Transformers - ongoing series

[Sparky Prime]

Of course they can, so long as they never make reference to pre-retcon events. They'll just quietly ignore them and have them talk about current events and deal with current situations.

They rarely make references to past stories regardless of when they've had a retcon event. Unless by chance the story they're doing is connected to a past story, which is still entirely possible. They haven't retconned everything here.

[Onslaught Six]

but I have no doubt that it'll quickly devolve into Autobots vs. Decepticons again. I mean, it has to, right? This is Transformers and there's no room for non-war stories.

The fuck it doesn't!

86 and I used to write stories set during the Pax Cybertronia. The peace-time that BW very much outright states is going on in the "modern" Cybertron as BW is going on. Of course, we made them all still turn into vehicles and completely ignored scale, because that'd be terrifying if we didn't, but otherwise, yeah, that was it. 86 once wrote one about Skyfire--not really any particular Skyfire, just a dude named Skyfire--who was a private detective researching a civil murder in Cybertropolis. And sure, it was pretty much straight detective fiction, but it 'took place during peacetime,' and didn't involve Autobots and Decepticons (or Maximals and Predacons) shooting at each other. Or there was Lineage, the thing we wrote where Magmatron and Gigatron get all fucked up on booze and drugs as one last hurrah before Magmatron has to take the throne of Emperor of Destruction because Galvatron is dead.

[andersonh1]

A soft reboot is a jumping on point, and also it's usually very out-of-the-way and subtle.

In other words, it's just a story development, or a "new chapter" as it were. Sounds like standard drama progression to me. I think my problem with the term stems from using "reboot", which implies starting from scratch. You just can't modify that with "soft" and have it make any sense.

For example, when the Transformers discovered Primus in Primal Scream, and were told the origin of him, that's a retcon--because in-story, things are changing. We are given an explanation in-story for Why Things In The Past Were Different. All Hail Megatron just has a bunch of them in different designs and suddenly Devastator is there with pretty much no explanation and all the Decepticons want to attack Earth. Skywatch and the Machination shit are kind of glossed over and not given two shits about, but it's not like anyone 'explains' that.

All Hail Megatron simply moves the story forward. For it to reboot, more has to change than just how the characters look, since the fact that they can change appearance based on which vehicle they use as a disguise is a long-established Transformer characteristic. Devastator is explained, in-story by the way. It's specifically noted that Sixshot stole the combiner technology that Jhiaxus had developed (if I'm remembering the details right).

Again, what you're talking about is a change in plot direction, with a focus on different ideas, something any serialized drama is going to do. The Decepticons were attacking Earth when Furman was writing, and they still are when McCarthy becomes the writer, they just take a different approach. Hot Rod changed his vehicular and robot forms while Furman was writing, during the course of the story. A bunch of the Decepticons did the same prior to the start of AHM. There's no fundamental change there. Sorry, but there just isn't. There's no reboot.

In DC's new books, there's a 'lot' of question over what specific events actually happened in the past and what events didn't. Was Renee Montoya ever The Question? Not explained. Etc.

When Alan Moore took over Swamp Thing in the 80s, he retconned Swamp Thing to not even be Alec Holland at all, he was just an elemental swamp monster who'd absorbed the memories of Alec Holland and 'thought' he was Alec Holland. That's a retcon. It's explicit and it's hard and fast, and it's done in an in-story context. A soft reboot is generally vague and poorly defined--things in the past happened, sometimes all of them, but the tone is still very much changing.

EDIT: A soft reboot is like, if Swamp Thing died ten years ago, and then one day a Justice League book starts and Swamp Thing is just there, hanging around, without an explanation. He never died! That whole story where he died didn't happen. Politely ignored.

That would be a glaring continuity error if it was never explained, not a "soft reboot". DC has an explanation for every change though, and it's the timeline-altering "Flashpoint" events. Whatever the details of the individual changes are, they happened because Barry Allen messed up the universe. It's an in-universe, in-story cause.

[Dominic]

Because nobody wants to talk about the current comics....

And as for the big two having their "universes", as a kid, I always saw the different Marvel and DC titles as being separate and when they crossed over it always seemed like such an obvious marketing scheme money grab. I really don't think all the titles should be set in the same "continuity".

I can see both sides of this. Yeah, there is a commercial incentive to have titles cross-over. But, there is nothing inherently wrong with marketing and cross-promotion.

And, it is an interesting creative experiment to have multiple books casually cross-over, such as in "Inferno" 20+ years ago. ("Inferno" was flawed, but you see what I am saying.)

Buying, or erxpecting somebody to buy, all of the books, is just plain silly. Nobody is going to do that, and few people could. And, not every part of the story is really that important. Comics go for months with little of consequence happening. (This is where following creative teams helps. When Starlin is writing a sci-fi/space opera, something important is going to happen. When he leaves, well, you have to look at the incoming team.)

The business model just doesn't really make sense to me.

Both companies have years of sales figures that might enlighten you.

