I really hope they avoid this. As of right now, the narrative about bored as hell, retired soldiers with nothing to do who are itching for excitement, reminds me of many knights who were all too happy to engage in warfare and violence at the drop of a hat. One does not have to drag current American politics into everything to make a story relatable. The ancient world had tons of crazy events and politics and that was also once the day to day reality of people.

 

You can't avoid it in any medium. We got allusions to British Parlimentary history in James Roberts run, especially "My friend Megatron had three questions..." and his scripted portion of Titans Return screamed "Orange Hitler" parody using Sentinel Prime, including a nod to an incident with being taken down by a bird..

What you're seeing in this book that parallels current events is the xenophobic rhetoric and the reaction by dangerous violent characters, former soldiers, like Quake.

 

True. Though I would like to point out that xenophobia is an extremely common trope in Sci-fi. It's practically a given with the setting/genre.

 

Most of the problems people have with the reboot are the same as the old run.

 

Do you remember that we had this ART once?

 

Milne is coming back for issue #13...The reason why we haven't gotten any artists doing full work on a single issue is probably due to things being released bi-monthly. I'm sure once things are monthly the art will be taken over by a single artist per issue. Galaxies in particular seems to be bringing back some of the older artists as well. Livio is working on the first issue of that series.

 

Good luck. Human nature is what it is and of course it propagates through both our fiction and our real lives. So I don't see the point in avoiding allusions to current American politics when, by your admission, they're just the current manifestation of human failings that have consistently influenced our history. Why allude to the medieval Crusades when people are literally doing the same sort of thing right now? It sounds like beating around the bush to me.

If the shoe fits we need to not be mad at that fact. If it bothers us that parallels are being drawn with our countries' behavior in ways we find distasteful, the germane question is, does it actually apply? And if it does, we need to improve our country instead of being mad that other folks are referencing the REAL similarities.

And in general, history is HISTORY... it will NEVER connect to people as strongly as current events, and to the extent it does, it's because the history is grounded in people's present realities. Like, the reason why Japanese history is such a major part of popular culture even today is because ninjas are cool NOW. I mean, Janissaries were badass too but you don't see movies and comics about them.

 

My qualms with alluding to current day politics is not due to personal reasons or feelings like I think you are insinuating. It is simply easier to convince people that this is an alien world, filled with aliens, with alien minds, and alien governments and problems by using foregone, cultures and civilizations as reference. There will always be something still human about the Transformers, they mourn, love, hate, etc. They're still very human in that regard but their societies issues and traditions, and mentalities don't have to be a 1:1 mirror to ours. But hey Marvel was blunt in it's allusions to a fractured, post-nuclear war world back during the cold war and I love that continuity due to how absurd it is so maybe Brian can toss plenty of modern issues into the mix and make it happen in a way that isn't tacky and preachy. I'm always a fan of "our lack of restraint destroyed the planet and now we have to deal with it" stories and that's very topical nowadays.

 

By this argument, we could of still had Milne every other issue.
We have not.

 

Wasn't Alex working elsewhere?

 

That I do not know.

 

I've missed reading half of TF IDW history because of this artist.  

 

I can't blame you. But he did progress and improve as an artist. Compare his first issue to one of his last like Transformers Salvation and you can see how much better he got.

 

It's that style that forces me to pay more attention to the words than the art that does it. Not a combination of both that's the way it is supposed to be.

 

Nope

 

Welp there's an answer straight from the man himself.

 

IDW is dumb.

 

Yes, I too remember when IDW had money.

 

Man this series is just okay. If it ended abruptly I wouldn't feel a way about it.

 

I’m more upset that ‘84 is over. And I knew it was a one-shot.