More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

The modern comics universe has had such a different take on G1, one that's significantly represented by the Generations toys, so they share a forum. A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero. Currently starring Generations toys, IDW "The Transformers" comics, MTMTE, TF vs GI Joe, and Windblade. Oh wait, and now Skybound, wheee!
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Sparky Prime
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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JediTricks wrote:This is not "purposefully ambiguous", except in the way that comic book publishers have created a Pavlovian response in you to not accept a clear chain of events as meaning what they are showing. If you read a book or saw a movie where this happened and the next scene in that chain of events wasn't clearly expressing that Skywarp turned his weapon a different direction at the last minute and saved TC, you'd be ripped off, cheated, lied to - yet comics have turned fans against their own intellects for how many times they've cheated death and broken the storytelling commandment of "thou shall tell a story honestly".

This isn't supposed to be the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, nobody hits the Infinite Improbability Drive to save the day, the audience is going to use Occam's razor every time because the most probable outcome based on prior events is how life works and how literature works unless it intently states otherwise.
Do you see Thundercracker anywhere in the panel with Skywarp's weapon firing? Do you see Thundercracker being hit? No to both accounts? Hm, isn't that interesting. If Skywarp's weapon was still aimed directly in Thundercracker's face like the first panel there shows, then Thundercracker should be right there, getting his head blown off by Skywarp's weapon in the panel when the weapon fired. Yet, he isn't anywhere to be seen. There is no "Pavlovian response" to not accept a "clear chain of events", when it's what we don't see on the page in the first place, that should be there if that "clear chain" of events played out as you suggest. We have no idea how close Thundercracker is to Skywarp when he actually fired the weapon, nor where it is aimed. That makes the scene purposefully ambiguous. And that's hardly comics turning fans against their own intellects. It's a pretty common storytelling technique for misdirection. Haven't you ever seen a crime drama pull the exact same thing? You think you know how something will play out, based on a "clear chain of events", but things can still change up until the very last second that can have a profoundly different impact on the outcome.

Occam's razor? The simplest explanation is that they moved somewhat between the two panels it took to get from pointing the weapon and firing it. Or do you think Thundercracker wouldn't back off from a gun pointed in his face in the second or two it took Skywarp to say "Betrayer" and then fire?
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Dominic
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Back in the day, I asked him on Twitter if Thundy was going to survive (this was before Costa's ongoing even happened) and McCarthy's response was that it was "out of his hands," or something similar. This makes me wonder if McCarthy's intent was to kill Thundy but editorial (or Hasbro) gave him a No. (Maybe Costa was aware of McCarthy's plan to kill Thundy, and interjected with, "Hey, if we brought him back, we could...")

Actually, given how long it's been, I wonder if McCarthy would be receptive to questions about it now.
I have McCarthy on my FaceBook. But, he does not seem interested in talking about his time writing TF. (And, honestly, given how it went for him, who can blame him. The fact that he teaches swing dancing and is paid to interact with woman and likely *really* enjoying that may also play a role in him not having time to answer questions. If comic book writers had entrance music, his theme would likely be "I'm A Playa".)

I recall Claremont and other 80s comic writers making similar comments. They had no control once they left a book, regardless of their intentions.
I've never done it that way and I don't plan to in the future, it's not fair to new authors or existing authors on other titles with new ideas. If it works it works, I don't care who writes it.
But, if you look at comics as "one big thing", you have to reconcile tonal and stylistic differences across decades. (For example, howw can you really reconcile Byrne and Morrison on a book like "Superman"?)

Oh, and can someone explain to me why Ultra Magnus' holomatter avatar is Verity Carlo? I only know their connection from LSotW and there wasn't that much of one.
The implication is that Magnus was fond of Verity.

The DJD is essentially intended to be the Decepticon Wreckers. Agree or disagree? (If this has been discussed in the past forum pages, please forgive me, I'm only up to page 11.)
Not sure I see it. The Wreckers are a "do anything" team. The DJD is more of a "specific purpose" team.

That sounds like a cheat of death as much as anything though.
The Ironhide thing is much less retarded than it sounds. Costa was setting up for something that he did not get a chance to fully exploit. But, the "Ironhide' miniseries is worth a read, if only to see what might have been.

And, regardless, I would not call Ironhide's death and return a "cheat", as the death was written to facilitate the (planned) return, which was going to tie in with Costa's "change" theme.

You show this panel to an outsider and 100% of the time they'll assume that's Thundercracker being killed, the story context makes it clear and the imagery makes it clear, the only thing that doesn't make it clear is the cheatiness of comics.
As O6 would say, "comics suck".

The problem is that too many readers not only expect this sort of writing, they seem to accept it, even *want* it.

Not sure where blame for that lies though, as comic companies could step up their game and stop rewarding the most backwards ass elements of the fandom.


Dom
-nearly dropped the book when "Thundercracker" came back.
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andersonh1
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Dominic wrote:-nearly dropped the book when "Thundercracker" came back.
That's the point... he didn't "come back". He was never gone to begin with.
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Dominic wrote:I have McCarthy on my FaceBook. But, he does not seem interested in talking about his time writing TF. (And, honestly, given how it went for him, who can blame him. The fact that he teaches swing dancing and is paid to interact with woman and likely *really* enjoying that may also play a role in him not having time to answer questions. If comic book writers had entrance music, his theme would likely be "I'm A Playa".)
So do I. I almost want to bother him about it, but like you said--probably not worth his time.
You show this panel to an outsider and 100% of the time they'll assume that's Thundercracker being killed, the story context makes it clear and the imagery makes it clear, the only thing that doesn't make it clear is the cheatiness of comics.
As O6 would say, "comics suck".
I literally showed the above panels to my girlfriend, with no context, and asked, "What's happening here?"

