Sorry if this has been discussed to death around here, I've not been an active member of this community and only picked up reading the comics recently. Anyway:

I recently finished reading the entirety of IDW's Transformers series and I am of the opinion that MTMTE/LL is the greatest piece of fiction in the entire series. I avoided reading any discourse about the series until I had completely finished it so as not to influence my opinion as I read it (and to avoid spoilers, naturally).

It is not perfect in every way, but it has a masterful grip on tone and character work, and has meaningful commentary without being preachy. I'm not going to make a whole write up on why I loved the series because I'm sure it's been done to death and would be wasted effort because I think the value of the series is self-evident. My biggest complaint about it would be that for the sake of surprise it will sometimes toy with the reader's emotions, but that doesn't make the emotions any less real and it ultimately does not affect my enjoyment of the series. I'd rather be faked out now and again and feel something rather than never have that chance to make an emotional connection. Again, not perfect but damn brilliant overall and the best we've ever gotten for this property in my view.

But anyway. Reading back now on old threads talking about how it won a reader's choice award from IGN (blech), or how some other random comic book site might have given it some accolades, the comments always seem to be full of people shitting on the series and the author. So what gives? Is it the liberties taken with the lore? Is it the fun-over-logic style of storytelling? Is it the perceived "SJW" stuff? (which I won't get into here but I did love and would be happy to discuss why in a comment.)

Or am I just letting the outspoken minority speak for the whole fandom, and in actuality most of the readers love the series as much as I do? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Because come on. MTMTE/LL is batshit insane and is about the most glorious fun I've ever had with Transformers.

 

I think MTMTE is very divisive. Some of us saw it as some of the greatest TF fiction... well, ever... (and certainly, for the first two years, I'd agree)... some saw it was mastubatory comedy going nowhere (and, tbf, there's a case to be made for that, too). Some people were turned off by the heavy emotional content or emphasis on relationships (and I say, as a huge fan of Rewind / Chromedome, that yeah, maybe there was a bit too much of that). Some people got tired of the "politics," and you can read into that what you like... I think we all have a pretty good idea of what that means.

I think a lot of people started turning on it, as you say, when sometimes cliffhangers or sudden plot points were just fake outs. I love Roberts and the series, and he definitely relied too much on that. I think there was also a contingent of people (particularly here) that would spend so much time trying to deduce plot points and mysteries that they would get upset when their reading wasn't the "correct" one, and I'm guessing that started to turn some people off. There's no doubt the transition over to Lost Light, instead of being a jumping on point, also served as a jumping off point (altho' that's IDW's fault, not James'), and there was the weird... uh... let's say "misplacement" of Alex Milne, who absolutely was an equal partner in what made MTMTE great. On top of that, there were some choices in LL early on that really came back to haunt the series (the trip to the other universe, coupled with the introduction of Anode was really jarring in the middle of the whole mutiny thing and cost us a lot of time, as the rest of the series had to kind of catapult into the final arcs to wrap up loose ends). Personally, I feel that LL got stronger towards the end and still managed to pretty much stick the landing, but yeah, it got off to a ropey start. The weak parts of the whole run, to me, are far, far outweighed by the good stuff.

Ultimately, if you love it, don't let anyone else's opinion sway yours. I loved it, too, warts and all.

 

Interesting point about how trying to predict what would happen next lead to some frustration. I think I may have had a fundamentally different experience by reading it all in succession as opposed to someone who would follow along as it released, issue by issue with a long wait in between. I've experienced a similar phenomenon with the new 2019 series. They just released issue #12 which is the end of the first arc so they say, and they're releasing a new hardcover later this year containing those 12 and calling it volume 1. Reading it issue to issue as they came out felt like it was really wasting time and I was seriously not feeling it lately (issue was 12 was pretty good though). So after reading issue 12 I just decided to start from scratch and read the first 12 over again fairly quickly, and so far yeah I'm liking it much better. It's all parts of a greater whole now and the parts no longer feel like they should be a whole on their own and are simply lacking. Taking 1-12 altogether, sure, it's actually pretty enjoyable now.

