Opinion: Bottom 5 Moments of IDW's Transformers Run

[BigTransformerTrev]

I can't really list 5 specific, but I found when considering this thread that I had my opposites come up when I had thought about (but not posted in) the other thread regarding the top 5 IDW things.

Such as:

My favourite comics were 'All Hail Megatron'
My lest fav were the Optimus ones from the last few years

My fav relationship was Rewind and Chromedome
My least fav was Onslaught and Blast Off

Some of the comics had the best art I've ever seen in a TF comic
Some of them had the worst I've seen since the 80's

Some minor characters became awesome like Swerve
Others reached a new level of annoying like Slide

There were great new concepts introduced which I reckon should become lore
Some of the previous lore I loved frankly got spat upon



So yeah, my favourite things about the IDW run seemed to have their polar opposites.

[SharkyMcShark]

To be fair to AHM, McCarthy was originally told it would be a complete standalone run that was an alternate universe take on Transformers.

IDW were being indecisive about what to do with the -ation series and decided late on in the process that AHM would actually serve as the next part of the main continuity.

Also the DonFig Ongoing Bayverse G1 mashups were absolutely epic. I'd love a toyline done in that style.

[i_amtrunks]

To each their own but I think there will be few general things we can get a consensus on as pretty bad, the constantly delayed books and disorderly releases (and re-releases) of grade collections that collected multiple arcs or series together.

As for a bottom five, I won’t go into too much detail as I have already done that numerous times over the years.
5:The Don Figueroa / Transformers soft reboot era. Art was a shambles, too many names being dropped because no one looked right in robot mode, too many characters acting out of character and a very hard read most times. It wasn’t till Nick roche have a hand that we started to get back on track.

4: AHM: As Sharks alluded to, as a stand alone this would have been a fun little mini series like Hearts of Steel. As a pseudo retcon reboot (sensing a theme?) after all the ground work had been set by the Furman “-ations” and Spotlights this was just a massive backwards step that the Coda and numerous other titles kept trying to fix with very little success. Plus Drift... who may have ended up half way tolerable by the end but again needed a lot of work and that terrible Stone miniseries that was so boring I can’t even remember the tile to get him to a point where he became more than a joke...

3: Unicron or dead zombie planetformer... meh what a massive boring letdown that really told a mediocre small story that did nothing but allow them to wipe the slate more or less clean. Sadly another theme coming...

2: Events: Bar “Death of Optimus Prime” IDW failed every event they tried. Either they were bloated and silly like Dark Cybertron, were used to tie into the hasbroverse like Zombies/dvoid, were just plain useless like Megatron Origins or were a massive disappointment like Inicron and all the other Hasbroverse stories.

1: Hasbroverse: when it started by killing Kup in the zombies “combined universe” then they tried it again in Action Man... every new series that was part of the forced Hasbroverse needed a transformer in it that they then wasted or made useless. Then they ruined the main stories incorporating all the other mini series events (visionaries anyone???). All ending in the death of the entire universe and series. It was a slow sinful death Brough about by a boring event that also made the last year of the Prime book full and difficult to read (to the point where I no longer bought the issues) killed off the decent Windblade series and just generally left a bad taste in the mouth.

Sadly it is good bye to the IDW verse, Furman had an intriguing and different story to tell that Jame Roberts and Nick roche lovingly continued with Barber doing a most commendable job trying to tie it all Back together after McCarthy and Costa had done their best to kill it off.

I won’t be buying the new series but I’ll give it a read, it will have to be more Wreckers or Lost Light in style and not have any “big hasbro events” in the near distance.

[BigTransformerTrev]

To be fair to AHM, McCarthy was originally told it would be a complete standalone run that was an alternate universe take on Transformers.

IDW were being indecisive about what to do with the -ation series and decided late on in the process that AHM would actually serve as the next part of the main continuity.

4: AHM: As Sharks alluded to, as a stand alone this would have been a fun little mini series like Hearts of Steel. As a pseudo retcon reboot (sensing a theme?) after all the ground work had been set by the Furman “-ations” and Spotlights this was just a massive backwards step that the Coda and numerous other titles kept trying to fix with very little success. Plus Drift... who may have ended up half way tolerable by the end but again needed a lot of work and that terrible Stone miniseries that was so boring I can’t even remember the tile to get him to a point where he became more than a joke...

Well there ya go, its interesting to read that pretty much my fav comics were disliked by so many others. Shows we've all got our own tastes

I think I just fell in love with the AHM series when the Decepticons first invaded a city and you got to see both the 'Robots in Disguise' concept with the Constructicons rumbling into the city square and Skywarp transforming into a robot and scaring the hell out of a pilot who thought he was chasing another jet. Also the scale, like with the office furniture shaking as Megatron strode down the street and all you could see was his chest through a 3rd story window. Plus it is always good to see the humans get their arses handed to them

Gotta admit I didn't care much for the Autobot side of the story with them stuck on Cybertron. The only cool bit was Omega turning up and decimating the Insecticon swarm.

