If it's true it's bitter-sweet, IDW did so much right and alot wrong IMHO.

Dark Horse just took the rights back to Starwars comics from Marvel so who knows, this could happen.

 

Dear Hasbro:

Regarding Transformers comics. It\'s a periodical. One book per month. One-and-done for each issue. No long arcs. None. Gor it\'s certain death for a comic book these days - don\'t allow it.

NO \"SLOW BURN.\" None.

Finally, handcuff Alex Milne to a chair and make him draw everything lol
 

 

Correction - Dark Horse took the All Ages Star Wars license from IDW. Marvel still does the normal Star Wars stuff.

 

Despite all the terrible and middling content IDW pumped out, especially later in its lifespan, we've gotten some good stories here and there. Thankfully if they dump the current ongoing continuities nothing of value would really be lost.

Honestly I'd be totally fine if they took a break from TF comics for awhile, especially since it's not like there's an ideal alternative that has a great track record at the moment. It's probably for the best that they lose G.I. Joe as well since they clearly don't know how to do it justice.

 

Given that IDW had plans for more IDW1 that got shelved in favor of the reboot, it was almost certainly Hasbro.

There is, but, it's all reprints of 30 year old comics. Nowadays aside from the side stuff like the Legends comics there's not much new in regards to Transformers manga.

Well even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Not saying they're wrong about what they heard, or that it can't possibly be true, but they do print all of the rumors that they hear and not all of them turn out to be right.


Anyway, I don't dislike IDW by any means, but I don't care if they lost the license, either. BOOM! would be a good place for the property I think, seems like the logical place to take the license if they don't renew with IDW.

 

Hopefully, it’ll be one of those cases where just the publisher change and the Beast Wars comics can still continue.

 

Can't say I'm torn up over this. Say what you want, but I genuinely believe that Last Stand of the Wreckers is the worst comic I've ever read. And I don't mean worst Transformers comic, I mean worst comic period. I'm not joking. What happened to the good old days when Megatron would order the Constructicons to build another ultimate weapon to conquer Earth, and Optimus Prime would lead the heroic Autobots to stop him? I don't see that anywhere in these comics.  

 

I've ranted about it before but I do suspect Transformers, like all big IP properties is becoming an exhausted franchise running out of material. It badly need a break to 'find itself' and reinvigorate the roots as well as producing something new which create new fans, even if in this day and age its just now how things work. People may disagree with me on a lot of things, including my opinions and personal leaning and values but right now I suspect for Transformers the issues run deeper than just the socio political wars and just the sheer age of the franchise combined with Hasbro mandates. Every since the success of Bayformers we have mode toward more and more unified visions of what the series is, what it should feel like and what its lore ought to be like. Aligned and IDW1 shaped this massively, leading to Prime, Cyberverse and Bumblebee.

Long story short? We need a new Beast Wars, a new Unicron Trilogy or a new Animated. Not remaking those mind you. But we need shows of that caliber. Do I think the current industries are equipped and staffed to produce such shows? Haha, fuck now. Do I think it could ever happen again? Absolutely not! But it is what is needed.

 

I hope the news is true. I haven’t enjoyed an IDW story in years. I try every few months only to get reminded why I stopped reading their stuff. Good riddance.

 

I’m 35 and feeling quite old.

It just astonishes me how little the TF fandom accepts change. My childhood had both G1 and Beast Wars. My teens and early adult years saw the franchise change entirely every year or two.

So it’s hard to understand how a fandom that’s never really had long term consistency can be so dogmatic to certain eras or concepts

 

I dont think that happened in ANY Transformers comics. That was more a cartoon thing., on account of it being suvh a flat concept.

 

I think a lot of people in this thread are really crossing up the business and creative responsibilities on Transformers comics. The storytelling that you love or hate is not from a company, but by creative teams working with editorial and brand managers to come up with entertaining stories. Companies employee the decision makers and pay the talent that produces them, but it's ultimately the people that make them work.

Sales numbers, licensing fees, marketing spend, these things are the domain of the companies. These are business concepts, not entertainment ones, not creative ones. Yes, good books can help goose revenues and bad ones can prompt a downturn, but there's not a one-to-one relationship.

I feel like I have to call this out because there's a lot of posts like the license owner determines the output, and I just don't see how that's true. There will almost certainly be a reboot if the license changes, but beyond that, I don't know why everyone acts like there would be a clean break.

I guess what bothers me is an implicit attitude by some here that IDW deserves to lose the license because they think Ruckley's pacing is too slow. That's just not the way these things work. Nothing wrong with not liking his writing or the artists on current IDW books -- though I disagree vehemently -- but they have nothing to do with what's going on.

TFW has been doing a decent job of posting stories whenever IDW (the company) has turmoil, and there's been a ton of it in the last couple years. A lot of other posters have spoken to Johnston's relative reliability and to Hasbro working with Boom!, and IDW losing the Marvel all-ages license, but not to IDW more generally.

IDW has been a mess since trying to pivot to being a broader media production company and failing at that. In recent months, they've had significant executive turnover. They've been hemorrhaging licenses all year -- they lost Ghostbusters at the start of the year, months before a major movie release, and orphaning the Transformers crossover even as the crossover toy retool was released.

At this point, it would be much more surprising if the rumor turned out to be false.

 

Comic book would be sweet, but I'm most interested in if/how toys would work. Toei/Takara are hypothetically rival companies so I'm not sure if Hasbro could engage the Tak side of the business to produce Transformers branded toys with a Toei/Sentai skin.

Unless the loophole is using any of the numerous US Rangers with no design basis in Sentai (Solar Rangers, Omega Rangers, for example)

 

To be fair, it's not like IDW introduced kissing and other human forms of affection to Transformers. That's been there for a while (G1, Beast Wars, etc.), it's just IDW's the first place that didn't shove the sincere on-the-mouth kissing offscreen.

Wasn't there some rumor recently about Hasbro ditching Sentai and making entirely original Power Rangers stuff from here on out? Or did that turn out to be horseshit

 

The current run is not a slow burn, it is directionless and incomprehensible. We are now on issue 37 of the main series on top of a dozen side stories and I could barely even tell you what this series is about. The time for taking it on faith that this story is actually headed somewhere is long passed. I thought the previous IDW run was mostly very good, with MTMTE/LL being my favorite ever. But whatever this is now is embarrassing. Someone else should have it.

I do like Beast Wars though.

 

It is a cartoon thing. If it was the old comics, the Decepticons would be taking orders from a cassette tape and Optimus would do nothing of value before killing himself over a video game.

 

From the perspective of a Sonic fan, IDW's Sonic comics haven't been great either, I say that while also acknowledging the creative team's hands are tied by Sega's imposing virtually impossible rules to work with, but it's still not a good look for IDW, along with delays.

I've also been told by people who read it their TMNT comics aren't any better, can't say that for sure since I haven't read them.

 

NOOO... Just when the ongoing is getting good. I still wanna know about Exarchon's background, early days of the war etc
before the same old stuff - starting the war with TFs on earth - gets rebooted with the new publisher happens. 

 

Boom makes sense - for their success with Power Rangers, another Hasbro property.

BUT - Crazy theory time

Weren’t there rumors, earlier this year or late last year, about Disney looking to buy Hasbro? If that’s still a possibility, I could see the Transformers license and others sitting on ice - nothing being made - to keep them available for the prospective owner. Especially because Disney owns Marvel and would probably prefer to produce comic materials in-house instead of licensing out.