IDW Transformers ongoing [spoilers]

Okay... this has bugged me since the previous issue as well but... since when did North Korea border the Republic of China?!??! Last time I checked, North Korea shared a border with The People's Republic of China, _not_ the Republic of China. In the last issue the Predacons told Optimus Prime that he was coming too close to the border of the Republic of China - then in this issue again they speak of the Chinese Republic (and not the Chinese People's Republic).

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...lmmegatron.jpg

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

Okay... this has bugged me since the previous issue as well but... since when did North Korea border the Republic of China?!??! Last time I checked, North Korea shared a border with The People's Republic of China, _not_ the Republic of China. In the last issue the Predacons told Optimus Prime that he was coming too close to the border of the Republic of China - then in this issue again they speak of the Chinese Republic (and not the Chinese People's Republic).

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...lmmegatron.jpg

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isnt that like jsut refering to the united states of america just as america.....abbreviated....

No. You could refer to the People's Republic of China as just "China" and the Republic of China can be simply referred to as "Taiwan," but they're not the same 'country' - whether you consider the Republic of China to be a separate state from the People's Republic of China is open to debate. The People's Republic of China is officially recognised as a sovereign state by the United Nations, whereas the Republic of China is not. That's why in Australia we have Chinese embassies and Chinese consulates, but we don't have Taiwanese embassies or consulates. But we do have equivalent organisations (e.g. Taiwanese Friendship Associations) which perform similar duties as embassies and consulates (e.g. renewing Taiwanese passports, Visas etc.).

If you look at the Wikipedia page for "Republic of China" one of the first things it states is "Not to be confused with the People's Republic of China." The Republic of China has a separate government (semi-presidential republic) and currency (Taiwan Dollar) from the People's Republic of China (which is a communist state and their currency is the Renminbi (or Chinese Yuan)). They also have a separate flag and national anthem (although not officially recognised). The Republic of China also uses a different written language from the People's Republic of China (Taiwan uses traditional Chinese whereas PRC uses simplified Chinese).

I'm not trying to start a political debate about Taiwanese sovereignty - but the fact is that the People's Republic of China = mainland China, whereas the Republic of China = Taiwan. And it's a fact that North Korea shares a border with the People's Republic of China, not the Republic of China.

In terms of geographic location, the Republic of China is also an island which lies east to the People's Republic of China and is separated by the Sea of Taiwan. So to say that North Korea shares a border with the Republic of China is like saying that New Zealand shares a border to the north of NSW.

The Transformers Ongoing comic takes place on an alternate Earth to ours. One where the Decepticons spent a year bombing the #$@% out of the whole planet. Isn't it possible there were political changes after this world war against the Cybertronians?

Dislike the comic for inconsistencies with the Transformers themselves perhaps, rather than with politics of our world.

12 issuees in that is one full year of comics... so what do we have


in a nutshell

not a lot.

Prime gave up the command
Bumbles took over
magnus came and then left i assume
hot rod has gone into space
alot of characters we have seen only once or twice...
a little fighting
and a lotta humans
thundercracker getting some limelight


after 12 months and the end of issue 12 all i can say is

why are the autobots even bothering with being on eearth, the humnas are not weak they can single handedly take down a transformer so why not leave the planet and let them take care of the cons and go do something interesting and worthy of reading in space. need protecting my butt..

Transformers is missing something. what is it you may ask

the answer is simple

a writer that knows how to write transformer storiees

More happened in 4 issues of Drift or ironhide then it did in 12 issues of ongoing

in my opinion the first year of tf comics gets a C-

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Originally Posted by Paulbot

The Transformers Ongoing comic takes place on an alternate Earth to ours. One where the Decepticons spent a year bombing the #$@% out of the whole planet. Isn't it possible there were political changes after this world war against the Cybertronians?

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A plausible fansplanation (about as plausible as trying to explain the significant reinvention of Europe in "Trans-Europe Express").

While such fan theories may be arguably plausible, one wonders if this was the author's intent or if he just screwed up. :p

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Originally Posted by Paulbot

Dislike the comic for inconsistencies with the Transformers themselves perhaps, rather than with politics of our world.

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I thought the entire point of using real world references was to 'ground' the story into reality and make it feel more real for readers. If not, then why else bother using real world references?

Furthermore, it kinda affects my enjoyment of a story when it takes a real world reference but then portrays it in an unrealistic (or highly unlikely) scenario. I can suspend disbelief when it's something that's not grounded in reality (e.g. a race of sentient living transforming robots), but when you start making direct references to reality, then once you start defying it, it kinda feels strange. Another example would be say Spider-Man 2's suggestion that nuclear fission can be created from a single atom of tritium. Yeah, um... no.

You're better off just making up fictional stuff and going off that, like fictional elements (e.g. adamantium), fictional biology (e.g. midichlorians) or even fictional geography and poliltics (e.g. Prince Jumal, Abdul Fakkadi or the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya) etc. -- at least if it's fictional then noone can question it and it becomes far easier to suspend disbelief and lose yourself in the fantasy.

Isn't this simply an instance where someone made a mistake.

With name? Such as making a parsec a measure of time rather than distance?

(and no doubt it could be similarly retconned to make actual sense)

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Originally Posted by snazzbot 101

Isn't this simply an instance where someone made a mistake.

With name? Such as making a parsec a measure of time rather than distance?

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Yeah, but it's fairly significant stuff up. And they did it twice. When it happened in #11 I noticed it, but thought to myself that surely they'd correct it in the next issue. Nope.

I would also put to you that it's a greater stuff up than using parsec to measure time rather than distance, because it could be argued that time and space are one and the same... whereas I don't know how one could argue that North Korea shares her northern landlocked border with the Republic of China when it's common knowledge that it's shared with the People's Republic of China.

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Originally Posted by snazzbot101

(and no doubt it could be similarly retconned to make actual sense)

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True... but until such a retcon is cited in canon, then officially it looks like a stuff up. At best it's a fansplanation (a rather awkward one at that). If it's officially retconned then I'll happily accept it - but until then I think it's rather questionable. (-_-)

grounding a story and making it feel more real to readers is not why i read comics.....besides how real can giant alien robots be anyway... i do not need a geographic or political explanation to figure out the predacons were not happy campers...

True, but if you believe something is correct (such as that China is the Republic of China) you will continue with that mistake until someone corrects you.

If someone asked me on the street what China's official name was I would like to think I would answer correctly. Republic of China does not sound right somehow, but I can understand how someone simply made an error and it simply not made aware of it.

But I never knew Taiwan was known as the Republic of China.

But now I know...