If I remember everything right then, this current Spotlight volume should be composed of-
-Blurr
-Jazz
-Drift
-Cosmos (I think I remember hearing Ryall confirm a Cosmos spotlight in a QnA with McCarthy back on the IDW boards)
-??? (hopefully one of the potential Furman written spotlights he mentioned)
DN

 

Key difference though - Sunstorm was a walking plot device.

We have no evidence so far that Drift is gonna be that. Far as we know, he's a supporting cast member who happens to be getting a Spotlight.

Ah well, in any case, Issue 6 should make or break the opinions of many on him, given that going off the cover he'll play a decent-sized role in it. (At least, I think it's issue 6- could be 7)

 

As long they're injecting new characters, I demand a Spotlight: Greyryder. I've already made two customs of him. That's two more toys in the wild, than Drift has. Do your hear me IDW? Do you know who I am?

What do you mean you don't know who I am? I.... I post on the intarwebs. Doesn't that make me famous?

 

Is anybody else tired of IDW posting, and expecting us to care about, carefully controlled "leaks" from glacially-slow-to-progress comics that're almost half a year away? For crying out loud, the only way it can get even more conspicuous (look at me! look what I do!) is if they hire Don Murphy or join forces with the almighty fan club...

 

I love new characters and I can't wait to see this guy in toy form, as for the comic, yah, the nearest comic shop for me is in Mahopac, too far away.

 

Are people even considering the new characters that pop up in almost every new form of TFs we have, A/E/C introduced Hot Shot and a bunch of others. Even DW had new characters. Sure we might not like them but stop acting so surprised. Sure when I heard there was a Spotlight for Drift, I was like WHAT? But whatever we don't make any of this official stuff, so we have no say in who gets the next Spotlight.

The TF Universe started as 30 minute cartoons to sell toys, is it any real surprise that if there's a toy being planned we'd get a 22 page ad for it?

 

Guess I was misremembering that Transformers don't currently have characters that involve stereotypes.

Heaven forbid there is a new character introduced.

Sheesh.

 

Yeah, but he's actually not Japanese in personality. He's like a white dude who views Japan through stereotypes.

IDEA: Drift should refer to everybody by their JAPANESE names. Because he's Ninja Rick.

Nah, there's been a few before. I believe Jhiaxus was the first comic-original character to get his own toy, though not one that actually looked anything like him.

Because because it is reasonable to deduce what is going to happen with this character: He will be a BAD ASS writer's pet character, created by the writer who will be almost unstoppable and really show up the established, pre-existing characters that the writer didn't create. I dare say his swords are magical.

Now, people often point out that Grimlock is similarly Furman's pet powerhouse character. See, the difference is, Furman never created Grimlock, and Grimlock was already bad ass before Furman wrote him.

If they didn't make dodgy decisions like shove All Hail Megatron into continuity there wouldn't be as many dissatisfied readers, would there?

No, because there's a fair number of people who aren't pleased with the spanner being thrown into the works recently by IDW. A fair number don't really like AHM or Shane McCarthy's writing very much (or his confrontational attitude when people post negative comments about his work on internet forums).

As for fans not being able to introduce new characters into the official mythos, you better tell the people working on the official fan club fiction, because they're fans, and they've been doing exactly that. And it's all official.

 

Sometimes when you screw up royally, people will latch on to any new thing you do and rip it to shreds, just because they're so ticked off at you. I think that's what's happening here.

Now, I know this is the internet, and people can go off on weird tangents without all the relevant information, or just develop an irrational hate for something. It's easy to want to ignore them, to write them off as crazies...

But sometimes the haters are right.

 

1. Drift should be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.

2. Whenever Drift does not appear in the comic, all the other characters should be saying "Hey... where's Drift?"

(and so on   )

 

He knows what we like and what we don't like. We're the paying customers so its fair to ask for what we want and complain when we don't get what we want. If they put out something that we don't like or want then obviously we'll complain. Yes, the fans will bash something they don't know about - has the pre-movie bashing gone unnoticed?

The safest way to avoid bashing is to walk the line between new and over-exposed. If its new then people fear the worse. If its over-exposed like an umpteenth Optimus Prime vs. Megatron battle AGAIN then we will be tired and complain about that too even if they are well known popular characters.

Transformers fans like familarity without over-exposure.

 

True, sometime they are right... But sometimes they can be proven wrong. I'm not saying I'm not concerned anymore about it, but I am going to be buying this issue and am fully prepared to give IDW a chance to show it's justified.

But I think you're right; a lot of the hate for Drift is coming off the poor reaction to AHM. I know that's where some of mine is coming from...

While I agree with you there, I'm failnig to see where this "over-exposure" is coming from... I've checked Ryall's blog, and - Aside from the two covers in the last two days - The last image of Drift was back at the beginning of October. After that, Ryall's blog doesn't even mention him... McCarthy's blog is just about the same; Drift debuted in July, then only got mentions and visual images once every one or two months!

There's been a lot of exposure on AHM, but not Drift specifically. I think, considering that he hasn't even spoken yet, his exposure has been just right. I'm starting to feel sorry for the poor guy...

 

I was talking about hypothetical over-exposure - not specifically about Drift himself and what we saw of him so far. I was talking more about Optimus Prime, Megatron, Grimlock and Starscream who are the usual culprits of being over exposed. Thankfully IDW have been rotating their cast of characters around so even good ol' Optimus Prime sometimes isn't the focus of a story arc. He may be the face of Transformers but we don't want him in every story.

 

Ah, then excuse my littel rant there, it wasn't specifically aimed at you... Just had to get that off my chest because a few posters on RyallTime have been saying how they don't like having Drift shoved in their faces, and I just think that they're being a bit silly; one or two pics a month is hardly cause for concern.

 

QFT.

Perhaps I'm reading the wrong threads, but I'd say there's a lot of hate when Hasbro introduces new characters not homaging previous ones.

 

I'll take a wait and see approach regarding Drift. So far, the only thing I can say is that I think its design looks cool enough. Not outstanding, but not bad.

I understand people expecting Drift to be a Mary Sue character, but until we've seen if he is, then it's speculation. Who knows? Shane may surprise you.

-airfox