Id read that comic

 

I think swindle would be a good decepticon protagonist. Yes, he isn't a role model, but just don't look at him like that (after all, he is a decepticon. Are any of them good role models?). Watching him go about his business firsthand would make for some fun storytelling. You could watch him escape the law, and you could see how he did it. Plus, I already really like his character and personality. I know I'd watch a show that focused on swindle and his antics.

 

Transformers actually has a lot of characters that would be interesting in their own shows of comics.

 

Actually just thought of this: Glyph. She has a fascination with alien cultures so she'd be great for being the middle ground between Autobots and Humans.

 

Yeah, Glyph would be pretty much fantastic.

 

I think you're misrepresenting what a Point of View character is here.

Kid appeal characters aren't automatically POV characters unless we're literally seeing the word from their point of view. The phrase point of view means that we're literally seeing the world from their point of view, through their eyes.



This would be an example of POV but it's not Cliffjumper's POV it's the Decepticon holding the weapon to his chest who's POV we're seeing here. Either Shatter or Dropkick's PoV... honestly I forget which one is which... and I really don't care.

Point of View and Kid appeal character aren't interchangeable terms. One refers to the literal perspective view we're we're looking at while the other refers to a role a character plays in the story.

 

Not necessarily

 

Point of view characters are characters who we experience the story or learn plot details through. It’s not always a kid appeal character, but usually they are naive enough to be asking the same questions the audience is asking. POV, in the way you described it, would be more referring to it’s definition as a camera shot type. I’m referring to the definition of POV used in storytelling. Cool screencap though!

 

You're talking about Audience Proxies. Like the Companions from Doctor Who or basically every human character in Transformers. Which still has nothing to do with POV.

It's actually never a kid appeal character like I just said, that's what human characters are for. They're the characters that we as the audience are suppose to relate to... That's why they're always human characters cause they assume that their audience is human and would relate to those characters more than giant alien robots.

Though often times the audience does actually relate to non-human characters. This isn't really intentional as we're not suppose to relate to these characters. We're suppose to relate to the boring humans.

Because that's what it is. Though there is POV in books too if the entire book is written from the single perspective of ONE CHARACTER describing the world around them as he or she shes it. This is less common in a visual medium though as it doesn't make as much sense when you have a LITERAL point of view rather than one interpreted through words.

I got that impression but you seem to be confused as you're taking something from BOOKS and trying to apply it to a different medium where the term takes on a whole different meaning.

As I mentioned above, in a book, where the world is being described to you in words, some stories are written from the Point of View of a central character you read that character's description of their world as they see it. This makes sense in a written story. But in a visual medium the idea of Point of View has a whole different meaning because the point of view is more literal when you can ACTUALLY see the world.

This type of character would be an audience proxy not a point of view character.

And kid appeal characters are not intended to be Audience Proxy characters though they often become that... especially in Transformers... because no one likes the human characters anyway and the Transformers themselves inadvertently become the Proxies because those are the characters we actually connect to despite them not being human.

BTW... Speaking of Point of View characters in written stories... Transformers actually has that. Alpha Trion is the POV character in The Covenant of Primus because canonically in universe Alpha Trion is the one who actually wrote the Covenant of Primus so it makes sense that the entire book would be written from his Point of View as if he were actually writing the book.

Of course the actual real world author is a human woman form England named Justina Robson but she did a really good job of writing the book from the point of view of Alpha Trion. There's even points where he mentions being told stories by other characters or putting clues together after the fact to explain away how he knows about events that he wasn't physically present for.

 

Wolverine was a point of view character in the original X-Men movie. Definitely not a kid appeal character.

Even as a kid, I never liked kid appeal characters or kid sidekicks. They're usually obnoxious, grating voiced, little knowalls. Same with the goofy sidekicks like Orko and Snarf.

A good pov character is someone who could end up on either side. Thundercracker or Catilla would work.

I always liked G1 Hound and Trailbreaker. Seemed like genuine guys to hang around with especially Hound's friendly Jimmy Stewart voice.

 

So it looks like TV Tropes calls this an Audience Surrogate, but their is a list further down that calls viewpoint character another name for it, and by extension POV would also be acceptable. I’m not really familiar with the Covenant of Primus book outside of the reference to a different version of it from Beast Wars.