[KELPIE]

Not included in my list but probably should be included somewhere, would be how difficult this series was to catch up on, will be to re-read and will be to recommend.

With all the constant soft reboots, miniseries, starts and stops of ongoing, splits across titles and then the eventual hasbroverse.

What to read when and in what order is just way to confusing for anyone not reading at the time of release.

Also, for the people asking about hasbroverse, that was Chris Ryall going to Hasbro and pitching it. Hasbro loved the idea, so IDW went with it.

Basically it was a way for IDW to bump up other series sales and get more use out of their Hasbro contract. Oh and Ryall is a massive ROM fan

[KELPIE]

Also, for the people asking about hasbroverse, that was Chris Ryall going to Hasbro and pitching it. Hasbro loved the idea, so IDW went with it.

Basically it was a way for IDW to bump up other series sales and get more use out of their Hasbro contract. Oh and Ryall is a massive ROM fan

Well, now that Ryall is back and in charge of IDW, we can probably expect some kind of Hasbroverse attempt again?

[FatalityPitt]

If no one minds, I might just share my thoughts about the IDW comic run in this one post (save myself from answering two threads).

Be warned, there's some spoilers!

Things I liked:

Breaking down Autobot/Decepticon stereotypes - One of my favourite things about the IDW comics was that it really emphasized that not all Autobots are good, and not all Decepticons are evil. A character can be a Decepticon and still be good and honorable. One of my favourite moments was during the All Hail Optimus arc where Soundwave read the minds of the humans and surrendered because he realised his actions were doing more harm than good. It was a simple moment, but it really drove home the point that Soundwave was not a loyal Decepticon because he wanted to kill Autobots and rule the universe, but more because he thought he was doing the right thing, and he never intended to be evil. Then of course there's characters like Getaway - who demonstrated that just because you're a white Autobot car who hates Megatron (who, like Soundwave, never set out to be evil in the beginning); doesn't mean you're incapable of betrayal and murder. Even Optimus Prime himself had flaws (he tricked people into believing in the Matrix, which was really just a pulse generator).

Character depth and development - There's way too many examples to name, but some of the characters that really stood out to me were Starscream, Megatron and Slag. Starscream started off as Megatron's untrustworthy lackey (typical of G1 Starscream), but he got given what he wanted (became ruler of Cybertron), and after that he got put in interesting situations that taught him the error of his ways. In the end he sacrifices himself to stop Unicron, and doesn't complain about Optimus Prime taking the credit when he visits Bumblebee in ghost form. Then there's Megatron, which I can talk about until next Sunday, but I really like how IDW decided to make Megatron into an Autobot (unthinakble right?!) and the way it was justified. I thought it was well-done. As for Slag, we usually stereotype him as being a short-tempered delinquent, but in the IDW comics they show him as not only intelligent, but they provide some pretty compelling reasons as to why he doesn't trust authority (especially Optimus Prime).

To sum up, there's a lot of complexity and depth in each character, and after reading their backstories, it's easy to understand why they behave the way they do. Also, they're not simple black and white characters; there's varying shades of grey.

Things I disliked:

Forced social progressiveness - The Chromedome/Rewind relationship was quite touching and well-done, definitely a high-point of the series. But then they later introduced more same-gender relationships (Onslaught/Blast Off, Lug/anode, Ratchet/Drift, Arcee/Aileron, etc.) which started to come of as cliche and unnecessary. I felt some of them we're out of character; like the Onslaught/Blast Off affair. G1 Blast Off to me is someone who's aloof and arrogant, and doesn't seem like the sort who'd want to get romantically involved with anyone, let alone someone who transforms into a land vehicle. think the story could have been written just as well without the romance.

Very WORDY DIALOGUE - Especially in MTMTE/Lost Light, I thought the dialogue was too long. Because of my short attention span, I found myself needing to re-read almost every sentence.

Artwork - Was a a bit hit or miss for me. I like a clean and simple manga style, but sometimes the character proportions looked too cartoon-ish for my taste. Sometimes the artwork and designs of the characters looked too busy.

[i_amtrunks]

Well there ya go, its interesting to read that pretty much my fav comics were disliked by so many others. Shows we've all got our own tastes

I think I just fell in love with the AHM series when the Decepticons first invaded a city and you got to see both the 'Robots in Disguise' concept with the Constructicons rumbling into the city square and Skywarp transforming into a robot and scaring the hell out of a pilot who thought he was chasing another jet. Also the scale, like with the office furniture shaking as Megatron strode down the street and all you could see was his chest through a 3rd story window. Plus it is always good to see the humans get their arses handed to them

Gotta admit I didn't care much for the Autobot side of the story with them stuck on Cybertron. The only cool bit was Omega turning up and decimating the Insecticon swarm.

AHM was actually a good comic in terms of switching things up and the art was nothing but pure nostalgia and fan love. The story itself was a nice twist, the reason it made my list was because it was shoehorned into what already come before and made absolutely no sense with what came before or really the tone and vibe of what came after.

Pull out the twelve issues of AHM as a stand alone maxi series and it would be fine. Minus Drift of course!