...you do know that literally the founding father of the Decepticons - Megatron himself - is currently an Autobot in MTMTE, or at least spent most of the last few issues being one, right?

 

Yes. He became an Autobot because he was no longer secure in his beliefs. What he believes now is somewhat ambiguous to me beyond "I sure did screw everything up, I really need to try something new".

 

Hopefully Roberts won't be driven to suicide by Tumblr fans the way other artists have:

'Steven Universe' fandom is melting down after bullied fanartist attempts suicide

This article basically captures in a nutshell everything wrong with fans today.

 

That is neither here nor there.

 

Yeah uh. Speaking as someone who actually lived through some of the stuff that's done to Grimlock in that issue?

The fact that comparison is being made at all is insulting.

 

Personally I dislike that IDW went in the "the heroes can be just as bad as the villains" direction and made several of the goodies horrible people. Sure, Prowl is supposed to be a strategist and logician, and I can see that making him a hard-ass who's willing to accept some casualties if it means winning a battle, but deliberately hiding vital information? Or turning Whirl into a genuine psycho as opposed to it supposedly having been an act? And the Dinobots aren't totally without morals - while they have contempt for the weak, they have greater contempt for people like Megatron who want to use power to enslave the weak, which is the thing that prevents them from being total monsters. And no, Autobots killing Decepticons in battle is not them being cold killers - it's war, and it's necessary. Keep in mind that the Autobots never wanted a war to begin with, but Megatron forced them into it, unless they would rather willingly let him enslave them.

Or how about almost every Prime before Optimus being a terrible and corrupt leader? Why is that necessary? I get it, reflection of how anyone given absolute power would likely abuse it, but the Primes were all massive fuckfaces? Really? That's the kind of stuff that annoys me.

 

Ah not this bullsh!t again...didn't we go through this 30+ pages ago where you left this thread?

If you want pure good + evil stuff, you can watch the G1 cartoon.

 

I said that I wanted to leave this off-topic discussion alone.

But this is just disgusting, these people should be ashamed of themselves.

 

I'm welcome to express my opinion here.

 

Prowl hiding vital information was before he was a villain. In "Everyhting in Its Place" Prowl was shown to be so passionate about the Autobot cause that he was willing to manipulate the will of others and hide information that could be used as Decepticon propaganda because the way of people like Optimus and Springer were simply not going to win the war. That's being morally grey, yes, but he was doing it in order to help the side we're supposed to be rooting for.

The other Primes had to be corrupt because there had to be reason for the uprising. If you're going to give Megatron a realistic reason for waging war, you need to show the governing body of power to not be nice people.

As for what you said about Whirl and the Dinobots... You wanted Whirl to just be pretending he's crazy as a result of having his life ruined and his body mutilated? Why would that be a better characterization? Before IDW, Whirl's entire personality was more or less "flies crazy" so let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that horse is a break-out character. The Dinobots have never really been portrayed as stone-hard killers, but they were a hit squad that is handling adjusting to pre-war life terribley.

 

You would hate Macbeth, Johntimus. Morality should always be dictated by color-scheme.

 

It is very much here and there. The same types of rabid attacks that are completely out of proportion with their supposed offences, as well as the almost puritanical levels of righteous censorship, are also starting to appear in this fandom and it is absolutely appropriate to start raising warning flags over it.

 

Roberts got some criticism over the themes of his issue in that the Scavengers were treating the mentally-damaged Grimlock as if property. It's not even nearly the same situation as fans insulting a fanartist about there drawings of a fat girl being too skinny.

The criticism itself wasn't even all that much out of proportion. It was criticism. He's a writer of a popular series and he should be expecting it and I'm sure knows how to deal with it.

 

I'm still not sure why the actions of the Scavengers are exactly out of line, given who they are.

I mean, in the first issue they were introduced, they sat around a fire and watched an Autobot scream as he died in it. They're Decepticons for crying out loud, the idea they'd be total assholes to one of the most fearsome Autobots of all time isn't entirely unusual behavior given, y'know, they're from the side normally characterized as being evil.