 

That's another name for it, yes.

What list are you even talking about?

Beast Wars was the first mention of the Covenant of Primus in fiction. I'm talking about the actual real world book which is SUPPOSE to be part of the Aligned continuity except there are several continuity errors. The ending of the book actually depicts the ending of Prime except several characters look different in the book than how they do in the series and there are entirely different characters present in the book than were actually present in the show.

Specifically... Arcee, Smokescreen, and Knockout are the only ones from the book who actually look like they do in the show. Though Smokescreen is still in his white coloring from when he was first introduced rather than the blue version he actually had during Predacons Rising.

Optimus looks similar to Dark of the Moon with a get pack made out of his trailer though not exactly.

Ratchet looks similar to his WfC/FoC design though without the "Tron Lines". He's also seen for some reason in a loving embrace with Arcee despite that not actually ever happening in the cartoon.

Bulkhead has a more blocky design like I almost picture that being a G1 version of the character.

Bumblebee has a similar body type but his shoulders are more like they would be in RID2015 and his head actually has a more G1 style design.

Ultra Magnus and Wheeljack are completely missing, like they aren't even in the book's version of those events. The Predacons aren't even there either despite this being the events of Predacons Rising.

There's also the fact that the book doesn't even portray Megatronus Prime as a villain. He was tricked and manipulated by Liege Maximo. But RID2015 portrays him as a straight up villain totally ignoring the tragic back story that he's suppose to have. Power of the Primes plays him closer to the book and that's not even part of Aligned.

BTW The book also specifically mentions that Bumblebee is the youngest Cybertronian but in the show Smokescreen is actually younger.

Anyway... continuity issues aside... on it's own totally ignoring that it's suppose to be connected to Prime despite telling a completely different version of the same events from Prime... it's a pretty good book. I recommend getting a copy yourself... and just reading it as a stand alone story.

The only things I'd really complain about is... it's really obvious who the 13th Prime is and it doesn't really make sense why they don't just call him by his actual name. Alpha Trion says that he's keeping the name secret so that he can lead a normal life except that in universe he uses a different name anyway so no one would know he was the 13th Prime even if Alpha Trion did call him by name. The other thing is that Alpha Trion immediately points out Orion Pax as soon as he emerges from the well as being the same character as the 13th Prime which also completely defeats the purpose of not revealing his name as a Prime. They might as well have told us his name was Optimus Prime from the start cause it's never really hidden, there was really no purpose to calling him the 13th instead of Optimus when he immediately gives away that it's Optimus.

Some other things that really don't make sense... Amalgamous is suppose to be the first Transformer with a T-Cog except that Nexus was created before him and a T-Cog is also necessary for Combiners to function. Nexus is also a problem because as a combiner he's actually FIVE Transformers combined into one. I've kind of made it my head canon that the individual components of Nexus aren't Primes, they only become a Prime when combined so that the 13 Primes still makes sense and that all of the 13 could always Transform but Amalgamous was the first transformer with a MULTICOG allowing him more than 2 modes. Cause that's the only way any of this makes any sense.

Though there's still an issue with Megatronus some how being the first Decepticon despite never actually being a Decepticon in the first place... Plus Liege Maximo who is actually a Decepticon was created before Megatronus.

It's also confusing how Quintus Prime created the Quintessons yet some how the Quintessons believed they created the Cybertronians. I really don't like Quintus Prime cause the idea of a robot creating organic life who then only think they created robots is just nonsense.

And then there's the age after the original 13... which I wish had gone on longer. I thought there would be a long line of Primes between the 13 and Optimus like all those Matrix Barriers in the G1 cartoon but nope... it's just Sentinel Prime. He's the only other Prime in history outside of the 13. He had a very short existence as Prime before getting killed and bringing back the 13th who is Optimus though he doesn't have any memory of his time before Orion Pax. Similar to how in the show Optimus lost his memory as well. Still the same guy though. Anyway... the fact that the elected Primes consists of ONE GUY before going right back to a member if the original 13 is just kind of boring.

It is a good story... once you get past all the stuff with the Primes that doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

The Prime showrunners kinda ignored a lot of the stuff they were told to do to make it actually an "aligned" continuity. WFC and FoC are thechnically more aligned than prime and rid15. RID15 wasnt even supposed to be like that.

