I posted a number of pages from this issue over in the UK politics thread
a lot of the phrases are horribly familiar to UK readers, especially 'will of the people' and 'without a shot being fired', which have become associated with the more corrosive elements of the pro-Brexit establishment. The latter is particularly grievous after the murder of MP Jo Cox by a right wing fanatic. I would say James Roberts has some stuff to get off his chest...
I haven't read lost light (at all yet) but combined with the spoilers above I don't know how I feel about it.
Speculation about the spoiled stuff above so don't click if you want to go in blind. I'm OK with spoiling myself on things but I know other people feel differently
Well I might have a leaning. I thought getaway was an asshole, but to some extent you can sympathize with his position. Being "forced" to serve under arguably the biggest monster to walk the universe, one you fought for millennia against. The readers of course can see the change of heart (assuming they don't double back), but in universe how can you trust Megatron?
If getaway is just going into full blown bad guy mode...I guess it isn't a departure. He could very well have been a bad guy the whole time and now he is presented an opportunity to be who he truly is. It is just unfortunate as the idea had potential as a legitimate antagonist. Either you can't or won't forgive someone for something that may actually be unforgivable.
Seeing the transformers deal with the fallout of their war and try to out "normal" lives back in place made for a compelling story. I can't really comment on the references though having not read the new stuff
Getaway isn't quite as bad as it's making him out to be. He is definitely an asshole, but he didn't intend to get Team Rodimus killed or anything. But he's self-centered and manipulative and this entire situation has spiraled out of his control. He listened to the wrong people and kept digging himself deeper and deeper.
I think he's being contrasted with the other Lost Light captains. There's parallels with both Megatron's choices in the early days of the Decepticons as well as the whole Overlord incident. Getaway realized that being a leader is a lot harder than it looks, but instead of admitting his mistakes like Rodimus, he's veering into Bad Megatron territory.
There's a scene a few issues earlier where Rodimus manipulates Ultra Magnus to help him get his armor working, and Drift mentions how helpful he is. Rodimus admits that he knows, but he can't help himself sometimes, and that's why he needs people like Magnus around.
I am hoping this whole Lost Light arc leads up to Rodimus being a Matrix bearer. They've been talking about the Signs of Affinity and such recently so I think they're building to it.
Getaway isn't quite as bad as it's making him out to be. He is definitely an asshole, but he didn't intend to get Team Rodimus killed or anything. But he's self-centered and manipulative and this entire situation has spiraled out of his control. He listened to the wrong people and kept digging himself deeper and deeper.
I think he's being contrasted with the other Lost Light captains. There's parallels with both Megatron's choices in the early days of the Decepticons as well as the whole Overlord incident. Getaway realized that being a leader is a lot harder than it looks, but instead of admitting his mistakes like Rodimus, he's veering into Bad Megatron territory.
There's a scene a few issues earlier where Rodimus manipulates Ultra Magnus to help him get his armor working, and Drift mentions how helpful he is. Rodimus admits that he knows, but he can't help himself sometimes, and that's why he needs people like Magnus around.
I am hoping this whole Lost Light arc leads up to Rodimus being a Matrix bearer. They've been talking about the Signs of Affinity and such recently so I think they're building to it.
I'm pretty sure they're going to follow the Power of the Primes fan vote with that, since that's what the rest of Hasbro's media will be utilizing.
HeatwaveCome, now, and walk the path of explosions with me!Registered Userregular
I read Lost Light volume 1 this week and while I do miss Alex Milne's wonderful art, what I got was still pretty good I think. Plus the writing was great as usual
The rod team crawling into a den was really funny, especially when one of them was Megatron.
Tailgate hurting Cyclonus in his sleep was shocking. We were led to believe the Decepticons were starting something, and then bam! Cyclonus just trying to protect his lil buddy. Whirl was great trying to do the right thing and being a friend to Cyclonus.
I kind of foresaw the thing with Lug being Anode's imagination. Would have been cool to see Swerve involved with Lug's resurrection considering his specialty.
Terminus really screwed Megatron in the end. I hope Megs can make it back to the normal universe. I'm hoping he'll somehow meet the lost light crew in Cyberutopia
I haven't read lost light (at all yet) but combined with the spoilers above I don't know how I feel about it.