Yes, I understand going from MTMTE to Lost Light was something of an awkward phase. You absolutely should not read LL without reading MTMTE first and James seemed to make it clear that it was season 3. But I think just the fact that it was a re-brand meant that they had no choice but to not jump straight back into the mutiny right away. Visiting the functionist universe first and doing their whole reintroduction with volume 1 would, for better or worse, settle new readers in. And even for an existing reader, not starting straight with the mutiny was a better artistic choice because it allowed LL to be something of a self-contained thing purely from a pacing perspective. But yeah. If the re-brand never happened it would have flowed better and blah dee blah. It is what it is. (What's the deal with Alex Milne btw? Was there some sort of weird reason he got taken off the series?)

Definitely love the series still, I even had my girlfriend read it who is only mildly interested in Transformers (she liked Animated and Prime) and she couldn't put the series down. She loved it too. So having that positive personal experience definitely helps solidify how much I adore it.

 

I don't know if I hate it, but I used to love MTMTE with a fanatic passion, but over time it just devolved into garbage, culminating in LL which was downright awful.

It was just too much. What used to be subtle and endearing references became obnoxious and pandering. Everybody having human avatars, the self-referential and pop-culture references, the endless soap-opera drama that felt less like genuine emotional moments and more like something a teenage girl would write, it just distracted from the story.

It's like, the qualities of the book never really changed that much, but they just became... I dunno, disproportional? It lost its sense of balance and nuance and just became self-indulgent and hard to read without feeling second-hand embarrassment.

 

The thing with Milne seemed to be a bit of a mystery, and I don't want to knock anyone's noses out of joint with undue speculation, but it seemed he was removed from the book without really being told about it.

Reading trades is definitely going to be a different experience than the monthly grind, and it's something all companies, not just IDW, and certainly not just Transformers comics could probably do a better job of balancing.

 

I did feel that Lost Light had a bit of a tonal shift. Maybe the change in artist was enough to change the overall feel of the series but it's definitely different. I disagree that LL was awful but I of course respect your opinion and specifically wanted to hear other views. I thought it was a bit cluttered near the end on account of needing to wrap up so many ideas, but on a reread I did wrap my head around everything and it was pretty well balanced all things considered. I appreciated the dedication to not leaving important threads dangling. But the whole crucible story was just a bit overstuffed and I felt that revealing the Omega Guardians as yet another major player on top of Getaway and Scroponok and the Grand Architect was just a bridge too far in terms of how many ideas were being crammed into one story. Circumstances being that they needed to wrap up the story in the limited number of issues, it is what it is. It hit the important story beats and still slowed down for tender moments amidst all the noise (Megatron's reintroduction, Rung's ending, Rodimus' speech, etc.). And the final issue is perfect, I'll not hear otherwise.  

As for the drama distracting from the story, that was the core of the series for me and so seeing characters banter with each other and change over time was what it was all about for me. The issue in MTMTE season 1 where they all go out for drinks, and in season 2 when Ratchet leaves, and the Lost Light finale are all my favorites because the plot goes absolutely nowhere but the deep dives into the characters are so compelling. That's just my take. Matter of taste on that front I think.

 

It's the best ever.

 

Nah, I still hold a soft spot in my heart for it. Even when it got shaky later on.

 

MTMTE was amazing, the perfect pairing of writer and artist. LL was awful because it lost half of its team. Kind of a Simon and Garfunkel situation, where Roberts is Garfunkel.

 

I still love a lot of it, but agree with most that LL killed the momentum. It started to become preachy and political, which I personally dislike in my escapism, so it lost its appeal and became somewhat lesser than it could and should have been. Losing Milne was also a major issue as a lot of the personality that he imbued every page with was lost. Jack is a good artist, but he’s not Milne.

 

I found it to be enjoyable throughout its run, but I didn't always love everything it did. In my opinion, the first 16 issues are the strongest of the series, and rank among the best TF comics out there. I'll always have a soft spot for it, and I think, like Animated, it'll always have a dedicated group of fans within the general TF fanbase.