 

EVERYONE ignored a lot of the stuff they were told to do. High Moon made WfC as a G1 Prequel and barely changed anything in FoC to make it tie in with Prime. Essentially all they did was make Bumblebee mute again and changed Cliffjumper's head to match the Prime design.

Everyone was given a continuity bible but no one was actually obligated to stick to it. They all did their own thing taking some things they liked and totally ignoring others. It's not just the Prime Show runners, literally everyone who worked on Aligned was guilty of the same thing because Hasbro wasn't enforcing the creative teams to actually follow that continuity bible. Instead they seemed to be enforcing the fans to accept that a single continuity existed when their writers clearly threw continuity out the window on day one.

I'm not sure what made Hasbro think that forcing continuity on the audience instead of the writers was the way to go but clearly that's not how this works. If the story is actually written as a single continuity then the audience will automatically accept it as that rather than needing to be told that. It's the writers who need to be forced to stick to a single continuity not us but Hasbro apparently didn't want to hinder their ideas by actually making them work together to tell a single consistent story... of course is going to result in there not being a single consistent story which is what a continuity is.

I'm not sure what you mean by "RID15 wasn't even suppose to be like that." but I will agree that High Moons games are more aligned with each other than Prime and RID15 are.

The reason for that is because the same team, High Moon, actually created both games.

Prime and RID15 were created by entirely different studios. Though RID15 did seem to have access to assets from Prime as several character models from Prime were reused. Soundwave's original design the first time he appeared, Starscream's original design, along with the Predacons in that flash back, the Insecticons and Vehicon character... though the Vehicon model was modified for RID15, Airachnid's animation model, and Bumblebee's original animation model... which was modified for Jazz rather than using it as Bumblebee.

There was a third game... which similarly seemed to reuse assets from High Moon but was not actually a High Moon game. Rise of the Dark Spark. I'm still confused by what the hell that game was suppose to be. It seemed like it was a cross over between two different continuities because it also included character models from Age of Extinction. Except that at no point do the WfC/FoC characters and Bayverse characters actually interact with each other. And the game actually plays like the WfC/FoC scenes are suppose to be flash backs in the same universe despite being totally different from the Bayverse characters... It's not often that you see a game that's not even in continuity with ITSELF but that's essentially Rise of the Dark Spark... a game no one liked with a story no one could follow. I'm pretty sure Rise of the Dark Spark killed any chance of those games ever getting another true proper 3rd installment.

 

I think the writers should have been given more input than they were but I think Prime is the worst offender. The books and stuff line up with the games pretty reasonably. Also its not all bad since we all know that WFC Bruticus is in the same universe as rescue bots.

I'm pretty sure Aligned is dead and gone so probably not. Maybe they will make a game in the same spirit for the new WFC trilogy.

 

Seriously nobody said Starscream?

 

I haven't read the books outside of The Covenant of Primus but I hardly think Prime was the worst offender. Despite some differences Prime is actually closer to what we got in that book than the games are. Maybe the other books are closer to the games but again I haven't read them.

Anyway... when they're all doing their own things they're all equally at fault. There is no worst offender. It's kind of childish to put all the blame on any one team... if anything the fault would go to Hasbro for not actually enforcing any of their writing teams to stick to the continuity bible and allowing them to do whatever they wanted.

Also... how is WfC Bruticus existing in the same universe as Rescue Bots a good thing? Those two things existing in the same universe makes no sense and really shouldn't happen.

I mean that Rise of the Dark Spark ruined any chance even before Aligned was dead and gone.

Also... the new WfC Trilogy is garbage. At least the Siege portion is which totally failed to live up to that name. They aren't even Cybertronian they just already transform into Earth vehicles. Those designs are the most lazy "Cybertronian" modes I have ever seen. Earthrise almost has no point since they already look like Earth modes to begin with. Prowl is an all new mold using the same engineering but what was even the point when it comes out looking like the exact same figure anyway? The differences are so minute because he already looked like an Earth vehicle to begin with.

The only part that actually looks good is the Beast Wars stuff. There are a few exceptions like Shockwave, Soundwave, and Starscream that were actually good but the majority of those figures just look the same as their Earth modes and the Beast Wars figures in Kingdom are the first figures we've gotten in a while that aren't just a retread of stuff we've already gotten.

