The Transformers (IDW, formerly "Robots in Disguise")

[Dominic]

"Prowl is ruthless" is a new thing.

The old comics had him voiced by Mike Bell. He was a benign, if flat, character. (Gomess was creatively misreading Bell's voice when he said that Prowl sounded "angry" not too long ago.) The old comics, (US and UK). played him as a square. (Some fans latch on to Prowl being mean to Grimlock or some such as justification for saying he was a jerk.) When we get back in to the UK comics thread, we can talk about the "bad stuff" he did in the old black and white comics. (Much of that is creative/deliberate misreadings.)

That said, there is no reason for IDW to keep Prowl consistent with unreated comics from 25 years ago. And, is IDW more ruthless Prowl (which actually goes back to Furman's "-ation" run) really that bad?

Who has Prowl been confirmed as killing in "Robots in Disguise". Ratbat was poison. He had to go. Killing Shockwave and his cronies was a sensible, if dishonest, move. (Would you want that sort of group hanging out on the edges of town?) And, yeah, killing the Constructicons was a necessary move. (Prowl was outnumbered.)

I dunno. I have a hard time seeing that in a wholly bad light.


Dom
-targeted killings of parties who make themselves targets is much different than random violence.

[andersonh1]

Come to think of it, Bumblebee blowing Horri-Bull's head off in issue 1 was pretty bad too. I'm not too fond of Autobots carrying out summary executions.

[BWprowl]

Come to think of it, Bumblebee blowing Horri-Bull's head off in issue 1 was pretty bad too. I'm not too fond of Autobots carrying out summary executions.

Dude, that was like, the best moment of the issue! All this stuff they’d set up for a few issues, to lead to a point where we, as a Transformers audience, are actually surprised when an Autobot kills a Decepticon? That takes some storytelling skill, right there.

(never mind that they ‘fixed’ it the issue later by revealing that Bumblebee didn’t actually kill Horri-Bull, it was the other Decepticons making it look like he did, the point still stands)

Anyway, that’s one of the running themes of the book, that this is a Brave New World where the old rules of good guy and bad guy action figures fighting each other for reasons they can barely remember don’t apply anymore, and that to keep the peace, and protect the ‘real’ victims (the neutral/NAIL Transformers) sometimes hard decisions have to be made, like Bumblebee pushing the button on Horri-Bull to take a stand against the Decepticons using their free reign to rough up innocents. Maybe you don’t agree with what Bumblebee does (and unless you’re a hipster pragmatic like Dom, you certainly don’t agree with a lot of the things Prowl does) but you can sympathize with the situations that drove them to such decisions, and that’s what fuels the interest in the book. It’s interesting to watch these different characters make different calls when faced with the stuff like this.

I dunno, part of it is that I’m not one of those people that needs characters in a story to be ‘likeable’ so much as ‘interesting’. I agree that IDW’s Prowl has gone down a dark road to become a rather corrupt, self-justifying bastard, but the stories that unfold because of the things he does are just so interesting that I enjoy reading them, and Arcee as his blunt instrument of no-compromise rule compliments him perfectly (I don’t ‘like’ Arcee on a personal level either, but I enjoy her antics and think her characterization in the continuity is brilliant and one of the only good ideas Furman brought to it). Metalhawk is a good example of a character I neither liked nor found interesting (at least until the last couple issues). Until recently he was pretty one-note in just being a complainer who followed Bumblebee around bitching him out while the latter actually tried to make right, and they never gave us any decent insight into *why* he was such a callous, purpose-defeating douche or how he would develop if at all, and it’s only improved recently.

But if it all comes down to characters being ‘likeable’ or not…yeah, I don’t understand that. Most stories would be pretty boring if all the characters in them were nice, likeable, admirable people.

[Dominic]

I agree that it is better for characters to be worth reading about than for them to be likeable.

But, I would disagree about Prowl being corrupt. That implies that Prowl is in business for himself, which he clearly is not. IDW Prowl wants his side to win because it is the side he thinks is right. Prowl wants stability and prosperity. (And, is that really so bad.) He is not out for glory. He just want to get things done. He makes mistakes, such as using Arcee, but he is not corrupt.

