Exactly.

 

What is G1 style, though? Sunbow Season 1 and 2 were completely different in style to the movie and Season 3, whilst G1 Marvel and Marvel UK were utterly different animals to both the cartoon and each other.

 

my Idea of a Deviation
Optimus Prime lives, Hot Rod gets corrupted by his visions over the Matrix and becomes the Leader of the Decepticons and no Unicron.

 

Worst comic I've ever read. What a waste of 10 minutes of my life...

 

Are we posting how we'd do the comic?

Here's what I got:

-Prime slays Megatron, Battle of Autobot City continues with a few more casualties.
This means Thrust and maybe Skywarp are dead-dead and left behind.

The technically-canon-but-only-retroactively bit of Omega Supreme, Superion and Defensor Battling Menasor and Bruticus still plays out.

Eventually, the Decepticons are routed and flee on Astrotrain.

-Unicron is observing events playing out and becomes interested in a particular scene:

-The Struggle for power continues on Astrotrain. Starscream as usual has declared he is the leader, however Soundwave is unwilling to let the opportunist make his power play and leads his cassettes against him.

Soundwave ultimately loses the struggle and is kicked out of the ship along with his mortally wounded cassettes and the insecticons.

-Unicron arrives. He appeals to Soundwave's distrust for the Autobots and Starscream, and hints he may have the power to revive the dead.

Soundwave agrees to become his herald in exchange for the revival of Megatron.

Soundwave is revived as Soundblaster (as a nod to his rebuilt form in Headmasters), while Rumble and Frenzy are reborn into larger bodies resembling Scrapmetal (as a nod to his Japanese Name).
Ravage is reborn into a form like his Beast Wars counterpart (specifically the remold of Transmetal 2 Cheetor).
The Insecticons, Laserbeak and Ratbat are reformatted into Battle Ravages, a horde of Big Cat bots with cannons.

-Starscream has arrived on Cybertron, but because he has no body to prove it, Shockwaves declares that Starscream is lying, thus sparking a Decepticon Civil War.

-The Autobots on Moonbase 1 and 2 report this back to earth, where Autobot City is rebuilding and Prime has recovered.

Prime immediately forms two teams: Himself, Arcee, The Dinobots, Blaster and Perceptor, and Ultra Magnus, Springer, Kup, Hot Rod, and Blurr. Magnus' team may include some of the surviving bots but Prime orders most of them to remain behind to rebuild.

-Soundblaster orders Rumble and Frenzy to go with him to Cybertron, while he sends Ravage and his armada to take care of any autobot reinforcements that may arrive.

-the Armada battles both ships, forcing Prime's team down on the planet of Junk while Magnus' team escapes and witnesses Unicron devouring Quintessa (and Wheelie).

Horrified, Magnus reports back to Prime who orders them to Cybertron at fullspeed to prepare the remaining Autobot forces for combat.

-On Junk, Prime faces down and defeats Wreck-Gar gaining a Garbage armada to help.

-Back on Cybertron, Soundblaster has slain Starscream and united the battered Decepticons under his banner...just as Ultra Magnus arrives and warns the Decepticons of the Planet Eater.

Soundblaster slays Magnus, and demands that the decepitcons prepare for the arrival of their new leader.

Shockwave and his loyalist, probably the Constructicons and Stunticons, flee as Unicron devours Moonbase 1.

Soundblaster orders Unicron to uphold his end of the bargin and revive Megatron.

the Planet eater obliges, resurrecting the beaten, worn frame of Megatron as an undead Monstrosity that Soundblaster is forced to kill.

-Enraged, he attempts to rebel against Unicron, but is forced into compliance and watches as Unicron begins to devour Cybertron. His first bite takes the paralyzed Soundblaster into his gullet.

-At this point, Prime and the Junkion fleet arrive and begin the assault on Unicron. Shockwave's loyalist rally as Devastator and Menasor join the battle.

During the battle many on both sides fall: Shockwave, Sunstreaker, Bruticus, Springer and maybe Superion to name some.

Sometime during this Omega Supreme and reinforcements arrive, while Prime leads a new team into Unicron to find a way to stop the planet eater.

