All Hail Megatron Discussion thread

[Dominic]

What ideas? I really didn't see much of anything going on in this series before it goes back to the classic "giant robot toy death match". It started out with some promise but didn't follow up on any of it.

AHM focused on leadership and organizational behavior. You could take the TFs out and replace them with other characters, and the story would still work. By "ideas" I mean "concepts and themes that are not specific to a genre or franchise".

What did you think was promising at the beginning of the series?

Given these books are supposed to be in the same continuity as the previous stories, there is no excuse for there to be such errors. Besides that, it doesn't make sense for the editorial directive to blatantly ignore those errors only to go back with the Coda issues to try and fix it. More likely, they went with what ever McCarthy wrote, and when fans started to complain about the continuity errors, decided to try and fix it with Coda.

If we assume that IDW editorial wanted a change in direction for the TF books, then continuity would have been secondary to making whatever changes they deemed necessary. There is plenty of precedent in the industry for this. DC's (often fumbled) reboots in the 90s come to mind. For about a year after CoIE, there were plenty of little hiccups, mostly with Superman and Hawkman. Byrne's reboot in "Man of Steel" is a clean start, but there are post-CoIE stories that it does not fit with. (Those stories were assumed to have been written out post-hoc.) Continuity issues with Hawkman are a running joke now.

Marvel had plenty of these problems as well, even during their peak in the 80s. But, by the time you and I started reading comic (mid-80s in my case, I am guessing a bit later in yours), it was an article of faith that Marvel (under the direction of Shooter and Gruenwald) would have a plan to fix the errors.

I agree that many companies play fast on loose with consistency. DC almost makes sport of it now. But, by "stuff what happens" I am talking about events in the comic. Perfect consistency is all but impossible. And, if a writer has an actual idea-based story, then the errors are forgivable (so long as they are reconciled in context later) in the interest of getting that story out. Obviously, this sort of thing cannot be taken too far, lest we get books like "Countdown" or "Final Crisis", which are more excercises in DC proving how smart a company it is than actually telling a story of some kind.


Sparky, at their sales numbers of "Revelations"? And, when exaclty did "Devastation" hit shelves? I am assuming the jump in AHM numbers is due in part to the movie. (Of course, I do not peg sales to quality.) If the jump in numbers is due to the movie, then those numbers should probably interpolated down, similar to the way that nobody in their right mind buys the idea that the sales of a hyped first issue of anyting are really predictive of later sales.

Of course, if we assume that IDW mandated changes in the face of lower than desirable sales, then we have to assume that the plan failed based on the numbers Sparky presents.


"Blackest Night" is a stock DC event, with Black Hand filing the role of Superboy Prime or Parallax in speaking for readers who dare to call DC out on publishing trash, (even when DC admits it is trash). Johns basically planned a big ZOMFG event from the moment he started ruining the GL books.

And, as important as continuity/consistency is, staying power is also important. "Blackest Night" is going to undo a fair amount of the "OMFG things will change forever" events from the last few years. And, does anybody really think that any of the "big changes" from "Blackest Night" will stick for more than 2 years (if even that long)?


I know what "Ultimate" (Spidey, that Avengers book called "Ultimates", and the rest) was supposed to be. But, Marvel published "new readers" books that were not "new reader" (youngster) friendly. They started off on the right track, but jumped the track fairly quickly. In about 10 years, "Ultimate" has as much baggage as any other mainline set of books. The big events like "Ultimatum" are intended to draw in new readers, but there is nothing to distinguish the "Ultimate" books from anything else on the shelves, as they are just stock capes and tights books. Even if somebody likes the genre, there is nothing about "Ultimate" to draw people (of any age) in.

Still, I am not sure it is fair to blame Loeb for the problems the line is having. Many of the problems with the "Ultimate" books are related more to the structure of the line and the direction given by editors than they are to anything the writers are doing.

