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IDW Transformers
WingedWeasel
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have been meaning to create an OP for IDW’s Transformers line for a while but never got around to it. Apologies in advance since this is my first comic OP.
http://www.idwpublishing.com/titles/tf-headquarters.shtml
IDW (http://www.idwpublishing.com/) caters to a “wide” array of TF tastes. The main attraction is the Generation 1 (G1, GeeWun) nod, in the form of the –tion series (Infiltration, Stormbringer, Escalation, Devastation, Revelation):
Infiltration
Stormbringer
Escalation
Devastation
Yes I realize Stormbringer doesn’t end in –tion…the rest do (to my knowledge). Whatever.
Within that story arc are spotlights. These single issues are also available in TPB’s of which 3 are currently available. While they can (and do) affect the main story, these can be read without any prior knowledge of the main arc and manage to be entertaining in and of themselves.
The entire story uses familiar G1 characters but the methods of the Great War are different. The history of Cybertron and its famed inhabitants is also different but not unrecognizable. Most of the characters stay within the mold of their original personalities, but gone are the super-weapon of the week contests, or Autobots and random women whether they be human or shape-shifting fish people falling in love.
IDW in my opinion has done a good job of reconciling a lot of the problems that plagued the original cartoon. Namely animation errors (although they have a few….notably Spotlight: Grimlock), and inconsistency in the storyline/”facts” regarding the TF’s.
Although energon and the war are still the focus of each faction’s attention, there are other parties that are very interested in the outcome of the war as well as the resources controlled by Autobots, Decepticons, and the other races that they have encountered.
This series is being continued in the form of: Maximum Dinobots, All Hail Megatron (in which Megatron takes over Earth)….and something else I can’t recall off-hand, I believe another –tion title.
Moving away from GeeWun is Beast Wars (The Gathering, The Ascending, Sourcebook):
The Gathering
The Ascending
Sourcebook
Since there’s no such thing as too many time-traveling robots IDW has provided a parallel story to the original Beast Wars story.
Further there are other compilations of the old comics as well as a series for, TF: Animated, the movie line and one I haven’t yet been able to collect, Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel:
Hearts of Steel
Yeah I don’t know anything about hearts of steel other than it’s Transformers in a more “industrial” era. Someone turns into a blimp…I don’t know who (Scourge maybe?).
Other relevant places:
transformers archive
Spoilers added to help formatting. I haven't gotten images for everything yet. I'll try to add them at some point.
http://www.idwpublishing.com/titles/tf-headquarters.shtml
IDW (http://www.idwpublishing.com/) caters to a “wide” array of TF tastes. The main attraction is the Generation 1 (G1, GeeWun) nod, in the form of the –tion series (Infiltration, Stormbringer, Escalation, Devastation, Revelation):
Infiltration
Yes I realize Stormbringer doesn’t end in –tion…the rest do (to my knowledge). Whatever.
Within that story arc are spotlights. These single issues are also available in TPB’s of which 3 are currently available. While they can (and do) affect the main story, these can be read without any prior knowledge of the main arc and manage to be entertaining in and of themselves.
The entire story uses familiar G1 characters but the methods of the Great War are different. The history of Cybertron and its famed inhabitants is also different but not unrecognizable. Most of the characters stay within the mold of their original personalities, but gone are the super-weapon of the week contests, or Autobots and random women whether they be human or shape-shifting fish people falling in love.
IDW in my opinion has done a good job of reconciling a lot of the problems that plagued the original cartoon. Namely animation errors (although they have a few….notably Spotlight: Grimlock), and inconsistency in the storyline/”facts” regarding the TF’s.
Although energon and the war are still the focus of each faction’s attention, there are other parties that are very interested in the outcome of the war as well as the resources controlled by Autobots, Decepticons, and the other races that they have encountered.
This series is being continued in the form of: Maximum Dinobots, All Hail Megatron (in which Megatron takes over Earth)….and something else I can’t recall off-hand, I believe another –tion title.
Moving away from GeeWun is Beast Wars (The Gathering, The Ascending, Sourcebook):
The Gathering
Since there’s no such thing as too many time-traveling robots IDW has provided a parallel story to the original Beast Wars story.
Further there are other compilations of the old comics as well as a series for, TF: Animated, the movie line and one I haven’t yet been able to collect, Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel:
Hearts of Steel
Yeah I don’t know anything about hearts of steel other than it’s Transformers in a more “industrial” era. Someone turns into a blimp…I don’t know who (Scourge maybe?).
Other relevant places:
transformers archive
Spoilers added to help formatting. I haven't gotten images for everything yet. I'll try to add them at some point.
WingedWeasel on
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Infiltration I thought was quite weak, as the comic was trying to find its feet, but as soon as they'd got some fan feedback it got much much stronger.
The art gets much better, and the series deals really well with some of the sillier or messier aspects of TF lore, such as mass shifting, pretenders, minicons, and so on, and the pure breadth of story is excellent - so many different parties, so many strong characters - it's a very well imagined universe.
My only real gripe is Revelation arc
Also, AHM introduced a good few continuity issues into the year gap between Maximum Dinobots and itself, but apparently an AHM:Coda is being released which'll answer some of those, and line up some new story threads (as the Spotlights do). With any luck, given a few months to smooth out the recent bumps, the story'll be back up to excellent quality and strong continuity again.
The second the continuity issues started popping up I knew things were going to go downhill.
Thanks for making this thread btw.
My favourite IDW comic is Spotlight: Kup.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
I am the kind of person who only buys TPB's or other collection-type materials so to be completely honest I haven't read AHM yet. The concept sounds really cool but I was/am afraid going in that it will be butchered. Should be here any day now since I ordered it late last week.