-Inside, Soundblaster has been brainwashed into obedience and the heralds battle against Prime and his allies.

During the battles, Prime's chest is blasted/torn open by Soundblaster, dealing near-fatal wound and causing the Matrix to fall.

Rumble/Frenzy and Hot Rod lunge for the Matrix, only for another to grab it:

Arcee.

As Soundblaster prepares to destroy the femme and the Matrix in a single blast, Arcee opens the Matrix and is transformed into Solus Prime* (as a nod to the female member of the Thirteen) and destroys Unicron from within.

-The film ends as Solus visits the recovering Optimus and makes an attempt to return the Matrix to him.

Prime refuses, claiming that he has done his part and the Matrix will lead her as it led him.

Prime admits that he is stepping down as leader of the Autobots and believe Solus is the sort of leader they need in peacetime.

Solus goes to address the crowds on Cybertron: A mix of Autobots, Neutrals and Decepticons like Thundercracker, Blitzwing, Dirge, The Constructicons and others who are just sick of the fighting, and announces the return of peace and prosperity to Cybertron and the start of a New Golden Age.

The Stinger shows Rumble and Frenzy finding the wounded Soundblaster on a deserted planet. As Soundblaster sits up, he notices the decepticon horde behind them: Skywarp, the Stunticons, Reflector, Astrotrain, the remaining Combaticons (Brawl and Blast-off), and more.

---

*I don't actually have any ideas for a Primefied Arcee's name.

Sort of the whole Hot Rod into Rodimus Prime, and one fanfic where Swoop was reformated into Pterodactus Prime, and I can't think of anything that doesn't sound stupid.

 

It was.... okay, I guess.

The art is nice and I now find myself wanting a Combiner Wars Megascream boxset, but that isn't really enough to save this.

The entire comic was just the writer bashing Hot Rod any way they could.
First the writer tells us that Prime's death was entirely Hot Rod's fault and that Optimus would've survived if Hot Rod stayed away in an attempt to villanize him. Then Hot Rod gets everyone on the ship killed and later he gets killed off himself after stealing the matrix.
Also, where's Ultra Magnus? All I see is some red and blue asshole who keeps bullying Hot Rod, Magnus was completely out of character for the duration of the issue.

Overall a bit disappointed with this comic. It's a shame, becuase I was really looking forward to it.
Some of the comments here are being a bit too harsh (e.g that guy who ripped and burned his copy), but I agree with the majority in that this could've been handled much better.

 

I used to write fanfic back in high-school. It was poorly written stuff, with bad punctuation and very little character development. Still, I feel that I could have written something much better than this, simply because, at the very least, I understand the characters much more than what was portrayed here.

Ultra Magnus is the one character that stuck out the most. There is no version of him in all the multi-verses that would have acted that way. Not even RiD 2001 Ultra Magnus was that much of an asshole. Even Hot Rod and Optimus, the two main characters, were completely out of sorts.

I guess the one positive to this book was that the art was decent.

 

so this guy is coming aboard for a second season of that regurgitated heap of pus "Agent Carter" huh? He'll feel right at home in that writers team  

 

I really don't get why they made Magnus this much of a prick.

G1 Magnus was a authoritative yet compassionate good soldier, why would he act like this.

 

Because the writer didn't have a clue what he was writing?

 

I'm not usually harsh, but this was largely the culmination of 20 years of misdirected anti-Hot Rod rage given bad fanfic form. Painful to read.

 

His writing of Magnus upset me more than how he bashed Hot Rod. He picked a fight with Hot Rod in the middle of a MEMORIAL of the fallen Autobots. I think Magnus would have more respect than that to be reduced to squabbling when Prime was trying to give a eulogy. It's wishy washy too since Prime lived. Hot Rod did not get that much grief from Magnus in the actual movie when he did get Prime killed.

 

Yup. Sunbow UM was kind of a "Papa Bot". He never came as anyone harsh or very aggressive.

 

Exactly, that's why this falls so flat on its face.

If Magnus actually chewed Hot Rod out when Optimus died, I could understand but Prime didn't so this just comes off as unnecessary and forced.

