This thing is completely unsourced. Its literately "HE TELL ME" all over again.

There's nothing to fear.

 

Oh man, I haven’t heard HE TELL ME in ages. Makes me laugh every time.

 

I think there are different reasons why it came to be that way though. And not all of them come from a good place (even if the writers and artists did).

With Marvel Comics under ex-E-in-C Axel Alonso, it was frankly a temper tantrum for getting kicked out of the Marvel Studios writer room. Their response to the surging success of the MCU that they were removed from having a role in was to replace Iron Man, replace Captain America, replace Thor, and have an Avengers filled with kids. It was an intentional strategy of breaking synergies, just like the previous ban they had on Fantastic Four and new X-Men characters when those were owned by fox. As Ike Perlmutter was pushed out and Kevin Feige extended his control over Marvel to the Comics and merchandise, not only did Axel Alonso got pink slipped, but they brought in quintessential company man, C.B. Cebulski to do a literal fresh start on the line. And back came Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Thor Odinson. And back came a refocus on core X-Men characters and new X-Men characters. Meanwhile of the mid 2010s "identity politics Avengers", none of them have had any publishing legs (and no, Miles Morales doesn't count, because he long predated this). But the "new" aspects of Marvel are often about merchandising now days. Think those elaborate designs at the Hellfire Ball were for looks? Nope. They're action figure pitches.

With DC Comics it's because they have a very hard time attracting top tier talent to write "evergreen" Batman and Superman comics anymore. There is a total lack of interest among the best the field has to offer. James Tynion IV took it over most recently because he's been writing Batman for years before his big break out, loves the character and is doing it as a substantial bargain for DC. In fact, DC pulled off Tynion's predecessor Tom King for skewing too far from "evergreen" (killing Alfred, having Batman have sex with Catwoman on a roof) and had him finish up his run in a non-continuity "Black Label" miniseries. Basically there is no creative urgency in the next big Joker plot or putting Batman through the ringer anymore (like Morrison did 10 years ago), especially when Batman at the height of his abilities is basically perfect at everything, so nobody wants to do it. Superman's been hard to write for for decades because of his power levels - a problem DC had repeatedly failed to address. He was creative exhausted married. He was creative exhausted as a father to a child. Lex Luthor was creatively exhausted as a billionaire, as a mad scientist, as President, then as a Demigod. They even put him on the Justice League for a bit.

So DC has the young superman for writers to write for because it's easier / more interesting than the Superman at the height of his powers. Or they have Lucius Fox's son as another Batman because it gives the writer space to flesh out his world and motivations and not be bound to 80 years of "what Bruce Wayne-Batman" is.

Let's not forget who created one of the first "Black Batman's" too. It was Stan Lee, for "Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating Batman" (Just Imagine - Wikipedia...) around 20 years ago. And lee was quite clear as to why that character was written the way he was: because an black man who is an ex-con who is a son of a murdered cop it's more fertile ground for stories than Billionaire playboy perfect Bruce Wayne.

So there you have it. Two different angles. Marvel's motivations for "Identity politics comics" were principally a middle finger to Marvel Studios under the guise of expanding readership (which it never did). DC's motivations are because nobody wants to write their perfect icons. Yeah the writers of those characters poor their hearts into making them interesting and unique, and sometimes they succeed. But it's far from simply saying "How about a minority Superman or non-cis Captain America" or something.

The funny part is, a lot of this is about the past... what DID happen, not what is happening or will happen. Marvel Comics is being pulled into ever tighter integration into the MCU by the year (which is good in my book) and is squeezing non-movie or movie-adjacent characters out, irrespective of their "identity".

And DC? I'll say again... given how DC cut the number of books they published from around 50 to barely 30 in just the past year, I'd be shocked if by 2030 they're publishing more than just a bunch of Batman books, one or two Superman books on paper, and the rest of their 120-25 book line is digital. Which is really sad because there was a time Geoff John's ambition for Green Lantern was to make it DC's 3rd pillar, and that failed when he left the book and his successors manhandled what he wrote. And the same goes for Wonder Woman, who can't sell comic books no matter how hard DC pushes her.

 

That makes me sad, If true. It was a hell of a ride   .

 

There are ways to do an outsider's view of human culture without having to pander to Twitter.

Nacirema - Wikipedia

I'd much rather have alien robots be confused about the concept of people having to go to the Dentist despite hating it, than have them discuss a concept that doesn't even apply to Transformers outside of Kiss Players. And there is a good fucking reason Kiss Players is as ostracized as it is.

 

All I have to say is... about time.
IDW got off to a strong start with Furman\'s trilogy, Stormbringer and the Spotlights... then a jumpinto terrible mediocrity with Shane and Costa. Then MTMTE made me hopeful again before I realized it for the glorified fanfic it was, and the less said about OCD Barber\'s contuinty-nutjob nonsense that culminates in the biggest Shockwave Did It Joke nobody ever asked for... Plus pointless crossovers with forgotten properties nobody cared about cluttering the main line. All that and a reboot with a mediocre novel writer nobody has ever heard of writing his first comic book, and only managing to get the war started 2 years in... No wonder Hasbro lost patience. And given how their TMNT comic is going, I would not be surprised if other companies followed. Comics are selling far les than ever, but some of the sale numbers (7000 copies in the whole USA? kidding???) are pathethic.

