If serious, positive terrible taste.  


-ZacWilliam, to talk like this...refreshing somehow.

 

No I was serious ; they lost me with the Kup Oneshot they still do not have my approval for - well pretty much anything it's like they stick some 14 year old' iPads scetches on some other 14 year olds fan fics.

The only Things I can think of that take as many liberties with the brand is Kiss Players, Beast Wars Neo, certain Manga, and Transformers Animated... I don't mind some liberties masterforce breaks many of the rules but at least it still feels like Transformers (mostly) This does not pass the smell test - It's still has that Old problem if you change the names to protect the inocent is it still recognisable and I often feel it is not.

And I keep comming back to this as it's not so much the art style or the characterisation or the dialogue or the story templates or several other things you might name - you might be prepared to cut something a bit of slack if it pushes it's luck in some small ways like Beast Wars's childish Humour or Masterforce's 'Driven' suits. or Prime's eternal reset button and empty world. but with IDW the list gets far to long far to quick. I think they may actually have managed to make a worse run of Transformers comics than the Dreamwave G1 Miniseries was.

And The reason I brought up the Underbase saga in particular as it had that nonsense irrellevent story problem terrible dialogue that does not flow, dodgy art and it started a trend for the comics being a bit to death happy around the tail end of G1 and into G2.

Also all the IDW "Non-Characters" is just a bit pretentious really making new ones up ( and not just Drift)- it is/would be just as silly to make up new Gi Joes (which they have likely also done). when you have a couple of Thousand Characters to choose from it's just taking the mickey to make your own up and give them equal weight.

Sorry but I really do not feel IDW as a company they have only ever really given me disapoinment and a feeling of having been slightly ripped off.

I would like that to change but it's not yet.

 

I'd suggest you try and pick up issues 22 and 23 of the ongoing(Chaos Theory part 1 and 2) and The Death of Optimus Prime. All of those are awesomely written stories that can stand(mostly) on their own or tie into this somehow.

 

If you feel you want to own them as a collectable the best road is to buy the Trades they are insanely cheap on Amazon and othersites (I've seen them for a fraction of the list price) that I even feel I don't want to pay that much for them shows how low down the priority list they are for me though.

But it does often hold true for the other Publishers too so it's a good tip if you want say some old Marvel Reprints or the like.

The trouble for me is that IDW has not only seriously damaged my previous high regard for Characters like Perceptor, Kup, Blaster, Optimus Prime, Springer, Sideswipe, Jazz, Sunstreaker, Rodimus, Bumblebee, Hardhead, Starscream, Swindle, Ramjet, Spike and a great many Decepticons they have even made me look at the old Marvel comics in a very negative way and even reaprise the Beast Wars Comics which I thought was Ok at the time as being a bit substandard too.

That they actually manage to write Bad Starscream material is almost shocking as Starscream almost writes himself really.

Oh and everytime I write that list... I remember someone else they screwed up... (I.e. Ramjet) and the Comics are far to concerned with the internal politics of the Autobots.

 

Do we really need the dumb Marvel US balloons? Is that what you are referring to? What do they signify with their stupid spiky corners, other than needlessly overpowering the art? Even the (much superior) Marvel UK comics disregarded those balloons. They are eye-sores.

I don't need an overly-elaborate balloon shape to let me know a robot is speaking. I can tell that just from looking at the pictures. The reason to use differently shaped balloons or different dialogue fonts is to signify that a character is speaking in a voice that sounds different from a human's. And for 95% of the Transformers characters, that isn't the case. You have Soundwave, Wheelie, a few others maybe, and then everyone else sounds like a normal human man or woman. They don't need special balloons.

 

Honestly I also felt IDW was running TF to the ground with its bad writing. After reading MTMTE 1 though, well i'd say things are looking up for TF comic fans. Based on your complaints, I'm not quite sure if you've read the issue, because frankly, it's some of the best TF comics we've gotten in years. The art I understand is a bother to some people, but as a long time comic reader, I've learned to get past varying art styles and focus on whether the end product is still a good well told story. One of the things I've learned over the years is that yes, there is a difference with being a good artist and being a good storyteller. Roche might not be your typical TF artist, but he's a great storyteller.

 

So what you're basically saying is, you're put off by the fact its an extensive re-imagining of G1 with a lot of new and different elements that you don't enjoy seeing familiar characters surrounded by, and new takes on characters that differ greatly from past portrayals, that sit ill with you as a result. But that is and has always been the basic point of IDW's run - to create an "Ultimate" version of Transformers (referring to Marvel's Ultimate Universe, where familiar characters are thrown into new stories and settings). But there are people who don't like Marvel's Ultimate Universe because of that. So I at least appreciate your being able to explain that your problem is with the core conceit of the universe itself, rather than with the creators, unlike a certain other serial complainer around here. I do think it means you're viewing IDW's output in a very blinkered way by thinking that what it "should" be doing is adhering to old ideas, instead of taking it as its own animal doing its own thing, but I at least understand you better now.