I didn't agree with some of the writing choices that Roberts made, but it was his story to tell. As @dj_convoy II said, overall, as an era of TF comics that is now over, I loved it, warts and all. Losing Josh Burcham and Alex Milne made those warts stand out more, unfortunately. I would've liked to have seen what those dudes would have done with the last arc of Lost Light.

 

I loved it during the entirety of season 1 and enjoyed most of season 2 (even when it was a bit shaky at times) but everything changed with Dying of the Light. Skids was killed off. Trauma can turn you into an outlier (Why? Hack writing.). The DJD was killed off in a single panel. But not only was the DJD killed off, they were killed off by Megatrons anti-matter power up that came out of literally nowhere but then we're fed a two page exposition dump by a dying Ravage on how Megatron would practice channeling his chakra so he could release his dark matter bankai at just the right moment by drawing power from- IT WAS RIDICULOUS.

I became very worried and skeptical about the direction and how things were going to be written from that point on. But I was a fan, so I read Lost Light montly up to a certain point...
And it was like everything wrong with the worst of season 2 and more. Pointless sideplots galore, introducing characters for the sake of introducing characters who receive 0 development and have 0 chemistry with the rest of the OG cast, everything about Mederi, everything about Grimlock, everything about Scorponoks Decepti-human baby, higher dimensional beings (LITERALLY WHEN WERE THEY EVER A THEME IN THIS SERIES OR FORESHADOWED AT ALL?), Rodimus getting the Bad End.

Everything went wrong in my eyes.

That being said, I still love a lot of what MTMTE did and it made characters I couldn't care less about, beloved. Also James showed us that Rodimus can be a fantastic protagonist. I would love to see him leading again in IDW2, even if it's just a troop.



Oh Lost Light. What was James thinking?!

[EDIT:just fixing typos]

 

MTMTE is pretty much the high water mark of Transformers comics for me (actually the pairing of Barber's RiD and James' MTMTE is that highwater mark).

Near the tail end of Season 2 it was getting a bit too cute for my tastes, and LL read like he had basically given up until we got much closer to the ending (which made sense, since he had constructed most of it well before).

 

I'd qualify as a dissenter. despite the fact that I loved MTMTE, particularly the first 'season'. It had such a great start at Delphi, with so much potential and world enrichment. Hundreds of characters on the crew list, crying out for the potential to shine. But as the series progressed, so much potential wasn't realised and fascinating world developments gave way to a focus on melodrama.

I didn't hate MTMTE, or even lost light. It just got a bit boring due to a focal shift and after a period of frustration I dropped the book. People disliked it for a myriad of reasons, some felt it was too progressive for a toy line 'goodies and baddies' franchise, others just thought it went off the rails too far. A brief look at the occasional letters pages gave insight into Robert's dilemma. People praising the book, yet burdening the author with responsibility for their emotional state. Anyone with half a heart would take that seriously and try to do what they could for such vulnerable people. But subsequently the story responded as an overt message of friendship, acceptance, a pinch of bittersweet and blooming romance above all else. Team Rodimus generally averted real consequence, losing all sympathy I had for them, while the fodder crew, who didn't amount to much, were subsequently punished for judging them.

Pacing became another issue for me, many people note the end seemed rushed. But to me the middle, (Necroworld), started to drag. I personally feel Milne did as much for characterisation, if not more than Roberts. So the change in art as well as the abandonment of an integral creator didn't help my perceptions of the book.

I don't see toying with emotions as a fault, but yeah, the cop-outs seemed a bit ridiculous when they were non-consequential. Very jarring logically rather than emotionally. Fun-over-logic is fine, but that's on the condition of things being fun and not contrived. Or like my Neighbor's kid at 12:10am last night, who thought revving the shit out of his car would be fun, untempered fun can end out seeming obnoxious.

 

First season of MTMTE was great. Second was good but turned by the end. First season of LL was mostly trash with the first half being some of the worst TF comics I've read. Final season was okay.