"The black dude shoots the blue guy in the face."

"You think he survived that?"

"Probably not. I dunno, can Transformers survive being shot in the face?"

"Usually they don't."

"...oh god, they made that guy survive, didn't they?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you read this shit?"
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Onslaught Six wrote:"Probably not. I dunno, can Transformers survive being shot in the face?"

"Usually they don't."
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:BurningChro ... ndwave.jpg

He survives.
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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That was later! And clearly Roberts and Barber have established TFs as being able to be be-goddamn-headed and survive. So I don't even know anymore.

But usually, no, they don't survive.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Onslaught Six wrote:That was later!
So? And we don't even know where Thundercracker was shot since we didn't see it.
But usually, no, they don't survive.
Proof? I mean, we've seen several Transformers survive severe head damage plenty of times. Heck, we've seen characters survive even worst than that!
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Megatron practically shot Starscream in half at the end of Infiltration, all the way back at the beginning, and he survived. Sure, he got immediate repair work, but he had to live through that pretty horrible injury for the repairs to be of any use, correct? Sunstreaker had his head removed entirely from his body, and he survived. There are two early IDW examples of a Transformer surviving what should be fatal injuries: beheading and massive chest trauma. Just where is Starscream's spark located anyway? How did that shot from Megatron miss vaporizing it?
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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That's the point... he didn't "come back". He was never gone to begin with.
This is missing the point. You are looking at it from a "justify the later comics as inherently good" angle. O6, JT and I are looking at it as it was originally published and presented.

As evidence:

I literally showed the above panels to my girlfriend, with no context, and asked, "What's happening here?"

"The black dude shoots the blue guy in the face."

"You think he survived that?"

"Probably not. I dunno, can Transformers survive being shot in the face?"

"Usually they don't."

"...oh god, they made that guy survive, didn't they?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you read this shit?"
And, keep in mind, O6 has repeatedly said that she is cool about comics and toys and such. So, she is likely not just dumping on comics for being comics.

At the very least, Thundercracker should have had some apparent head damage. And, Soundwave only survived because he was repaired.


The fact is that IDW back-wrote Thundercracker surviving. But, rather than acknowledge feckless editing, some people are going to claim that he never died to begin with, even if he was originally shot in the face.

And, really, when somebody asks the question that O6's girl asked think hard before you answer it and you might find that there is no answer you can give that will not make you sound like a complete fucktard.


Dom
-will point out that some of the stereotypes about fandoms are apparently true.
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andersonh1
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Re: More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

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Dominic wrote:
That's the point... he didn't "come back". He was never gone to begin with.
This is missing the point. You are looking at it from a "justify the later comics as inherently good" angle. O6, JT and I are looking at it as it was originally published and presented.
So am I. From the sequence as written and drawn, the following things are very obvious:

- It's clear that Skywarp confronts Thundercracker
- It's clear that Skywarp is angry and Thundercracker is trying to reason and justify his actions
- It's clear that Skywarp takes a shot at Thundercracker after pointing the gun at his face

The result is left to the reader's imagination. Why? Why don't we see it happen? Why isn't the shot and Thundercracker's death shown to us, if that's what McCarthy intended? I remember reading that sequence for the first time and my reaction was not "He just killed Thundercracker". It was more along the lines of wondering whether Thundercracker had been killed or not, precisely because it wasn't shown to me. It is NOT clear how that confrontation ended, no matter how often you insist that it is. Transformers have survived worse, and readers are well aware of that. There's no automatic reason to assume the shot was fatal. For a human, it would be. For a Transformer, not necessarily.

If the intent was for Thundercracker to die as a result of his disagreement with the current Decepticon philosophy, that should have been clearly shown. It wasn't. The reader is left to assume he's been killed, or left to wonder if he's survived, which is a stupid way to play that sequence out if the intent is to end it with Thundercracker killed for his defiance.
Sparky Prime wrote: We have no idea how close Thundercracker is to Skywarp when he actually fired the weapon, nor where it is aimed. That makes the scene purposefully ambiguous. And that's hardly comics turning fans against their own intellects. It's a pretty common storytelling technique for misdirection. Haven't you ever seen a crime drama pull the exact same thing? You think you know how something will play out, based on a "clear chain of events", but things can still change up until the very last second that can have a profoundly different impact on the outcome.

Occam's razor? The simplest explanation is that they moved somewhat between the two panels it took to get from pointing the weapon and firing it. Or do you think Thundercracker wouldn't back off from a gun pointed in his face in the second or two it took Skywarp to say "Betrayer" and then fire?
Exactly.
Onslaught Six wrote:
Off page, does anybody think that McCarthy intended for Thundercracker to survive?
Back in the day, I asked him on Twitter if Thundy was going to survive (this was before Costa's ongoing even happened) and McCarthy's response was that it was "out of his hands," or something similar. This makes me wonder if McCarthy's intent was to kill Thundy but editorial (or Hasbro) gave him a No. (Maybe Costa was aware of McCarthy's plan to kill Thundy, and interjected with, "Hey, if we brought him back, we could...")

Actually, given how long it's been, I wonder if McCarthy would be receptive to questions about it now.
The fact that you had to ask the question shows how much ambiguity there is in that entire sequence. My theory is that whatever McCarthy intended, either to kill TC off or not, that IDW editorial made the decision to leave Thundercracker alive for the Ongoing series.

On another note, I'll be glad when the next issue of MTMTE is out so the thread gets back on topic. Though I suppose the whole thing is my fault for speculating that Overlord might have saved Rewind. :mrgreen:
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