
I would expect there to be a bunch more,
you know, in one panel,
we see three other ones.
Okay.
So there are more, but the really,
the only ones we get
details of are the ones that had toys.
Gotcha.
(19:29):
So all in all,
I thought the book was fairly dumb,
but I agree that I like the
art better than the last artist.
But I stand by my comment
that I believe this book
may end up being more
important with information
(19:52):
provided in future issues.
But that's left to be said.
Standing on its own as a single issue,
I'm not a huge fan.
Yeah, one thing I'm wondering,
you know how like in like
the eighties and nineties,
they would do like the
fifth week of a month would
(20:13):
have the annuals or something special.
I wonder, I'm not seeing,
I'm not sure what week of
the month this was,
if it's the fifth Wednesday
or if it's just the fourth.
Um, but you know,
I wonder if every few issues, I mean,
he said this is going to
happen occasionally,
hopefully not more than once a year,
(20:34):
but maybe like quarterly or twice a year,
we get one of these
standalone issues that
takes one of the side
stories and advances just
that little bit where, you know,
more than a couple of pages
we get in a regular book.
This is the fifth week of May.
(20:55):
Because the first the first
was on a Wednesday.
Okay, so Thursday was a Thursday.
So it's only the only four.
There's only four Wednesdays in May.
Okay, but it's still the fifth week.
There's a I mean,
the first was a Thursday.
So I mean,
you had three days in the first week.
Okay, well, I mean, and yeah,
(21:19):
I don't know.
It's half a week.
It's half a week.
Slightly less than half a week.
I don't know.
It was just a thought.
But still, I mean, I'm wondering, like,
the next time we get one of
these standalone issues,
would it be the Cobra Law
people or the Quintessons or something?
Just getting...
just a little bit further on
(21:41):
that one story,
but the regular books are
going to be the frustrating
here's a page of the
quintessence now on to the
but Christopher Penn So
just a quick look at my
calendar as I'm on my computer here, July,
October and December have
five Wednesdays in them.
(22:03):
So
get ready for Transformer
Wednesdays from Skybound.
So I mean, I'm, you know,
I hear your criticisms, Daryl, I'm,
I'm still like, I, I, you know,
even though this doesn't
move the overarching story
along very much,
(22:24):
I like having a single issue,
like kind of side story,
self contained issue,
even if it's doesn't really
tie into anything.
And
I know,
but we like different things
because you like story and I like fights.
So yeah, I mean, that's fine.
I'm just we're not going to agree on this.
(22:45):
I didn't say we had to.
So that's fine.
damn it charles stop trying
to make me agree with you
it does look like this
issue has a sketch cover so
if you're in with the
sketch covers this issue
has one um as they do with
like many of the new story
(23:05):
arcs I want the ej sue
cover but that's like cover
f so I probably won't yeah get that one
That's the wreck are the good,
like nice clean wreck guard design.
Like Lorenzo D Felicia still
gets the cover.
Yeah.
The EJ Sue cover is a one in
one hundred variant.
(23:26):
So good luck with that.
Yeah.
Maybe if I just emailed EJ Sue,
like you can,
did you get any of those
that you're willing to part with?
Yeah, there's a, um, there's a cover.
D is a one in twenty five.
is a pretty cool looking uh
(23:46):
uh wreck car riding a uh
riding another junkie on
cover it looks pretty
badass yep yeah that's
another thing they didn't
transform in this issue did
they nope no but yeah they
(24:07):
were there and transformers
or cybertronians
So anyway, that's the comic review.
I think, um,
this book continues to be
frustrating to me overall,
but this issue was fun.
Yeah.
(24:28):
All right.
Well, uh,
let's move on to some media news.
All right.
And, uh,
you're in the uk then
transformers one is
available for streaming for
you in the uk um you can
(24:48):
stream it now on paramount
plus in the uk it's rated
twelve plus um yeah uh enjoy it's uh
It's been out for a while.
If you haven't been able to
stream it before,
you haven't been able to
check it out over finding
(25:08):
it on the high seas, it's there.
I mean, it's been there for a while.
I think that it came out in
theaters a little bit later in the UK.
It did, yeah.
Officially,
it is now available for
streaming in the UK.
So there you go.
(25:31):
And we got a businessy business news.
Gaming involves gaming.
So I'm going to pass it over
to our gaming expert, Dr. Charles.
Did you forget who I was?
I thought I heard a P sound
(25:52):
starting and then realized
Dr. Pants was down here.
Yeah.
Yeah,
so apparently Hasbro's CFO and COO
Gina Gooder sat down at
this year's JP Morgan
Global Technology Media and
Communications Conference.