Aside from a few examples, like the Vision, most of the "Ultimate" characters are idiomatically the same as their 616 name-sakes. And, when Gwen Stacy showed up in "Ultimate Spiderman", it was just so they could kill her off....just like in the old comics.


Dom
-still not sure what is worse, Meltzer's handling of Sue Dibny or JMS' handling of Gwen Stacy....

[138 Scourge]

Was it JMS that did that horrible "Gwen and Norman had kids thing?" My god, that's so bad, they wouldn't have even done that in the 90's.

JMS does get credit for doing the immensely enjoyable story where Aunt May finds out about Peter's double life, though.

Never read "Ultimate Spidey", myself, because I don't like Bendis' writing enough to be able to get past Bagley's art. "The Ultimates" had it's merits, at least for the first couple series. I liked the take on Captain America and Bucky, anyway. And the new version of Nick Fury, too. Ultimately (hah!), I'm not impressed that much with 'em because, like Dom said, too much continuity stuff, not enough of what I call a fun read. Marvel's "Adventures" imprint, on the other hand, that's pretty continuity-free, existing in it's own kinda world where the only purpose is to tell fun stories. Even a guy like "Ant-Man", who's one of the most baggage-encumbered fellas in the main Marvel Universe, gets a self-contained story that just makes "Shrinking superhero who can talk to ants" work.

Yay, helping to completely derail two threads!

[Sparky Prime]

AHM focused on leadership and organizational behavior. You could take the TFs out and replace them with other characters, and the story would still work. By "ideas" I mean "concepts and themes that are not specific to a genre or franchise".

As I've said before I just don't see any of that particularly standing out in this series. Really the only thing that seems to set this series apart is the Decepticons are let loose to run wild while the Autobots are helpless to do anything about it.

What did you think was promising at the beginning of the series?

As they advertised when it began, it was supposed to be a look at what if there were no Autobots to fight the Decepticons. I was hoping we'd actually get to see some of Megatron's post war plans. Instead all we get is Megatron waiting for Starscream to start trouble and in the mean time, nothing happens for them.

If we assume that IDW editorial wanted a change in direction for the TF books, then continuity would have been secondary to making whatever changes they deemed necessary. There is plenty of precedent in the industry for this. DC's (often fumbled) reboots in the 90s come to mind. For about a year after CoIE, there were plenty of little hiccups, mostly with Superman and Hawkman.

That's completely ridiculous. We know the editorial staff wanted to change direction, but that doesn't mean continuity comes secondary to anything else. Rather, we know they wanted to keep AHM in the already established continuity, which means continuity should have been incorporated into the changes being made.

DC's problems is a completely different issue. I recall reading an interview a couple years ago in which they said many creative teams had problems agreeing on various points with characters. As a result, it wasn't uncommon for them to ignore what was previously done. It had nothing to do with changing directions.

Sparky, at their sales numbers of "Revelations"? And, when exaclty did "Devastation" hit shelves? I am assuming the jump in AHM numbers is due in part to the movie. (Of course, I do not peg sales to quality.) If the jump in numbers is due to the movie, then those numbers should probably interpolated down, similar to the way that nobody in their right mind buys the idea that the sales of a hyped first issue of anyting are really predictive of later sales.

Devastation was published between October, 2007 and February, 2008. The movie being released at the beginning of July, 2007 puts that series enough after the movie hype. Not to mention, Devastation's sales figures are also lower than Escalation, the series that came before it.

Given Revelations was released as Spotlight issues, that's going to be a different story in terms of sales given the Spotlights generally do not do as well as the main series titles:
Spotlight: Cyclonus - 10,802, Spotlight: Hardhead: 10,513, Spotlight: Doubledealer - 10,291, Spotlight: Sideswipe - 10,673

"Blackest Night" is a stock DC event, with Black Hand filing the role of Superboy Prime or Parallax in speaking for readers who dare to call DC out on publishing trash, (even when DC admits it is trash). Johns basically planned a big ZOMFG event from the moment he started ruining the GL books.

