Hey all, getting back into IDW comics, kind of fell off the wagon aflter "All Hail Megatron" (the movie inspired-bots, and the humans kind of killed it for me) but with the comics that ave been coming with my transformers purchases, I've finally started to get the books off the shelf. But have some questions 1.) which G1 characters are currently "dead? i know that means the about as much as a "Marvel death" And Ironhide, Nightbeat and Sunstreaker coming back to life, and rewind (kinda) came back. Other than that? I know Scrapper, Horri-Bull, Flywheels, Shockwave, Ratbat, Bombshell, Wildrider, Slingshot ad Bumblebee (yeah that will last) 2.) Who are the "knights of Cybertron' and why is it important to find them? 3.) I know Drift is an example of charcater that was created for the comic and made the jump to toys. But Metalhawk, Rung, Fulcrum, and Nautica haven't made the transition, what other major charcaters are IDW originals? 4.) Metroplex is a Titan, but Fortress Maximus isn't? um ok??? does he still have an alt-mode? It looks like he's a recolor/remold of Combiner Wars Megatron 5.) Surprised Beast Wars Rattrap and Waspinator, as well as Beast Machines Tankor, and RiD Sky-byte have shown up in the book, any other "cross overs"? Beast Wars Silverbolt? Prime Knockout?, Animated Lockdown? 5.) What about the "masters" (head, target, power) I know for example Nightbeat, Hardhead, Chromedome and brainstorm aren't "bonded" or whatever, but have thier "partners" showed up in the series at all? 6.) Sc-Avengers mini-series please! Who knew Misfire would be a great character!....ok more of a statement but a question.....
1. There's a lot of characters who are dead, many who have died in the previous series. It's a bit difficult to list everyone who's dead, but I don't think many major G1 characters have died. (Except those you've mentioned). 2. The Knights of Cybertron are an ancient order of Transformers who are at/in Cyberutopia. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but Rodimus is trying to find them so they can come and bring peace to Cybertron, and hopefully bring about a new Golden Age. 3. Metalhawk is actually a G1 character, a pretender most prominent in the Japanese Masterforce series. Some original characters that don't have toys include Ambulon, Dominus Ambus, Tyrest, Pharma, Riptide, Mistress of Flame, Animus, and the DJD. There's a lot of new characters (mostly in MTMTE), and most of them don't have toys. 4. Max still has an alt mode, as briefly seen in MTMTE 15. His design is wholly separate from CW Megatron, as Max first appeared (I think) in Last Stand of the Wreckers in 2010. 5. Prime Knockout and Lockdown have both appeared, the former in Windblade (Vol. 2) and the latter in the Drift miniseries and MTMTE. Most of the other crossovers I think have been just background cameos. 6. In the comics the hed/power/targetmasters don't exist, similar to how most combiners didn't exist until recently. The main characters, like Brainstorm or Highbrow do, but their partners have not shown up yet. (Although I believe Nebulon has been mentioned a few times) If anyone has better answers or more info, feel free to add.
On the question of whose dead or alive, I actually have a really good list of all that I made awhile back and have been updating since. IDW Wherabouts
Well we have a few other Beast era characters who have appeared in the most recent issues of Windblade vol 2; those being Cheetor, Dinobot, Tigatron, Airazor, Animated Blackarachnia, Obsidian, Strika, and in Drift: Empire of Stone the RID version of Megatron made an appearance as a separate character named Gigatron. Also Armada Hot Shot and Prime Bulkhead have made the odd appearance. We also have some more unknown characters like Star Saber, Deathsaurus and Hellbat who previously appeared in Transformers Victory. The only major headmaster we've had with IDW is Sunstreaker, during the first few stories by Simon Furman. He lost his headmaster ability later on though. It seems you don't mind spoilers but that's all that I'm saying for the time being. ;-)
nah not "too" worried about spoilers, all those "extra" IDW comics that keep coming with my toys are a big help. But Other than Megatron being an Autobot I think I'm lost on anything post "dark cybertron
Swindle died recently but some hints he's either alive or being propaganda-ed. Trailbreaker's gone. Bunch more in RID that we haven't seen revived yet. Ratbat. Sunstorm. Bombshell. Hatdhead. Jhiaxus. Both series have loads of new characters (RID mostly background or one shots, MTMTe more prominent new characters). None have toys as yet. Fort Max first appeared in Spotlight Arcee. He's normal sized, much like Marvel and DW. Recently popped back up. We've had appearances from Animated Blitzwing, Lugnut, the vehicons, Prime Insecticons, Prime Breakdown, loads of BW characters, recently Sentinel Prime and the twins from Animated, Strika and Obsidian. bunch others. the Headmasters are an ancient cybertronian subgroup who served nexus Maximus and maybe Onyx Prime. Modern day the technology was re-invented by Scorponok. He's the only classic HM to appear in series. Most of the others were sunstreaker or sunstreaker clones.
I forgot to mention one other Beast Wars character I just remembered appeared in these comics. Rhinox! Granted he was only in one issue, and considering how racist Nova Prime is to beasts he's most likely... dead... or worse... But still there you go, Rhinox is in the comics too. Spoiler In a universe where he's a separate character from Tankor. XD
lol well i already heard that Megatron/Galvatron and Bumblebee/Goldbug are separate characters....still waiting to hear about jetfire/Skyfire New question though, absolutely love the fact Thudercracker didn't die in AHM, he's 32 flavors of awesome....any recommended Thundercracker issues I should go through back issue bins for? For that matter, how many Decepticons have become good? or at least "non evil"? There are the awesome Scavengers, and from my Combiner war issues, it seems Tankor, Squakbox, Swindle and Dirge....and now guessing Megatron and....Ravage? anyone else?
