MAY 2018 Transformers comics and books

[griffin]

Transformers comics and books for MAY 2018, with cover images mirrored here (http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/02/21/idw-transformers-solicitations-may-2018-359846).


Transformers: Lost Light #18—Cover A: Jack Lawrence
James Roberts (w) • Jack Lawrence (a & c)
LIGHTS OUT! The “Everlasting Voices” trilogy concludes with an explosion of hope, a grave betrayal… and more answers than you can handle! Events of the last six years build to a frenzy of revelations, casting everything that’s gone before in a new—and deadly—light. No exaggeration, no hyperbole: there has never been a more important issue of Lost Light.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99


Transformers: Lost Light #18—Cover B: Alex Milne
James Roberts (w) • Jack Lawrence (a) • Alex Milne (c)
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Bullet points:


Leads directly into the biggest story in the history of the Lost Light!
Black & White variant cover by Alex Milne!


Optimus Prime #19—Cover A: Kei Zama
John Barber (w) • Sara Pitre-Durocher (a) • Kei Zama (c)
“The Falling,” Part 4. Onyx Prime’s motivations are clear, and his scheme seems unstoppable. Heroes have fallen, and hope dwindles for the survivors. Cybertron’s last chance of salvation is in the hands of… well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Optimus Prime #19—Cover B: Casey W. Coller
John Barber (w) • Sara Pitre-Durocher (a) • Casey W. Coller (c)
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Bullet points:


Black & white cover by Kei Zama!


Transformers: Requiem of the Wreckers—SPOTLIGHT
Nick Roche (w) • Nick Roche, Guido Guidi, & Geoff Senior (a) • Nick Roche (c)
Wreck & Rule! They’ve been beaten up, torn apart, betrayed, and had their sins revealed. The few remaining Wreckers are more lost and lonelier than they’ve ever been, which makes it the perfect time for them to come under fire from an anti-Cybertronian campaigner and an old foe! Remember them fondly, because this is the “Requiem of the Wreckers.”
FC • 48 pages • $7.99
Bullet points:


The final entry in the Wreckers trilogy!
Written and drawn by Nick Roche


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Recent and Upcoming TPBs & Books.
-- Transformers/GIJoe First Strike (http://a.co/gL5XgPt) (all 6 issues) - March 6th (was February 20th)
-- Transformers/GIJoe First Strike - Champions (http://a.co/0UDilaV) (Revolution) (144 pages) - March 6th (was February 27th)
-- Lost Light Volume 2 (http://a.co/eop0abM) (issues 7-12) - March 13th
-- ROM Vs The Transformers - Shining Armor (http://a.co/bi5HQBI) (128 pages) - April 10th (was March 13th)
-- Redemption of the Dinobots (http://a.co/0QhUtAq) (Punishment, Redemption, Salvation) - April 10th (was April 17th)
-- IDW Collection Phase Two Volume 7 (http://a.co/1gre4C9) (HC) (MTMTE 28-34, RID 28-34) - April 17th (was March 27th)
-- Till All Are One Volume 3 (http://a.co/cdkKZDB) (issues 9-12, 2018 Annual) - May 8th
-- Optimus Prime Volume 3 (http://a.co/hT9Kulu) (issues 11-14, Optimus First Strike, Transformers First Strike) - July 10th
-- The Wreckers Saga (http://a.co/fvxktZy) (Last Stand of the Wreckers 1-5, Sins of the Wreckers 1-5) - July 17th
-- Transformers Vs The Visionaries (http://a.co/fS0NQd4) (128 pages) - August 14th
-- Bumblebee - Win if you Dare (http://a.co/4LeWEpE) (one-shot - 72 pages) - September 11th
-- Lost Light Volume 3 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1684053315/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_0FjuAbJGVP212) (issues 13-18) - September 18th
-- Bumblebee (Movie) Junior Novel (http://a.co/47FYmEW) (144 pages) - November 20th
-- Optimus Prime Volume 4 (http://a.co/dJOY88F) (issues 15-21) - November 20th
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January 2018 comics and books (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=24983)

February 2018 comics and books (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=25080)

March 2018 comics and books (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=25318)

April 2018 comics and books (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=25319)
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[i_amtrunks]

Anyone else feeling like IDW are running out of puff?

