I mean I still love the IDW comics but It feels like they've gone off the deep end as of late.

MTMTE isn't as praised and universally loved as it once was.

The whole excitement with Windblade and Mairghread Ann Scott is no longer there and at best people are apathetic towards it

Events each year that are long winded, tedious, waste half the year of comics building up to it and in the end doesn't really matter and they keep doing more of them.

Character depictions being all over the place.

The only thing that seems to be going right is Not-RID but who knows how long that'll last before All Hail Optimus Prime.

Should IDW have a major reboot? Or is this just the fandom being the fandom.

 

Fandom being fandom. But yes, the events kind of hurt the stories. I will boycott the next event.

 

Every comic continuity goes through ups and downs. And right now they seem to be at a down point.

 

Well there's executive meddling that has led to all the events we've had so far, a fandom that's expecting the stories to be all G1 or perfect in their own way and of course this:

 

The sky isn't falling. These are still strong comics that I enjoy reading every month, even if they aren't reaching the heights of a couple years ago. Omegashark18 pretty well nailed it.

I'm not sure I understand the mentality where people treat a few "lesser" issues, or even ONE lesser issue, as a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Nothing to see here, really.

 

MTMTE has become very episodic and overly self-referential which, while entertaining, is not quite up to par with the ongoing nature of the first season of MTMTE. RID/TF Ongoing had that awful combiner wars series that not only added absolutely no characterization to the combiners and other characters involved but was illustrated by Livio Ramondelli and as such was visually incomprehensible. Something interesting really needs to happen in the IDW universe to get both series back on track, but if the Combiner Wars event is anything to go by, the upcoming Titan Wars will likely just throw the series more off-track. For the most part, any series where Post-Archer Hasbro has decided to dictate events has turned out terribly, so I would expect the comics to only further devolve from this point unless creative control is given back to the creative types at IDW as opposed to the soulless marketing drones at Hasbro.

 

IMHO it's Hasbro. They saw how much people liked it and decided to try and stuff their Generations line into it, to give it some sort of marketing.

The team working on either comic may not have the experience to work with editorial mandates, which can already be pretty hard to work with. It may just not be going where the creators wanted it to go.

....but I hate the IDW universe, do what do I know?

 

Seconded.

There's plenty to look forward to and plenty of great work being put out by IDW. 3 ongoing titles plus multiple mini-series' being released is something that TF fans could only dream of just a few short years ago. There's enough variety in the different titles that literally any type of Transformers fan should have something they like.

 

MTMTE 45 was number 4 on comixology last month. And it's reviews are still stellar. RID was either in the top 10 or just outside it. and a lot of that top ten wasn't made up of new comics. Which means both series outsold most of the competition losing to new Batman and the Killing Joke.

the only thing wrong with IDW is toy events getting in the way of my stories.

 

I think it's Hasbro. Since they are using the IDW comics to push their toys, the books have become event driven.

The books are still good, but Hasbro's marketing agendas weaken them.

 

I think Marvel and DC over blow their event comics a lot worse, but Combiner Wars was kinda crap. These comics are great when they're just standalone series in one universe, I don't want to see something like Titan Wars again, no more comics that act like commercials.

MTMTE, is very self referential recently, but I can't help but love it everytime it does that. XD

 

This answers it for me.

Also, that Windblade series is pretty terrible. I think I'm going to drop it as reading it is more of a chore than entertainment.

 

The only comic at the moment I'd say is objectively bad is Windblade.

Ex-RID may not be so great as a whole, but I think it's been improving with its recent issues.

MTMTE has had its problems, but as far as comics go it's still pretty darn good.

There have been some problems as of late, but I like to think things haven't gone off the rails quite yet.

But two more crossover events could actually change that. Titan Wars is going to be a train wreck...

 

Two more? As far as I know, Titans Return is the only one coming up.

 

Fandom being the fandom.

Honestly, Autovolt, I don't think it's nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. IDW is still producing some of the best TF comics we've ever had, adding lots of new, likeable characters and releasing really interesting stories. Is it to everyone's taste? No, of course not and sadly I think, like with any fandom, that the those who are the most disappointed tend to be the most vocal.

I'm curious, do you post anywhere apart from here? I pootle about a few other sites/forums and I'm always very surprised by the differing opinions each site have about an issue/show. What is popular on one forum is not the same for another.

I think the only issue most people can agree on are the unnecessary toy events. Having one every year is too much, too often. They have the big event and then spend a year just trying to get the story back on track, only to have it interrupted AGAIN. Maybe every two years would be better.

Although, I'll admit that DC holds up much better when read from the volumes.

Yup to all of this.

 

Makes me wish for a return to the old days where the only comics the toys came with were entirely separate affairs from the main comics.

In fact, if the toy-only comics were the same kind of quality as that "Battle In Space" comic with RtS Roddy and Cyclonus, then that would be great because that one-off comic book was really, really good for what I was expecting.

 

I don't think anything's "gone wrong", MTMTE just got a bit too self-referential and "MTMTE-y" for some for a few issues and the Title Formerly Known as RID keeps getting bogged down in dodgily executed toy crossovers.

I still love MTMTE as much as ever, and I've really enjoyed the past three issues of tTFKaRID way more than I thought I would as well.

Recently both titles seem to creep up another spot on Comixology's Top 10 New Releases with each new issue, I believe #45 of MTMTE and RID were at #4 and #8 respectively in the UK, and held that position from Thursday to the next Wednesday up against some heavy hitters.
People may say they don't do well because the physical numbers aren't that big in the grand scheme of things, but seeing the company it keeps digitally these days tells me it may have just a teensy bigger following than it seems.

So yeah, in short, fandom gonna fandom!

 

Seconded.


Heck, even issues that look 'eh' at the time sometimes improve a lot in retrospect as new stuff is unveiled.

 

Two things went wrong.

1. Hasbro. The comics are constantly being derailed by increasingly bad events designed to sell toys. Roberts and Barber signed on to comics where they had almost complete Independence and clearly can't adapt to being toy commercials.

2. James Roberts is a fanfic writer. He started writing fanfics then got an official series. At first he seemed to balance serious character drama and mysteries with his goofiness but since the goofy pop culture references are the biggest departure from the norm in TF, he seems to think that's the only part people are interested in. Now that's all MTMTE is.

I might continue buying MTMTE but only when the price drops. Outside of that, I'm giving up on IDW. I might read SOTW but I'm even questioning that.

 

I guess I'm a fanboy.

I genuinely enjoy what I've been reading. There's issues here and there, there's low spots for certain, but I really like it, overall.