More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

[Onslaught Six]

"The Masterforce" is literally just Wapanese techno-magic jargon bullshit. Guys like Ginrai, Mega, Giga, etc. call upon the "power of the Masterforce" and have bracelets that give them armour and let them turn into engines for the Transtectors.

I misread that and thought it said "turn into engines for tractors". Anyway, sounds... wait, he's saying Rewind would be turned into a Powermaster-type thing???

I hadn't actually considered that, but yes, I think that's what he's getting at.

G is just being a cheeky twat about the fact that Overlord isn't being used the way he was in Masterforce--whereas I'd argue that Roberts' Overlord is very clearly the European-released Overlord released around 1990, who had no real connection to that guy (other than being the same toy and having the same name).

Ouch dude, a bit harsh. But I'll otherwise take your word for that.

G is British! For him, "cheeky twat" is a compliment.

I mean, I've known G for years! We used to BS about everything, back when he actually used MSN. He was my best friend before 86 was! (And then G disappeared to go to college, and 86 got a bunch of free time.)

Dude, we are awesome! We started a revolution! From this thread and Dom's texts gave life to a conversation which caused you to tweet Roberts which caused people to LOSE THEIR SHIT! That's so good.

Not sure the sentiment they have about him being a hack is something you should have jumped on board with though, unless you feel that way. I am pleased with how meta this just got. Tell me you're going to drop that link into the other thread as well. Revolution!!!

Isn't anyone who reads the forum going to see it anyway?

I didn't jump on board with it, I actually disagreed entirely with that poster's point. (You can find some links to my posts in the bottom.) To me, Roberts was the first one in that conversation to use the word "couple"--I even explicitly worded my original Tweet to use an ampersand and refer to them as individuals instead of a slash to imply a relationship!

[Gomess]

G is just being a cheeky twat about the fact that Overlord isn't being used the way he was in Masterforce

Actually I was BSing about the possibility of Overlord developing psychic powers and using them to save Rewind's life, a la Thundercracker's miraculous survival. Sorry, I'm abstract.

G is British! For him, "cheeky twat" is a compliment.

This is true. Lots of affectionate namecalling in my circle of friends.

He was my best friend before 86 was! (And then G disappeared to go to college, and 86 got a bunch of free time.)

Oh no sure yeah I see how it is (it's ok, I trust him not to break your heart)

...And ok, maybe I was wrong about the fans being overall positive about Rewind & Chromedome's coupliness. Weird.

[andersonh1]

I don't think you ever directly addressed my question of what you'd think of a theatrical play where that scene was played out: the shooter shows anger, puts a gun in the face of the victim, the victim asks the shooter to wait, the shooter interrupts with more anger, the stage goes black, a gun is fired, and then no other scenes showed the victim in that play. So is that victim character dead or not? Do you NEED the body in that moment to believe that character is dead, that the fictional construct uses enough artistic license to convey the idea through only alluding to the grisly murder scene? If so, why is it that other narrative media enjoys that but comic books aren't in the club?

I think it's worth pointing out that a play or a movie are generally self-contained stories, told and done in an hour or two with a single author or screenwriter, or at the least a small pool of writers. Comics are more akin to long-running television series, with years or decades of episodes and many, many writers contributing.

I took a couple of years of drama in high school, and one of the plays we performed was about a lady confined to her bed, who accidentally overheard a phone call about someone planning to murder someone. Of course, the intended victim is her, and the play ends with exactly the scenario you describe, or close to it. The killer enters her room, the lights cut out, she screams, play over. There's no doubt that she's been shot dead. That was the point of the play, that's what the whole narrative had been leading up to. Story's told and done.

I don't think it's unfair for the audience or reader to have different expectations about longer-form fiction though. Audiences change over time, and so do writers. Someone might have a new slant that can be applied to an old character. Someone might have a great story idea that contradicts an older story, so they write a workaround. The medium is different, and the approach to it is different. Smaller stories or episodes or chapters are told with a start and a conclusion, but the overall narrative goes on and really doesn't come to an end.

