I think to many people Drift represented IDW's abandonment of Furman's tenure.
He was a symbol to channel all the disdain for the new imposter writer, and seemed to personify the soft reboot that supposedly wasn't a reboot.

Personally, I didn't find Drift to be remarkable enough to be offensive. Sure, he and Poochie probably had a few things in common, but otherwise the character had such little life to him he seemed fairly inconsequential (initially). Strong and silent types are better served with a colourful inner monologue.

 

I never took IDW's Drift too seriously. Maybe that's why I like Drift. His toys are cool even if it isn't the best fiction.

 

Because people don't like bring "told" what they're going to like by comic companies is the only thing I can think of. The way people reacted I would have thought Drift came in and took over as leader. Then I read the comics and saw he didn't...do anything. Whatsoever. Kup and Jazz were depicted as being much more badass in AHM and as usual Optimus is the biggest Mary Sue character in TF fiction. Fans just don't like anything new.

 

Nah, there's no problem with "new" characters, it's just being hit on the head with how AWESOME the new characters are going to be. Especially when the writing for those new characters is mediocre at best. Introducing a new character with little fanfare, writing the character well and having the fans decide is fine. Proudly announcing a NEW SUPER AWESOME CHARACTER who turns out to be stereotypically generic is lame.

 

Well, I was not aware of the hype and so on. Only thing I once noticed was the hate hype here at the board. And when I read the comics one after one, I could not see why people hate him. Now I read the reasons and I can understand it partially, but I still think many people are overreacting.

Only thing that I would like, that there would be more of Drift, like in the first comics of him. He seems to be merely a background character in the newest comics. He and Rodimus are my favourite characters in IDW.

 

Y'know what hasn't been mentioned is his amazingly sore-thumbish sledgehammer appearance in IDW's Robot Heroes book. That, more than anything he did in AHM, really made him look like the company's pet character that they were pushing into places he didn't belong.

 

Never had a problem with the character himself (he's alright in MTMTE), but it was the constant pushing from IDW (right down to an appearance in that Robot Heroes book, as Chris mentioned) - the editorials in AHM were counting down to his first appearance. IDW shouldn't have been surprised at the 'Poochie' comparisons.

 

Ah, right. The Robot Heroes book, promoting the toy lineup of the same name, featured Drift as part of the "main cast"... even though Drift didn't have a Robot Heroes figure.

I think Walky poked fun at that here:
Shortpacked! by David Willis - Continuum

 

Okay, I can see the reason for the Mary Sue tag now.