Ruining? Personally, I wasn't even that interested in Green Lantern until Johns got involved with it. Since then, he's really brought up the popularity of the character(s). I dare say, even more so than the Trinity. And while Blackest Night does have several spin off titles, it is hardly a "stock DC event". It is a GL event.

And, as important as continuity/consistency is, staying power is also important. "Blackest Night" is going to undo a fair amount of the "OMFG things will change forever" events from the last few years. And, does anybody really think that any of the "big changes" from "Blackest Night" will stick for more than 2 years (if even that long)?

Sounds like you're being bias to me Dom. The story only just started yesterday and you've already passed judgment on it. Why not see what they actually do with the story before assuming what it'll do?

I know what "Ultimate" (Spidey, that Avengers book called "Ultimates", and the rest) was supposed to be. But, Marvel published "new readers" books that were not "new reader" (youngster) friendly.

It wasn't meant to be specifically "new reader" meaning youngster friendly. That's what the Marvel Adventure's titles (which are also quite good I'd point out) were created for. Ultimate was created for "new readers" meaning general audiences that weren't already reading titles like Amazing Spider-Man.

In about 10 years, "Ultimate" has as much baggage as any other mainline set of books. The big events like "Ultimatum" are intended to draw in new readers, but there is nothing to distinguish the "Ultimate" books from anything else on the shelves, as they are just stock capes and tights books. Even if somebody likes the genre, there is nothing about "Ultimate" to draw people (of any age) in.

Obviously given that amount of time, the story is going to gain baggage. You can't tell a story for that long and expect it not to. But you're wrong about "Ultimate" not distinguishing itself. It does that with the modernization of their stories and how they are different from 616. The purpose of "Ultimatum" is not to distinguish the line, rather it is literally ending it so Marvel can simplify and relaunch the few "surviving" characters under the "Ultimate Comics" name.

Still, I am not sure it is fair to blame Loeb for the problems the line is having. Many of the problems with the "Ultimate" books are related more to the structure of the line and the direction given by editors than they are to anything the writers are doing.

Loeb is the one writing the destruction the Ultimate universe. Ultimate wasn't haven problems before that. They were all best sellers.

Aside from a few examples, like the Vision, most of the "Ultimate" characters are idiomatically the same as their 616 name-sakes. And, when Gwen Stacy showed up in "Ultimate Spiderman", it was just so they could kill her off....just like in the old comics.

Again I have to ask if you've actually read these stories? Ultimate Gwen is nothing like 616 Gwen and she was around for quite a while before she was killed by an Ultimate version of Carnage, rather than being thrown off a bridge by Green Goblin. Then she came back as a clone (somehow with the memories of the original) with the tendency to turn into Carnage, until SHIELD apparently fixed her.

Was it JMS that did that horrible "Gwen and Norman had kids thing?" My god, that's so bad, they wouldn't have even done that in the 90's.

Yeah, that was JMS. He did some good work on Spidey, but he also did some terrible work, as this was.

Ultimately (hah!), I'm not impressed that much with 'em because, like Dom said, too much continuity stuff, not enough of what I call a fun read.

Ultimate still had less continuity to deal with than 616 does. And they didn't make it that hard to get into the story if you hadn't been reading the whole time. I didn't get into Ultimate Spider-Man myself until issue 28, and loved the story so much I started collecting the individual issues and went back to get the first 4 TPB's. Then I got into Ultimate X-Men and so on... Personally I think the Ultimate universe was the best stuff Marvel was doing up until Ultimatum started.

[Dominic]

This reply is going to be shorter than I planned, as it is the second attempt. (Sucktastic connection at the library logged me out when I tried to post earlier.)

AHM delivered what was promised, Megatron's plans if he was rid of The Autobots. Megatron wanted to avoid getting killed (by Starscream) until Starscream was ready to take over. Megatron said as much himself. His grand post-victory scheme was too keep the Decepticons busy enough to not indulge in fratricide, hence his gratuitous attack on Earth.

It was not a cosmic plan, but a simple question of leading his team to the next level.

