Shane McCarthy interview

[Sparky Prime]

I think at this point, you just don't like it and you should stop complaining about it, yeah? McCarthy's gone after Coda, and there's something else in the works then, so you may as well move on--for your own health and ours.

Why shouldn't I express my opinions about it just because I don't like it? In general, I really enjoy TF comics, but this story arc has been extremely disappointing to me, so obviously I'm going to express what I find to be faults in the story.

Perhaps Coda wasn't, but Spotlight: Drift was definitely in the plan, because that's 'right there,' and it explains stuff just fine.

I dunno. I see a guy get his ass beat, nearly die, and then the next time he shows up he's all quiet and good at killing things? Something tells me he's different now.

I don't agree. That Spotlight shows him get hurt, but that in and of itself doesn't really explain anything at all. We don't actually know how badly he was hurt. Did he almost die? Transformers can take a lot of punishment before they're that critical. Why the refusal to do anything science related, even to save Optimus? Why the dramatic shift to becoming a sharpshooter? Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to become an even more reclusive scientist, rather than putting himself on the front line like that? More needs to be said than just 'he got hurt and now he's different'.

I dunno. Maybe Sparky's bitter over having spent money on issues where "nothing happens." Except stuff totally did if you're looking for it. The point of the comic was to show what happens when the 'Cons win--they implode on themselves. This in itself was interesting to see because it's 'never been done before.'

No, I was expecting a lot more out of this story and it never really delivered. They introduce a lot of story elements early on, but didn't really do anything with them. Instead we see things simmering for 9 issues while we wait for the 'Cons to reach the point where they implode, only for that to be just in time for the Autobots to return so even the 'Cons imploding doesn't really matter or have any kind of an impact.

[Dominic]

We also know the real reason AHM happened, (as politely said in the interview) is that IDW wanted a change from the "ation" books. The franchise was healthy in every category but comics. Continuity was secondary to an attempt to simply keeping the books going.

I tend to think that Perceptor's injuries were intended to be terrible in context. (Injuries in context tend to be "as bad as they need to be" in TF.

Unlike the "ation" books, AHM is more idea based than event based. Megatron can lead his troops to victory, but he cannot do anything with that victory. (Best case scenario, as Megatron himself states, is that a more imaginative trooper kills him and takes over.) AHM is the smartest TF story in a long time, definetely the 5 years. It definitely rivals (if not exceeds) the Beast era and "War Within". (And, yes, I will say it is better than "Man of Iron".) I re-read AHM, and can find very little wasted space. Even issue 3, my least favorite on first reading, served a real purpose. Astrotrain's scenes are redundant and tedious....because that is the point. Megatron has to give his guys busy work to at least put off the inevitable mutiny. And, if takes a few more issues to depict that without just having Megatron say, "I have to give my troops busy work......", and Psylock's psychic knife "is the sum total of her powers focused......" I am just happy McCarthy has something (that applies outside of TF) to say, enough so that I am fine if he takes a while to say it.

My biggest question about AHM now is how much of it will stick. I will be *very* annoyed if IDW starts over-writing/ignoring large chunks of it in favor of some artificial status-quo. If I wanted that, I would read more from the "Big 2".

Dom
-is reading "Dark Avengers" though.....

[Onslaught Six]

Well, I do suppose certain things are simply not going to be dealt with or mentioned after AHM--like New York's utter destruction. We'll likely simply never see the city again. (After all, if I'm not mistaken, we didn't really see it 'before' AHM either.)

[Dominic]

That is the sort of thing I am talking about. I do not want to see NYC magically restored. This is one of my pet peeves about DC and Marvel. (In the case of "Final Crisis", such things were intentional. But, FC is also masterfully and intentionally bad, hardly a good model to build on.)

"Generation 2" ended long before any of the questions about what would stick could even come up, let alone be answered. (We know that larger cities were attacked, but how much of the damage would matter was never accounted for.) The G1 cartoon ignored this sort of thing as a matter of course. To its credit, the Dreamwave continuity seemed to acknowledge, if only to a degree, what happened in 'Frisco.

Dom
-wants TF to stay at the top of the reading list.

[Onslaught Six]

There's a difference between magically restoring NYC and not mentioning it again for a long time. Mind, I'd make a note of such a thing, but hey.

[Sparky Prime]

AHM is the smartest TF story in a long time, definetely the 5 years. It definitely rivals (if not exceeds) the Beast era and "War Within". (And, yes, I will say it is better than "Man of Iron".) I re-read AHM, and can find very little wasted space.

I just don't see it personally. AHM, to me, ranks as one of the worst TF stories. Better than Armada/Energon but that's about it. If it had been six issues total instead of 12, I think it would have worked out better. As it is, I just don't see anything happening over the majority of the series. A few tidbits here and there, but nothing that really moves the story anywhere and they explain things too slowly, if at all. The "-ation" arcs, although having a terrible pace, I felt was more interesting than this.