Which would work fine if DC wasn't all one big all inclusive universe. That was kinda the point I was making about keeping things separate. That would allow DC (and other companies) the editorial freedom to reboot some titles and not others without having to retcon a ton of old stories. But, by having all of their titles take place in the same continuity, they wind up having to half ass it like this.

If the reboot was better planned, they could have kept what they wanted to keep and discarded the rest. For example, if they tweaked the timline so that Batman or Greenlantern could have more implied history, but made a hard decision to write out the histories of other characters, it would have worked better.

DC made a firm decision that no pre-Crisis Superman story counted in 1986. And, they stuck with it, making hard retcons as needed. Even the messier parts were still pretty clean. In this case, DC cannot even answer basic questions about characters and context....because DC does not seem to have those answers.

The point still stands though. Reset one comic, and it becomes hard to work with other comics that haven't reset.

Again, solid planning would largely solve this problem. But, I do take your point.

DC and Marvel both continually come back and say "oh this story never happened" or "that story never happened".

Point of information, Marvel's default stance, (albeit watered down over the years), is that everything still counts. "One More Day" aside, this is still idiomatically true. It become problematic in that increasingly more events have to be crammed into a very telescoped timeline. (The 616 timeline has about 15 years of in-context history. Now, think about what has happened in those 15 years. Hell, just the last 5 of those 15. 616 Marvel is arguably more resistant to change than Transformers and even Transformers fans.

Wouldn't mind seeing them give this a try. They all seem to have become a little too reliant on retcons, especially in recent years.

This is most of why I am thinking of giving up "New Avengers" but reading "Ultimate Spiderman". And, hell, I kind of feel like a chump for not reading "Spawn".

In other words, it's just a story development, or a "new chapter" as it were. Sounds like standard drama progression to me

But, a new chapter would still be firmly grounded with the old chapters. A soft-reboot politely ignores at least some of what came immediately before. Over time, it gets messy and repetitive.

Hot Rod changed his vehicular and robot forms while Furman was writing, during the course of the story. A bunch of the Decepticons did the same prior to the start of AHM. There's no fundamental change there. Sorry, but there just isn't. There's no reboot.

The character models changing was just sloppiness.

This was me 13 issues ago. Out of morbid curiosity, do the older ongoing issues still hold up for you, or has it all become one long road to nowhere?

Oh, hey, I spoke to soon. ...No, wait, you want to talk about the beginning of the run.

Joking aside, yes, they do still hold up for me. Read the run as a whole, (minus Crap-fest, erm "Chaos"), and it should become clear that Costa had a plan from the beginning. The slow burn was both intentional and necessary.

Except that now BB is rockin' that stupid cane.

That is going away. He is going to have his most recent "Generations" body pretty soon. No joke.

This is Transformers and there's no room for non-war stories. I'm sure Roddy will dig up some ancient, evil, long lost Decepticon colony and come running back to Cybertron with them hot on his heels. Then it'll be a united Cybertron vs. the evil Ancient Decepticon Empire (just in time for a crossover between the 2 books).

That is the problem though, there *is* room for non-war stories. Look at the Kup story from "Coda". The only rounds fired in that story are on a target range. And, well, there are some honest fisticuffs. But, you get the idea.

It is not even a question of conflict in a story being bad. But, why does it have to be the same damned thing over and over and over...especially, (and I know I have said this before)....

when early part of the run specifically called itself out on that....and had the characters acknowleding it in context.

I am *SO* glad I haven't been paying money for this crap. The solicits and reviews are more than enough.

"Last Story on Earth" is really good. You should read it.

Damn, IDW has made me a cynic.

IDW is doing what the big two have been doing for years...and I ain't reading much from them these days.


Dom
-thinking some of this should be in the comics thread.

[BWprowl]

Part of me wonders if The Last Police Story on Action Earth is the part of the story that Cost *actually* wanted to write, and he's only doing Chaos because IDW editorial was all "We want an epic, Big Two-style event book, on Cybertron, because the Transfan kids love Cybertron!" and he relented and split the different with the two bimonthlies. I mean, 'Chaos' mostly follows up on Galvatron's arc, which Costa had little to nothing to do with (we have Furman and Abnett to blame for that). Like I said, I'm still kinda enjoying Chaos, but I'll admit that it's not nearly as strong as Police Action, and there's really only so much Costa could do with what IDW hypothetically told him to work with. Police Action actually feels like it fits into the two years or so of story that Costa's been working on all this time, while Chaos is just kind of this big pile of Stuff Happening in space.

[Sparky Prime]

DC made a firm decision that no pre-Crisis Superman story counted in 1986. And, they stuck with it, making hard retcons as needed.

We've debated this in the comics thread before, but again, it wasn't that the pre-Crisis stories didn't count.

Point of information, Marvel's default stance, (albeit watered down over the years), is that everything still counts. "One More Day" aside, this is still idiomatically true. It become problematic in that increasingly more events have to be crammed into a very telescoped timeline. (The 616 timeline has about 15 years of in-context history. Now, think about what has happened in those 15 years. Hell, just the last 5 of those 15. 616 Marvel is arguably more resistant to change than Transformers and even Transformers fans.

