Oh shut the fuck up.

 

Gotta show that sweet sweet "commander" Nickle. Ugh.

 

Or they try to repeat the way they reached their last point in space, where they accidentally travelled through time and arrived 4 minutes earlier then they started. They have the quantum engines. They could get back and rescue everyone without anyone dying.

 

This is not what 'hemorhaging readership,' looks like, it's not optimal but it's fairly normal attrition, and he's been targeting the same crowd for 60+ issues now (or did you miss that Chromedome and Rewind were gay?). If it's such a bad idea it wouldn't have worked for so long.

Also, fun fact: Marvel's 'diversity' books were among the more solidly performing, Kamala Khan was a bulwark throughout and even the ended ones did much better than most new-character books (if some brand-new character last 2-3 years in a solo title, they're the opposite of a failure). The areas they fell flat was event books like the lackluster Civil War 2, reviled Secret Empire, failure of the big Inhumans push, and the poor direction of the X-books (of which one of the few sales and critical successes was, dun dun dun, the woman-lead All New Wolverine). The people who blamed the diversity for the problems were idiots who didn't pay attention to where sales were actually faltering.. and where they weren't.

 

FYP

 

I really liked this issue

 

There's a difference between a book with a protagonist who isn't a straight white man and a book which is marketed as championing the progressive value of diversity.

 

For me it’s not *what* happened in the story so much as *how* we’ve got to what happened. Defensor could have been defeated in other ways that weren’t so totally unconvincing for example.

Interesting that you bring this up. There is presumably going to be a plot reason that they travelled a small amount of time as well as space, otherwise why mention it. What is it? Unless I am missing something?

 

At first I thought that that's how Riptide's nudge bullet was reset, but as that's not the case, definitely set up for something else. And then there's the portal time thing inside the LL.

 

Hmm, could it explain why the scraplets didn’t get the time to eat Riptide? I mean that would be a pretty convenient explanation but it could fill in that gap I guess?

 

I have this feeling that most of the deaths in mtmte/ll, maybe even including those died during the war, will eventually be undone and everyone survives like in the final arc of Higurashi or Your Name.

 

And yet, despite people giving well thought out criticism, we also have the equivalent of what you describe as the tumblr crowd: people not being happy with the way Defensor was defeated, or how overpowered Star Saber seems to be. Simply judging the quality on whether or not you like/dislike a character and if events played out you hoped they would.

I'm sure he knows about the negative feedback, although I guess we'll never know how much he agrees with/incorporates into future works. The thing is though: you never want to involve yourself with online negative feedback - it's a very, very slippery slope. Once you start having a discussion with a displeased fan and feel the need to defend what you did, many people (especially on the relatively anonymous internet) with start feeling more and more entitled and empowered. Especially when they find out you are actually incorporating something they asked for. Things get really messy then.  

I'm not surprised he only retweets positive vibes, but I wouldn't call it a proper way to judge Roberts' reception.  




Anyway, like I said before, I really liked this issue - apart from Griffith's rushed and sketchy art. Something definitely went wrong there (maybe he had much less time than anticipated? Maybe there was miscommunication with the inker and colorist on the way the pencil art would have been used?). I hear the criticism, and while I agree with some of it (it IS a shame that Defensor doesn't get to utilize some of the cooler combiner stuff like we saw Superion do in Combiner Wars, and it's weird how they can use Ambulon but not Mirage), I don't agree with all of it.
For me personally, this arc was way better than what I'd consider MTMTE/LL's low points: The Swearth arc, the Personality Ticks arc, and the non-resolution of Cyclonus & Tailgate being gunned down. I'm happy with it, but at the same time sad other fans apparently didn't get to enjoy it as much as I did.

 

F@#& you, James Roberts, you hack. Seldom ever have I been so spitting mad after reading any work of fiction, much less a comic book.
I'm done with IDW. Over. Finished. Not one more dime.        

 

Fair enough on both counts.

 

It's been like that since Wrath of Karza IIRC.

 

Actually, Mirage (in addition to Hound) is listed as having the ability to create illusions on his G1 tech-spec!

From the TFwiki:

• Per his original bio, the idea was that, rather than actually become invisible or change his appearance, he used his electro-disrupter to scramble the senses of other Transformers, causing them to see images that were not there, or to make himself appear to be somewhere he was not—hence, his name! The cartoon simplified and reworked his abilities into straightforward invisibility; his ability to create illusions was not used (aside from one anomalous instance in "Masquerade"), presumably because Hound already had that concept covered with his holograms. Obviously, the cartoon went on to influence most future interpretations of the character.

The only time Mirage (famously) used this power in the G1 cartoon, was to create an illusion of a combiner (Menasor) in the episode "Masquerade." Masquerade - Transformers Wiki

Another thing I noticed is that Defensor's Ambulon leg is all white and completely lacks any hint of his previous purple paint job vis-a-vis chipping paint. Go back to the additional story in MTMTE #50 to get a better glimpse of him in leg mode (a LOT of red on that limb). Three things make me think this isn't a simply coloring error. First, Joanna was on color duties on both MTMTE #50 and this issue. Second, this wouldn't be the first time (Tailgate's innermost energon and the Geobomb) where something being the wrong color was IMPORTANT. Finally, Mirage wasn't on the Lost Light until after Ambulon died so he wouldn't know what Ambulon the leg looked like.

The Protectobots Live!

 

On Ambulon;
i get everyone's point about using Mirage instead, but since they were all mowed down in short order regardless, is that really a fair criticism? it's not like it would have changed anything either way - they all dead [or incapacitated or whatever].
I felt it was worth the slight bending of the usual rules to give us a quick visual reminder of how brutal this series has been and what happened the last time we had Star Saber [and Tyrest? not ready to give up on the Getaway-is-a-sleeper-agent theory yet] in play.

And isn't that a neat little bit of foreshadowing, using the guy who got cleaved in half to complete a combiner, only to have that combiner [and the other dude involved] cut in half mere pages later?

 

I’m not really bothered about the Ambulon thing personally. It’s been established that using dead TFs as limbs is possible (albeit inconsistently portrayed) and it makes sense that they’d want to lay him to rest in his ‘proper’ form. It would be pretty undignified to commit him to burial or whatever they do as an equivalent as a flippin gun still! So although they could have used Mirage using Ambulon isn’t as jarring narratively as some of the other things that happen in the issue imo.

 

Uh, no. According to Mairghread Scott herself, the book’s sales were declining to the point that it would no longer be profitable. IDW offered Scott a chance to shake things up to try to increase sales, but she declined to do so, choosing to end it instead. Sales were still the primary reason the book was canceled.

 

I want to be happy for you and your eagle eyes but...what does it have to do with the Protectobots living or not?