What was it that caused one of the DECEPTICON’s most ruthless soldiers to turn his back on them? And what ancient secret lies hidden deep within an alien planet? All this and more as the origin of the newest AUTOBOT DRIFT, is finally revealed!
Only 65 books were produced:
50 Black Label
15 Blue Label
IDW Limited is a new sub-series of comics by IDW, with three levels of increasingly limited edition high-end releases and including a selection of special features including special art prints. Here are the full details:
IDW Limited Transformers ComicsCheck out all the new IDW Limited Transformers Drift images after the jump.
Stryker055
I really liked the Drift miniseries for what it was. Sure, Drift's character was kinda bland and Wing was obviously set up to die, but we got Dai Atlas! And Lockdown! And Alex Milne art! And the last page was so obviously trolling the Drift-hating fandom that I couldn't help but love it.
It was a hell of a lot better than his awful Spotlight. And then of course Roberts made him an interesting character, so he's got that going for him (like everyone else in MTMTE).
Ironhide4
I think alot of people were pissed because Drift got pushed forward and got a figure before any of their "beloved characters" so I think people got pissy about that. I read his spotlight and enjoyed it, I don't read many transformers comics but I was interested by his story as he just plainly looked cool. People telling other people a character "is shit" or any of the likes need to see that everyone has their preferences, I don't like headmaster,targetmasters or any of that but I don't dump on people that do, people like different and sometimes obscure characters like seaspray, powerglide, cosmos etc and while they wouldn't be my favourite characters, opinion is a personal matter. Glad Drift is getting more exposure and I hope to see him in a tv series.
User_93049
I came to the comment section of the news post expecting controversy over IDW's choice of picking Drift. I am not disappointed.
Starscream Gaga
The main reason I hated Drift before MTMTE saved him from the Scrappy heap was not because he was a ridiculously powerful Samurai/Ninja stereotype who was a complete "badass" and feared by all, but because Shane McCarthy wrote him as better then both the Decepticons and Autobots. He was quite consistently vocalising how both sides were wrong and he knew better, which really rubbed me the wrong way. He was Transformers' biggest Gary-Stu, bar the BS that is Furman's Grimlock, who is even more terrible, although now Drift is actually enjoyable thanks to MTMTE.
Yggdrasil
So if that was say Jetfire you'd be a-ok because he's already known as a former Decepticon in the cartoon so it's ok because he's not a new character?
Because it was the first time a comic company invented a new Transformers character and put them in their books in over 10 years. They didn't know that it will blow up in their face because manbabies would be unable to differentiate marketing of a character from the actual character. They thought that if they market him hard enought people would be maybe more villing to take him im.
Unfortunately people don't like being told which character to like so it created a negative feed in form of "Oh yeah WELL I HATE THE CHARACTER! FUCK YOU IDW!"
No he would be actually WORSE if he was created in the 80's because the only rule was "do whatever the fuck kids think is cool no matter how stupid it is."
Dude I love Roberts as much as the next MTMTE fan but you can't deny that all of his original character tend to SCREAM fanficion more than Drift ever did. The only difference is that he either knows that and plays it off cool and as a joke (like with Rung) and that he can write actually good dialogue (unlike what 98.5% of fanfiction writers) that makes you overlook said flaws.
Jesus just look at Tarn. He has a Decepticon emblem for a face, he has TWIN fusion canons, can kill people with his voice, he's the leader of this super badass group of Decepticon killers that can take out phase 6ers (which have been hyped like these ultimate world ending monsters) and is a super Megatron fanboy that has a raging boner for the Decepticon cause. That's like the single most fanfictiony villain character ever created. Had he been put thought as much hype as Drift people would HATE him and make Roberts out to be the next Costa or McCharty.
Hell the whole Decepticon Justice Division introduction scene in #7 (?) with them killing Black Shadows looks like something pulled right out of a horrible edgy fanfiction but somehow manages to work in a certain way thanks to Roberts writing and dialogue skills.
The difference between the way Roberts and McChary instert their characters into the story is the fact that Roberts is mature enought to simply insert characters into his story without all of the "YOU ARE SO GONNA LIKE MY NEW CHARACTERS GUYZ!" fanfare.
Hot Shot.
Compare just a quarter of the cast of Revelation to the cast of All Hail Megatron #5.
I'm all for Transformers having free will, but giving some overhyped brand new two-dimensional character a secret dark past is just corny and reeks of sue-ism.
Using fewer guns ≠ swearing off guns as an act of better-than-thou.
And I didn't like the complete lack of Autobot firearms in Animated. It only made sense up to a point.
I can't argue with that. What's worse is that it was probably the first instance in Transformers.
