@Spartan Prime yup!

Also, as a queer trans woman who grew up on G1, has been with IDW since the Furman-ations, has two Detolfs overflowing with her MP and Generations toys, it is nice to see characters in the IDW-verse who were intended to be trans* and aren't characterized as homicidal rage monsters intent on stabbing everyone. Also, let's be honest, this book has been pretty freaking (awesomely) queer since the early days when Drift was trying to teach Rodimus how to use a sword.  

 

Personally, I identify with the homicidal rage monsters intent on stabbing everyone.

 

Who said I didn't?  

 

There's no innate reason Roberts should listen to those of us who have criticisms over those who respond with praise. He can't please everyone, all of the time. And who knows? Maybe there's a bigger audience out there for 'character creche' fiction than for intricate, finely tuned plots. Sorry if that sounds disparaging, but it does reflect my judgement on the relative value of such approaches.

But honestly? When I look at geekdom in general, it seems to me it really is dominated by people who essentially want cuddly characters to construct their own head canon and fan fiction around. Fiction as toy chest - the writer supplies the raw materials for the fans to play house with. Killing and maiming the characters is like taking the toys away, so is regarded as cruel and manipulative rather than one of the necessary and basic tenets of telling an adventure story.

For this audience, airdropping in a pair of trans characters fulfils the writer's obligations no matter whether the characters serve any other purpose or not. It doesn't matter that Anode and Lug are bafflingly extraneous to the story up to this point and add to an already bloated cast - what matters is, they're new toys designed for the audience who've thus far been left out. The fan-art factory goes into overdrive.

I genuinely don't know if this is a successful tactic in the long run. If Lost Light's sales really are slipping, the right-leaning part of the audience will be readying their narrative about the 'failure' of 'pandering' to minority groups and will take the lack of commercial viability as a complete ratification of their reactionary opinions. You can already see evidence of this ugliness in regard to Marvel - people saying that because they mismanaged their project of inclusiveness, inclusiveness itself is to blame.

This would be a big price to pay for failing to listen to the more critical portion of the audience. But who am I to think that sales would improve if my advice were followed? I'm confident that if my criticisms were taken note of, the quality would improve, but I don't think there's necessarily much relationship between quality and commercial viability. Perhaps MTMTE would have already tanked completely by now if Roberts hadn't switched up his game and found favour with the Skids-Nautica shippers. Maybe they're the only thing keeping sales buoyant.

*edit* I'd just like to add to this, in case it isn't clear, that I'm fully in favour of having trans characters in the story and I think Roberts handled the 'explanation' with aplomb. I just think it's kind of disastrous that these two characters also happen to have a completely unearned presence in the story, with one of them also behaving persistently obnoxiously.

 

Well there's more to the Transformers fandom than one message board. Clearly there were a lot of people who enjoyed this issue more than you did.

Personally, I thought this issue was pretty good. This is exactly what I want out of MTMTE/LL. It advanced the main plot while also telling some nice character-building stories.

Edit: Oh, and I would most certainly be remissed if I didn't mention the importance Rachel Stevens played as Story Consultant. Having a transgender woman certainly helped JRo with his presentation of Anode and Lug.

 

The only criticism is that I have of Anode and Lug (mostly Anode) is her intro was too strong and forceful. Her role as a Blacksmith makes sense though if you think about it, Anode was a human she would be an OB/GYN or a midwife. I can accept her role as such and truth I like Anode because she unrepentant and not at all like a lady that even Nautica and Velocity are. It is nice not to have a girly girl and a tom boy for once. Of all the femmes I relate to Anode the most. I think she had really bad intro and there was no subtlety. This character is important and why I should care about her. I get that criticism about her. I feel that Roberts rushed intro because he would need her for an arc.

I like the fact that their are Cybertronians who relate more to female gender and whatever reason the frames were built gender. If a Cybertronian views gender like wearing article clothing makes more sense to me than having the Arcee Spotlight. They at Robotic lifeforms and makes sense that the frames and even paint will be something consider a system of parts and could even be consider a fashion. Which ties in nice the frame swapping story of the Clinic. Where the mechs try to get frames of differing alt modes (cars, jets, and whatever). It also validates some of theories I have about certain characters from G1.

I am not big fan of Velocity and I do like Nautica more. I really get the feeling that Velocity feels like something is off about her. I mean giving drugs so people won't mourn the passing of Skids. Every time Velocity speaks as if she deflects off her skill as a doctor and then she knows what she is doing. Velocity when tries to arrest Anode but even that feels like that later knows a secret about the Doctor. Perhaps I am reading more into this.

 

1000000% this. The scene was so authentic and I can't imagine it being so without Rachel's input (however well-versed James is on the subject). Speaks LOADS of James that he thought to collaborate with a transwoman for this subplot/scene.

Hopefully, John Barber is doing something similar with his Arcee subplot! (If not, I'm available!!!!!!   ).