The results and soundness of Megatron's plan are mixed at best. But that is McCarty's point. It is not about how kewl and bad(ass) Megatron is. McCarthy was writing about "how bad things could get", if the Decepticons won, for everybody, including the Decepticons. They need an enemy, if only a symbolic one, to unify against.

other:

Continuity can, and has, been put aside for positive effect. DC's first "Crisis" is an example of this. A few books suffered, but the over-all effect was positive.

Given the very distressing numbers Sparky posted, no sensible person would fault IDW for trying something drastic. In theory, "Devestation", as a TF series, should have ridden the movie wave along with the toys and other merchandise at the time.

TF comics are doing terribly, relative both to the franchise and other comics. If the "Transformers" comics go away, that would be a loss for the hobby. But, I cannot realistically see them lasting at this rate. (Not that comics as an idustry is exactly stellar right now.)

As far as "Ultimate" goes, when the line started 10 years back, it was meant to have youth appeal. That does not have to include little kids. But, it should be accessible to middle and high schoolers who do not want baggage. (Self-contained need not be the same as simplistic.)

It is not fair to put as much blame on Loeb as you seem to be Sparky. Odds are, he is writing what the editors tell him to. Even if he is the guy responsible for coming up with the idea, somebody above him green-lighted it. JMS gets points for taking resposibility for his bad ideas. But, the majority of the blame for bad comics rests on the shoulders of Quesada and Didio.

Dom-talked about "Blackest Night" in the hauls thread.

[Sparky Prime]

AHM delivered what was promised, Megatron's plans if he was rid of The Autobots. Megatron wanted to avoid getting killed (by Starscream) until Starscream was ready to take over. Megatron said as much himself. His grand post-victory scheme was too keep the Decepticons busy enough to not indulge in fratricide, hence his gratuitous attack on Earth.

All AHM promised us was a 'What if the Autobot's weren't around to stop the Decepticons from trashing Earth' story. Admittedly, we did get that much, but as for Megatron's actual plans for after defeating the Autobots, no we did not see that. Megatron does explain he wants to remodel the Decepticons into what he "originally intended" them to be ("Perfectly controlled peace through unparalleled strength), but I don't see how just letting them run wild on an insignificant planet is supposed to accomplish this. Waiting for Starscream to make another grab at leadership and letting the Decepticon army trash an insignificant planet simply to keep them busy is not a post war plan. I can see if maybe Megatron indicated he actually had some plans for Earth in particular, possibly given the "ultra energon" that was discovered, but nothing is ever said about it. They might as well have been on Nebulos for all that it mattered to the story. Another point would have been actually following up on what we were told about the Matrix being why war started in the first place, but instead we don't find out what Megs plans to do with it or even why he wanted it.

The results and soundness of Megatron's plan are mixed at best. But that is McCarty's point. It is not about how kewl and bad(ass) Megatron is. McCarthy was writing about "how bad things could get", if the Decepticons won, for everybody, including the Decepticons. They need an enemy, if only a symbolic one, to unify against.

Again, how is just letting his army run wild supposed to serve any practical purpose? It doesn't make sense for the Decepticons to need an enemy. They should have some plan/concept of what there going to do after they actually defeated the Autobots rather than just more fighting. I mean really, what's the goals they achieve in defeating the Autobots and where do they go from there? The sense I get from this series is "look how kewl the Decepticons are as they blow up Earth and each other while the Autobots mope and also fight each other."

Continuity can, and has, been put aside for positive effect. DC's first "Crisis" is an example of this. A few books suffered, but the over-all effect was positive.

Crisis was not an example of putting continuity aside. Crisis is an example of reconstructing continuity in order to simply things for future stories.

As far as "Ultimate" goes, when the line started 10 years back, it was meant to have youth appeal. That does not have to include little kids. But, it should be accessible to middle and high schoolers who do not want baggage. (Self-contained need not be the same as simplistic.)