 

Loved it!!! Story was great and Nick's art has grown on me, and for those who are not familiar with his art, give it a chance. With TF comics you do a give and take with story and art sometimes. Does anyone remember a well drawn TF comic by Figueroa that was well written as this???

 

Actually I hate the whole concept of Marvel's Ultimate Universe and I love IDW's Transformers. Although I understand the analogy, the Ultimate Universe was born of creative bankruptcy ("we can't figure out how to make these characters interesting without abandoning their existing histories") whereas IDW's Transformers seems to strive to be a definitive version of the transformers universe (particularly, but by no means exclusively the G1 Universe), uniting poorly-explained elements from many depictions in an attempt at a "unified field theory of Transformers" if you will.

Honestly even the bad stuff is pretty alright with me.

 

Well I have to be honest, I haven't read them. So I'll have to do some H.W. then...

 

That's an interesting interpretation of events that I believe is entirely inaccurate.

 

You're certainly welcome to disagree, especially since you've given no supporting evidence. Those are my favorite kinds of disagreements. They always get us somewhere.

 

Okay, here's some supporting evidence: no characters' backstories were abandoned. All characters and their backstories continued to be published under Marvel's main imprint. The Ultimate line was envisioned as an alternate, modern take on characters designed to appeal to new readers not interested in decades worth of history born of the 1960s. The Ultimate line did not erase or replace any of the classic characters.

And as far as creative bankruptcy? el-oh-el. You don't consider decades worth of strip-mining of other people's creations to already qualify as creative bankruptcy? The entire company is built on the heavy lifting done by Lee, Kirby, and Ditko done 4 decades ago. You think Ultimate Spidey is creatively bankrupt, but I'd counter it is no more bankrupt than the fact we are still today reading about any Spider-Man at all, without any involvement of the character's creators whatsoever. Go ask Ditko what he thinks about Spider-Man today.

 

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I did not know that - regarding the "Ultimate Universe". But it's funny cuz then it's no different why DC created the "New 52" because sales were going down and DC execs needed to shock the system to generate an interest from the masses and gain sales back.

And IDW's TF universe - It has sucked until MTMTE so I'm hoping and praying that this story telling for TF will continue for a VERY LONG TIME!

With all due respect, it's been a while. I wasn't hiatus with comnics in 2000 but it couldn't have been the same reason why DC put the new 52 on because sales were dropping too.

 

This is off topic but some companies won't air out their business for everyone to know. But DC was open about theirs. I mean it was clear to see after The Blackest Night, they had nothing going for them. All their stories were sub par and sales were dropping so Dido, Jim Lee and the big wigs at DC decided - revamp!!! And created New 52.

Again I don't know with Marvel if it was the same reason for them back in 2000/2001 to create Ultimate universe for their fans. FYI, I love it.

 

Seriously? LOL...

Volume 3 was about, let's see:

- Super-powered fancharacter (yes, he existed in G1 but was a background cameo) trashing various characters and fighting Jetfire for multiple issues.
- Bruticus getting blown up, shot in the face, skewered and generally getting his aft plate handed to him for no particular reason (Mad Brick really hated the Combaticons...)
- Optimus Prime being stuck in the repair bay for, again, no particular reason other then "we just cannot do anything with the character"
- A long and obviously Alien-ripoff Insecticon storyline that went nowhere.
- TONS of loose plot threads dropped without any of the previous ones explained (purple goo at the Earth's core, Unicron's unexplained heralds, Sunstorm's vague ramblings that were worse then a mad preacher's, Bumper's implied betrayal, Sixshot's foreshadowing, Quintessons foreshadowing...)

Seriously, it's quite understandeable why Mad Brick (James McDonough) came out of nowhere and disappeared after DW's demise. He was never a professional writer, he was Pat Lee's chief croney and editor, and the 'Superstar' gave him a new name and extra pay for writing duties he was never good at - he just used characters in order of G1 appearance (noticed how no characters over 1986 were used in his stories? How the Autobot council was made up of 1985 Autobot cars?) TF was the first thing he wrote, and it shows.


And yeah. People ONLY liked the DW ongoing because of Don's gorgeus artwork. Whole issues went by with Jetfire fighting Sunstorm and the latter spouting utter religious nonesense, but people didn't mind because well, the best artist at the time was giving them epic battle scenes. I minded, though... I preferred Dark Ages to it even though the art suffered from lack of inking, because it was interesting and well-written.