Let me make one thing perfectly clear - I am NOT a Transformers comics fan. Not because I don't like them - Last Stand of the Wreckers was excellent, the G2 comics are deliciously 90's, and some of the pack in comics with the toys are entertaining. I'm just not a comic book person - I occasionally read some of the big ones (Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is one of my favorite comics of all time), but for the most part I don't wanna jump into the middle of a continuity I'm totally lost on. That being said, I think I've got an idea that'll please Transformers fans AND attract new readers. DC used to have an imprint called "All Star", which paired DC characters with prolific writers and artists like Frank Miller and Grant Morrison (And that's really it). The idea was that these writers would be allowed to essentially write their own version of these characters, rebooting them in their own series. I think applying this idea to Transformers could yield very interesting results. Regardless of how you feel about Transformers, most continuities have felt very same-y. Design wise, maybe not, but tone wise? They're all a little tongue in cheek with brief moments of seriousness and so much fanservice it hurts. Giving writers the entire playground of Transformers to play around in would inspire them to add their own spin on it to set it apart, creating what could become excellent takes on the story we know and love. Of course I'm just talking out my ass. If you have anything you wanna add to this feel free to lmao
I'm game, I love that idea. Also would love a comic book to continue the Sunbow continuity and pick up after Rebirth-most fans would be familiar with the story and not need to know much to jump on. Would love Don Fig to come back to pencil this series using his style from the 86 movie adaptation.
Anything to shake things up. Yes please: nullify the fanservice, cut off the fanfavs and the history. Put a moratorium on popculture references. Let writers pick lesser known characters give them totally non canon identities and let them write a completely new kind if TF fiction.
I'd like that. They could also feature varying universes like Armada, Beast Wars, etc. I loved the DC All Stars comics. Today I mostly read Marvel comics, but as a kid I also loved DC comics, but I know nothing of the modern DC comics. I recently just learned who the fuck Damian Wayne is and that there were at least 3 Robins (I think). But these All Star comics were just kinda how I remember them from my childhood and I could enjoy them much more than New 52 and what else we have. While I'm pretty invested in Transformers comics for years now, I'd like something at the side just for a little fun.
I think his idea is more to bring in A-list comic professionals, not necessarily people we in the Transformers fandom think of as Transformers professionals. There's no comparison between Grant Morrison and Simon Furman. In service to the idea, I go to somebody like Chris Claremont, who's no stranger to juggling large casts of characters, and I wonder what he'd do with the property. Would it, for example, actually help that Claremont is stuck in the '80s? What about Geoff Johns? And for an artist, I think I'd be happy to pick up a Transformers book drawn by Alex Ross every month (not that he'd ever do it, of course). On the other hand, Transformers are fairly niche, and I suspect any comics professional who likes Transformers enough to want to work on the property has already done so.
I'm interested to see how a collaboration of Bob Budiansky, Simon Furman, Nick Roche and James Roberts would play out.
Agreed. I don't think many more A-List comic writers are interested in working on Transformers than when Jim Shooter shopped around the Marvel office and gave the project to Bob Budiansky when no one else was interested. This was, remember, after Denny O'Neil - who was certainly A-List - turned in character bios and story outlines that Shooter rejected almost entirely, with the exception of the name Optimus Prime. And O'Neil doesn't even remember naming Prime. As for artists... I've noticed that fan artists have the longest careers with Transformers comics, even when other artists are lured in. And I certainly enjoy the work of the fan artists more.
In theory, I like this idea. But there are big practical problems. The model assumes that the new writers brought in are familiar enough with the Transformers universe to know what counts as an original or distinctive spin. The comics have actually covered quite a lot of ground, and I can easily envisage Gritty McWriterstar penning a tale in which an elite Autobot commando unit takes on a Roman-esque tyrant, or a tale in which Megatron is the hero and Prime the villain, or a tale in which *gasp* the Decepticons have won! or a tale in which your alt mode denotes your function in society. Etc, etc. We've seen some evidence, I think, that writers fresh to the franchise quickly gravitate towards similar concepts, or else write for an assumed audience of Sunbow-watchers who they expect to be blown away by a more philosophical or darker-edged exploration of Cybertronians. On the contrary, the writers who have grown up with the franchise and always wanted to write for it are the likes of Nick Roche and James Roberts. I think if you want a good Transformers tale, you have to get a writer really invested in it, rather than one knocking something out as an experiment.
I agree. The paradox is it takes someone who knows the franchise to know what has allready been done, but at the same time such a writer might fall to easily in the trap of fanservice.
Wouldn't this basically be Scioli's Transformers vs GI Joe series? An outside creator with a distinct personal stamp who does a year-or-so-long series in their own continuity.
I would like to see a slight variation on this... do a Transformers Elseworld series. Basically, allow a creator to do up to 6 issues of anything they want. It isn't canon, it isn't tied to an event, and you can do ANYTHING. Want to do a story wondering what would happen if Optimus had joined with Megatron and never become Prime and was the second in command of the Decepticons? You can do it. Want to do a Beast Wars story where the Ark crew is awakened on Ancient Earth? You can do it. Want to do a funny buddy film starring Soudnwave and Rung? You can do it.
I'd rather have a series of anthologies, each issue focused on a specific timeline, made up of several one, three or five page stories from different writers. And all the stories would be considered canon, or at least in continuity with the original source material. No new alternate timelines here, nor would new continuity errors emerge, or leaving a story with an open ambiguous ending. Simply, no "what if" storylines. The focus would be on expanding upon key scenes or even making inconsequential scenes lead into something a whole lot more important. Also on fixing or explaining continuity errors so that they are no longer errors. As well as giving some neglected characters some much needed characterisation. Unlike Deviations where the writer just started writing based on what he remembers instead of going back and actually watching the movie to make sure he remembers correctly, the writers for this would be required to read the old comics and watch the old cartoons and choose a specific point where their story would take place. All this would make such a series actually significant instead of creating a non-canon, out of continuity story with characters written completely different to how they should be - all of which making for a comic that lacks impact and needn't be read by anyone. Anyway, my six series of choice would be 1. Generation One; Sunbow cartoon 2. Generation One; Marvel US/UK comic 3. Beast Wars/Machines 4. Unicron Trilogy 5. Animated 6. Shattered Glass Michael Bay's movies and IDW's own continuity is still being written so no point in covering those series.