Speculation about the spoiled stuff above so don't click if you want to go in blind. I'm OK with spoiling myself on things but I know other people feel differently
Well I might have a leaning. I thought getaway was an asshole, but to some extent you can sympathize with his position. Being "forced" to serve under arguably the biggest monster to walk the universe, one you fought for millennia against. The readers of course can see the change of heart (assuming they don't double back), but in universe how can you trust Megatron?
If getaway is just going into full blown bad guy mode...I guess it isn't a departure. He could very well have been a bad guy the whole time and now he is presented an opportunity to be who he truly is. It is just unfortunate as the idea had potential as a legitimate antagonist. Either you can't or won't forgive someone for something that may actually be unforgivable.
Seeing the transformers deal with the fallout of their war and try to out "normal" lives back in place made for a compelling story. I can't really comment on the references though having not read the new stuff
Well the next issue's title is apparently "All Hail Getaway" so I don't think Roberts is really angling for ambiguity.
Being that I'm pretty far behind. How does Unicron fit in? Is this a "what if"? Am I going to see cobra making a faustian bargain to finish of rom once and for all while giving joe does whatever with whatever crossover they decided to stuff in?
Interesting given that I somewhat stopped reading the Transformers comics around the Dawn of the Autobots era. I honestly haven't bought a physical comic in ages though so that doesn't help those numbers. Mainly because I just don't have the storage space I used to have as a single guy and I chose to read my comics digitally so I can buy toys and video games.
The story up to Dark Cybertron was interesting, but to be honest it lost me as a TF fan. I know that the war between the Autobots and Decpticons had to end some day, but think it was just too much for my brain to bear. Even though this was more than I wanted to admit, I will one day return to read more. The Windblade series and Combiner Wars did pique my interest again so I'm hopeful that they will continue and not pull an "Issue 50" deal on the story.
As a "new guy", what exactly is the definition of direct market sales here?
Edit: going by the Wikipedia definition...could that be explained away by more digital sales?
The Direct Market covers comics and trades delivered to comic book stores through Diamond Comic Distributors (numbers above usually only deal with single issue though). It does not include trades sold through bookstores, online stores like Amazon, newsstands and it does not include digital sales nor the sales of translations.
Usually the direct market can be seen as a good indicator of how well a title is doing as its success in the direct market will be proportional to its success in other markets. Especially for big Two comics like Marvel and DC you can usually see when a title is cancelled: the moment it dips below a certain line.
There were always exceptions though: for instance DC's Hellblazer (and for that matter most of its Vertigo titles) sold badly in singles, but its trades were (and are) longterm sellers and the title was kept alive based on the success of the trade sales later (reaching 300 issues before it was rebooted). It pretty much became Vertigo's model of doing titles. Image follows that model these days a lot, even discounting the price of the first trade to draw in readers. Jim Zub had a bit on his blog about how the sales of his Image Title Wayward are distributed (http://www.jimzub.com/creator-owned-economics-moving-market/). Some creators have even decided to skip the direct market and go for direct-to-trade sales or original Graphic Novels (OGN) as they are called. Stjepan and Linda Sejic follow that method at Top Cow these days (though they release their work digitally first in single pages to get interest in their titles).
The biggest problems with the direct market are
a) it represents comics sold to stores, not to readers. So the store owners have to guess pretty much what their readers want to read. A system that favours the larger titles (Batman and Spider-Man will always sell), but makes it harder for smaller publishers and new creators to break into the market and also creates a circle where the store is only selling what their current customers will buy and will not draw in new customers with different tastes.
b) Comics are preordered a relatively long period in advance, so if the store owner didn't order enough issues of a series, reorders are a problem. Relatively few titles are reprinted.
c) Unsold comics are not returnable (unlike the way things worked with the newsstand market). So store owners will be left with unsold copies and is unlikely to take risks (not having the money and storage space to overorder issues).
The sales of trades circumvents a lot of these problems and the digital market even more, but the success of most titles is still measured by their success in the direct market by many publishers. So failure of a title in the direct market usually is a reason to worry, but not always.