I read there was some continuity errors when linking it with earlier stuff but I am hoping the extra 4 issues they are going to release aren't a hack-job quick fix. It's all been great so far so until I see it for my own eyes I am staying optimistic.
EDIT:
Wildcat, to my knowledge AHM is the continuity. As in it picks up right after Revelation ends.
Cliffjumper: Isn't your spotlight coming up soon? And I am glad there are people who enjoy AHM. Keeps the optimism going.
And you are right about the Kup spotlight. It was awesome.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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It's in continuity obviously, set about a year after Revelation, but McCarthy's approach to telling the story (Bendis talk, tease and reveal things later) is particulary jarring when compared to the narrative, explain everything, style used by Furman. It's very understandable a lot of fans don't like it tbh (although it is getting good reviews all round on non-transformer sites). The meat of it doesn't start until issue 4 imo (it starts dropping ties to Furman's run around then).
The human section in issue 9 was pretty horrible, but aside from that, I've been really enjoying AHM all round (and the fantastic characterisation it's given long neglected characters like Skywarp/Thundercracker, Cliffjumper, etc). That's McCarthy's greatest strength IMO, the way he writes each character's dialogue and makes them act like individual characters (as opposed to Furman's characters who generally tend to be interchangable in the way they talk and behave-not knocking Furman's ability to tell a good story, I love his work).
And yeh, Cliffjumper's spotlight is up next heh, wonder what direction that's gonna go what with it's funky cover and all.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
You said the human section was terrible...how so? As in it was poorly written or just because it wasn't really about the main attraction: Transformers?
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
I'd enjoyed the human scenes in the rest of AHM, but for some reason in 9, it was just painful cliched reading.
And the art was horrible in the human sections, like, colouring book bad (had some random artist filling in for Guido in that section).
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
However, that Hearts of Steel looks pretty sweet.
Yeah I really don't get this. The art in both this and for UDON's stuff looks fine.
One of the big changes for IDW had to be Arcee who was not as you remember her.
A good way to read up on all things Transformers be it the Marvel comic of old, the cartoon of any year, the toys, whatever you name it TF wise is go to the Transformers wiki which is out standing, you can lose hours reading about various things there and the captions for pictures tend to be priceless.
The main G1 books have been pretty good. Spotlight Kup was my favorite single issue of that year, of any comic.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Yeah, I agree. Although I did like the Big Convoy, cybertronian parts.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Ideally the next mini will be based entirely on Maximal politics, and stuff actually going on around Cybertron.
Won't happen obviously.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
I'd like to take the BW Neo cast and make my own crazy mini-series with the characters, but they were already given personalities in the BW Sourcebooks so noooooooooooooooooooo
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
So much suck, and even after all the awesome provided by McDonough and Patyk with the DW G1 versions.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
It's like no one is allowed to actually enjoy themselves in the grim dark future of Transformers.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Actually I'd recommend The other Transformers wiki. As far as I can tell, it recently usurped Teletraan-1, and is being updated more and faster than the old one. I'm not sure entirely if that's the case, but it seems that way.
David Willis runs it, it's ugly-ad free and it's the one that main contributers to the wiki use.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
Because of this, IMO, they had created the most interesting take on Transformers in it's entire history. The entirety of the Decepticon infiltration tactics with the facsimilies was a breath of fresh air, and incredibly ciik. Here we had Decepticons who were actually deceptive, and quite cunning at that. They had a reason to stay disguised, and a reason to actually stick around and subvert things on Earth.
Unfortunately, I felt the infiltration idea wasn't given it's proper dues, and was quickly strangled by Furmans inability to NOT bring in grand cosmic threats, and later practically retconned out of existence due to IDW's failed attempt to reinvent the series to appeal to the nostalgia crowd.
I agree entirely, the Infiltration approach was fresh and exciting. Unfortunately there were many impatient individuals within the fandom who criticised and condemned the slow-burn approach to the story Furman was going for (ironically in a very similar way many of the same people are doing so with AHM now).
I wish they would've stuck with it for longer as opposed to crumbling to fan demand and going with Stormbringer ("GUARANTEED NO HUMANS OLOL").
Thundercracker flying over Ratchet and Hunter in issue 0 meant something. It was larger than life. Same with Runamuck and Runabout
By the time Devastation rolled around that magic was lost.
I've always found it funny that the majority of Transformer fans within the fandom hate change.
The Transformers Fandom: Consistantly bitching about something or another since 1984.
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/28/warbot_001/ - "WARBOT In Accounting"
Ha, that's the wiki I was going to before and lost the URL, when I found the other was wondering what was up with the different look, didn't realize there were two of them.
The Wikia one came first and everyone worked on it, but then the Wikia guys decide to shit a bunch of crappy ads on it, so most of the contributors left and made an independent Wiki.
No wonder they are so identical.
Good contributors though to do so, the site looks much better.
meh. I'm fairly particular about the art. I don't like most of the IDW stuff, Udon's stuff, or the old DreamWave stuff, which according to FinalFantasyDarkChyldexoxoxox over in the other thread, is related. same artists or something.
It just all looks like heavily polished amateur work.
...
ANd what is the difference between heavily polished amateur work and professional work? I would imagine the polish is what normally separates amateur and professional.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Goddamnit
It very much is like Spectacular.
Still, at first glance the inclusion of a young girl as a main character gives the opposite impression.
If you can look past, though, I think there's a fair amount of all-ages appeal.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I will not hear bad talk about Sari.
She and Captain Fanzone are the best human characters the franchise has ever had
You really should not base your opinion of a show off a half of an episode that it seems like you either don't remember or weren't paying that much attention to.
looking it to it, the episode was season 1, episode 5. Total Meltdown.
watching some of it again. I still see nothing of merit. It reminds me a lot of the later seasons of the 2003 TMNT series, which were really weak.