All Hail Megatron Issues 1 to 6 (Vol 1)

[roller]

Yeah but you fellows must keep in mind, people today 'need' a popular character to 'look up to' role model i think its called

"And giant robots dont look like me, so i shall buy the comic with the human or human looking characters,hey! Lets go surf the internet!" says little 21st century timmy

[i_amtrunks]

Comics still ahve the "nerd" stigma attached to it, so no matter how popular the movie/s are I dont think the sales would have improved all that much because of them.

Plus the Furmanverse title was a very hard one to get into if you missed Infiltration, not to mention that during the Movie/s release when there may have been some impulse buys that the Furmanverse titles were on their "break". AHM looks to be a title that you can drop in and out of without much problem in terms of losing the basic plot.

Thanks for the info on Perceptor Firecracker, As long as Perceptor is still a know-it-all, I'm sure McCarthy won't be torn into too many pieces!

[roller]

SPOILER WARNING!








Hoist will be appearing in the series, from the horses mouth

[GoktimusPrime]

Few writers have ever really played on the fact that Perceptor's meant to be absent-minded... the cartoon portrays him as a bumbling professor, but not necessarily forgetful (but a geek). And Perceptor was pretty darn cool - even charismatic in the comics! But he's seldomly ever portrayed as being absent-minded!

[FFN]

Perceptor is awesome. He's heavily armed, is evidently a sharpshooter and rallies the troops during Decepticon attack.

Really? Isn't he like a noob to TFs comics, with just 2 published issues under his belt? Are IDW that impressed with this relative unknown, or is Furman just running out of ideas (pitched one too many Unicron stories to the editor perhaps)?

IDW obviously hopes a new writer with a new storyline would give them the sort of sales Dreamwave achieved in its heyday. Hell, even Guido Guidi is drawing AHM like his Dreamwave days, rather than say, his fantastic, different-looking work in Spotlight: Galvatron and the Hearts of Steel series.

Furman has kept Unicron out of IDW since he began in 2005. Unicron will likely show up in the The Thirteen, though, given that's a Hasbro canon project.

[Shane McCarthy]

Hi guys,

I'm dropping in to say thanks to Roller and the Perth crew for attending the Perth signing and for their generous gift. I also thought, since I was invited here by the guys (and since I'm an Aussie), I'd stick around long enough to at least try and clear up some of the conjecture I've seen on the board.

Firstly, even though we've stated this many times before, yes AHM is in continuity and no it was never pitched as an Elseworlds or What If story. I was brought in by IDW because they were looking for a new take on the franchise/continuity as sales on the book were dropping to an all time low. This doesn't mean that what was out there was bad, it just meant that for whatever reason it wasn't catching people's interest and IDW wanted something that would.

AHM was always in continuity, right from the start; our comments in interviews and on forums explaining that fact weren't 'damage control' or any such thing, we were simply trying to clear it up as, obviously, it's been somewhat confusing for many fans.

Now, regarding the continuity, Chris Ryall and I worked hard in the early planning stages to try and make a good blend of what the existing readers would want, and what new readers would be interested in. Some things we've changed (some of which you've seen, others you've yet to see), some things we've gotten rid of and other things we've kept. Regardless of whether or not people think it is, AHM is definitely tied in with previous continuity. I've read all of the previous IDW books and have brought much of that through into AHM; again, some of this you just haven't seen yet.

Ok, some quick replies to some points (sorry I couldn't reply to all of these personally, Guys, I hope you understand):

Body count - As much as I would have loved to have shown extreme death and carnage Hasbro, understandably, won't allow it. At the end of the day kids are reading this and Hasbro need to be careful about how their property is portrayed to all audiences.

Megatron's goals - Yes Megatron has planned all of this out; he's not just attacking New York city for no reason. The previous protocols he had in place for attacking planets were all well and good but now, according to him, he's won the war; the Autobots have been defeated. As far as I'm concerned he's a military genius and an incredible leader; there's more to this than blowing things up.