 

Looking at this, I don't think it's true. IDW pays for the license, Hasbro would only revoke it if IDW starts doing stuff that would negatively affect the brand. Disney Licenses are super expensive from what I've been told, so it makes sense that they might stop producing Star Wars/Marvel comics due to increased licensing cost. I don't see that happening with Transformers however, it just doesn't make sense.

 

Source is Bleeding Cool. Safe to assume that it's a clickbait rumor, and move on.

 

I have a different opinion of IDW1 (well not MTMTE, it was clearly a fan-fic), which had some of the best stores and plots and art. But IDW2 I agree. The book's been a creative disaster. Has has an entire 3 part WFC line on shelves and IDW made it all as interesting as a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond. And let's not get started on the art by artists who have no clue or ability to draw Transformers.

Give IDW2 the Old Yeller treatment.

 

What's really going to bake your noodle is, do Beast Wars projects get cut short because the money dries up, or does the money dry up BECAUSE of Beast Wars?  

 

The article comes from Rich Johnston, who has had a reasonable accuracy rate for rumor mongering for decades. So this has a fairly high chance of being true, especially taking into account IDW losing the all-ages Marvel/Star Wars stuff. And as far as I know, MLP ended with them still not announcing any comic plans for the new gen.

I feel like I'm one of the only people that enjoys IDW2 more than IDW1. Granted, it didn't start out that way, but a couple arcs in and it all really started working for me. Well, I lived through the end of Marvel's time (granted I was barely a teen then), I lived through the end of Dreamwave (sadly not the end of Pat Lee's career), so I think I'll manage. And this time around I would not be surprised if Hasbro already has a new publisher lined up, BOOM! or not.

 

Well, Kingdom Beast Wars toys seem to be a success so...

 

Is BOOM still doing Power Rangers? Could be they're liking what they see there and may bring the two properties to the same shop.

 

I hope, then maybe we could actually get some competent writers.

 

I hope they don’t go back to Marvel, they are ruining the characters they didn’t ruin already. I wouldn’t stand that happening to Transformers.

 

One thing I kinda hope a new publisher does is drop the "been around for millions of years" part. Drop it down to thousands. Having the same person be alive for millions of years, doing the same thing the entire time, having the war be millions of years long, it's honestly the most ridiculous part of the saga to me. It only worked in the 80s because Transformers was marketed exclusively at kids who were already conditioned by 80s cartoons to just ignore the insanity. I mean, I loved Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors, and that had people traveling from planet to planet on freaking tree vines.

... Ok, I still kinda really like Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors.

 

I would like to see a take on it where the war's technically been raging for millions of years, but in the sense that there was never a treaty to end it, so it's really been raging for, like, 100-200 years when you consider actual time spent fighting. The primary instigators were all slumbering on Earth or otherwise occupied (Like Shockwave with control and industrialization of Cybertron), and the rest of society (IE the colony worlds) basically moved on and did their own thing.

 

I guess is time to talk a bit about Brian Ruckley's overall work on the franchise: It just hasn't been great.

There are a few things to like there like the emphasis on bigger plots instead of interchangeable personalities that just reflect way too much on the writer (The James Roberts' effect) and I do like the bigger role he gave to Flamewar and Road Rage but on the other hand, the stories themselves are not really engaging and you often feel like many of the chapters are pointless because very little happens and, while I complained about Roberts' characters, Ruckley's other extreme of handling an overly bland cast is not much better.

In fact, there's a lot in common between Ruckley's and Simon Furman's work, especially the focus on overarching plots and lack of personalities, but what made Furman's work much more fascinating to me was his great skill at worldbuilding and his palpable passion for the franchise, something that I've yet to feel from Ruckley's work (Seriously, I'm pretty sure that Furman would pay more attention to stuff like scale between characters, something that Ruckley clearly doesn't care about).

I wish the next author who handles the main book is able to deliver a more consistent work as a whole and that some of the IDW characters are not lost (I still love Windblade, Nautica and many more).

 

That all sounds good on paper but in practice is kinda BS.

Cybertronians aren't human, but they're still sentient. As such there's still fundamental aspects that can be used to help human readers relate.

Hell, the very fact that the central premise is built around a great war between two factions means we're already dealing in human concepts like conflict, survival, and comraderie.

If Cybertronians can feel strongly enough about a cause to fight over it, and those causes form bonds strong enough to fight alongside (or against) one another...it stands to reason that "love" or something like it would take shape based in the strength of those bonds.

As for "hunger" and "bills." Again, BS. One of the key motivations for the war is Energon, a critical resource. No different than oil or water to mankind.

And "bills?" Well they may not always have currency: But goods and services still have a cost in terms of materials and labor. Various versions of the story involve one or both factions making a gamble with limited resources in the hopes of gaining an advantage in the war. You don't have that if there isn't *some* form of economy in the world.

As for immortality? They're sentient robots. Even if they can be "rebuilt" it's rarely done without some great power source or trade-off.

And sometimes they aren't brought back: Dinobot sticks out in my mind growing up on BW.

So I would argue Costa (if it was indeed him) missed the point entirely.

 

I will always be grateful for IDW1. The main series introduced some great concepts and characters to Transformers lore, and some of their books (the Wreckers trilogy, in particular) transcended the call of duty and became true works of storytelling art.

IDW2 has been very weak. I just don’t think they have a new story to tell, and the main series is a meandering mess. The Beast Wars ongoing is enjoyable, but everything else from the last 2-3 years has disappointed me.