All Hail Megatron Issues 1 to 6 (Vol 1)

[kup]

I really don't like the term "fanfic" being used in such a derogatory manner. It smacks of a very snobby reader who thinks they can define what is good fiction. You could easily apply "fanfic' to what Furman was doing with his Spotlights and "-tion" series too. It could be viewed he was way too busy with too many plotlines going on, had too much love for that random character that no one cares about who is all of a sudden the big bad or the big hero, no concept of pacing etc,. But no. It'd be better to say he poorly constructed the stories.

Perhaps a better word is "amateurish" but I think that McCarthy has to have some grasp of fiction more than us as its not like we got the call up to write Transformers. AHM, to me, reads like a popcorn flick at the movies. It's there for the thrills and its not very much deeper than that though it does have moments. Not that there's a problem with that, perhaps IDW is aiming for a different flavour to what Furman originally had. I mean, the last thing they'd want is to try and revitalise their line with the same vibe in the comic as the one before it which led to such a decline in sales numbers.

My comment was not meant to degrade fan fics as many of them are very good particularly if you see the Mosaics but at the same time, there are a huge amount of fan boyish ones that I have encountered on the net which follow a very similar formula that we are seeing in All Hail Megatron in which the author seems to only be aware of the G1 cartoon.

The bottom line is that I wouldn't call AHM a new direction. Its a very old and tired formula as far as the Decepticons are concerned which is most of the story so far. Furman's current (or previous?) direction wasn't making the money either despite being pretty original and unique take on Transformers but going from 'new that doesn't sell' to 'old and tired' wasn't the way to go and it seems that the sale figures are proving that as they are not significantly increased.

Furman in the past has shown the ability to drastically change direction while still maintaining the integrity of the present universe so I don't see why he couldn't of done it this time.

Something else, many of us would have been much more accepting of this new take if it was indeed a new continuity instead of it being shoehorned into the previous one creating so many gaps and discrepancies which mostly serve to as a deterrent to the established reader base than something that will serve to increase reader numbers.