[Dominic]

I still am not seeing how "nothing" happened. McCarthy, (or possibly Ryall with McCarthy as execution guy), had the idea for Megatron winning, and he applied other (not strictly TF) ideas to it.

I agree that a few of the early issues had pacing problems. McCarthy explains why in the interview-they were written to be compiled. In other words, McCarthy wanted the comics to las more than a few months. But everything in those isues relates to the comic beyond "big roobuts iz kewl". This is the first time in over 10 years, if not longer, where the Matrix of leadership has actually meant anything in the comics. I am actually curious exactly what McCarthy is saying on that front.

The "ation" books started out with promise. But, I get the feeling that IDW's biggest goal was to keep Furman from using Unicron. A good goal, but not enough to guarantee good Comics. The comics got louder, stupider, and more aimless. Furman was out of ideas almost from the start. It took less than two arcs of 6 issues, (with "Gathering" and "Stormbringer") thrown in), for Furman to start relying on noise over signal, undoing a status quo that was barely (if at all) established.

"Stormbringer" is arguably the worst story from the last few years. Yes, worse even than "Beast Wars: The Gathering". "The Gathering" promised nothing. "Stormbringer" failed to deliver even on the (modest) promise of "Nothing but robots on Cybertron", and gave us.....a big noisy event.....that tied in with the big noisy event that Furman was cut-off from at the last minute. Unicron may as well have shown up.

"All Hail Megatron" more than delivers on what it promised.

[Onslaught Six]

This is the first time in over 10 years, if not longer, where the Matrix of leadership has actually meant anything in the comics. I am actually curious exactly what McCarthy is saying on that front.

Admittedly, very little is being explained about the Matrix's role in all of this. Alright, clearly, Megatron wanted it...but for 'what?' And Kup's statement that "The war started over the Matrix," leaves something to be explained as well, since we didn't actually see that happen. (I'm discounting its lack of meshing with Megatron Origin because, let's be honest, that story is a mess. And also it kills too many of my favourite characters. Oh! And it sucks. Let us not forget that bit.) It's possible Megatron wanted it simply as a status symbol ("I've got what your leader had! Now you have no hope at all! Suckers!") and, judging by what McCarthy is going for with his Autobots Losing Hope theme, I'd argue that's exactly what Megs is doing.

[Sparky Prime]

This is the first time in over 10 years, if not longer, where the Matrix of leadership has actually meant anything in the comics.

I don't see that it means anything here. As Onslaught Six said, very little has been explained about it's role here. Suddenly Kup tells us the war started because of the Matrix (contradicting "Megatron: Origin" I'd point out) and now Megatron has it. So what?

The "ation" books started out with promise. But, I get the feeling that IDW's biggest goal was to keep Furman from using Unicron.

Actually, I recall reading in an interview a while back that it was Furman's own goal to avoid the entire mysticism element of Transformers. He didn't want to do anything with Primus, Unicron, or even the Matrix. By doing so, he wanted to make them more real. We can also see this element in Spotlight: Nightbeat as he theorizes on some possibilities of their own origins/evolution.

"Stormbringer" is arguably the worst story from the last few years.

Why is it we always seem to have the exact opposite opinions on comics? Stormbringer was awesome. It didn't even need 6 issues to give us a ton of background information while at the same time, telling a pretty good story. I wish more of IDW's stories where like that one. But it gave us the reason why Cybertron was abandoned by the Transformers (and what Thunderwing tried to do as a solution) and yet Cybertron still sees the majority of the action in this arc.

"The Gathering" promised nothing.

Again, completely disagree. I loved every issue and it had a ton of potential for future stories and developing all the characters they had introduced. Unfortunately, "The Ascending" failed on that front.

"All Hail Megatron" more than delivers on what it promised.

I just can't agree. To me, it hasn't delivered on anything.

[Dominic]

When I say "The Gathering" promised nothing, I mean that nothing was promised beyond a comic with "Beast Wars" characters. And, we did get that. I hated every page, but IDW's never *promised* me anything else. Like it or hat it, "Stormbringer" made explicit promises about basics like character and setting, and promptly broke them....in a story that had little to say beyond "this is the status quo until we change it."


If Furman set out to avoid mystical elements, he failed, as "Revelations" had those, including plagiarized ideas.


The Matrix meaning something in AHM has to do with it not just being the magic McGuffin to beat Unicron/The Hate Plague/Swarm..... As Onslaught points out, it may well just be a symbol, (in and out of the story), possibly with an ironic twist owing to a leadership symbol nearly tearing the Decepticons apart.

Dom
-movie toys, what movie toys?