It's rookie writing foibles like these that plague IDW's books and contribute to a weak reading experience. It makes the characters sound unrealistic and just plain weird, like when you read it aloud there's no sense of a consistent voice. It also weakens or removes the use of character-specific word choice. Like if someone introduces him as "Knock Out the Ascenticon" (which is still a terrible faction name) you can glean a sense of bias against that, as if whoever doing the introduction defines Knock Out by his affiliation first. Having that same line used formally just makes it seem like characters don't have word choice, because they often don't, and either have to have awkward emphasis placed on their dialogue or (much more common to IDW) simply spell out what they're thinking or feeling.

It really does. It feels like the writing is too utilitarian, unconcerned with how things are said as long as the information is conveyed. (this of course ignores that dialogue itself conveys information on a character's personality, but not here)

This is what I mean when I say this writing is just weird. It's amateur but not in a demonstrably awful way just... not feeling up to the standards of character writing. It feels first draft, and has felt this way for a long time.

 

Does the artist think that kids who watched Beast Wars in 1997, 25 years ago are still kids today?

Beast Wars was originally seen as the cool advanced tv show and toyline (except for those toxic “trukk not munky” fans), and yet it’s somehow lost it’s status of being cool along the way. Now artists are treating it as the dumbed-down kiddy brand. This isn’t Rescue Bots. This isn’t Bot Bots. The quicker that writers and artists learn that there are different demographics for different Transformers brands the better. It isn’t a “one style fits all” deal here.

 

...we're grown men buying kids toys. Have some self-awarness. Also, it's the B-Cover so....eh.

Beast Wars isn't exclusively an "adult" brand anymore though. It's characters are starting to show up in children's media and they're now a prominent part of the toyline.

Heck, they're going to get a major push next year when RotB comes out. So I get the concern but at the same time you'd better brace yourself because it's very likely once these characters hit mainstream you're going to see the same kinds of character shifts that we saw when the Bayverse characterization and appearances bled in to the general perception of TF (think Silent Bee, motorcycle Arcee, etc)

 

Doesn’t mean we tolerate being given the Transformers equivalent of Lego Duplo when we are all of the age range to appreciate regular Lego.

 

This just feels like the same thing people say who get pissed about stuff like Adventure Time and Steven Universe because if it looks like a cartoon instead of super awesome hyper-real art then it's clearly for kids no matter what the subject matter.

Like, I thought we as adults consuming media got over that the second South Park hit airwaves.



Hell, the fandom already went through this with Animated. It got the exact same kind of blow back for it's style and then people actually watched it and now it's just as beloved as BW, RiD, etc... (And once the RiD15 fandom has aged in to their prime buying power so will it)

Also, regular LEGO is doing stuff like this:




So....

 

A cartoony art style doesn't preclude a story from being mature. There are so many examples of this: Into the Spider verse, Haszbin Hotel, Avatar, most of studio Ghibli, a lot of anime, Transformers Animated, and so on. It's nice to see a mainstream comic that actually has a different style for once, beyond just semi-realism.

 

Alright you got me, that IS actually pretty sick. Should've made Knock Out a vampire, too.

 

That’s clearly Lego Juniors, and not regular Lego.

It says a lot that you think something labelled “Juniors” is appropriate for your age range.

 

Bruh it's just a cover.

 

Not that it matters, since "Junior" is just "regular LEGO" with a simpler build for younger kids. Like, literally the same bricks.

They dropped the "Juniors" label. They're fully integrated in to the themes now and denoted as 4+. Because they sold so well and were accepted by the broader LEGO audience.






(Not that it matters, since you'll just keep moving the goal posts.)

Bro we're on a forum full of adults talking about a kids toy. Neither you nor I are in any position to try this dunk.

But if they didn't judge the comic by it's cover they'd actually have to open and read it to have an opinion. Rather than just clicking in to the thread every month when the preview comes out and repeating the same thing over and over.

Besides the recently released Draculus do we have any "vampires" in Transformers? We've got a Spark Eater and one of the DJD has to steal people's T-Cogs to feed his conversion addiction, but is there anyone who just straight up bites dudes to suck them dry of energy?

 

Imagine getting this bent out of shape over an alternate cover that ISN'T Burcham's (I personally like his style but I can understand where others don't).

 

What's funny is the whole idea of alternates is to put a diverse number of artists and styles out there. If all alternates had the same artists/styles then what's the point? I like seeing the characters rendered in different styles. And this particular variant is more cartoony, but then you've got the more "real" style of the "A" cover to balance it out. Just like we see when the cover's are the more Animated style of the interior and the variants lean towards the "real."

I'm also thinking back to the original series and how the art style was cool...but also not what ultimately made us all like the show. Code of Hero is still Code of Hero even if it's animated differently.

 

I wonder how things will turn out when Skybound issues it’s first TF comic.

 

I'm remaining optimistic about it (I'm a big fan of most of IDW1 but I agree they've run their course with what they can do with the license) but I'd caution everyone just assuming Kirkman is going to write any new TF series once that deal is done. It COULD happen but just looking at similar histories with other IPs, I think it's more likely he hires writers as the company owner. And they very well could be in the same vein as some of the IDW writers that people here love to hate. Time will tell.

 

I never thought Kirkman was gonna write even an issue of a TF comic to be honest.

 

I dunno if I *want* Kirkman writing anything for TF. He's got a style that might work as a one-off series but I don't want all of the franchise going that direction.

Cyberverse showed you could mix drama in a show aimed at younger audiences. Even the original BW did that. It doesn't need to be grimdark.

 

I tend to agree with you here. I'm not a big WD fan but I certainly respect his work, but yeah just not sure if that's the reboot I would enjoy either. I only mentioned it because when the rumors first broke, a lot of people had jumped on that assumption of him handling it himself.