I do not think that Metalhawk was intended to be a jerk. Why would it make sense for Metalhawk to trust Bumblebee in conext of the book? Damned right Metalhawk should have been keeping an eye on Bumblebee.


Dom
-and, this beats the old "good guys do not kill" cliche....

[BWprowl]

But, I would disagree about Prowl being corrupt. That implies that Prowl is in business for himself, which he clearly is not. IDW Prowl wants his side to win because it is the side he thinks is right. Prowl wants stability and prosperity. (And, is that really so bad.) He is not out for glory. He just want to get things done. He makes mistakes, such as using Arcee, but he is not corrupt.

Maybe ‘corrupt’ wasn’t quite the right word, but he’s definitely ‘shady’. And I would argue that Prowl is in business for himself: He (at least partially) wants the Autobots to ‘win’ and be promoted as the ‘good guys’ because he’s sunk so much of his life and devotion into building them up as the Good Guys That Win. Remember, he was originally going to be a neutral when the war first started, but chose the Autobots early on, and he’s had to do nothing but justify that decision to himself ever since, often at the cost of ignoring genuine peaceful options (giving alliance with Decepticons no chance and even going out of his way to sabotage it on multiple occasions when it would’ve been otherwise completely beneficial. Hell, just look at how adamantly and unflinchingly opposed he is to Starscream having any rights, let alone authority). He justifies his shady (and yes, sometimes ‘corrupt’) actions by saying they’re for the ‘greater good’ and all that, but that’s just him making excuses for himself so he can hide from the truth: that he’s becoming as bad as those he fought against.

If Prowl’s arc in IDW ever properly wraps up, I expect a spectacular ‘fall’ storyline with a truly satisfying end for the character.

I do not think that Metalhawk was intended to be a jerk. Why would it make sense for Metalhawk to trust Bumblebee in conext of the book? Damned right Metalhawk should have been keeping an eye on Bumblebee.

Keeping an eye on him, sure! Following him around, down-talking him at every opportunity and actively sabotaging his attempts at diplomacy towards the NAILS and his efforts to make things better for everyone? That’s senseless jerkery.

Dom
-and, this beats the old "good guys do not kill" cliche....

The fact that so many of the characters in RID have had to ‘get over’ their clichés in-story has made for some pretty interesting reading. Bumblebee and Starscream especially. Remember Bumblebee in Chaos Theory? Look at how far he’s come here!

[Dominic]

In context, it makes perfect sense not to trust Starscream or Bumblebee. And, yeah, it also makes sense to try to block them from getting too much power. BB and SS are two of the guys who have visibly profited from the war. Why trust them when it is over?


Dom
-what would you do?

[Onslaught Six]

Dom has a point!

To us, the readers, Bumblebee is 'Bumblebee.' This guy can pretty much do no wrong. He's a happy-go-luck (if thrust into responsibility) kid-friendly character. We see Bumblebee and recognize he's yellow and got a red face on him and that he's a Nice Guy who doesn't like Starscream, a guy who we equally do not trust and do not like.

Metalhawk doesn't see that. He sees a guy that was part of an army that destroyed his planet. He doesn't know that Starscream is a Bad Guy and has been a douche in the past. He doesn't know Bumblebee was already a leader, and a pretty successful one at that. (I didn't read Costa's run, but don't remember any major missteps.)

[andersonh1]

RID #12

I had forgotten that Prowl faked an injury last issue. He continues to be completely unlikeable and immoral, which is interesting (and as Dom says, bad and interesting is better than so good it's boring), but it makes him the villain of the book, which goes against the grain of what Autobots are supposed to represent. He's not waiting for actual criminal actions to occur or indulging in due process, he's acting like the tyrant he's become. Not only does he continually provoke the Decepticons, he carries out summary executions as he sees fit. I'm going to enjoy seeing him reap the results of his actions at some point. Yeah, I get that he's reacting to Spike's utter betrayal of the Autobots which is why he's done a 180 since leaving Earth, but he's crossed a line and he needs to take a fall.