[Onslaught Six]

...And ok, maybe I was wrong about the fans being overall positive about Rewind & Chromedome's coupliness. Weird.

No, reread that crazy shit. They absolutely want them to be a couple. They're frustrated that Roberts has allegedly not gone out of his way to confirm it. (Which says, to me, that they didn't read the fucking book. Other characters literally tell Chromedome, "He has you listed as his 'significant other.'" That's...that's fucking confirmation.)

[JediTricks]

G is British! For him, "cheeky twat" is a compliment.

I know, but geez dude, we still have to read it.

I mean, I've known G for years! We used to BS about everything, back when he actually used MSN. He was my best friend before 86 was! (And then G disappeared to go to college, and 86 got a bunch of free time.)

That's pretty cool, I didn't know that.

Isn't anyone who reads the forum going to see it anyway?

I didn't jump on board with it, I actually disagreed entirely with that poster's point. (You can find some links to my posts in the bottom.) To me, Roberts was the first one in that conversation to use the word "couple"--I even explicitly worded my original Tweet to use an ampersand and refer to them as individuals instead of a slash to imply a relationship!

Yeah, sure, you're probably right. I still think it's pretty cool, AND it ties in very well with the conversation of emotionally stunted, levels of appropriateness, that sort of thing.

You said "I'm with you on this" in response which could be misconstrued as meaning the "Roberts is an overrated hack" comment in there. Perhaps I misunderstood, that sort of commenting system is confusing.

Actually I was BSing about the possibility of Overlord developing psychic powers and using them to save Rewind's life, a la Thundercracker's miraculous survival. Sorry, I'm abstract.

Wow, and folks wonder why I don't watch the Japanese TF cartoons. But that WAS abstract, that was an extreme one.

I think it's worth pointing out that a play or a movie are generally self-contained stories, told and done in an hour or two with a single author or screenwriter, or at the least a small pool of writers. Comics are more akin to long-running television series, with years or decades of episodes and many, many writers contributing.

I took a couple of years of drama in high school, and one of the plays we performed was about a lady confined to her bed, who accidentally overheard a phone call about someone planning to murder someone. Of course, the intended victim is her, and the play ends with exactly the scenario you describe, or close to it. The killer enters her room, the lights cut out, she screams, play over. There's no doubt that she's been shot dead. That was the point of the play, that's what the whole narrative had been leading up to. Story's told and done.

I don't think it's unfair for the audience or reader to have different expectations about longer-form fiction though. Audiences change over time, and so do writers. Someone might have a new slant that can be applied to an old character. Someone might have a great story idea that contradicts an older story, so they write a workaround. The medium is different, and the approach to it is different. Smaller stories or episodes or chapters are told with a start and a conclusion, but the overall narrative goes on and really doesn't come to an end.

Thanks.

The problem is that the only long-form entertainment aside from ongoing comics which are guilty of this are soap operas, which are pretty much the lowest of the low form of scripted television. Being in that company is nothing to crow about. Other long-form TV generally doesn't attempt such (ironically-titled) "theatrics", when Claire Kincaid on Law & Order was killed in a car accident off-screen she didn't return to life later, that sort of thing seems dishonest from a literary perspective IMO. AHM is presented as somewhat standalone, it fits into the ongoing series as well but on its own it's still its own thing, it numbers 1, it was sold as 12 issues, it has a specific arc. If comics are as bankrupt a storytelling medium as soaps, what's to stop this from being the "Everything was a dream" answer to an entire season of Dallas? What reward is that for the audience who invests their time into an episode or an issue only to realize nothing they got out of that moment could matter, that at any moment everything they felt for could be turned on its ear? I suppose that is the risk the medium has created for itself though, trying to keep one foot in the soap opera world while simultaneously trying to grow beyond. But I look back to the '70s and '80s comics, and the Marvel "secret" of each issue having a story to tell and telling it well, that seems so far above the constant death cheats and reveals of that which came afterwards. When Tara (Terra 1) died in New Teen Titans, her death had real weight and meaning, she stayed dead and it resonated with the rest of the team even after knowing she was always a traitor.