That is not her in the
(26:13):
picture there if you're
watching the video.
So they talked about they
have an upcoming AAA game
with Sabre Interactive.
but they have not actually
revealed what franchise
this game is going to be in.
So this was announced in
(26:34):
February that they're
partnering with Saber Interactive,
and Hasbro is investing in
the development of the game.
They are also doing their own video games,
a hundred percent building, supporting,
publishing, and investing.
but no more information
about what actually they're doing.
(26:55):
And then they also mentioned
that John Hite is being
appointed as president of
Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming.
So that is the picture there.
That is John Hite in the
picture right there.
I don't know if that's going
to have any effect on any
future Transformers-themed games,
but of course,
Wizards of the Coast is
(27:16):
riding high off of Baldur's
Gate III from a couple of years ago.
That was a big video game
that made a lot of money
and also was very popular,
although that was developed
by Larian Studios,
so that was not developed
in-house by Wizards of the Coast.
It was a licensed game that...
Larry and Studios did,
(27:37):
and they actually are not
on board for doing another
sequel to that Baldur's Gate game.
So there might be a Baldur's Gate four,
but it will not be
developed by the same studio,
Larry and Studios.
But maybe Hasbro or Wizards
of the Coast is shopping it
around to see if it'll get
done somewhere else.
I guess we'll see.
Although that has nothing to
do with Transformers, but...
(27:58):
You know,
maybe that Saber Interactive game
is potentially could be a
Transformers game, but we have no idea.
Although, you know,
this is coming off the
heels of our the previous
AAA game for Transformers
Reactivate already being canceled.
That was a licensed game
that was canceled by the
studio working on it when
it just basically the
(28:18):
development got out of scope,
got out of hand and didn't
really come together, unfortunately.
So.
I don't know what's gonna happen.
We have really no idea if
there's if there's going to
be any big support for
future Transformers themed games.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
But yeah,
(28:39):
that's the business inside scoop
on Hasbro gaming for the future.
So good luck.
I mean,
the only thing I can say is that
generally when a
corporation decides to take
(29:01):
all of their assets and decide,
I'm going to, you know,
instead of farming this out
to a company that actually, you know,
does this work professionally,
we're going to take this
in-house and we'll do this ourselves.
In my experience, that ends up horribly.
So I expect the games to
(29:22):
come out of Hasbro.
to be horrendous.
Hasbro makes horrendous games.
It'll probably be like the
stupid little mobile games.
Oh my god, I hope not.
um anyway that's that's what
I'm I'm assuming is what's
going to happen there um
this uh john height uh
(29:43):
being appointed the
president of wizards of the
coast I mean and digital
gaming so wizards of the
coast obviously is I know
them more for magic the
gathering um and uh that is
something that uh is really keeping uh um
Hasbro and wizards of the
coast of float right now.
Um,
(30:03):
that makes money like you would not
believe.
So, um, yeah, the,
but they have a mobile game
and a PC game and an app
and all that stuff that works very,
very well and makes an
awful lot of money.
So they don't need to really
mess with that.
So, um,
but I believe they have a movie
coming out too.
(30:24):
That's being, uh,
it's being worked on too.
So all of this kind of gathering movie,
Yeah,
there's a Magic the Gathering movie
in development.
So it might be starting to shoot soon.
I don't know.
I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's in development for sure, though.
So, yeah.
The huge success of the
(30:44):
Dungeons and Dragons movie,
they're going to take it
one step further and go
into Magic the Gathering.
So, yeah.
Anywho... Satire detected.
Um...
Thanks for the assist, Charles.
And that's it for media news.
(31:04):
All right.
Well,
and that will take us to the end of
this episode of transmissions alt mode.
So of course, at the end of every episode,
we give a shout out to our
masterpiece donate runs.
These are the folks who
continue to support the
podcast at our highest level on Patrion.
And that's why they get a
mention in every episode.
So thank you once again to
John for X seven, good.
And Steve C you guys are awesome.
(31:28):
And everyone else out there
watching and listening,
you're awesome as well.
Hope you enjoyed our review
of Void Rivals XIX this week.
Why don't you write in,
let us know what you
thought of the issue and
what you think of the
Energon universe in general
going forward.
This week,
we had actually two Energon
universe comics come out.
So both Void Rivals XIX and G.I.
(31:48):
Joe number seven came out in the stores.
So we'll actually review G.I.
Joe number seven next week.
So look forward to that.
Daryl especially is looking
forward to that.
Can't wait.
We'll see.
We'll see you then.
All right, everyone.
Have a good time.
(32:09):
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Later.
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