Nick Roche is a decent writer and author, he may even be better at the former than Roberts.

Though given IDW's continued mediocrity and missteps along the way I don't really blame anyone for being tired and wanting a hard reset, still curious to look into this "Last Bot Standing" storyline though. Most of IDW1's Phase 2 wasn't.. great, but it wasn't modern Marvel or DC levels of atrocious (for the most part) either.

IDW2's mostly been unremarkable, honestly the best stuff to come out of its run were the 1984 one shot and mini plus a few of the crossover stories, rather than the main ongoing story itself...

 

I

I really want to do a write up or something about the ruckley IDW run when it ends because as much as I don’t enjoy it, I think there’s something there worth saying. Just difficult to know where to start with it, but I’m sure it’ll make sense soon enough!

 

I think it'll be well-regarded in the years to come, honestly. They went for something really really sweeping, like Dune-level epic. They just ran out of time.

(the stuff about life during the uncertain early days of a war that's about to sweep the entire world might be read very differently in the future...)

 

... I mean, I probably wouldn't compare Brian Ruckley and Frank Herbert but I see what you mean.

 

Ruckley once made a point of saying that tf2019 wasn’t political, but you don’t write a story about politics/war without drawing from history, from the now and from what you on some level think the future might hold, which are all very political things. Even if it’s a story about space robots!

 

General opinion has been that Ruckley's stuff reads better as a binge, so I could absolutely see it gaining a larger following once we have the whole story.

 

I said "went for" - never said 'achieved.'

Still, I don't think I've ever found the main book outright bad. Slow to the point of frustration, sure, but there's usually at least some bits I like. Ruckley very intentionally draws from all over the TF franchise for supporting cast, which means we get some more time with Stryka and Landmine and Flamewar and the other oddballs he's smuggling into a Neo-G1 canon. I appreciate that Cybertron feels old, like it's a planet that's seen its best years come and go and that was a very long time ago. The world he's building is interesting, but the ways he's been building it have been kind of a chore sometimes.

That being said, I think people expect more action in their TF fiction, which is a strike against it... but I would imagine if it were continuing it was going to get real violent, real fast, probably by the end of the year?

 

Mmm, yes, would be nice if we could all refrain from making judgements about other people based on the things that they do or don't like in their fiction, wouldn't it?

BTW, I wasn't throwing shade, I am seriously wanting to know what turned someone who named themselves "Misfire" against IDW so hard.

 

Jesus the amount of hate in this thread. But either way im still excited to see my boy finally make his appearance in the new contuinity, granted he\'s already old now but hey better a new rodimus story over ol;d man bee or old man optimus prime.

 

Any excitement for this comic based on the preview can NOT be taken seriously. We got 5 covers from IDW’s variant cover scheme and 3 pages. 2 of which are of an explosion that took 15 minutes to draw.

2 pages.

The narration took 2 seconds to read. They expect people to pay money for this? All I see is a publisher phoning it in hoping to squeeze a few more bucks from the license. Transformers deserve better than this.

 

it may turn out to be a good story. But it’s still a bad empty preview that does nothing to entice a possible buyer to want to pay money to continue reading the story. A good preview for this book would have been three pages from when the story actually starts, not just the first three pages showing barely anything. And it’s not “hate” to point this out.

 

Three pages whose only purpose is in setting the mood for the story still doesn’t make for a good preview, and these three pages should have been skipped for pages showing actual characters doing something to show potential buyers.

 

Yeah man, we know you know about hating stuff.

Anyway, the Ruckley Run has had a lot of interesting ideas and one that it’s a shame we didn’t really get to see play out is …Cybertron hasn’t had a “new life form” in a very long time until Rubble shows up, then he’s promptly killed.
The TF species is implicitly at risk of extinguishing itself entirely with another war.
I would have liked to see this explored further.

That and the very clear effects of the war even in its early stages on the physical condition of the planet - it really was pushing home the “no, the war renders the planet totally uninhabitable” aspect of the lore. I don’t think we’ve seen it this up close before, outside of bits like the planetary engine plot line in War Within, the destruction of specific cities, etc.

 

Yeah and then people would complain all they're doing is talking or it's just "mindless action on poorly planned out pages".

There's no winning with TFW.

 

I guess I just can’t get worked up about previews like I used to, oh to be young again

 

Why oh why didn't Roche plan ahead and write for the free 3 page preview that releases 2 weeks before the comic?! Tsk tsk.

 

Because people like that have a limited, shallow appreciation for TF.

 

wot? The only time I can recall comic previews skipping the opening pages to a later point in the issue was when there was some kind of spoilery reveal in those pages that the publisher didn't want ruined before it was released. Maybe skipping ahead would give something away, and then y'all would complain that the preview's giving too much away. There's already the issue solicit right there on iBooks to generate interest as well, it's not like these pages have been thrown out into the world with zero context.

Like, damn, do some of you need everything to open with an action sequence before you're willing to give it a fair shake or something? Do you also prefer how movie trailers used to just straight up give away the entire plot of a movie, twists and all?

 

They don't want creativity.
They don't want artistry.
They only want:

 

Not just Roche. *Every* comic book writer ever. Since comics always should be eye catching and action packed in the preview.

Who needs rising action. ALL CLIMAX ALL THE TIME!