There's no IDW Skyfire, just Jetfire. Spotlight: Thundercracker, The Transformers #4 (2010), and Robots in Disguise #28 are all issues that focus on Thundercracker to varying extents, though the latter two are parts of larger storylines and probably aren't best read in isolation. All the following renounced their faction after Starscream took charge of Cybertron: - Dirge - Starscream - Squawkbox (who is a normal individual, not a combiner, in IDW) - Swindle - Flatline (G1 version of the movie comics character) - Tall Tankor (i.e. Octane) - Blackjack The following renounced their faction after Dark Cybertron: - Megatron (also became an Autobot) - Waspinator - The Constructicons Ravage is still a Decepticon, but is hanging out peacefully on the Lost Light for now.
Sparkstalker seems to be pretty good, at least now that he's dating a bot from the colonies. Skullcruncher became a comedian. Also, not just one but *both* Tankors are good Barricade (remember the police car decepticon from the first Bay movie?), interestingly, seems to be an honest Decepticon cop- wearing the Decepticon badge, but still fairly good. On the Constructicons, they may have gone 'neutral,' but only out of love of devastating. They're still pretty bad all in all.
Oh I know Jetfire/Skyfire are the same person....now. Just saying they don't have to be Seriously, another question. Who writes these comics? No not the authors. But IDW and Hasbro. Like I said I had stopped right after AHM because I notices that the haracter models were all now "hyper mech"...or what I believe is called a "bayformer". Then we had black jetfire...an in the span of a year or so, Bumblebee went through two different bodies (a bayverse sportscar and "goldfire" armor) Hardhead disintegrated, but betting 10 to 1 odds he will somehow be back when his headmaster toy shows up Of course I know IDW has lots of creative freedom Despite his popularity, it didn't seem Drift would get a toyuntil a third party made on first. And also doubt we willbe seeing Hasbro put out toys for Rung, Fulcrum, or well, any of the Decepticon Justice Division So I guess the bottom line, who is the engineer on this train?
Goldbug is both a separate character and the same as Bumblebee. Whilst there was a character based on the Throttlebot, he's only shown up in one issue that is yet to have any bearing on the actual plot and Bumblebee was rebuilt into a body in Goldbug's colour-scheme and with Goldbug's head.
The way it's been for the last couple of years has been that IDW is allowed pretty much complete creative freedom, so long as they once a year drop everything they're doing and tell a story designed to sell toys.
Drift got a generations toy a few years ago, it hasn't been until recently that a 3rd party has announced a pre earth drift
That drastic art shift was just part of an artist changeover at the time. Their bodies "in-universe" didn't change or anything. Basically, at that time, the main editor allowed more or less full freedom to the artists. This meant that characters went from pure G1 to movie-ish to classics to original updates from artist to artist. Bumblebee does actually get a body upgrade at once point in that era, but he's drawn at least 6 different ways between all the artists. In the current era (MTMTE/RID onward), deisgns are kept (mostly) consistent. Sure, each artist has their own thing (Ramondelli, Stone and Howell each being different from the main Griffiths/Milne "main" style in their own ways) but characters and models are mostly kept intact. If a character looks different now, it's an actual in-universe upgrade/change. Now, as for who "writes" the comics, the authors have stated that they have freedom to write their stories, but (more and more) are simply asked to feature new characters that have toys. This does legitimately cause oddities to happen, but the authors do have some ability to not have everything turned upside down on them (Cyclonus never became a combiner). As for your mention of Hardhead, yeah, he might get revived (honestly, I thought his death was a complete anti-climax and pointless and would welcome him back). But sometimes they tie in characters with flashbacks (Stealth Bomber Megatron, Rhinox). I'm not going to tell you that product mandates don't have an effect on the plots, but it's honestly pretty good compared to most "toy advertising media".
That's sort of subjective anyway. Something I love about IDW is that in the Decepticon's minds, they /aren't/ evil. In fact they have some very good reasons to have begun their rebellion in the first place. Some Decepticons joined in just because they saw an opportunity for murder and mayhem, but many others fought for the Decepticon cause because they truly were fighting inequality. Just look at Soundwave- who is depicted pretty clearly as someone fighting for equality and what he believes is a better future for all Cybertronians- and is still extremely loyal to the Decepticon cause. Even Shockwave was depicted as joining Soundwave in disagreement with Scorponok's wasteful brutality in "Monstrosity". So really, it's an individual case by case sort of thing. But most everyone sees themselves as right and just. Only some Decepticons are just outright sadistic and evil (like Overlord). And then there are Autobots who toe the line themselves at times.
Hasbro is the engineer of the train, giving IDW the characters with which to play with. The authors then have to try and fit the characters into the series, and try and do it in a natural way, which in the case of multi title crossovers with loads of characters, must be hard. Drift was released as a resin, transforming model first (I have one) and then had an official release. I don't know that any actual widespread third party release of Drift came out before the official Generations version. Lockdown (the RTS / Animated version) has popped up in IDW panels from time to time. Jetfire and Skyfire don't have to be the same person but if you are asking about IDW, there is only Jetfire. I agree with previous posters, they do well considering a lot of the comics time is basically pimping new toys.
