I started reading Dreamwave's G1 comics again, and while I haven't read much, the art is honestly pretty good and the story is quite alright. I know the whole Pat Lee thing but why does dreamwave gets so much hate? Just curious
Oh wow. And I find his art to be polarising. On one hand you have the good cover arts, on the other you have those marshmallow hands and legs. And dull surprise.
Unfortunately, for all the good that came out of Dreamwave (namely Don and Milne) there was also a lot of bad. I think everyone should read through the Dreamwave stuff at least once. The second mini is still one of my favorite pieces of transformers fiction (it's not that great -- don't have high expectations).
Not just the Pat Lee thing from what I saw there were many The first mini came across as a bit preachy while some fans were glad to have their Transformers back, others were pissed with the 9/11 politics in the series feeling it was misplaced. Both the villains rantings about humanity, civvies using the fire engines, Grimlock switching sides and the two sacrifices at the end of it were a bit much. The second mini was a return to form for some but while 'Brad Mick' was clearly a fan (and often slammed for 'fanwank' throughout his work), his appreciation of Beast Wars was divisive with the G1 bots using Beast Wars phrases and terms. The War Within was fine for the most part yet there were more then a few who pointed out it and the ongoing G1 comic seemed to be at odds in characterization. Armada had it's ups and downs until the Unicron arc that dared to feature Armada Megatron best G1 Galvatron. Energon was a step up though.
After enjoying War And Peace, Brad Mick's next series drove me insane, basically trying to redo and Easter Egg all sorts of stuff that was in the cartoon.
Worlds Collide. I had totally forgotten about that. Did Bludgeon show up too? I need to hunt down my issues of that and give it a read. It was silly but kind of fun.
Not only does he show up, but it's the only time I found him to be scary. I loved Worlds Collide, even if it basically was all "There was a previous story? LOL, No!" I also loved the first arc of the ongoing with Sunstorm, Jetfire, and Starscream. So much potential. Dreamwave made a lot of things we take for granted in TF media. I really, really wish there was a way to legally buy digital versions of those issues.
It was so exciting when the first Dreamwave stuff was coming out, plus there was a massive hype train and I think whenever you have massive hype you get a bit of hate too. I get the dislike of Pat Lee and the way it shut down, but I think that clouds peoples judgement a bit. Plus then we got IDW, and a lot of DW fans were upset it didn't continue the previous continuity so they hated on IDW, then that was reflected back by IDW fans. At least that's what I remember. In my opinion the art was fantastic for the majority of their output. 1st 6 part series was rough writing wise, but at the time it was amazing just to see Transformers again. 2nd and Ongoing were good stuff. The 2.5 series of War Within were great and then you had the More Than Meets The Eye guidebooks which I wish IDW had done. Plus the posters if you can get hold of them.
I find it ironic that all this hate was directed at IDW instead of Dreamwave, who by bad management and non-payment, essentially ensured we'd never see the unpublished material.
Dreamwave had a lot of good stuff. I loved the pre-Earth designs for the War Within, the lore created. For the first time I was enthusiastic about Transformers comics. But the art, the delays, the-let's be blunt-criminal activity of Pat Lee has put me off of it over time. And that's a shame.
Will always love the DW stuff despite the drama and ultimate outcome. That feeling, the return of Transformer comics, can never be reproduced. It coincided with the resurgence of the brand at retail too. It was a momentous time for the fandom. Super glad that I have all the vol. 3 issues.
It was around in a time where we weren't as inundated with the G1 nostalgia, new action figures based on older characters, and had to deal with things like Beast Machines and Armada for a good many years. "Old school" Transformers coming back around was a big hit for a lot of fans, including myself at the time. Unfortunately, Pat Lee is a trash human being and his nonsense cast a shadow over any positives DW's comics may have had. The Dull Surprise and puffy proportions were always destined to be hilarious though. Reflecting back- especially with all that we have nowadays in the vein of G1 love- the comics themselves didn't really have much to offer. I reread them a couple years back, and man- the sheer volume of plot inconsistencies were staggering, and didn't really have anything to keep it exciting other than some new character from the Way-Back Machine popping up as a big surprise every once in a while. Those "gotcha" moments really didn't work that well for me over time. War Within 1 was neat, if not pandering. They had some plot hooks seeded that never panned out and maybe could have fixed some of that. But it played out much like the G1 cartoon did in its seasons. Lots of '84 bots in the first plot run with Prime Directive, bunch of '85 and '86 bots in the War & Peace run, and an upcoming focus on season three characters like Springer/Hot Rod/Arcee/Quintessons in the ongoing before it was cancelled. It was fun once, but in retrospect the writing was very formulaic and not far shy from one-dimensional.
The Profile books, War Within, World's Collide, Energon, G1 ongoing...God I loved Dreamwave. They got me into collecting as an adult. They gave us new characters like Sunstorm and the Fallen. I loved Sunstreaker's badass portrayal in the ongoing and Repugnus' profile was something else. I loved their art style too. Oh and I loved seeing the Seeker army!!
