In fairness, correct me if I'm wrong, that might be down to two reasons:

1.Nostalgia. Dreamwave really only succeeded, in my opinion, because of it's glossy splashes of all our favourite 80s characters.

2.Reboot. The fact that IDW was a reboot after DW would've no doubt pissed a lot of people off as much as AHM.

I have personally found that I have found IDW's series much more fulfilling and, well, better than DW, with the exception of War Within. I agree with an interview with Furman, where he said in DW the emphasis was all on spectacle, but with IDW they could do something deeper.

 

Fair enough.
Honestly, the art you and Guido are doing is pretty much the only thing that makes this book in any way salvageable, aside from a mixup of the Insecticons on page 8 of AHM#6, and Roadbuster looking like a Pat Lee Marshmallow. I wish you guys could've gotten paired up with a better writer, like Chris Mowry.

Regardless, since you're two issues ahead of us in knowing what happens, can you please put my fears to rest and tell me if the plot actually started going somewhere in the next two issues?

 

im actually 4 issues ahead of you guys as far as the story goes
hehe

i've read scripts through issue 10  



but between 6 and 8 yes. there's definitely some plot progression for sure

a few questions are answered. the past is brought up. ironhide beats someone up.



volume 2 definitely steps things up IMO
[and of course there's more. i cant spoil everything  ]

 

Well considering how volume 1 didn't even go anywhere with the plot, I'd say it's pretty easy for volume 2 to "step things up".  

But good to know the plot finally decides to advance. Now let's just hope it advances in a good way.

 

I have to disagree. The G1 series under "Mick" was heading onto something larger and deeper, but we'll never know now. We only got the teaser of what was coming. I compare it to getting only getting Infiltration, Escalation, and handful of spotlights, which were highly displeasing to most. Personally, I found DW's series much more entertaining and fulfilling than the first few mini-series presented by IDW. Granted the -trationseries picked up after Escalation, but their start was much slower than DWs.

 

What, gentle Ironhide being aggressive? The devil you say!  

But seriously, thanks for coming on and letting us know how things are shaping up. Keep up the good work!

 

I can see that.

I guess I just preferred the 'real world' angle to the more 'comic' DW style. It gives significance to them being Transformers.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

EDIT: And is you sig Don Hertzfeldt inspired?

 

I'm not so sure about that one. In fact, I seriously dooubt that. I seem to remember there being a ton of bitching about IDW's Beast Wars series... maybe not quite to the level of AHM or M:O, but damn, I don't believe it was a favourite. Seems to me Escalation, or Spotights are the IDW series most often pointed to as people's favourites.

 

I'm not so sure about that as well. That Beast Wars comic (and the accompanying half-assed profile book) was awful in my opinion. I don't know how Furman turned in a nicely verbose Nemesis part 2 script but churned out a fairly boring Beast Wars comic.

I liked Infiltration (and the following comics of that continuity) because it tried something new. But yes, for a franchise about Change, Transformers fans fear and hate new things.

 

Yeah, I'm not too keen on the Beast Wars books either... Too many characters sandwiched in, and the pacing was terrible for the content it contained. Ascending, in particular, should have been a bigger series because we had so much going on in such a short space, leaving a very lackluster ending.

But you can certainly tell it was Furman writing it by the end... How many characters died at the end of it?  

 

Yeah, the first BW mini was sort of decent, but the second one I rank with the Micromasters mini on the scale of bad.

 

You know what's crazy? The Animated comic has actually been my favorite TF comic lately. I never saw that coming. And I don't mean that as the others are bad, I just mean that Animated is really, really good.

 

I think that Stormbringer is up there as the favorite output by IDW, actually.

And Maximum Dinobots is also quickly climbing (so long as Furman keeps up the pace/story, I guess)

 

Agreed. Turns out the best comics aren't SRS BUSINESS!

 

Oh it's true.
It's damn true.

 

All Hail Megatron and the Animated comic are the only series I've liked from IDW.

I've bought them all, but these are the only ones I've really enjoyed. very much enjoying the change of pace and mystery AHM brings with it.

 

Not that many will still be reading this thread this many pages in, nor am I likely to change anyone's attitude towards the book, I think opinions of a lot of folks are set in stone by now... Yet still I feel compelled to say. I thought this was a VERY GOOD issue.

Listen, I HATED the first few issues of AHM as much as anyone. They were boring, filled with action movie reject humans, felt like the weekest of the DW stuff, nothing happened, they were filled with contridictions to the already established continuity, and worst of all we were getting it INSTEAD of the Furman stories I'd been loving. I REALLY hated the first few issues immensely. I'm not surprised they turned a lot of folks off perminently... but I think that's a huge shame because....

Then something happened. Once the Autobots finally showed up in recent issues and their storyline replaced the sad and boring human stuff, the books seemed to click a lot stronger than before. There was finally enough TF action and with them taking center stage came some actually very strong characerization. McCarthy, say what you want, clearly knowns these characters and gives them the individual unique voices they need. The change over to a winning formula wasn't quick or complete and issue 4 left me greatly conflicted. Objectively it was actually pretty GOOD but I couldn't seperate it from all the continuity issues it still had with the Furman stuff that came before. Then we got issue 5 whih continuied on the same level and actually explained away some of the continuity disconnects! I finally has an issue I could say I completely enjoyed.

And this issue was even better. The Autobots continue to get some nice moments and character focus and now the Decepticons finally get some real quality interaction too. I LOVE Furman's stuff but he tends to have "Focus" characters who get characterization at a given time where the rest fall into the background, especially among the Cons. It's great to see Cons of all "levels" dug into here: The interplay between Megatron and Starcream, with Screamer needleing him continuously was a nice low-key take on their interaction that I'd like to see more. The face-off between Skywarp and Bombshell was also well done, showcaseing both the dim beligerence of the former and the psychological malevolence of the latter. This is something we don't see enough Decepticons interacting personally with other Cons and the personalities clashing.

The real joy of this issue for me though is the Thundercracker/Skywarp stuff. FINALLY! Thundercracker is one of the most criminally neglected characters in the TF universe. He shows up all the time, sure, but as background, as fodder. He has a fascinating bio/personality that noone EVER deals with... Until now. IMHO the whole 5 issues of AHM thus far could be entirely justified by this Cracker/Warp interaction. Thundercracker likes the feeling of superiority the Seekers give him but he's not sold on the Decepticon cause, deep down he doesn't enjoy destuction and murder, he doesn't like what they're doing to Earth and the humans. Seeing that play off Skywarp, his usual compatriot in crime, who very much does like this sort of carnage was great and felt very psychologically true to what happens when good "friends" have this sort of profound difference. I'd really like to see where this goes.

Sure Drift is a bit of an unneccessary plant so far (but frankly isn't a big enough part of the series yet to deserve the attention haters have been giving him since it became "cool" to bash him), and yes I still miss Furman, and YES the over-plot is still moving very slowly I won't argue that, and no it's not by any means "perfect"... but still, all that granted: AHM has really blossomed in the last few issues. If it 1) keeps the focus on the Transformers this strongly, leaving the humas to their reletively short subplots, and 2) Keeps up the characterization of everyone including Cons and second-stringers at this level then I'll be very happy to buy the next 6 issues and will expect it to end as a series much stronger than it (regretably) began.

 

Damn it. Animated is the only one I dropped. I figured it would just mirror the TV show.  

And I'll just echo how much I miss Furhman. The -ation series remains my favorite TF fiction of all time.