 

Not to be rude, but maybe you are completely ignorant of half the fanbase? I know you boys don't like Tumblr, LJ or Ao3. I'm one of those girls who follows all. I have to say, I joined the LJ transformers community before I came here, it's how I found this forum. The LJ TF community in 2005 was all girls. Now, after the 2007 movie came out, there were thousands of girls joining the TF communities and legit we had to split up the commnunities, there were 10+ comms with hundreds to a thousand girls on all of them. Now we have Tumblr where we discuss things. I never see any hate for the comics or the shows. As far as I can tell everyone I follow is a girl. The girls talk about this forum and they are told to stay away bc of all the negative attitudes towards everything we love. Maybe bc most girls are not as confrontational as guys, but most girls stay clear from here. Do these thousand + girls matter in the fanbase compared to the guys? I don't know really, but just because they aren't here on the forum or 4chan defending the comic doesn't mean they don't exist. This is the only place I see hate for the comics. In conclusion I don't know if the guys on the forums make up a large part of the fanbase.

ETA: maybe there are guys here who afraid to show love for the comic because they don't want to cause arguments. People in here are very aggressive.

 

I write on AO3 and grammar abuse the heck out of them.

 

What is grammar abuse?   And I know, I've seen your fics!  

 

I am a terrible editor. Writing is not my strong suit and couple with learning disability. I do it too relax and get better. I want to write my own comic book series that independent of Transformers.

 

Okay issue, good to see a bit of progression on finding Cyberutopia although it didn't feel like important progression when the rest of the cast was, somewhere else. I didn't mind the transgender bit although it felt out of place on the info dump page. I couldn't really focus on what Rumble lookalike was saying because I still had Lug and Anode's backstory on my mind. Also the big guy they escaped from, no explanation for how they ran away from a monster like that? And after the Coffin bot was killed how did Anode and Lug escape without those aliens giving chase? The action was confusing me this issue.

Spoiler

So, Skids coming back. It feels far too early to bring him back and I doubt this is what Roberts is actually going to do. Now, spoilers for the last issue of Optimus Prime but, how cheap would it be to bring Sideswipe back to life after killing him off like that? If Skids comes back then it would cheapen his death scene when you reread Dying of the Light knowing that he'll come back. If Skids does come back, I just hope Barber doesn't do the same mistake with Sideswipe.

 

Interesting perspective on things, and you're right - we don't really have any basis to assert that this forum reflects the greater part of the fanbase. It is what it is - a bunch of readers and fans who exchange their own, fairly diverse opinions on the books.

 

Ok - now for the really important stuff - which symbols correspond to which members of the guiding hand. I think the easiest is bottom left, that should be Adapatus as it looks like a cog. I then think top left is Solumnus as it could be a viable representation of the matrix. I think bottom right is Primus - a central figure with 4 parts splitting off from the center - representing the creation of the hand. That leaves top center and top right as Mortilus and Epistemus... I'm guessing center is mort as his character model has a mohawk... but thats fairly flimsy as a link - and I have absolutely nothing for why top right would be Epistemus... unless someone thinks maybe it looks like a brain module... maybe.

 

I'd prefer for Skids to stay dead. He had his story, and had his heroic sacrifice. Bringing him back would only cheapen the effect.

 

I agree with this as well. I was a reader of these comics long before I joined *any* online groups. I would imagine a large group of readers might not frequent forums at all and are unknown quantities sales wise or as OP says read and remain silent. Ultimately all any of us can do is speak to our own views and the most probably limited groups we interact with.

Also echoing the OP, generally on here I do stick to (some of) the toy threads because of the aggressive nature of some comics threads. It gets very heated sometimes, with frankly baiting from both sides of any particular argument. I can do without that. Happy to debate but not in a spiral that goes forever downward and certainly not in abusive forms.

The only thing I would politely clarify is about here being the only place with 'hate' for the comics. Ill-considered abuse of the comics serves no purpose (what I am assuming is meant by 'hate') but criticism that *is* considered (I'm steering clear of using the word 'legitimate' here as all criticism is subjective) should be welcome. It's those debates forums are for surely? For all the aggression here there are a lot of reasoned and respectful debates that I have enjoyed. I certainly wouldn't get as much from an unquestioning community as I do from here.

 

Okay, overall I think this was a good issue. The Anode/Lug gender stuff was well done, it was cool to see Nautica and Velocity being friends, and as someone whose favorite continuity is the G1 Marvel comics, it was nice seeing Flame and Wipe-out in there. My main thing with this issue is....I think it came out too soon. I mean we just finished the Functionalist Universe stuff, and we have Rodimus leading a team to go get them a ship so they can confront Getaway and get back the ship the dang series is named after.....Well, guess we put that on hold to go see some of the characters at a black market planet. If it had been me, I would have moved up the Getaway stuff and saved this for after they get the Lost Light back.

 

Also, there's no discussion on

Spoiler

Flame's crew? Who are they? Generics? or classics redesigned?

 

Re: the device that brings dudes back to life - I'll bet we'll find out VERY soon that it's been already used on the spark of a certain psychopathic medic who, last we saw, was missing a brain.

 

Well two of them were previously seen in issue #46, speaking directly if Techy. So I'd bank on brand new but reoccurring.