A new writer who cannot come up with his own compelling characters? Contradictory tales? That's not much of a writer, that's what Elseworlds and What If used to be for.

[Onslaught Six]

You said "I'm with you on this" in response which could be misconstrued as meaning the "Roberts is an overrated hack" comment in there. Perhaps I misunderstood, that sort of commenting system is confusing.

No, that was my most recent post, which was actually directed at someone who reblogged it from me reblogging it from someone else. I was agreeing with my friend. (Here, context: http://onslaughtsix.tumblr.com/post/479 ... e-of-giant)

[andersonh1]

The problem is that the only long-form entertainment aside from ongoing comics which are guilty of this are soap operas, which are pretty much the lowest of the low form of scripted television. Being in that company is nothing to crow about.

The quality of writing on comics varies greatly. Sometimes they're down in the gutter with soap operas, sometimes they rise well above that level. There are some comparisons, which I'll get to below.

Other long-form TV generally doesn't attempt such (ironically-titled) "theatrics", when Claire Kincaid on Law & Order was killed in a car accident off-screen she didn't return to life later, that sort of thing seems dishonest from a literary perspective IMO.

Agreed, though even Law and Order (which admittedly I've seen very little of) hasn't run as long as some of the longer-running soaps. Young and the Restless just hit 40 years recently, and if you want to talk about comics, Spider Man has just hit 50 years of continuous publication I believe, and Batman and Superman have been running for 75 years+. There's no real comparison. And with the comic book characters, there have often been multiple titles running every month. The amount of stories out there about Spider Man or Superman is staggeringly huge. That raises issues of creativity and repetition, and whether or not it's even possible to avoid reusing plots or avoiding some of the more "out-there" plot ideas. When a writer is searching for a plot, it's got to be challenging to continually come up with something different with seven decades of material already in existence.

And the genres are very different. I presume Law and Order presents itself as a down to earth police procedural drama, though obviously it would take dramatic license with the subject matter. Comic books may keep one foot on the ground, but are otherwise largely divorced from reality, presenting all sorts of characters who have supernatural powers. We're already suspending our disbelief by reading these things and accepting them on their own terms. It's not that much of a stretch to go a bit further and accept a less final version of life and death than we have in the real world.

Are such resurrections overused as a plot device? Absolutely. Does the return of a major character from death cheapen the drama? I think it often does, with some rare exceptions. The Death of Superman storyline is one of those rare exceptions where the character's death and return was put to very good use in terms of the stories told thanks to the catalyst of Superman's death and return. But by and large, even in the wildly fantastic world of superheroes that trick has been played far too often. Which is why, for example, Blackest Night attempted to deal with the problem as a part of that story's plot. The writers know how the comic genre is percieved. They know it's a problem, and readers don't take the death of characters seriously any more.

My point is this: yes, undoing a character's death is a literary cheat, but given the fantastic nature of comics and the sheer amount of published material, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a little more than I would be for other genres. I have different standards for different forms of storytelling. And rightly so, because any given literary universe is going to set its own rules.

James Bond was machine-gunned to death at the beginning of "You Only Live Twice". He was back not 10 minutes after the credits rolled. Was that a cheat? No, that was a pre-planned plot device, not only for use in telling the rest of the story but also to jerk the audience around a bit. You probably couldn't get away with that type of theatricality in Law and Order, but in a James Bond film, it works. The Dark Knight Rises shows Batman dying while saving Gotham City from a nuclear explosion. Only somehow, Alfred sees him alive and well at the end of the movie. How did he escape the blast? We don't know, and yet because he's Batman and he's generally prepared for most contingencies, we accept it. Spock is able to return from death thanks to some unique circumstances which the audience accepts because the rules of that universe, as presented in ST 2 and 3, allow it to happen.

