Transformers feats/discussion

happy birthday tessho genda

Claudio Swiss said:

Some IDW discussion came up recently

What went wrong with the brand when it came to transformers

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probably mainly marketing, IDW would not print enough of some of their more popular books (Wreckers are routinely considered the best TF comics ever made, but the 3 in 1 collection was insanely hard to get, the trades for MTMTE go for over 100$ now too and that was also a heavy hitter) combined with it not being easy for new people to get into. The last one was a double edged sword, because IDW being a 400 issue run that can be read from start to finish is almost unheard of in comics, but that's a huge task for any new fan jumping in. Later writers like Roberts and Barber (both great) were also continuity nuts who would fold decade old abandoned plotlines back into the story extremely well. Amazing if you'd read all the material, but a bit confusing if you hadn't.

That said the books were routinely moving 5-10k a month, quite low for a major brand's standards (Boom's Power Rangers had several 100k+ months for example). It's not super surprising that they lost the license when they didn't make any real changes to try and bump that up. I think they also tried to relaunch after IDW1 way too quickly. Like a year later they started a new continuity that wasn't visually distinct enough to readers to seem different, while Image's take doesn't look or feel like the previous stories (I'm not saying it's better, just that they took the time to make their launch stand out, and that's why it was such a huge success).

There are probably tons of other factors, but these two seem to be the most easy for me to understand, especially as IDW has other big books like TMNT that have sold well. I don't think they really knew how to market TF.

Claudio Swiss said:

Ok how bout in terms of quality

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it varies, it was never really all good or all bad

early Furman era: this is the general kinda scifi pulp storytelling TF is known for, done by its most prolific writer. If you like his style (like me) you'll love it. He introduces a lot of new lore because he didn't want to repeat the same things he did before. Cons: TONS of one-shots pad out this, most of them are really fun, but it can make it very confusing to get into. You do get some genuine emotional storytelling with Maximum Dinobots (first real example of this in IDW, though it would become the hallmark later on). The artistic talent is also top notch and has aged well, most artists and colorists weren't succumbing to some of the worst design trends of the early 2000s.

All Hail Megatron: divisive among fans because it stomped out a lot of what Furman was setting up. I'm personally not big on it, especially as it shifts some artists around later and some didn't do as great a job as others. It's the first real time anybody tries to explore Megatron's morality, but it does so in a pretty poor way. However this is also the era that gave us Last Stand of the Wreckers, what many consider the best Transformers comic ever written (I'll address my thoughts on this later). This is the comic I recommend to anyone looking to get into TF, because it's just a good, emotional, terrifying comic that has universal appeal. Amazing villain, amazing character arcs in only 5 chapters, and the birth of one of TF's best artists and colorists coming into their own.

Unfortunately Mike Costa's three year long run follows this, and it's just kinda awful. Bizarrely, it sells pretty well. The main reason it was bad is that aside from uninspired and quite frankly generic plotlines, the writer not only had no attachment to Transformers, by his own admission he did not understand anything about it (nor did he seemingly do the research on it???). Very important morally grey characters like Prowl are suddenly turned unambiguously good. There's no nuance and most arcs are just humans killing Transformers, which is not particularly fun to read because the humans aren't interesting or fleshed out. The sole upsides are: it ended on a high note, the Chaos arc is Livio Ramondelli's best work, Costa's writing is much better than usual, but more importantly James Roberts gets his first real writing work on a short two part story called Chaos Theory. Not only does it go deeply into Optimus and Megatron's relationship, history, and beliefs, it sets up most arcs in what I consider the golden age of IDW to follow.