I'm against that as well, but at least that has the thin logic of Percepter being a walking calculator.
I doubt that was the intention of the writer, though.
I don't disagree, but those characters were originally written that way for the entertainment of children. Drift was a modern creation and only hit those cliches because he was an exercise in wish-fulfillment by a grown child.
I don't think Furman's Grimlock was quite this bad until recently with RG1. At any rate Furman's certainly hitting new lows with the character.
I don't read DC so I'm not sure you're talking about the Edison I think you're talking about.
The point was that they were marketing him so hard that they slipped him into Baby's First Transformers.
They were pushing a bad writer's fan-character on us. Even if they hadn't done so, I still would've recognized the character for what he was: A character created to be "awesome" and nothing more. All IDW itself did was draw attention to that fact and rub a lot of people the wrong way.
No, that's what the fandom was parodying him as. Using snark to vent frustration is hardly new to the fandom.
And that's a big part of why he originally sucked.
That's because that kind of crap was acceptable in the 80's, and he wouldn't have been spawned directly from an inner child's wet dream.
I feel like you're making this statement based on McCarthy forwards, and not from everything up to McCarthy.
Drift only exists because McCarthy is a dumbass.
Oh, we would not. A ship's psychiatrist and a rogue pack of traitor-killers are hardly as "ZOMG SO AWSUM" as super-samurai Drift who palled around with the 1984 Autobots.
Agreed. She was probably the first straw that lead to me dropping RID.
Backscatter
Agreed!
Digilaut
Drift's character was never a problem. He's not really that much more archtypical than most other Transformer characters (and I feel he blends in perfectly while stil being his 'own thing').
It's all about how aggressively IDW marketed him, before he even appeared in comics. They were dead-set on introducing him as the Transformers version of Wolverine, popularitywise, and that rubbed people the wrong way. They don't like being told just how cool a character is and that you should like him. and yes, that might have resulted in people hating on the character.
I'm pretty sure heat died down as soon as some comics with Drift in it actually appeared.
Yggdrasil
Except that it really wasn't the same cast had been there since Infiltration.
And how's that a bad thing? If anything it enforces the whole "you can choose a side" idea insted of going on how some genes or programming makes you evil.
Again we've had so much guns blazinng action from everyone else a character that doesn't use guns is a breath of freash air in Transformers. That's what made the Animated autobots so much fun in the first place.
Which is a pretty damn cliche for every sword swingin character no matter the franchise. It's not anything worse than Perceptor being able to hit a needle half way across the planet and yet he gets a pass because he's an original G1 character so making them stupidly over-powered is somehow ok.
He's a giant robot his footsteps would make loud enought noise for anyone to hear him let alone a trained ninja. Seriously I always found Mirage's power to be incredibly dumb because unless he can fly his invisibily is useless.
Ok this is aceptable complain but it's nothing worse than having say a cannon or a gun that can only be fired once which is a pretty damn usual story element in comics.
Which is nothing worse than Perceptor being "super awesome scientist sniper that sees everything" or Optimus Prime being a "ultra mega awesome leader that knows everything and is respected by everyone including his enemies and can never make a bad desistion and always wins because he's Space Jesus" or Ironhide being the "THOUGHT NO NONSENCE DECEPTICON CRACKING BADASS!". Drif was just another clishe, the only difference between him and the other bots is that his clishe has gotten really unpopular because of weaboos. He's nothing worse than Furman's Grimlock. Hell Furman's Grimlock is worse character than Drift ever hoped of being but he also gets a free pass because HE TURNS INTO A T-REX YOU GUYZ!!!!
And his creator is an idiot. So? You don't hate DC current because Edison was a jerkwad.
Um…ok?
Again why is this important? So he was hyped up by the company big deal companies hype up new characters and new costumes and new shit all the time. It only enforces the idea that the hate toward Drift has little to do with the actual character and more with the hate towards the company.
See when I was getting into IDW comics I was excepting that Drift would be some unbearbale character that's constantly being broody and going on about his tourtured decepticon past and how he would make every character his bitch,how he every character would be useless and stupid and how he would be the smart and capable one that has to deal with everything and how he would take down famous cons with ease and how he would constantly take over panel time from everyone and how his talking would be along the lines of "ORE WA DRIFTU-SAN OOOOO I AM WISE FOR I WAS A DESEPUTIIIIKON-DEGESU!" and "OPTIMUSU PRAIMU-SAN STANDU BACKU I'LL TAKE ON MEGATRONS DESTURONS BY MYSELF-GOSAIMAAAASU!" and then go
"MEGATRON ONU SHALL STANDU ONE SHALL FALL DATEBAYOOOOOO!" and then kill Megatron by one shotting him and cutting him into millions of peaces or something like that.
