It is already all laid out here. He's into personal freedom and sees Autobots as oppressive and controlling, assassins Vs templars etc etc *yawn*

 

Nah, they're definitely drawn, tho' I wouldn't be surprised if the artist is lightboxing from images of the toys he himself has posed for composition.

If it was 3D models colored over, it'd look more like parts of the Unicron Trilogy cartoon.

IDW's site will have them, as will Comixology. IDW you can buy without needing an account however so I'd go with them.

 

True, but some things are obvious. Fixating on the relationship between Prime and Megatron is always going to be well worn territory. Dropping in "Prowl's a dick" jokes straight away, when the just-finished continuity was well known for "Prowl's a dick" jokes, was guaranteed to make that scene feel stale straight away.

It should be New Continuity 101 to start with fresh material, backed up with some familiar tropes. Animated threw Bulkhead, old Ratchet and ninja Prowl at us right from the get-go. IDW 1.0 kicked off with the idea that the Transformers have already been in Earth, in disguise, for some time, and left off on introducing Prime for several issues. This series has Rubble, but most of the preview material thus far has centered on the most overused characters in the franchise.

 

So who are the hacks that you speck of and what does that have to do with writing comics? Or they'll just avoid writing TF comics and nobody writes them.

And who says the right talent wants to get involved or for that matter who even is the right talent?

I see that as "keeping things that worked" (OP and Megs being friends, Prowl being a dick...etc). That's sounds like asking for too much too fast to me. You mean the stars of the series? Their going to be in the spotlight, becusce their the most popular characters in the whole franchise, that's like saying why DC and Marvel puts Batman and Spider-Man in everything.

 

Transformers is an ensemble cast and always has been. Batman and Spider-Man are solo stars. Even so, both Marvel and DC have continually refreshed their character pool by taking supporting cast members from one series and turning them into stars of another. That's why we have things like Suicide Squad, Deadpool and about a billion X-Men comics. It's very bad news if Hasbro/IDW are unable and unwilling to invest in and develop new fan favourite characters and have to keep going back to the same tiny squad of regulars.

Think about it: if you're an X-Men writer, you might be forced to have Wolverine on the cover of your brand new launch title, but outside of that you have a choice of dozens of characters with fan followings. If you're a Batman writer embarking on a new series, you have the option to make Batman take a backseat in the story in order to focus on any of a score of well known villains and sidekicks. But if you're a Transformers writer, you're saying you have to make sure Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee and Windblade are the centre of attention at the start of every new series? That's not a great look.

 

Yes, the ones people remember from the cartoons and toys and that's who this comic is probably for. I can't really speak for Spider-Man, but Batman hasn't been truly solo in years with introducing new characters, participating in big universal events, and guest appearances from other big heroes. Plus OP had his own solo title.

My point is the past TF comics have either been team or event books told from a few characters POW and their usually the big names. The reason I think that doesn't work with TF is becusce the stories are general the same excluding the few miniseries and crossovers. Sadly that is the fate of TF, look at it this way you can tell any kind of story with Batman, but you can't tell that same story with Superman without making it AU or depowering him, and that's the same problem with the TF; for example G.I. Joe has a miniseries dealing with child sex traffickers and it is brutal, but I couldn't see the TF in a story dealing with the same issue.

 

But we've just had a critically successful series that spent most of its time with lesser known characters, doing things in a distinctive way. And the whole franchise was rebooted in the 90s with a series that didn't include any of the previous 'iconic' characters.

It seems bizarre to resign yourself to the idea that Transformers will always be the same. It's also, in the long term, a guarantee that readership will decline. We know exactly what happens with nostalgia-heavy reboots aimed at a casual audience - a surge of sales for a while, and then a complete tank.

 

Some people have been calling this a "prequel" for some reason. It would be very cool if this actually ends up a prequel of Siege, and we see Megatron leading a revolutionary group called Decepticons, and Orion Pax changing his name to Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime (should we consider it a spoiler that Orion is Optimus? They probably mentioned it in promotions, but we have to see if the comic narration says something like "back when Optimus Prime was called Orion Pax..."
It would be also cool if the writers could swap enough notes with the people making the WFC series for Netflix that this comic could work well enough as a prequel to that cartoon. Would also allow them to tell stories in their current time without establishing all the past events for context.

Something smells fishy with those Scenticons.

 

Not really, becusce they were accompanied by A and B listers who the stories mostly centered on or told from their point-of-view. Sorry, but Optimus Primal still counts as a Op along with that shows Megatron the whole show was set in G1's future/past.