Megatron's return: exactly what I was hoping for. He didn't dominate the book, and he still holds the loyalty of the Decepticon masses. He should turn out to be an interesting addition to the many plots running through this series right now rather than dominating the story. Bumblebee's decision to gun him down on the spot is understandable and arguably justified, but I have the same problem here that I do with Prowl. Since when do Autobots carry out summary executions? Is Barber trying to make readers sympathize with the Decepticons? Is he trying to draw some moral equivalence between Autobot and Decepticon? If one side isn't better than the other, at least on some level, why should I care what happens to either? I quit watching the new Battlestar Galactica because I could find enough sympathetic characters to make me care about the fate of either human or Cylon. The same thing is starting to happen to Robots in Diguise, at least as far as the Autobot leadership goes. At this point Starscream of all characters is the one evoking the most sympathy.

Starscream has the same problem Bumblebee does. He just doesn't have the stature and respect needed to lead. Neither of them automatically command respect and loyalty the way Prime and Megatron did. That's not a bad thing though. I enjoy watching them struggle to achieve what they want.

I think there was one major misstep this issue. Would Decepticons really use torches? Okay, they're an angry mob, but torches in a metal city filled with metal inhabitants? Very low-tech, too much so to be believable.

I dunno, part of it is that I’m not one of those people that needs characters in a story to be ‘likeable’ so much as ‘interesting’. I agree that IDW’s Prowl has gone down a dark road to become a rather corrupt, self-justifying bastard, but the stories that unfold because of the things he does are just so interesting that I enjoy reading them, and Arcee as his blunt instrument of no-compromise rule compliments him perfectly (I don’t ‘like’ Arcee on a personal level either, but I enjoy her antics and think her characterization in the continuity is brilliant and one of the only good ideas Furman brought to it).

But if it all comes down to characters being ‘likeable’ or not…yeah, I don’t understand that. Most stories would be pretty boring if all the characters in them were nice, likeable, admirable people.

I agree, to a point. I can read the book and really dislike what Prowl has become while at the same time I can agree that it's interesting to watch his moral descent occur. But, while I don't want all Autobots to be simplistic, cardboard-cutout "good guys", I do prefer to see them hold the moral high ground. Prowl isn't doing that. He's having Decepticons assassinated whenever he feels like it, and he's perfectly willing to provoke Decepticons into action and then kill them for doing what he goaded them into doing. Sorry, I just can't approve of his actions.

[Onslaught Six]

Sorry, I just can't approve of his actions.

You're not supposed to.

I get that it can be weird to see "good guys" turning into "bad guys" but that's how stories work sometimes. Remember the nWo?

[Mako Crab]

Remember when I said:

It is nice to see them try a different type of story for once other than the constant warring. I think that's why I'm so wary about

Spoiler

Megatron returning

. After spending so long building up an actual *culture* and showing us what Cybertronian life is like during peacetime, I'd hate for them to throw all that out in favor of going back to the same ol' war stories.

Well the solicits for March 2013 are up and. . . .

TRANSFORMERS ROBOTS IN DISGUISE ONGOING #15
IDEA & DESIGN WORKS LLC
(W) John Barber (A) Andrew Griffith (CA) Casey Coller, Andrew Griffith
THE END OF THE WORLD! When Cybertron collapses-who will pick up the pieces? MEGATRON stands poised to triumph-locked in final battle with BUMBLEBEE, STARSCREAM, METALHAWK, and PROWL! One will stand… the rest will fall.

Now this could go a couple of ways. A return to the old status quo of bots and cons fighting day and night. Throw out everything that Barber's been building up to this point in favor of more of the same. OR . . . . Megatron's not walking away from this alive, and his return will be used as a plot point to catapult one of the vying leaders to stardom. That could be pretty awesome. Imagine Bumblebee or Prowl being the one to finally finish off Megatron, where the great Optimus could not. Or imagine how Starscream would twist it, so that his killing Megatron would appear as a gesture to usher in a new era of peace? Whoever kills a war-mongering Megatron would be a hero to those wishing to put the war behind them. Of course, I say this not knowing anything about Megatron's return or motives aside from what I saw in the previews last issue.