Different genres, different rules. The more fantastic the genre, the more the audience will allow themselves to accept, provided whatever ground rules are set up for that universe are observed. An "anything goes" story with no rules isn't going to succeed dramatically, I would think.

AHM is presented as somewhat standalone, it fits into the ongoing series as well but on its own it's still its own thing, it numbers 1, it was sold as 12 issues, it has a specific arc. If comics are as bankrupt a storytelling medium as soaps, what's to stop this from being the "Everything was a dream" answer to an entire season of Dallas? What reward is that for the audience who invests their time into an episode or an issue only to realize nothing they got out of that moment could matter, that at any moment everything they felt for could be turned on its ear?

If the writers break trust with the audience, the audience leaves. It's happened many times.

And yes, AHM is it's own story, but it's also part of the larger ongoing story arc that is IDW's Transformers continuity. It can't be divorced from everything that came before or has followed it. Certain plotlines and themes and story arcs within that story are self-contained, but others are not, and the characters certainly are not. The whole plot revolves around Sunstreaker's actions, which are all based on what happened to him when Furman was writing. So much of what happened in the ongoing, RID and MTMTE springs from what happened in AHM. It's all interlaced, all interconnected.

That being the case, a writer has better be absolutely clear when he's ending a character's story arc once and for all. Because there's always going to be another writer who follows him, who will have their own ideas and stories they want to tell, and if there's any wiggle room, then using that character is fair game.

A new writer who cannot come up with his own compelling characters? Contradictory tales? That's not much of a writer, that's what Elseworlds and What If used to be for.

So the Joker should have been left in the 40s? This goes right back to and makes my point about the long-running nature of many comics. How many new stories and concepts ARE there, if a book has been running for 50 years? And surely you have to factor audience turnover into the equation, though in this day and age with reprints and the internet, it's much more difficult to count on the ignorance of the audience when it comes to a character's history.

[Dominic]

I still say McCarthy's intent was for Thundy to die, and editorial got in the way--his answer at the time, much like Roberts' recent answer about Chromedome and Rewind, is kind of steeped in that, "Stuff is happening soon and I can't fully explain myself right now because of it."

Most likely, it was McCarthy being a professional and not inflating his control over the book after he left. This is common in comics. Writers generally try to bring their run to a close, and then hand the book off to the next team.

Morrison acknowledged this on page at the end of his "Animal Man" run.

You can pretend all you want, but it won't change the ugly faces and wonky overall art there.

The art was a needed departure from what had been in place for decades, and Figueroa nicely blended the movie with the origional style.

They are not talking about the narrative of AHM or of a specific author, they are talking about it as a singular "ongoing Transformers" narrative beyond within the IDW G1 ongoing continuity. I don't think it's seamless either, but not for the reason you're citing, for the "no damned sense on the damage and then Thundercracker is a different personality on the other side" reasons.

That is fine. But, acknowledge the back-written nature of some parts of that ongoing narrative.

I fundamentally disagree that there's no use in railing against shoddy problems of the medium. If we keep lapping it up without saying anything, how is it supposed to get better? Should we go back to Silver Age sidekick antics and no dangers whatsoever too? Should nothing ever change at all, we should just accept that the medium is lazy and sloppy and has no hope of aiming to do better?

Exactly.

And, if the medium is going to be stuck in low grade, why the hell should we bother with it?

For the record, if Rewind comes back on Roberts' watch, I will not call it a back-write. I will assume that Roberts planned for Rewind to survive his apparent demise.

Anyway, the real reason I came to the thread again today is because my Tweet stirred up some shit on Tumblr! I literally had nothing to do with this (until a friend of mine found the post being discussed and showed it to me).
http://andromedamedrexia.tumblr.com/pos ... e-of-giant

Some people actually are still trying to say that Roberts didn't "confirm" Rewind & Chromedome as being a couple, when HE'S the one who used the fucking word in the Tweets--not me. (Read some of the replies to that, it's full of all kinds of insane wtf-ery. Or better yet, don't.)

