The stuff about the Titans in the annuals (and other previous issues) was clearly setting up for something. This is really no suprise.The annuals establish those guys as important PAST figures, but not particularly weighty upon the present.
As for the Metrotitan thing, I mean Metrotitan the Zone character, an evil Metroplex - it's lazy there and it's lazy here, especially since this is a zombie titan which is double-lazy.
Metrotitan the character has never shown up in IDW. In the modern comics, the term "Metrotitan" signifies a class/type of character rather than a specific character. It would be like assuming that "Medic" is Ratchet's name, rather than his rank or function.
I cannot speak to the zombie thing as of yet though.
I was thinking about this lately.I'm not new, I know this. It's just the first IDW TF event in a line I've been following and up until now these 2 lines felt far more mature than that crap.
"Transformers" was largely immune to this sort of thing (assuming we are looking at a reset based event here).
Both the cartoon and the comics always had a linear story and the changes mostly stuck. After a year, both factions had grown. Within two years, both factions had changed in terms of membership and leadership. (In the comics, Megatron and Optimus only had a few confrontations, even if we count the UK stuff.)
Even allowing for characters coming back (with the old comics assumed was possible from the beginning), the comics never went back to the spec of the first year. Hell, the old Marvel book credibly took place in real time.
Ironically, some of this is due to Hasbro. Hasbro wanted to keep new characters (that represented new product) the focus of the story. That kept the writers from getting lazy and using a static cast. Both TF and "GI Joe" had to combine old and new characters. TF, especially the cartoon, also had siginificant changes to the setting over time.
"Going back" to the way things were did not make creative or commercial sense.
We cannot call it a forced event until it is over. IDW could suprise us. It is only a nosedive if this actually plays out the way we fear. (IDW knows how it will end. They have already planned, if not written, the end of "Dark Cybertron".)There's no question it's a forced event. Nothing about it has felt organic yet, which is why RID has had to basically stop its story dead in its tracks to set it up. But maybe they'll pull out of the nosedive.
If it were just a question of RiD, I would tell you to be patient. "Dark Cybertron" could easily be fodder for RiD to build on. But, the fact that "More than Meets the Eye" is being so completely derailed (with the characters returning to Cybertron and such) is cause for concern.I am hoping that's not the case, both titles were already on interesting paths before this, I'd rather this just be a bump in the road and they get back to interesting ideas with interesting characters in interesting situations. RID was already in a rebuilding phase, now those ideas are getting ready to get flushed for what comes afterwards.
I am not defending it. I am just saying "this is what to look for and expect from an event comic".Stories should NEVER be read from this perspective. They should be read as stories on their own for their own merits. If this really is how people approach event driven stories then it's a real wonder to me why we still have comics at all and an even bigger wonder why the comic fandom puts up with this continual crap when the oh so important outcome doesn't even stick 90% of the time.
Sometimes, an event comic is a good read. I liked "the Siege". It nicely wrapped up "Dark Avengers" and the fights were properly scaled. I just tried to ignore the obvious resets it was preparing readers for. Similarly, "Secret Invasion" had its fun moments.
"Infinite Crisis" was also a fun read, (even if I was not happy with the resulting status quo). On the other hand, "Zero Hour" was very efficient about getting to the point. But, "Zero Hour" read like a shopping list 20 years ago and has not improved with age.
"Crisis on Infinite Earths" is the great-grand-daddy" of all event comics. And, it still holds up better than one might expect, despite being completely irrelevant to anything published in the last 5+ years. It conveyed scale and importance in '85. And, it is possible to see how it did that, even after nearly 30 years.
But, yeah, most events are not relevant for very long after being publshed. And, the high concepts are usually not worth the trouble.
Actually, "Infestation" strongly implied that Kup was eventually sent back with Britt to the "Zombies v/s Robots" comic. (Somehow, Britt got home with the tech she stole from the TFs. I figured that logically meant Kup went with her. But, I probably should not have tried to make sense out of "Infestation".)Also, we all knew when Kup went into the DU that he would be coming back at some point, strictly for the reason that he wasn't actually dead.
Scrapper's remains are on Cybertron, as shown in "Chaos". Both Thrust's and Ramjet's remains were in human custody as of the beginning of Costa's run. I am not a fan of back-writing, but it could be assumed that the Decepticons reclaimed both during their raid shown in "Revenge of the Decepticons" or (more credibly) that the Autobots claimed the remains when they left Earth.Thrust, Ramjet and Scrapper died on Earth and I didn't see the Decepticons carrying corpses with them when they left.
The more characters that end up coming back during "Dark Cybertron", the less relevant any deaths during or after "Dark Cybertron" will be.