Overall, it definitely had some particularly good ideas here and there. I'd still rank the Wreckers trilogy head and shoulders above it but, often, MTMTE and, to much lesser extent, LL were highlights in IDW1.

The sitcom shit and virtue signaling annoyed the piss out of me though. I originally dropped LL after six issues in but caught up when Unicorn started.

 

The only complaint I've ever seen was the "politics", by which people mean it had gay and trans characters.
Now in my experience, nerdy communities (for example Transformers) tend to skew pretty conservative, so it's not really surprising there was a vocal subset of fans criticizing it for its left-leaning characterization/worldbuilding.

But I lean left, so I was happy with it and I don't rate conservative opinions at all.

You can like what you like.

 

There's two distinct camps of vocal MTMTE/LL critics: the people who've hated it since the start because of the humour or the gay characters or so on, and the people who used to be devoted fans of the book but then fell out of love with it.

Season 1 of MTMTE was, at the time, the most important thing in the world to me, and season 2 through to about issue #40 was also excellent (honestly I'd say Elegant Chaos is maybe the series' peak?), but after that I kinda started falling out of love with the book, slowly at first, and then quicker after the relaunch as Lost Light.

It was mostly due to a combination of increased gratuitous tragedy porn (Skids' death, Tailgate-in-a-box, etc.) meaning that the comic I loved for making me laugh was now just depressing all the time, and bad handling of ongoing plots resulting in constant let-downs.

 

I had the same experience. I loved MTMTE/LL--it was was brought me into transformers--and when I came on here and saw all the negativity I was surprised. MTMTE is one of my fav pieces of fiction of all time, but I'll admit I'm pretty happy to overlook any story flaws because it's the humor and characters that I read it for. Though even I was getting a little sick of the whole "tragedy pops out of nowhere to continue to keep Cyclonus and Tailgate apart' shtick by the end XD

I did find the series after it had been completed, though, and I think that changes my reading experience a lot. I was able to read it all in one go, and so cliffhangers at the end of issues didn't really affect me, and some plot lines that might have been really anticipated/debated by ongoing readers were more blips for me than they were letdowns. If I was consuming it at one issue a month as it came out, I can see how some of the mild irritants in the story might have been major obstacles. As it is, I really love all of it, including LL, and whenever I have a bad day I go back and reread bits of it  

 

I loved or enjoyed it for most of its run, although I found a lot more to criticise as time went on. Overall, for me, it's still out in front as the best slice of Transformers fiction, alongside Roche's stuff.

 

More than Meets the Eye issues 1 to 40 remain one of my favourite comic series of all time. It's a pity that it was cancelled there and we never got to see the story conclude, but those 40 issues were wonderful and really make me wonder how the story would have ended.

Spoiler

But, in all seriousness, I feel like everything that went wrong with MTMTE/LL is exemplified by the last 10 issues: a finale that managed to feel absurdly rushed despite having twice as many issues to tell it than Last Stand of the Wreckers' full story, was a mix of meaningless gags and self-indulgent "remember this guy?" with an army of characters standing around and doing nothing because the author couldn't get rid of them, coupled with Big Reveals that the relevant characters barely reacted to and that told us nothing new about them, and all centred around a Big Cosmic Threat that was utterly meaningless and had nothing to do with the series' themes or character threads - and it's all topped off by a character who was defined by wanting to be remembered sacrificing his life and immediately being forgotten in defiance of his last wish, in a miserable tragedy porn moment that was the perfect cherry on the shit sundae of the last arc.

I hate to be That Person (even though I always am), but I'm just aghast when anyone says that Fake Primus was a better "end boss" than Unicron. Unicron was a manifestation of everything RIDOP had been building up to - the physical incarnation of all the sins Cybertron had tried to sweep under the rug, of the sordid history that Optimus's character had been defined by trying to escape. Fake Primus was... the Death Star, but it can be a robot now. Looking at the difference between the two really illustrates how far MTLTL fell, for me.

It's such a shame, because I really did love that first half of the series. It was what made me love Transformers.