 

I think your argument is straying so far from your original point (that you have to keep the same 'stars' in the spotlight constantly) that you're basically agreeing with me. Optimus Primal and BW Megatron may have had the names of previous characters in the line, but they didn't look or act the same, and they shared the spotlight with other characters. Rodimus and Ultra Magnus may have had prominent roles in MTMTE, but the series still survived initially without Prime, Megatron and Bumblebee. Both of these series - as well as Animated - served up, straight off the bat, a raft of new characters or new interpretations of old characters, and gave them equal billing. That's completely different to Prime and Megatron doing the standard Prime and Megatron dance while Bumblebee immediately drops into his recurring role of looking after the audience POV character.

The most interesting things about this series by far, so far, are the idea of a sprawling interstellar community and a Chromia/Prowl team-up, but we haven't seen any of that from the previews yet.

 

If they really wanted to try something new, how about dropping "Orion Pax" and just making his name Optimus Prime? Or just Optimus at least?

Like, I'm not against Prime as a title, but I also kind of miss when it was just the dude's name. And Orion Pax -> Optimus Prime is very, very overused at this point.

I truly miss when we got genuinely creative, yet abundantly familiar, new takes on characters like in TFA. That's what these comics are in desperate need of, and yet seem utterly terrified to attempt besides the odd OC or character plucked wholesale from a different continuity.

 

I\'m really excited for this book! I\'m glad Hasbro is finally getting an actual aligned continuity like what they tried to do with TF Prime and the video games. It just makes sense that the toys, comics, and Netflix series are all going to be connected. I really hope it does well! Also, I really hope they get Garry Chalk to do the voice for Optimus Prime, I think that Peter Cullen is a bit over used at this point.

 

I did not catch that at all. I’ll read the first issue closely.

The franchise is built on having two factions fighting each other and people are bored of that? It’s like watching Law and Order and complaining it’s another murder mystery episode. *yawn*

 

This is the only thing we agree on, buddy.

 

The sub standard writing talent in the comics industry is too vast to list. Probably 75% of the industry. The pay is crap unless your top person at the big two or have a popular creator owned title. The industry is populated by writers not good enough to make it in the more lucrative creator owned books, TV, movies or video games. Hiring the unqualified, name value, friends, and connected individuals isn't helping either. First step if they want to turn it around is the pay needs to be better for the average creator.

I value my time and money. The comic industry expects $4 for a 20 minute read which is one of the worst values in entertainment. If they want my $4 I'm not going to accept sub standard with regularity because the alternative is difficult. That's why I stand by my reaction to your "easier said then done" statement. If IDW can't hire people that are able to successfully evaluate the quality of new ideas and identify the familiar elements to keep I'd rather they didn't make the comic. There's probably at least 10 people on this board, that based on their posts, I'd trust to make those calls with a high degree of success.

 

Are they?

 

Eh, some might, but the fact of the matters is, to general public, that what TF is about. You say Transformers and people will think, autobots vs decipticons, optimus prime and megatron and so forth. And they kinda have to start with that premise because that's what joe average probably knows a all about transformers.

 

1) The way you put it here does indeed sound extremely boring.

2) Two factions fighting each other is almost always more boring than three or more factions fighting each other, because the potential for alliances, betrayals and plot twists multiplies exponentially.

3) Physical fights take up a lot of page space in comics comparative to how long they take to read and how much information they're able to convey. More dialogue literally equates to better value for money.

4) This isn't really the problem anyone's highlighted here anyway. The problem is familiar character beats. These rob the series of intrigue and tension because we already know what they're leading up to. Reading Prime and Megatron squaring off here is like watching the opening scene to a film when you've already read the Wikipedia summary.

 

Why do you assume Joe Average is going to bother to pick up a Transformers comic just because it confirms the vague stuff he already knows about Transformers? If he found Autobots/Decepticons and Prime/Megatron at all interesting, wouldn't he have already been buying into the franchise? Surely it's a basic rule of marketing a new product that you stress to the public how completely fresh and different this is compared to what's come before?

 

You guys are missing my point, TF media is not gonna escape the “two faction premise” because the marketing of the toys hinges on that. It’s well and good that folks want complexity and themes that go beyond the two factions but that’s like saying regular dogs would be more interesting if they breathed fire and could fly. It doesn’t fit with what is getting produced/marketed.

Hasbro is selling transforming robots that wear red or purple badges and fight/argue with each other. You can tweak that a little but this ain’t gonna be house of cards.