And nothing after Siege really has anything to do with "War for Cybertron" unlike the original that actually took place on Cybertron with Cybertronian alt modes. That toy line really would of been so much better if they just made the designs based on the video games especially since a lot of the designs from those games still don't have any officially toys or the toys they do have are largely inaccurate to the games... like Ultra Magnus was not just an Optimus repaint, Air Raid who was suppose to be Fireflight... was not a Shockwave retool, Sideswipe wasn't a Jazz retool though the vehicle mode is correct his robot mode is wrong due to the reused parts.

Funny enough with the character customization in game you can actually make versions that look like the toys... sort of... The way the coloring works in game... you can put Magnus' head on Prime's body but the placement of the blues and reds in game won't match how the toy is pointed. You can put an Aeiralbot head on Shockwave's body but none of the retooling would be present and since the toy was meant to be Fireflight who isn't even in the game none of the heads actually match the design of the toy. And you can sort of make a toy version of Sideswipe except you have to use his torso to get the vehicle mode right which means you're essentially just putting Jazz's arms and legs on Sideswipe's body and still not looking exactly how the toy does.

Though Whirl is basically just Vortex with a Shockwave head so that's really easy to make in game.

Anyway... as much as I still love the some times inaccurate FoC toys cause any toys of those designs are awesome... there are a butt tone of characters who never got toys and I would like to see more accurate updates to some of those characters... and instead we got... Earth modes calling themselves Cybertronian. Gawd those designs are lazy. A new game based on those designs rather a sequel to the original isn't something to look forward to. When they start making Cybertronian Modes that ACTUALLY look Cybertronian again and not like Earth modes that's something to look forward to.

Honestly the reason I think Shockwave, Soundwave, and Starscream turned out so well is because they were basing the designs on the cartoon. Shockwave never had an Earth mode in the first place. Soundwave and Starscream actually had Cybertronian modes in the G1 cartoon. And that's why everyone else just look like their Earth vehicles... cause no one else had Cybertronian modes in the G1 cartoon.

Well actually Bumblebee, Jazz, and Wheeljack had Cybertronian modes in the cartoon as well but none of them have Siege toys. Those probably could of been really good if they had made Siege versions of those characters considering they actually have Cybertronian vehicles in the cartoon to go off of instead of just making their Earth modes.

 

For an entry level TF story, using a Transformer as the POV character? Somebody either entirely original or so obscure that the fandom won't care if you completely rewrite them into someone else.

If we're going with the "Classic" definition of a POV character, where they learn everything along with the audience, then you'd need a Cybertronian who has NO knowledge of the war, or at least such a small knowledge that another character can explain it to them, and by extension the audience. But what Transformer doesn't know about the war? It's kinda their thing. You could do something interesting with the POV character maybe being the first Cybertronian "born" on Earth, so in terms of personality and character they're closer to a human, but idk.

 

So to weigh in on my own thread

Autobot Cliffjumper
Cliffjumper is going to be an Autobot POV character in the comic I’m working on. He encounters some problems when he is on a ship and deals with guilt for the rest of the story. Stuff presented to him is often second guessed, so he will end up in many unfamiliar situations with worldbuilding opportunities.

Autobot Bluestreak
The talkative guy who definetly will get information that the audience needs to know said to him. He will also be asking questions they need answers to.

Sideways
Sideways is a businessman... doing business. Or is he a businessman part of a higher plan... ? He will view both sides of the war and will see the flaws of both sides, while trying to fool them all. He will be to a lot of alien planets.

Decepticon Rollbar
Rollbar is a Decepticon by circumstances, and is the “got a bad start” western hero stereotype. He doesn’t agree with everything he is told to do since his allegiance is too his people, not the badge.

Honorable Mention Swindle
Swindle was a character who I liked when I was younger. I thought that he would make a good POV character because of this and his real world motivations. He also would be a talker like Bluestreak, and I’m sure he would come across quite a bit of information.

 

Rattrap might be fun since you know he has pet names for everyone in his head and is throwing shade when his mouth is shut.

prime rachet especially during his time on the nemesis, or before he went to megatron's side and during that time.

perhaps rodimus prime as well. huge change for him going from being carefree to huge responsibilities which was crushing him.

any starscream. my god, the amount of plotting and scheming he must do at any given time which make for a great insiders look lol