All Hail Megatron Issues 1 to 6 (Vol 1)

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Nah, I'd expect that to be OVER -- FINISHED!

IDW evidently NEVER DID WANT Furman's story TO LIVE FOREVER and decided that it was SURPLUS TO REQUIREMENTS. If they have so little faith in their writers that they hover over the stories like LIKE SOME PREDATORY BIRD, yanking it halfway through when sales start to dip, then WHAT CHANCE DO WE HAVE?

AHM #1 sold a solitary issue less than Devastation #6.

While I respect that there was appreciation for the -ion run and I myself loved parts of it, I think we're forgetting the larger picture here. Furman started with 100K + readers.

Infiltration
N/A - OCT05 #0 - over 100,000
030 - JAN06/#1 - 45,468

Let's look at the end of his run.

Devastation #6: 149 - FEB08/#6 - 12,666

Revelations sales
Revelation
163 - JUN08/#16 - 10,806
181 - JUL08/#17 - 10,516

Compared to AHM's first issue:

ALL HAIL MEGATRON: 139 - JUL08/#1 15,703

Source: http://tfarchive.com/comics/idw/sales.php: based on IcV2 estimates which are very respected in the comic industry.

By no means am I saying that AHM has improved sales but what I'm saying is that Furman failed miserably from a sales point of view. At a time when the franchise should be at dizzy heights, he's managed to reduce the comic fanbase from the 100K to such lowly heights. Dreamwave, like them or not, did not have such poor sales numbers till the very end when they were struggling to even get product on the shelves.

The only person who has responsibility for this is Furman. He writes the books and constructs the arcs. He has to take responsiblity. It wasn't as if IDW editorial all of a sudden saw bad sales and reacted without thought, they'd seen a steady decline that they had been unable to arrest. In the end, they had to try something new and my belief is that good or bad, they had to do something new. AHM was it. I'm not saying AHM's a success but it was entirely necessary and I don't think we can deny that.

Furman left IDW with no choice but to find a way to revitalise the franchise. As respected and venerated by the old school brigade, he has failed to command the respect of the reading public. The -tion series is a series for the faithful and there aren't many of us and the fact is that even more of us are abandoning the book if you look at the numbers. I for one loved his Beast Wars: the Gathering but I'm under no illusions about its failure and Furman's failures at IDW b/c at the end of the day, a comic's success is also about its sales. Creatively I'm inspired by the Gathering but I acknowledge its failure on a sales level. And I think that fans have to accept that the "-tion" series failed on that front and is itself responsible for falling on its own sword. No one else.

You do not get exposure of 100K and go down to 10K in 3 years.

I also get the feeling on this forum that I should support it because the author is Australian. I enjoy going against the grain

Definitely not. I for one didn't warm to it just b/c it was an Australian writer. Just have a look at my posts earlier in this thread and elsewhere. Even Nicola Scott who drew Birds of Prey is Australian but I don't follow her religiously to ever cover/comic she does. I think the reading TF public is especially harsh and will vote with its wallet. Combined with the comic reading public who dabbles in TFs, its not easy to get away with "support me because I'm home grown". Also, more TF collectors these days are in it far more for the toys than the comics so the moment a comic is disinteresting, its very easy to turn your back on. Even more so when you're shelling out close to $8 for a comic which could be spent on TFs.

My following comments are not necessarily bad but it is a bit of a let down for me as I am one who likes more variety in my Transformers. It feels that AHM was either written to appeal to G1 cartoon only fans that are only familiar with the first 3 years of Transformers or that the writer is a cartoon only fan himself. This is particularly noticeable coming after Furman's portion of the IDW continuity which makes a considerable effort to show us a wide variety of characters stretching from G1 to G2 while AHM only concentrates on '84-'86 characters and makes no references to later ones (that I have noticed).

I tire of these remarks about '84 and '86 characters getting too much attention. Fact is, they never did. Even in the cartoon, they were never developed and weren't that very distinct. Only a few ever were. I actually really appreciate more stories about the '84-'86 characters b/c I felt I never really got to know them. They had few comic appearances and their cartoon appearances weren't very material. All this talk about concentrating too much on '84 to '86 is really just "I want to see obscure characters" squeal. I'm all for obscure characters and developing them but there's nothing wrong with developing existing characters who never got much of a chance to shine or entrenching them further in the mind of readers. It doesn't bother me either way but there seems to always be a small minority (even in the broader comic reading community) that loves obscure characters. I do too but really, I think a franchise should stick to its guns and focus on building those b/c they're what the franchise is really about.
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As i_amtrunks has often remarked, which I absolutely agree with, it'd be great to have both types of series available. I'd read both. I see the beauty of both and appreciate the different approaches. There's something wonderful about the simplicity of AHM.