The Roberts and Barber years. It actually starts with the Roche (Wreckers) one shot "The Death of Optimus Prime" which is both fantastic and a visual treat. I'm biased, because More than Meets the Eye is my favorite comic of all time, but this was the best time to be an IDW fan, and I was glad I got through everything prior to get here. While MTMTE is the highlight, Robots in Disguise is by no means bad, both have top notch art (though MTMTE's style and warmth of Alex Milne's lines+Burcham's insane decision to use pastel coloring that actually looks beautiful edges it out for me). There are many reasons these two runs are so good, the first is a much bigger emphasis on characterization and development. MTMTE gave us multiple complex and emotional plotlines, not just on a lore front, but this is a series where they introduced the first gay romance, between alien robots, and not only was it depressing and realistic as hell, it coincides with one of the scariest and most brutal arcs in any comic I've read. Parallel to this, RiD was engaging in more lore focused high stakes political storytelling, which was supported by Barber also being head editor, something I think he's even better at than writing (again, will elaborate later). It culminates in the Dark Cybertron crossover, which for a big crossover, is not bad and has big impact on the future morally and lorewise.

Post Dark Cybertron, MTMTE continues its heavy character focused arcs and exploration of morality, they continue to be phenomenal. RiD (now just called The Transformers) in my opinion gets more interesting as they shift the stage to Earth, and Andrew Griffith is allowed to use more of his own original designs. Barber continues some real long calls with his lore development that we wouldn't see the results of for years. Both runs culminate in big arcs, Dying of the Light for MTMTE hits like a truck and ends on yet another big moral quandary. All Hail Optimus isn't as consistent, but the last issue is chilling, and drives home the more grey direction Barber has slowly been taking Optimus in.

This is where I think things take a bit of a dive. Sort of. A lot of crossovers start to happen here with GI Joe, Rom the Space Knight, Micronauts, etc. Some, like Rom, are fantastic comics and far better than they have any right to be. Others like most of the Micronauts and MASK stuff are fairly forgettable. But the main big runs are MTMTE becoming Lost Light (same writer--Roberts, new artist Jack Lawrence) and RID/TF becoming Optimus Prime (Barber, new artist Kei Zama). It's difficult to place my thoughts on this era succinctly, as it does many things well while fumbling many things I loved previously all at once. Lost Light for example, while being written by the same author with the same characters, I consider to be drastically worse than MTMTE and it kinda trashes many extremely engaging plot and character points Roberts had set up. Optimus Prime on the other hand, is mostly a step up from Barber's previous work, and Kei Zama's insane 2000AD inspired art takes it to a whole other level with Burcham's ultra saturated 90s inspired color style here. The reason for both of these I suspect are related: Barber stepped down as editor, and as a result the wisdom he provided other books (he had a prior history working on Wolverine continuity with Marvel) is no longer there. Coupled with this, the crossovers not landing and editorial mandates meant Roberts was both rushed and had to work in things not planned beforehand. Lost Light suffered immensely for this, while Barber takes Optimus Prime is some extremely strange and interesting directions. Both books end on a high note, but I'll never not be disappointed by LL. Unicron 6 issue caps it all off, and it's a good spectacle ending.

Sometime during or before this, we also get more Roche Wreckers stories: Sins of the Wreckers, and the Requiem of the Wreckers one-shot. Sins is arguably the best comic I've ever read, doubling down on its exploration of the characters, relationships with war, and with each other, with some of the best art I've seen in any comic. Requiem let Roche tie up his own storylines, and while it's slightly rushed due to that, it overall hits home and was a great ending for the pivotal Transformers comic.


There's way more I didn't cover. I didn't mention Windblade at all, or go into the various crossovers, one-shots, how subjects like gender were handled (mostly: pretty good though, definitely better and more heartfelt than I feel a lot of their contemporary comics were). It's a big run, there's a ton to go into. I didn't get into the Autocracy trilogy at all and that's a set of books people swear by as well. It stumbles at the final years, but will overall probably remain the defining TF comic books to fans until Skybound has a bit more time to develop.

Thirteen prime said:

12:50|Galvatron, who at that time had only part of the Unicron spark, was capable of dragging cybertron with him (a feat of 300 yottats), this also gives him a lifting force at the level of the planet, and at the same time this should not be in any comparison with the base one masters Megatron who created his armor from a large part of Unicron's spark.

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holy shit
UT wasn't fucking around