That's very helpful dizzy. While I inferred some of that from my meager reading that answers a lot of questions I had. That graph certainly doesn't look good, but I feel as though there is a lot of information that is missing aside from other sales. For example how much is Hasbro willing to prop up comics? Is TF the flagship idw title(s) so they will continue to push it regardless?
I've said many times before I'm not really a comic book person so maybe this is all ground that has been covered and someone can spoil the ending for me.
I'll admit that the first big arc of Lost Light really didn't grab me the way MTMTE and Dawn of the Autobots did. And combined with the fact that changing the title fucked up my comixology sub, as well as the dumb as rocks Revolution crossover nonsense, now I just buy them in bulk whenever I remember I haven't read them in a bit.
I'm really interested in the Mutineers Trilogy though. In fact, oops, I'm an issue behind again. But Defensor is on the cover, which makes me worried we're heading into crossover/event territory again with Power of the Primes...
Interesting given that I somewhat stopped reading the Transformers comics around the Dawn of the Autobots era. I honestly haven't bought a physical comic in ages though so that doesn't help those numbers. Mainly because I just don't have the storage space I used to have as a single guy and I chose to read my comics digitally so I can buy toys and video games.
The story up to Dark Cybertron was interesting, but to be honest it lost me as a TF fan. I know that the war between the Autobots and Decpticons had to end some day, but think it was just too much for my brain to bear. Even though this was more than I wanted to admit, I will one day return to read more. The Windblade series and Combiner Wars did pique my interest again so I'm hopeful that they will continue and not pull an "Issue 50" deal on the story.
Honestly, the war being over is my favorite part of the current IDW universe. Seeing Starscream as a (semi) legitimate politician, or Megatron in the absence of Decepticon ideals. It's given the writers opportunity to write these characters in fresh new ways.
i can say that the war eding is something i never knew i wanted. that being said i miss certain ideas (are we ever going to find out what the other phases are?) but even recently we were talking about getaway and megatron. the fallout from the war is something that allows for interesting stories. i think it'd be wonderful if they had a "traditional" TF story that was set in the midst of the war going concurrently (alternate universe or whatever) with what we have now so anyone can choose whatever story they like
I like what you point out. Without the war, the writers are really allowed to expand the characters more. Plus allow Megatron to be more than just a mindless destroyer. I will still pick up all the comics in trades or whenever they come out just to read one day. The Revolution part is still throwing me on what I need to pick up one day. Hopefully all I will need to get are the ones with Transformers in the title.
I'm pretty much trade wait as well. I don't think the above chart is a death knell, just ominus, especially given the way the Hasbro-verse has been consolidated over the last couple years and now there's talk of Unicron showing up, which is both creatively and thematically a big red "the end is nigh" flag.
unicron could be an ending, but i could see some comic book trope resets from it. in the old lore weren't unicron/primus universal singularities and parts of the weird stuff with G1 were explained away as a result?
there is a lot of debate going on about how rebooted the series will be. i'm glad they are taking it in a new direction if they ultimately do as i have a lot of issues with the movie franchise and by the time age of extinction rolled around didnt even want to bother with them. i still havnet seen the most recent one and don't really plan to.
there is a lot of debate going on about how rebooted the series will be. i'm glad they are taking it in a new direction if they ultimately do as i have a lot of issues with the movie franchise and by the time age of extinction rolled around didnt even want to bother with them. i still havnet seen the most recent one and don't really plan to.
Maybe we'll hit the jackpot and get a movie adaptation of MTMTE with competent writing and direction.
if only
Yep, that would be nice to have a movie adaptation of the IDW storyline. But we all know that it will be a crossover abomination with GI Joe, Micronauts and Transformers.
I actually tempted fate and bought/watched the last movie after I hated Age of Extinction so much. Was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn't that bad of a movie. Yes, there was a whole lot of, "Wait, so that is now not real in the TF storyline" but at least it was enjoyable as a big transforming robots action movie. Oh and some, "why is he/she in this movie?"...
I feel like MTMtE is really heavily episodic, and would be far better off as a TV series than a movie. There's a lot of subplots, slow burns and character bits. A movie-friendly story would be, like, Dark Cybertron. Like, the original Transformers movie wasn't there to set up long reveals or delve into anyone's motivations, it was just a non-stop ride of things happening before the big planet-busting fight. You could maybe cut enough out to streamline an arc of the comic into a passable movie, but why?
