Maybe I should post more on the IDW forums.Originally Posted by bassbot
Joking aside, it's not that I don't appreciate the IDW run. I do. I recall remarking at fan meets how this universe is so unique. The whole way the universe is set up makes this feel like a real war. Every run prior (Marvel and UK) had the war in the background but it never felt like a war. This does. And I love that part of it. It's a real take on the Transformers. It redefines them so that they are more than the adventure/sci-fi genre. They are at war.
My quibbles with IDW generally are:
- pacing
- release schedule
- art
The pacing has been horrible within the comics and within the wider IDW universe. It's not that I'm impatient but plot elements take so long to manifest and they require you to have read certain Spotlights. That I find detracting for other readers. I myself may not mind since if it's G1, it's bought in my book. However, for the casual reader it makes them wary. To them it appears like sloppy storytelling.
What ultimately it does is that it makes the stories inaccessible unless you've been reading from day 1. That's damaging in my opinion for any series.
I'm in the process of re-reading Infiltration at the moment and I actually like a lot more in TPB form than I did originally. The slow pace and delays really killed my momentum in those early days. I dropped the series for several issues in fact. The humans were really annoying and overbearing. But reading it as a whole; the humans are far more negligible.
That said, with the benefit of hindsight and the anecdotal evidence in the sales, IDW has flopped the franchise. They took it below chartered territory. The zero issue was awful. You could not read it and feel inspired. That I feel was a terrible way to try and generate buzz. The Transformers didn't even appear!
Dreamwave weren't perfect, just as IDW aren't, either. I like DW. Very fun, it harkens back to a more fanboyish, if I may say that, era. It had an immense amount of "Gwun" charm and allure.
IDW feels gritty and real. It's a struggle and burden between two rivalling factions. It doesn't have that same sense of fun but that's not a fault. That's its strength. It takes the concept and elevates it to mature level.
I agree with i_amtrunks. Two series concurrently would be awesome and give the best of both worlds. I do believe though that IDW have dropped the ball. They don't create the buzz they really need to. Each DW title, good or bad, received coverage in the form of interviews with writers and artists in Newsarama or CBR forums. IDW struggles to even get a voice there and create real buzz.
The problem with the Mosaic is that the question is no longer will Sunstreaker and Hunter survive. It's a given. It's supposed to be in continuity. We know exactly how it all unfolds now. He fights Scorponok, joins the Dinobots and face down a full-scale Decepticon invasion.
That's telling us everything that's going to happen. That's the payoff of any story. That creates the buzz and the speculation. Having told us, what do we have to look forward to?
What are we left with now? Only a "are we there yet?" vibe. That I find incredibly disappointing. We're going to read and go, "oh yeah that was supposed to happen."
That's uninspiring.
And to me, there's just so much that could be managed better. But hey, I'll keep reading after all. There are very excellent character moments.
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