Lost Light feels like it is being sold as an ending, with lots of answers....

Prime feels like retreading Dark Cybertron, with the grand scheme Millenia in the making and “heroes falling” that will eventually lead to nothing as we know the Unicron set up is happening...

[Gouki]

Anyone else feeling like IDW are running out of puff?

Lost Light feels like it is being sold as an ending, with lots of answers....

Prime feels like retreading Dark Cybertron, with the grand scheme Millenia in the making and “heroes falling” that will eventually lead to nothing as we know the Unicron set up is happening...

I'm expecting a total continuity reboot, to be honest. At which point it would have to be pretty spectacular to maintain my interest.

[bowspearer]

I'm expecting a total continuity reboot, to be honest. At which point it would have to be pretty spectacular to maintain my interest.

The entire universe has needed a hard reboot since around the time of Combiner Wars. The big problem has been that the likes of Scott and Roberts have cared solely about pushing political agendas rather than actual universe building. Rather than asking whether something could fit in the existing universe and whether it was possible to do something and make it fit in the existing built universe, they just went a head and clumsily shoehorned it in.

The whole gender and sexual relationships situation is textbook evidence of this. Relationships of a sexual nature make absolutely no sense for IDW continuity Cybertronians. They don't heterosexually reproduce - they don't even asexually reproduce. They are a gaiasexually reproductive species, to coin a term - that is they are reproduced by the planet itself. As it was previously established, sparks produce in hot spots and then either wind up in forged bodies or are transplanted into bodies which are constructed cold.

Romantic relationships as a naturally occurring function of heterosexually reproducing species - by way of the fact that the reproductive process requires pair bonding.

Likewise, as gender is essentially sexual identity, it makes no sense for gender to exist in IDW continuity Cybertronians. In fact the only reason that everyone but Arcee should be classed as male, is entirely to do with Jhiaxus. When Jhiaxus introduced gender into the Cybertronian race, he did so by making Arcee female. As Arcee was a different gender to all other Cybertronians (in fact Arcee was technically forced into being transgender by way of this experiment when you think about it), by way of Jhiaxus making them female (remembering that up until that time, Cybertronains were a-gendered), it therefore made every single other Cybertronian, male. If the genders had've been reversed and Jhiaxus made Arcee male, then the IDW Optimus Prime and Megatron would have been made female. Of course this is where intelligent and well crafted science fiction has always been interesting.

Of course such intelligent story building is lost on a complete pleb like Scott, who was too busy anthropomophising Cybertronians to a ridiculous level and calling Furman a misogynist to recognise that the only issue there was her projecting her own issues onto a fictional alien race with a biology as radically different to our own as our own is to a sponge or amoeba.

If Scott was so keen to introduce gender and relationships of a sexual nature, it would have made far more sense to have those characters existing in a parallel universe where Cybertronians reproduced in a different manner, or by using a version of the cartoon series continuity where the Autobots were made to be robot maids and robot butlers with companion functionality built in for clients, and having some kind of breakdown between the walls of reality in a massive event. Heck, they could even have gone down a Crisis on infinite Earths route and simply killed off the IDWverse versions of characters where they wanted characters to be in romantic relationships and it would have worked.

The only thing that would need to be covered there would be why the Decepticons were gendered as in the Cartoon, there is a clear indication that while the Autobots were gendered, the Decepticons weren't. That of course makes sense - while you do care about gender when selling robot maids and butlers who might also act as companions, you generally aren't going to worry about it when the function of millitary hardware is simply to blow things up. Of course the concept of certain pieces of millitary hardware acting as infiltration units designed to impersonate consumer goods could explain this - which would essentially mean that all female Decepticons would be spies or serve in some form of intelligence role.