Honestly, if they're going for a reboot and would pull from the comics, the initial infiltration/escalation/devastation arc wouldn't be half-bad to turn into a movie trilogy, at least in basic themes. (First movie intros us to the transformer secret war that's been on earth for years, second movie things escalate the point of the world finding out about Transformers, third movie is an all out battle for earth.)
HeatwaveCome, now, and walk the path of explosions with me!Registered Userregular
Speaking of All Hail Megatron I just got up to that story line with regards to the earlier IDW Transformers books.
The story line prior with Scorponok was duuumb.
Human headmasters somehow making a cybertronian more powerful? That's not believable at all. And why would Rod Hot try to stop it on Scorponok on is own? Surely the Magnificence would have told him he'd stand no chance. Also why would Scorponok mind control the dinobots and then all of a sudden stop for no god damn reason? And why did he even need Sunstreaker to build an army of headmasters?
Now I really need to go re-read all of the beginning again because I don't remember any of this. For some reason I read it all and then promptly forgot it apparently. I do remember Sunstreaker being needed for an army though.
For some reason I always mistake All Hail Megatron for Megatron Origins.
I wish they'd have the guts to drop the useless humans from these gawddamn TF movies. I don't want a movie about a boy and his car, no matter how smoking hot his various girlfriends are.
I honestly wish they would make an animated TF movie again. Live action sucks because that means aiming it at the masses leading the Studio hiring big names to attract them. Leaving less money on the table for the rest and then the Studio taking a loss and then blaming it on the masses.
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a lot of the phrases are horribly familiar to UK readers, especially 'will of the people' and 'without a shot being fired', which have become associated with the more corrosive elements of the pro-Brexit establishment. The latter is particularly grievous after the murder of MP Jo Cox by a right wing fanatic. I would say James Roberts has some stuff to get off his chest...
Speculation about the spoiled stuff above so don't click if you want to go in blind. I'm OK with spoiling myself on things but I know other people feel differently
Well I might have a leaning. I thought getaway was an asshole, but to some extent you can sympathize with his position. Being "forced" to serve under arguably the biggest monster to walk the universe, one you fought for millennia against. The readers of course can see the change of heart (assuming they don't double back), but in universe how can you trust Megatron?
If getaway is just going into full blown bad guy mode...I guess it isn't a departure. He could very well have been a bad guy the whole time and now he is presented an opportunity to be who he truly is. It is just unfortunate as the idea had potential as a legitimate antagonist. Either you can't or won't forgive someone for something that may actually be unforgivable.
Seeing the transformers deal with the fallout of their war and try to out "normal" lives back in place made for a compelling story. I can't really comment on the references though having not read the new stuff
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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I think he's being contrasted with the other Lost Light captains. There's parallels with both Megatron's choices in the early days of the Decepticons as well as the whole Overlord incident. Getaway realized that being a leader is a lot harder than it looks, but instead of admitting his mistakes like Rodimus, he's veering into Bad Megatron territory.
There's a scene a few issues earlier where Rodimus manipulates Ultra Magnus to help him get his armor working, and Drift mentions how helpful he is. Rodimus admits that he knows, but he can't help himself sometimes, and that's why he needs people like Magnus around.
I am hoping this whole Lost Light arc leads up to Rodimus being a Matrix bearer. They've been talking about the Signs of Affinity and such recently so I think they're building to it.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
Tailgate hurting Cyclonus in his sleep was shocking. We were led to believe the Decepticons were starting something, and then bam! Cyclonus just trying to protect his lil buddy. Whirl was great trying to do the right thing and being a friend to Cyclonus.
I kind of foresaw the thing with Lug being Anode's imagination. Would have been cool to see Swerve involved with Lug's resurrection considering his specialty.
Terminus really screwed Megatron in the end. I hope Megs can make it back to the normal universe. I'm hoping he'll somehow meet the lost light crew in Cyberutopia
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
Wasn't big on this idea originally, but I am totally down with Cthulhu Unicron.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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Edit: going by the Wikipedia definition...could that be explained away by more digital sales?