 

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with you. I just think comparing this to a suicide is a little bit far.

 

The topic is: what went wrong? With the specific thrust of some readers not enjoying mtmte and xrid as much. People who have been reading idw comics and enjoyed them, and are now perhaps enjoying them less or dropping it, please comment.

Would the individuals who do not, have not, have not read since ahm, are not going to read, only read wiki entries kindly exit the conversation? You have succeeded only in constant off-topic.

If you wish to bitch about the existence of idw or specific things that bother you about this interpretation, which you are not required to buy, read, or really acknowledge, perhaps feel free to start a new thread.

I'm not sorry some of you are angry about these comics. Best goddamn stories in TF in years. You don't. Have. To. Read them. Go watch your g1 dvds or whatever over and over again. Hey, I still watch bw and tfa. Because I enjoy them. I don't watch the movies or armada, or prime, or anything I don't like, and I don't really bother giving those media much thought.

 

A self-avowed feminist and socialist who has raised LGBT and disadvantaged-peoples profiles to heights never before seen in Transformers comics being attacked so much by the very groups that he caters to that he's deciding to take a break from interacting with them is a sign that it's gone a bit beyond 'regular' criticism.

This is another tactic that i'm sick of: the standard "don't watch it then" response. Things like movies, TV shows and especially comic books are by their express nature designed with the intention of creating emotional bonds with their customers, in order to have them keep coming back. They are also built up on the backs of those paying customers, and so it is extremely disingenuous to turn around and say "Thanks for all of your support over the years, now fuck off" and expect the customers to just wash their hands and walk away. This is not the same thing as buying a roll of paper towels every week.

To pretend that there's no duty of care built between a product creator and a product consumer in situations like these is being ignorant of reality.

I personally have no issues with the books right now and enjoy them, but I fully empathize with those people who don't and can understand where they're coming from.

 

You are correct provided you don't break the rules a message boards by its very design is a place you can express opinions freely. There are no such thing as wrong opinions but there are wilfully ignorant or miss-informed opinions that can be pretty inflametory when stated angrily as if they was facts.

If you look at your opinion it isn't as simple as all the Autobots in IDW being as nasty or villainous as the Decepticons as if you look at the MTMTE cast there are loads of sympathetic and compassionate characters with senses of humour, distinct personalities, opinions and outlooks on life it's just that many of them are also damaged or have their own faults too.

In my opinion what these Idw comics are doing that is so impressive that seems to annoy others is that it doesn't try too hard to tell the viewer how to think or feel morally and let's them make their own judgements rather than just telling the viewer these are the primary coloured goodies and those are the purple villains which seems to be the norm in transformers fiction.

 

That's not a "tactic" and the fact you think it is should probably tell you that you're taking some good advice too personally. The thing you really should ask yourself is "why do I spend so much time on the things that I hate more than the things that I love?" If you think you're being smart by saying "I spend so much time on it because I love it so much" it's really "because I love hating so much."

People do become too emotionally invested in things such that they lose perspective on what is still important.

 

You're right, Roberts did indeed receive some good criticism, HOWEVER some of it was downright nasty and bordering on criminal.

Hypothetical time.

Let's say I called you a derogatory slur everyday all day. Every time you posted something I just wrote a derogatory slur in response. After a while you, hell probably the first time, you'd get fucking mad, RIGHT? You'd probably run to the mods the second you saw it.

Now imagine a feminist socialist being called a sexist and ableist everyday for a long time. That would leave some mental scars. Roberts said that is what was happening.

I'm just kind of shocked that your response was, "he's in the limelight, he should deal with criticism". No one is denying that, we're talking about the bullshit harassment he received. The fact that you won't acknowledge there was a difference is bothersome. To say the least.

That's my biggest problem with some of you guys. You'll pick at the part of the argument that you know you can, while you leave the parts of the conversation that kind of slap your arguments down on the cutting room floor. I think the reasons you do it is because you need to win. This isn't a conversation for some of you. It's a pissing contest.