Likewise, the whole black Matt Trakker thing. It would have been entirely possibly to have a black leader of M.A.S.K. and disrespect the characters that were there. Someone approaching the issue with a shred of intelligence, could simply have had the original M.A.S.K. existing back in the 1980s as one of Skywatch's earliest projects in attempting to understand and apply Cybertronian tech - under the auspices of the P.N.A. - itself then recently established as an organisation dedicated to preserving and promoting world peace in a world which potentially teetered on anarchy and world war with the inevitable knowledge by human beings that we were not only not alone in the universe, but frail and helpless in the face of our newly discovered interstellar neighbours.

The entire original M.A.S.K. storyline could have essentially played out as it was, with Skywatch simply never mentioned but secretly being the ones ultimately calling the shots militarily - too big and well guarded a target for Mayhem to be stupid enough to even begin to try and tangle with. There could even have been an untold story where Mayhem learned that lesson the hard way.

It could even ultimately have ended with a final battle which saw Scott Trakker valiantly dying - which meant that VENOM was defeated, but at a cost the entire M.A.S.K. team felt was too high. As a result the everyone walked away from the project and the vehicles were sealed up. This would have been both because the threat of V.E.N.O.M. had ended and because the threat of a resurgence of V.E.N.O.M. was deemed too great.

Then you'd simply fast forward 20+ years to Cobra raiding a top secret experimental weapons depot, stumbling upon the old vehicles and attempting to steal them. However in a twist of fate, G.I.JOE had been tipped off and were waiting, meaning they were only able to make off with the old V.E.N.O.M. vehicles before being driven off.

As an interesting twist, Hondo MacLean's son had joined the armed forces and was so brilliant a soldier that he had recently beeing inducted into the G.I.JOE team. Being aware of his brilliance and his familial connection to M.A.S.K. through Skywatch's files, he was hand picked to lead the new M.A.S.K. team.

As I've just shown, it's entirely possible to do what IDW tried to do, but in a way which demonstrates skillful universe building and respect for existing universes.

In short, while IDW are rebooting their universes, they should strongly consider rebooting (ie replacing) their writers and editors.

[griffin]

The final issue of the Transformers Vs Visionaries comic was out this week, and a preview can be seen here (http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/05/02/idw-transformers-vs-visionaries-5-full-preview-363282).

I think that is the last of the "combined universe" comics... or at least, the last of the ones with Transformers involved in it.
With the scrapping of the combined movie universe, it looks like the concept of grander mixed universe in any format that includes Transformers, is now over.

[philby]

The comics are being rebooted, can't remember if there was a news posting here. Lost Light has been confirmed to be wrapping up, issue 25 I think. So I guess it makes sense that all the other Transformers related ones will be wrapped up too.

[SMHFConvoy]

The comics are being rebooted, can't remember if there was a news posting here. Lost Light has been confirmed to be wrapping up, issue 25 I think. So I guess it makes sense that all the other Transformers related ones will be wrapped up too.

Yep, it all kicks off on fbcd (that's this Saturday) with Unicron issue 0? Everything goes bi weekly for 3 months and come September a brand new continuity kicks off and John Barber helms IDW as it's new EIC! (http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/04/30/john-barber-named-new-idw-editor-chief-363151)

[griffin]

Out this week is Optimus Prime #19, and a mirrored preview can be seen here (http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/05/25/idw-optimus-prime-19-full-preview-364321).


And the single issue Requiem of the Wreckers is said to be out this week as well.

[griffin]

I think this is also out this week - a new appearance of Deaths Head in a Marvel comic (http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/05/22/deaths-head-on-marvels-infinity-countdown-darkhawk-cover-364127) called Infinity Countdown (not a Transformers comic, or a Transformers story universe).
It was worth mentioning for the fans of this one time UK Transformers comic bounty hunter.