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
The story up to Dark Cybertron was interesting, but to be honest it lost me as a TF fan. I know that the war between the Autobots and Decpticons had to end some day, but think it was just too much for my brain to bear. Even though this was more than I wanted to admit, I will one day return to read more. The Windblade series and Combiner Wars did pique my interest again so I'm hopeful that they will continue and not pull an "Issue 50" deal on the story.
Steam: betsuni7
The Direct Market covers comics and trades delivered to comic book stores through Diamond Comic Distributors (numbers above usually only deal with single issue though). It does not include trades sold through bookstores, online stores like Amazon, newsstands and it does not include digital sales nor the sales of translations.
Usually the direct market can be seen as a good indicator of how well a title is doing as its success in the direct market will be proportional to its success in other markets. Especially for big Two comics like Marvel and DC you can usually see when a title is cancelled: the moment it dips below a certain line.
There were always exceptions though: for instance DC's Hellblazer (and for that matter most of its Vertigo titles) sold badly in singles, but its trades were (and are) longterm sellers and the title was kept alive based on the success of the trade sales later (reaching 300 issues before it was rebooted). It pretty much became Vertigo's model of doing titles. Image follows that model these days a lot, even discounting the price of the first trade to draw in readers. Jim Zub had a bit on his blog about how the sales of his Image Title Wayward are distributed (http://www.jimzub.com/creator-owned-economics-moving-market/). Some creators have even decided to skip the direct market and go for direct-to-trade sales or original Graphic Novels (OGN) as they are called. Stjepan and Linda Sejic follow that method at Top Cow these days (though they release their work digitally first in single pages to get interest in their titles).
The biggest problems with the direct market are
a) it represents comics sold to stores, not to readers. So the store owners have to guess pretty much what their readers want to read. A system that favours the larger titles (Batman and Spider-Man will always sell), but makes it harder for smaller publishers and new creators to break into the market and also creates a circle where the store is only selling what their current customers will buy and will not draw in new customers with different tastes.
b) Comics are preordered a relatively long period in advance, so if the store owner didn't order enough issues of a series, reorders are a problem. Relatively few titles are reprinted.
c) Unsold comics are not returnable (unlike the way things worked with the newsstand market). So store owners will be left with unsold copies and is unlikely to take risks (not having the money and storage space to overorder issues).
The sales of trades circumvents a lot of these problems and the digital market even more, but the success of most titles is still measured by their success in the direct market by many publishers. So failure of a title in the direct market usually is a reason to worry, but not always.
I've said many times before I'm not really a comic book person so maybe this is all ground that has been covered and someone can spoil the ending for me.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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I'm really interested in the Mutineers Trilogy though. In fact, oops, I'm an issue behind again. But Defensor is on the cover, which makes me worried we're heading into crossover/event territory again with Power of the Primes...
Honestly, the war being over is my favorite part of the current IDW universe. Seeing Starscream as a (semi) legitimate politician, or Megatron in the absence of Decepticon ideals. It's given the writers opportunity to write these characters in fresh new ways.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
Steam: betsuni7
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
so we'll find out in 2023?
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http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/02/16/transformers-cinematic-universe-current-movie-series-rebooted-358641
EDIT: Wrong thread AGAIN.
Maybe we'll hit the jackpot and get a movie adaptation of MTMTE with competent writing and direction.
if only
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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Yep, that would be nice to have a movie adaptation of the IDW storyline. But we all know that it will be a crossover abomination with GI Joe, Micronauts and Transformers.
I actually tempted fate and bought/watched the last movie after I hated Age of Extinction so much. Was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn't that bad of a movie. Yes, there was a whole lot of, "Wait, so that is now not real in the TF storyline" but at least it was enjoyable as a big transforming robots action movie. Oh and some, "why is he/she in this movie?"...
Steam: betsuni7
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
The story line prior with Scorponok was duuumb.
Human headmasters somehow making a cybertronian more powerful? That's not believable at all. And why would Rod Hot try to stop it on Scorponok on is own? Surely the Magnificence would have told him he'd stand no chance. Also why would Scorponok mind control the dinobots and then all of a sudden stop for no god damn reason? And why did he even need Sunstreaker to build an army of headmasters?
So friggin dumb!
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
For some reason I always mistake All Hail Megatron for Megatron Origins.
Steam: betsuni7
Steam: betsuni7