Marvel actually has smaller retcons they implement to keep characters younger than they should and effect changes to the continuity, they just don't usually do it with big events or call attention to when they make those changes. Tony Stark for example was originally injured during the Vietnam War, which was later retconned to the Gulf War and much more recently, some unspecified conflict in Afghanistan. This was joked about in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man a couple years ago, when Peter saw the first Iron-Man armor and said he remembered seeing it in newsreels while he was in high school.

"Last Story on Earth" is really good. You should read it.

I haven't been impressed with the direction they've taken either half of the Transformers comic personally.

[Dominic]

We've debated this in the comics thread before, but again, it wasn't that the pre-Crisis stories didn't count.

Except that the point of CoIE was to wipe out huge chunks of DC history, including most of Superman's run. Byrne's "Man of Steel" was the starting point. And, now, post "Flash Point", Byrne's run is gone. I am not happy about it, but I am not going to say that it counts...because the whole point of Morrison's run on "Action Comics" is over-write Byrne.

Marvel actually has smaller retcons they implement to keep characters younger than they should and effect changes to the continuity, they just don't usually do it with big events or call attention to when they make those changes. Tony Stark for example was originally injured during the Vietnam War, which was later retconned to the Gulf War and much more recently, some unspecified conflict in Afghanistan. This was joked about in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man a couple years ago, when Peter saw the first Iron-Man armor and said he remembered seeing it in newsreels while he was in high school.

And, those retcons are clumsy as hell. Sometimes it could be argued that they tie in to reality warping events, (Disassembled" or "House of M"), but they are generally sneakier than DC's retcons. (For the record, as much as I dislike most of what DC publishes, I will admit that their retcons and reboots, including "Flash Point", are generally better than Marvel's.)

Part of me wonders if The Last Police Story on Action Earth is the part of the story that Cost *actually* wanted to write,

I think that it is part of what Costa wanted to write. Thematically, it fits with the early issues of the comic. a

Of course, we could be wrong and "Last Story on Earth" could be a way of Costa reconciling the story he set up with the current direction. A recurring theme in the first arc of Costa's run, (and arguably present in the second), is that the TFs are starting to realize that they are a stagnant species. Several TFs are actively trying to change that by living among and learning from humans.

That gave them a reason to stay on Earth after the war had ended. "Last Story on Earth" might be Costa's way of saying "and this is way the TFs stopped trying to learn from humans".

Either way, I think that Costa's run was cut short. I would be willing to bet that more was planned for Jazz and whistle-blower. The same arguably happened to Furman, but I would say that Costa had more actually planned than "robots doing stuff that is awesome".

and he's only doing Chaos because IDW editorial was all "We want an epic, Big Two-style event book, on Cybertron, because the Transfan kids love Cybertron!"

{/quote]

And, reviews are still mixed, possibly being even worse! Good move IDW, keep on pandering to the most obnoxious man-child demographic. Go on, I dare ya! Help me save money in 2012!

and he relented and split the different with the two bimonthlies.

Actually, Costa did not split anything. He is leaving at the end of the year.

I just hope Roberts and Barber deliver better goods than Chaos implies.

I mean, 'Chaos' mostly follows up on Galvatron's arc, which Costa had little to nothing to do with (we have Furman and Abnett to blame for that).

Chaos is teh awesome!!!!!!!

Okay, just kidding.

Honestly, if not for the cosmic gibberwank, (which I will blame more on Abnett than on Furman), I would really like Galvatron and his crew. Cybetronian patriots who would happily see the end or co-opting of both factions is not a bad idea on its own.


Dom
-needs to update the "Exiles" thread.

[Sparky Prime]

Except that the point of CoIE was to wipe out huge chunks of DC history, including most of Superman's run. Byrne's "Man of Steel" was the starting point. And, now, post "Flash Point", Byrne's run is gone. I am not happy about it, but I am not going to say that it counts...because the whole point of Morrison's run on "Action Comics" is over-write Byrne.

No, the point of CoIE was to wipe out the multiverse and simplify continuity. And Byrne's run was overwritten years before "Flashpoint" with Mark Waid's "Birthright", which brought back many of Superman's Silver Age elements then. And even before that, elements of the Silver Age Superman had been brought back by writers, such as in the "Return to Krypton" storyarc that reintroduced the Silver Age version of Krypton, prompting Superman to have statues of two versions (Bryne's version and the Silver Age version) of his Kryptonian parents in the Fortress of Solitude.

[Dominic]

the point of CoIE was to wipe out the multiverse and simplify continuity.

And, that simplification was achieved by......wiping out a large chunk of DC history including Superman's.


I stand corrected re: Byrne though. Waid wanked the Silver Age back in to place. So, Morrison is over-writing Waid.


Dom
-but, CoIE wiped out pre-85 "Superman".

[Sparky Prime]

And, that simplification was achieved by......wiping out a large chunk of DC history including Superman's.

It isn't "wiped out" if they could bring it back, which they did.