*sigh*

Oh, and Roberts calls them a couple you say? It sounds like he meant to write "gay space robots".

Only somehow, Alfred sees him alive and well at the end of the movie. How did he escape the blast? We don't know, and yet because he's Batman and he's generally prepared for most contingencies, we accept it.

I *really* hated that ending.

Different genres, different rules. The more fantastic the genre, the more the audience will allow themselves to accept, provided whatever ground rules are set up for that universe are observed. An "anything goes" story with no rules isn't going to succeed dramatically, I would think.

That gets back to JT's question about why comics should be given a pass for lazy writing "because they are comics" and why we should bother if they are going to be given that pass.


Dom
-would note that linear narrative has arguably been the greatest strength of "Transformers" comics.

[andersonh1]

That gets back to JT's question about why comics should be given a pass for lazy writing "because they are comics" and why we should bother if they are going to be given that pass.

Some comics are badly written, some are not. Some bad comics improve with new writers, some good comics go downhill fast when writers change. Justice Society of America was a well-written book for example, until Marc Guggenheim took over, after which the quality dropped drastically. There is no such thing as a consistent level of writing across all comics any more than there is across all movies or all television.

Skip the ones you find poorly written. If a well-written series has an occasional dip in quality, it's no big deal.

If a whole comics universe goes off the deep end (hello New 52!!!!!) avoid it like the plague. I do.

[JediTricks]

No, that was my most recent post, which was actually directed at someone who reblogged it from me reblogging it from someone else. I was agreeing with my friend. (Here, context: http://onslaughtsix.tumblr.com/post/479 ... e-of-giant)

Ah, so it was the way it absorbed and regurgitated the commenting system, ok.

Agreed, though even Law and Order (which admittedly I've seen very little of) hasn't run as long as some of the longer-running soaps. Young and the Restless just hit 40 years recently, and if you want to talk about comics, Spider Man has just hit 50 years of continuous publication I believe, and Batman and Superman have been running for 75 years+. There's no real comparison. And with the comic book characters, there have often been multiple titles running every month. The amount of stories out there about Spider Man or Superman is staggeringly huge. That raises issues of creativity and repetition, and whether or not it's even possible to avoid reusing plots or avoiding some of the more "out-there" plot ideas. When a writer is searching for a plot, it's got to be challenging to continually come up with something different with seven decades of material already in existence.

Law & Order ran 20 years, tied for the longest-running prime time drama with Gunsmoke (The Simpsons has since run longer than both, the Law & Order franchise has run as long as that). To me, that is longer than the majority of audiences will stick with a TV show or think about a comic book, that's generational.

My point is this: yes, undoing a character's death is a literary cheat, but given the fantastic nature of comics and the sheer amount of published material, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a little more than I would be for other genres. I have different standards for different forms of storytelling. And rightly so, because any given literary universe is going to set its own rules.

To me, that's a problem with the medium, that's a failing it's now stuck with where it wasn't like this when I was a kid, where stories from Denny O'Neil held the medium up to a higher standard - I can have suspension of disbelief on Ra's Al Ghul because there's at least a foundation for it, it made that character special, and it added to the drama - and the funny thing is that those were just regular books, we got 'em in back issue for a quarter a piece in the '80s. Now it's become the norm, foundation be damned. Seems like the books aimed higher in the stupid cheap rag days than they do now.