10 years ago I was in middle school, and I found Ultimate very accessible when I got into it. I even introduced it to one of my friends later on in high school and hooked them on the story. And these stories are generally written to be self contained to about 6 issue arcs, particularly for the ease of compiling them into TPB's.

It is not fair to put as much blame on Loeb as you seem to be Sparky. Odds are, he is writing what the editors tell him to. Even if he is the guy responsible for coming up with the idea, somebody above him green-lighted it. JMS gets points for taking resposibility for his bad ideas. But, the majority of the blame for bad comics rests on the shoulders of Quesada and Didio.

I agree Quesada should share in some of the blame, especially with several editorial decisions he has made as head of Marvel. After all, who decides to end an entire line of some of their top selling books for no apparent reason? But I don't agree that it's unfair to place that much blame on Loeb when he is the one responsible for creating this disaster. I really don't get the impression that he actually understood what the Ultimate Universe and characters were all about in the first place based on the work he has produced.

[Dominic]

Sparky, Mehatron's plan was flawed, exactly. You get it. That, the flawed plan of Megatron, is the whole point of AHM. The fact that Megatron had a flawed post-victory is why the Decepticons winning would be bad for everybody, the Autobots (who would get their recrums stomped), the Decepticons (who would be aimless), And the humans (strawmen for Megatron to use as an other).

Megatron was sending the Decepticons after Earth to keep them busy. He did not have a plan beyond that, which is a part of why things would have fallen apart for him eventually. It would not have to be Autobots or humans that brought his plans to ruin. In fact, they helped salvage it.

That is what AHM was about.

AHM was not about having the mastermind take a page or 3, ala Starlin (whose writing I do like), to explain every move in his cosmic game while he stands over a chess board with pieces that resemble the characters.

Given the mixed results Megatron had with Ore-13/ultra-energon, I can see not using it. (But, really, who even cares about Furman's McGuffin?)

[Sparky Prime]

You can't possibly expect me to believe Megatron hasn't thought about what they'd do after defeating the Autobots. We know there are reasons why Megatron started this war in the first place. So, what were they? What did he hope to accomplish? We're given indications, but nothing is followed up on. Instead all we get is this weak plot about ravaging an inferior planet for no reason. This is not Megatron's master plan and it's ridiculous if that's supposed to be the whole point of AHM. Megatron is better than that.

[Dominic]

Clearly, it was Megatron's plan, and he had not thought it through. If Megatron started off as a demagogue, he may have gotten lazy about always having a convenient other to blame, which is why he used humans after the Autobots were no longer an option.

[Sparky Prime]

Clearly Megatron is not as incompetent as you make him seem. Although the war has seemingly been unending with how long it has been, certainly Megatron would have goals for what he wants to achieve by fighting this war in the first place, and as such, would have plans for where to go after the war is over. He's smart enough to know that with the Autobots out of the picture, some Decepticons would rebel sooner or later and we saw he had that planned out. But just letting them go wild on Earth is no plan. He knows humanity is not a significant enough threat to actually keep the Decepticons busy, and besides that, it serves no purpose.

[Onslaught Six]

By the way, when did Bumper come back? I recall him dying in "Megatron: Origions", but not him showing up later.

In Spotlight: Wheelie, he's mentioned as a candidate for the mission, despite being dead by that point. He doesn't actually show up. A minor glitch. It helps that I don't consider Megatron: Origin canon (because, after all, it started as a DW story.)

Now looking at Transformers Devastation to use as a basis for comparison:

I hate how everyone compares the individual issues of AHM to Devastation. Give it six months, and compare the trades--I will guarantee that AHM will sell more trades, because it is that good. And on top of that, sales numbers only mean so much when a good chunk of the comics-reading public does so through piracy now (as with any medium these days) and you end up with a big bunch of nothing. Success is not quantative in comics, and as far as IDW has said, these books are selling well.

We know there are reasons why Megatron started this war in the first place. So, what were they? What did he hope to accomplish?

Get the Matrix.

I win.