He was a just a humble soldier, nothing more, nothing less.

 

I'd rather have a good quality story set in the original Marvel or Sunbow continuity than one that tries to be both retro and modern but fails at capturing either (Regeneration One), Both the 80s comic and cartoon lacked depth compared to today's Transformers comics. Adding much needed depth to new stories set in the old continuities can only be a good thing. I can overlook the shallow stories from the 80s because they are products of their time, but I can't overlook shallow stories written in the modern era, be they shallow intentionally or not. I expect better from today's writers.

 

And that's why Marvel and Sunbow don't need being "enriched" or "continued".

They're their own complete thing. This time won't come back.

You want modernised stories - you got IDW. Maybe Dreamwave. Or maybe one day someone will do another reboot. YMMV

There's no "much needed depth" for old continuities. You want to change them... Do a reboot. Oh, wait, that's what IDW is - a modernised G1-based reboot in its own continuity.

Otherwise, there are always reprints for this nostalgia feel.

Regeneration One failed by not capturing the spirit and being grimderpy and all over the place. It even couldn't decide if it wants to be UK TF or US TF...

It also had pacing problems caused by being written in a modern manner - for trades.

A modern trendy writer who tries to add his "depth" and "character-driven"(lol) style to characters written in old continuity will end producing a pile of smoking something because his characterisation will be unlike what they had before in the same continuity.
The continuation will clash with original material so horribly that the only appropriate use for it will be a toilet paper.

I know Eugenesis. Suffered through this overhyped hogwash.

Good thing it was a fanfic, because it did not feel at all like any classic G1 continuity. No character was behaving like himself. It was as edgy and deep like a rusted razor sinking into a cesspool.
A perfect example why to not dig in old works, even better than Regeneration One.

 

We get it. You don't like Roberts. You don't like Barber. You don't like Roche. You consider them "trendy" writers who dare to add crap like 'depth', 'characterisation' and worse, actual 'quality' to Transformers stories.

I don't consider them complete. Not with all the continuity issues, unexplained absences and such like. I still like them, but as an adult, I can see there is still much to be done. Its only "complete" if you're eight years old and lack the imagination to see past the story the story that is presented on the page.

So a hypothetical story the quality of MTMTE is only fit for toilet paper? Just because it would expand upon a scene or character from the Sunbow or Marvel stories but would stay in continuity with the old stories? Isn't that kind of like what Furman did for Marvel UK with Budiansky's stories? Back in the 80s, Furman provided deeper characterisation and expanded upon scenes of Budiansky's writing. There was a noticeable clash of writing quality back then between the two writers when reading the UK comic. And you know what, as long as the newer stories are good, I don't care about a clash.

Nope. If anything, such a modern writer would make the old stories "a pile of smoking something". Let's say in MTMTE, the story leads into an old cartoon episode or comic issue then after that old story that you're required to watch/read, the story continues back in MTMTE. It wouldn't be MTMTE that comes off in a bad light.

 

There are decades between old material and a new one. The difference between Budiansky and Furman wasn't that drastic. The Headmasters mini, the Underbase saga and Cybertronian issues with Straxus could be as well written by Furman. They were considerably less light-hearted than usual Budiansky's run.

The only people who could take an old story as a rubbish because it was compared to MTME would be people who simply can't let it go and have to stuff their worshipped author into everything. Also, who can't understand that back then the target audience was different and the manner of writing as well.

And yes, if your continuation doesn't fit it's a bad continuation.

New stories will do better being set in rebooted continuities. Period.

 

This x100. I was so interested in reading this when I first heard the concept, and yeah, everyone was a total dick to Hot Rod, pretty much they had a shitty attitude to the whole 1986 cast. I don't want to spoil it, but I mean, if you read it, you know what I mean

 

Painfully obvious that the writer did not have a grasp of the G1 material. Besides the treatment of Hot Rod and the out of character use of Magnus..what got me shaking my head was the throwaway deaths of the crew on the shuttle. It was like...oh well...let's move on. Really had high hopes for this book and it really fell flat on all levels. And Prime looked new after the fight against Megs...is this an homage to Sunbow?