TF Views

Onslaught Six wrote:Chromedome looks as surprised as we are, though.

I took that in a “Aw, I knew we were going out, but I didn’t know he’d changed his Facebook status” sort of way. They were still definitely a couple.

…a couple- of guys!

I don't know who wrote:Who shot Red Alert?

Nobody shot him. He ripped his own head off trying to kill himself.

We don’t know that for sure yet, and even if he did, the ‘why’ is still a pretty big question.

“Give me my faaaaace!”

Nobody is accusing you of being one of "those fans," and your incessant refusal to just sit back and enjoy it makes it seem like you're hiding something, like that you secretly write gay Rewind/Chromedome slashfic.

Cassette-bot gang bang?

Also, Whirl is allowed to be a dick because he's Whirl. He isn't exactly a good guy Autobot. People can bitch about Prowl if they want to; you ask me, this is the best he's been written since UK G1.

This. The fact that they’ve been consistent with it and developing it since at least AHM has only made it better. I personally think that IDW’s done a lot of things right, and Prowl’s one of their rightest. I daresay this is THE defining characterization that Prowl’s ever going to have.

Overlord is on the fucking cover of Issue 13! Why are you bitching! I mean, we saw that cover months ago! We knew this was going to happen. I almost wonder if Roberts is playing against that.

Yeah, I don’t look out for cover solicits. All I saw was Overlord on one page and then Roberts forgetting about him for six months. You don’t just drop a bombshell like that and then *not say anything else about it* for half a year.

Then again, sometimes Roberts’s allusions are too subtle for me to catch, or I just space out on things. Remember me complaining about him not showing Tarn’s transformation addiction in the Scavengers arc? Apparently he was actually transforming all over the place, and I just failed to catch it. I should probably re-read that arc, a lot of it flew by me because I was so annoyed with the direction it took.

My point is maybe he has kept Overlord in the corner of the plot all this time and I just haven’t picked up on it. I blame myself for not being invested/interested in this comic enough to catch these things.

Even if Red Alert DIDN'T kill himself, then maybe someone killed him to keep him quiet about Overlord--obviously they haven't found him yet.

Well yeah, that’s what I said up top there, and that I’m actually interested in, and that’s something they’ve kept reasonably on top of as a Plot Point To Be Explored.

Like I said, I’m 50/50 on this book. I like a lot of the ideas and some of the characterizations and Roberts is admittedly really good at juggling page time for the multitude of characters that are in it, but the incessant, plot-irrelevant filler chatter, world-building for the sake of filling up wiki entries, some characters who are really annoying, and the general inability to settle onto one plot point and actually ride it out just drive me up the freaking wall.

My point is maybe he has kept Overlord in the corner of the plot all this time and I just haven’t picked up on it. I blame myself for not being invested/interested in this comic enough to catch these things.

You're missing the big thing--Red Alert is the only person who's aware of Overlord, and he HAS been around. In fact, "Who killed Red Alert?" is a big thing; and if someone did indeed kill him (and he didn't suicide from paranoia) then it's probably whoever stole the data slug from Rung's hand. Overlord's plot thread has been Red Alert this entire time.

Sea Change, where Seaspray risks his life to be with the woman he loves? Where he declares that he's more than just a bunch of circuits and gears? Where he LITERALLY turns into an Conan-looking merman?

But, Seaspray was also portrayed as being abnormal for an Autobot in that episode. (The fact that he fell for a human was pretty deviant.)

That's what I did, back when Costa was writing his bland ongoing.

You are nuts. Costa could write. He had ideas. (Costa did not need TF. He could have written that story about "aliens and humans trying to work together" using any property.) One of the big themes in that run was that the TFs are aliens. There were not wholly mechanical in how they acted. Prowl definitely showed idealism and alienation. But, as Spike put it, they are aliens. And, as shown, the natural distrust on both sides was strong enough to stop them from co-existing.

I just think your ideas about the TFs being inhuman, soulless, alien machines are off the mark.

I do not want them to be "soulless". But, Roberts is humanizing them to the point where they may as well be a bunch of college students or something.

There’s also the possibility that the idea in this case (how *people* deal with loss of purpose/drive) would be easier to communicate with characters who are more humanized.

But, using nigh-immortal aliens could be used to accent that idea even more. Roberts even touches on it with the suicide clinics. But, after briefly touching on it, Roberts goes back to "whuoh! Swerve is drinking nightmare fuel lolololololol".

I like the fact that most of the clients at the suicide clinic were Decepticons. But, Roberts spends too little time on the ideas and too much on the aimless writing and fan-moments.

“Bum-Bum-BUUUUUM!!”

Just wanted that to be quoted.

He sets them up because they seem like cool ideas at the time, then suddenly drops them and moves onto some other toybox without doing anything with them.

Agreed. Roberts has been a fan for as long as must anyone. And, he has plenty of "really awesome moments" that he has come up with over the years. But, he has no real way to connect them beyond "these Transformers are doing stuff".

to IDW, Prowl was definitely meant to be overly cold, logical, and pragmatic, but his values still aligned with the other Autobots and he could be counted on to support their decisions as an open member of the team. His current portrayal subverts that by a lot, as he’s now designed as some shadowy minister of propaganda who works behind the scenes to keep the Autobots operating HIS way.