THAT'S what this fandom made him out to be. You should've seen my surpise when all he did was slash up a few insecticons. That's it. That's what all the outrage was about?!
Drift was just another stereotipical character archetype, which is something that this franchise is BASED ON except that he was a Samurai, and there's an aversion to those types of character because of the over-saturation in manga,anime and ninja's in the west since the 80's.
Had he been introduced in the 80's he'd be a fanfavourite character right now the likes of Ironhide or Ratchet. There was nothing wrong with him. He was just as bland and as stereiotypical as every other character in IDW. It's all nothing omre than a knee jerck reaction toward McCharty being a dumb-ass and IDW hyping him out.
People would hate the ever-living shit out of Rung or the DJD had they been hyped as much as Drift was but IDW learned their lesson with Drift.
Hell look at RID Arcee! THAT'S WHAT I EXPECTED FROM DRIFT but he was NEVER as bad as Arcee is.
Hot Shot.
It's pretty obvious how much of a fan-character he used to be when you realize:
A: The IDWverse's diverse Autobot cast was dropped in his debut for the complete 1984 lineup, inserting his character amongst them.
B. He:
–1. Had a SOOPER SECRET PAST WHERE HE WAS A DECEPTICON OMG.
–2. Swore off guns because he's too good for them.
–3. Can cut things faster than you can see.
–4. Knew Mirage was sneaking around invisibly behind him.
–5. Has a third sword he can only use at the right time.
–6. Is a SOOPER BADASS SAMURAI NINJA THAT DOESN'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING.
–7. Was described by his creator as being "Very Japanesey".
–8. Was one of the few characters featured in IDW's children's book.
–9. Was promoted by IDW heavily as the Wolverine of Transformers.
In short, he was that self-insertion character with a sword that most of us had at some point as a kid. I know I had one, and that made Drift's reason for existing so much easier to deduce. I think if McCarthy hadn't been given the boot so soon, Drift probably would've died a heroic death saving Optimus Prime, with the following issue showing the 84 and TFTM cast mourning his death.
TCJJ
I've always thought these IDW Limited comics were really neat, but maybe I'm just not part of the target audience, because as awesome as I think they are, I'd rather buy the regular versions, and I'd NEVER pay that sort of price for this.
I'd like to know this, too.
Trailbreaker77
Really! That much for a book, what is it printed in gold.
I thought one of the selling points with comics is you can get an issue for a few bucks, who the hell is the target market for this?
Rodentus prime
For that price I'd expect it to come with a Masterpiece Drift figure included…
Yggdrasil
I never understood why Drift got so much hate. He's not even that big of a mary sue, Perceptor under McCharty was a much bigger mary sue, fuck Optimus Prime is one of the bigges mary sues ever created in the history of fiction and he's not only the icon of the franchise but it's most popular character.
Hell not even his origin is that mary sue-ish. It's fucking JETFIRE but with swords, but Jetifre somehow gets a free pass.
Only thing I ever saw about Drift is the fact that this fandom has this stupid irrational hate towards any new character inserted into their presious G1 continuity (because that totally never happened with comics books. Nope Straxus, Xaaron, Scrounge, The Last Autobot neeeever happened) and the fact that it's a butthurt reaction toward IDW heavily markething him as the next best thing.
But he was NEVER that bad in fiction and he was BARELY even a character. He was there solely for the sword swinging action I can't remember him even TALKING in over 3 years. His mini series isn't bad, his spotlight isn't bad it's average and he BARELY DID ANYTHING in AHM or the last ongoing. He was never this ULTIMATE MARY SUE that people like to potray him as.
Sure he's been MUCH better in MTMTE but everything is much better in MTMTE than it was before so it's not fair to isolate Drift.
It's all jumping the banwaggon because a few people took offence that he's a new Japanese samurai character. If that was I dunno Dai Atlas or Star Saber instead of Drift people would have no problems with it, but noooo a new character we much never ever have new characters!!!
Anyway Drift rant over, yeah this look fun I wouldn't mind getting it. I like the colours and I generaly adore Drift's MTMTE design.
Digilaut
Don't care for it, but the silhouette cover is gorgeous.
Hot Shot.
>Not Rung.
>Thinking people like Drift for his McCarthy fan-sue origin.
You don't get us, do you IDW?
*reads thread*
…Well, you're getting SOME people. I guess that's why you're only making enough for Drift's fans. (ZING!)
Bern
$450 + $36 + shipping for the Blue Label….
rattraprules98
Get outta my way, I'm first in line!
JetFormers
Don't care…Drift #1 fanboy is right here, I will so atempt to buy that hopefully.
Torque
Wait is this a new story or just his miniseries reprinted?