It's clear that a lot of the hate aimed at Drift is well over the top, given how small a part the character actually plays in All Hail Megatron. It also seems clear that those who dislike the character either reacted badly to how Drift was hyped, or else just didn't like the story and so they lashed out at the author and his supposed 'fan character' as a result. Because truth be told, Drift is hardly the first author-created Transformers character to appear in print, and he has a much smaller role in the story than many we've seen in the past. Emirate Xaaron and G2 Jhiaxus come to mind as comics-only characters that played a far larger role in their respective storylines than Drift did in AHM.
JediTricks wrote:These days, a Mary Sue doesn't have to bed anybody, and doesn't have to be held in high regard - just have an extreme impact on other characters positive or negative, "god that Mary Sue pisses everybody else off" is now established so that she can come back and save the shit out of the day. Bottom line, a Mary Sue merely needs to be an instant bag of ideals from the author. Drift is bit too right out of the box a Snake Eyes Wolverine Boba Fett Batman, half Joe Camel, a third Fonzarelli, a kung fu hippie from gangsta city, a rappin' surfer, and he pities foo's.
He's none of the above. He's skilled at combat, but so are numerous other Transformers. Bludgeon has much the same skill set as Drift, and I doubt anyone considers him to be a Mary-Sue for any author. Drift doesn't really have an attitude problem. To the contrary, Drift seems fairly calm, collected and at peace with himself, which I find interesting considering that he's a former Decepticon. He doesn't save the day, and he actually has very little impact on the other characters, apart from Perceptor obviously.
Again, if not for the hype from IDW, I doubt Drift would have made much of an impression at all.
Dominic wrote:The character is thematically consistent with AHM.
He's the embodiment of one of the themes, which is "how did we stray so far from our ideals, and how do we get back after all that's happened?" Megatron's main struggle over the course of the story is dealing with a Decepticon army that's moved a long way away from his particular ideals. Sideswipe goes on a rant about how the Autobots deserve to die because they've stopped viewing life as precious, and Kup talks about needing "a way back" to what the Autobots once were. Drift is the one character we've seen who found a way to come back from the abyss he had fallen into as a Decepticon. And even for him it's not an easy road, since he isn't accepted by the other Autobots. It suggests that even if the war is won, that there may be no going back for some, if not most.
Many of the complaints about Drift are blown out of proportion because he was not introduced by the "right" writers.
Agreed.