Not quite. Pre-IDW, Prowl was never portrayed as that ruthless. "Prowl is a jerk" started in the late run US comics because some fans did not like that Prowl was mean to Grimlock. But, if you read how Prowl is shown in those comics, or even his portrayal in Dreamwave (or the old cartoons), Prowl is more of a straight-laced hero type.

And I think the other question is who is associating you with that part of the fandom? This seriously seems like a beast of your own creation.

Somebody is asking for a bowl-shot! (Bum-Bum-Bum!)

like that you secretly write gay Rewind/Chromedome slashfic.

BumBumBumBum!

Joking aside, it just feels like book is wasting my time by delivering on the worst stereotypes about the hobby and genre.

What do YOU think when you read MTMTE?

I wonder why I bother.

but the incessant, plot-irrelevant filler chatter, world-building for the sake of filling up wiki entries, some characters who are really annoying, and the general inability to settle onto one plot point and actually ride it out just drive me up the freaking wall.

This. Exactly. And, the Rewing/Chromedome thing is just one more, and the last, thing on a long list of fan-fodder.



Dom
-bums are funny.

I re-read this issue last night, and I'm not really buying the whole "Chromedome/Rewind" are a "gay robot couple" idea here. I guess you could look at it that way, but not necessarily. Chromedome mentions that he's not Rewinds best friend, more like second best, and then goes on to recount how old Rewind is and how his closest friend from years past has disappeared, and that the main reason they're on the ship at all is in the hope of finding him. This is also given as the reason Rewind has "snuff" films among his database, because he's hoping that if his friend was killed he might recognize him somewhere in those. He even made Chromedome promise to keep looking if Rewind himself died on the trip.

Did anyone notice that while Chromedome is moping alone in his quarters that someone is talking to him through the door, telling him about secret plans that involved Red Alert and Overlord? I missed that the first time. I appreciate the dense read we get every month from this book, but sometimes it means that something is missed the first time around.

andersonh1 wrote:Did anyone notice that while Chromedome is moping alone in his quarters that someone is talking to him through the door, telling him about secret plans that involved Red Alert and Overlord? I missed that the first time. I appreciate the dense read we get every month from this book, but sometimes it means that something is missed the first time around.

Yeah, I noticed that too, and I wonder if Prowl did. (Our Prowl. Not the Prowl in the comics. Damnit, Prowl.)

Onslaught Six wrote:Yeah, I noticed that too, and I wonder if Prowl did. (Our Prowl. Not the Prowl in the comics. Damnit, Prowl.)

I did notice it, honestly, but until its confirmed that it's actually A) related to the alleged Overlord/Red Alert plots at hand and B) going to move forward as a plot point anytime soon, I'm not terribly concerned with it. It could just turn out to be another thing like Rung's data slug (which a shadowy figure absconded with and hasn't been seen/mentioned/followed up on for like five issues) or the Scavengers (who got two issues dedicated to themselves and then just dropped off the map, along with the supposedly important-to-bring-back Grimlock). When Roberts finally gets around to showing me why I should care about things like this, then I'll start caring.

The Prowl thing has gotten a bit confusing, and could be more so as Prowl The Transformer becomes more and more integral to the plot of the other book. You guys can just call me BWp or something similar until he dies or this all blows over or something, I dunno.

Man, what if Onslaught suddenly became important in the comics? And '86 picked that exact point to start posting here again? We'd be doooooooomed!!

Prowl ahahaha wrote:It could just turn out to be another thing like Rung's data slug (which a shadowy figure absconded with and hasn't been seen/mentioned/followed up on for like five issues)

Unless that's the same guy that killed Red Alert! Which then makes it totally relevant.

Scavengers will show up again soon, I'm sure.

Onslaught Six wrote:Unless that's the same guy that killed Red Alert! Which then makes it totally relevant.

Scavengers will show up again soon, I'm sure.

Hey, I admitted a few posts ago that Roberts generally makes good on the payoff, and I honestly don't doubt it about this Overlord/Red Alert plotline. Even that Scavengers arc I have to admit had a pretty good resolution that answered a lot of the questions and tied up a lot of the doubts that had been poking at me about it since the beginning. I just wish that Roberts could keep the elements of his various plots together more cohesively the whole way through, so it actually drew me in and made me care about them, rather than making me annoyed with all this disparate, fillery bullshit he seemingly throws around.

Like I said, this book doesn't anger me the way it does Dom, but it does get really annoying to read at times.

See, I've known from the beginning that he was playing the long game on this one, so if something doesn't immediately get solved, it doesn't bother me as much as it does you, I guess. I'm content to wait it out for a bit. Now, if we get to the end of the run, and still nothing? Well, that sucks. (I want my resolution to this fucking Orion Pax/Bludgeon/Thunderwing thing, though. That's just not happening at ALL.)

Onslaught Six wrote:See, I've known from the beginning that he was playing the long game on this one, so if something doesn't immediately get solved, it doesn't bother me as much as it does you, I guess. I'm content to wait it out for a bit. Now, if we get to the end of the run, and still nothing? Well, that sucks.

The long game I can take. RID's playing the long game too. I just want cohesion, is all.

(I want my resolution to this fucking Orion Pax/Bludgeon/Thunderwing thing, though. That's just not happening at ALL.)

As much as I'm loving Barber otherwise, I still really have to question why he wrote that story when he did, and had it released as an RID issue, and why its installments are spaced out so weirdly. If anything, it should just be running as few-page backups in RID. As it is, I'm with you in that I just have no idea why that story is even THERE.

What about the Magnificence?