Devastator - I've read Spotlight: Optimus Prime. AHM is a full year ahead of the end to Revelation so there's plenty of room for advancements in tech.

AHM Sales - As stated elsewhere the 15, 000 or so listed in the sales figures were far from the final amount. We sold over 20, 000 copies of AHM #1 and are just (agonizingly) short of selling out of the entire print run.

Spotlight: Wheelie - Wheelie takes place well into the future which allows for Reflector to be in AHM with no continuity problems.

Hoist - I'm not sure what 'horse' you got that from, Roller, but it's not me. Hoist isn't in AHM.

I hope this has helped to clear some things up. Obviously there's nothing wrong with anyone disliking this series but I'd like to make sure you're fully informed about what's going on before anyone leaps to conclusions.

At the end of the day myself and IDW are big fans of the property and are working our arses off to bring you something that you'll hopefully enjoy and that will sell copies. Obviously change can be startling, especially to those of you that have been supporting the books, but sales weren't up and IDW needed to do something to reignite the line. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't (so far it's exceeded expectation) but IDW is simply trying to do something so all of you can keep reading Transformers (and, as has happened, we gain a few new TFs fans along the way).

Cheers.

[TheDirtyDigger]

Great to hear direct from the writer on these points Shane. Much appreciated.
I haven't picked up AHM yet as am waiting for the TPB to come out but I definitely will.
Just one thing you said there that if we could get clarification on would be excellent.

some things we've gotten rid of

Have we gotten rid of these things by just not writing them into the continuity or are they deemed that unnecessary to the story that we wont miss them at all?
Also, what are these things that we've gotten rid off?

Cheers.

[STL]

Hey there! Isn't this a wonderful surprise? Do you still collect the toys much? Which lines? I've always wondered how many writers still collect the toys. Artists always seem to but i'm never sure about the writers

AHM Sales - As stated elsewhere the 15, 000 or so listed in the sales figures were far from the final amount. We sold over 20, 000 copies of AHM #1 and are just (agonizingly) short of selling out of the entire print run.

I agree. Thuugh IDW never made mention of it, I suspected all along that was the reboot and looking at the vibe of AHM from the marketing, it seemed IDW were making a change of direction.

And I agree the 20K figure is probably higher b/c of re-order amounts which aren't always included in those figures. The only distortion I'm really worried about is all the variant covers and how much that could've given it a healthy boost b/c as is chronic in the comic industry, there's always a massive drop in decline after the numero uno issue.

I'm hoping the implied re-order volume though means we see a slightly higher second issue. It's a pity that at such a time when the brand is doing so well our comics can't do well.

Spotlight: Wheelie - Wheelie takes place well into the future which allows for Reflector to be in AHM with no continuity problems.

And that's one of the frustrations, I think, for existing readers. I didn't know that until now. But I guess to the new reader you guys are trying to attract that won't really matter all that much.

I personally don't mind the change (even though I haven't read AHM yet to see how jarring it actually is) b/c I've always been of the school of thought IDW should have two main Transformer titles. One for the aged reader who wants to see a more complex Transformers brand that we never got in G1, and one that's more of the nostalgic, big bang ilk like the DW books were

At the end of the day myself and IDW are big fans of the property and are working our arses off to bring you something that you'll hopefully enjoy and that will sell copies. Obviously change can be startling, especially to those of you that have been supporting the books, but sales weren't up and IDW needed to do something to reignite the line. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't (so far it's exceeded expectation) but IDW is simply trying to do something so all of you can keep reading Transformers (and, as has happened, we gain a few new TFs fans along the way).

I support the books regardless. Now, I do have the 1st AHM issue in my mountain of comics that have yet to be read and I think i better get around to it.

[Firecracker]

Thanks for stopping by Shane!

[Pulse]

Hey Shane!

Woah! An actual TF celebrity stopping by our little ol' place in the universe...