James Bond was machine-gunned to death at the beginning of "You Only Live Twice". He was back not 10 minutes after the credits rolled. Was that a cheat? No, that was a pre-planned plot device, not only for use in telling the rest of the story but also to jerk the audience around a bit. You probably couldn't get away with that type of theatricality in Law and Order, but in a James Bond film, it works. The Dark Knight Rises shows Batman dying while saving Gotham City from a nuclear explosion. Only somehow, Alfred sees him alive and well at the end of the movie. How did he escape the blast? We don't know, and yet because he's Batman and he's generally prepared for most contingencies, we accept it. Spock is able to return from death thanks to some unique circumstances which the audience accepts because the rules of that universe, as presented in ST 2 and 3, allow it to happen.

To be fair, James Bond films had been transforming into a cartoonish joke by that point. And it's not like James Bond is shot in bed in You Only Live Twice, then we don't see him again for 2 films, then he crops up 3 films later. You could get away with faking a character's death in Law & Order if there was some foundation for it and it was explained as being necessary - say, a witness entering relocation has to fake his death to avoid being killed. Law & Order SVU once faked a character's death like that, but the end of the episode let the audience know what the score was, so that when she returned several years later it was passable; but L&O also had an assistant DA, main credits character mind you, kidnapped and beaten until she choked to death on her own vomit and left in a trunk by a scumbag, and that wasn't survivable.

The end of The Dark Knight Rises is crap in a hat, they set up mountains of foundation saying Bruce Wayne cannot survive the explosion at any distance he could reasonably get to, they show him in the cockpit on the scene just before it blows up - the only half-plausible argument out there is that he's in a remote control cockpit, having separated from the ship earlier, but the visuals prove that can't be the case with a shot of the city moving background through the cockpit window AFTER the last chance to eject over land in the exploded building, and worse, moving lights over the cockpit and Bruce from the front a moment before the bomb goes up, the autopilot argument the film makes later is failed by this false dramatic "no way out" foundation they laid through visual statements.

Spock's death is a cheat, there's no question, it's sci-fi miracle, but the storytellers at least laid a foundation for why this singular example would fit within that story ahead of time and they leave that hint for the audience intentionally.

Different genres, different rules. The more fantastic the genre, the more the audience will allow themselves to accept, provided whatever ground rules are set up for that universe are observed. An "anything goes" story with no rules isn't going to succeed dramatically, I would think.

That's how it feels to me, as a relative outsider to the IDW comics, anything goes is the norm now where when it hadn't been before - before AHM 12 there weren't a lot of notable characters getting fake-deaths in the few books I had seen, and since then it's become exceptionally commonplace to the point where there's no threat of danger when everyone is definitely going to survive. Pipes is dead and dead and dead because we saw his spark get snuffed out, but I won't be surprised if he shows up in issue 17

Spoiler

based on the IDW soliciting blurb provided about taking the Lost Light into the gates of Heaven or Hell

and so it's difficult to find connection with a series where every character is essentially immortal.

That being the case, a writer has better be absolutely clear when he's ending a character's story arc once and for all. Because there's always going to be another writer who follows him, who will have their own ideas and stories they want to tell, and if there's any wiggle room, then using that character is fair game.

See, to me that's a symptom of the problem, and now writers have to put the cart before the horse when creating life-or-death tension for their characters.

So the Joker should have been left in the 40s? This goes right back to and makes my point about the long-running nature of many comics. How many new stories and concepts ARE there, if a book has been running for 50 years? And surely you have to factor audience turnover into the equation, though in this day and age with reprints and the internet, it's much more difficult to count on the ignorance of the audience when it comes to a character's history.

The Joker in the '40s is a character that takes place in an age without story arcs, it's easy to bring him out of that time because each Golden Age story is self-contained as it figures out what it's becoming. There are infinite stories and concepts to tell, it's the soap opera nature of comic books to put characters in peril AND THEN KILL THEM for dramatic effect only to bring them back a year later, if they want to tell stories with those characters, they can either tell "what if" stories or just NOT KILL THEM OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE. How many reboots does the entire DC universe go through and they still have to pull these shit stunts anyway?

Anyway, you make an interesting argument overall, I read the whole thing but only quoted the stuff I really could add thoughts to. I think you and I are in a "shades of gray" scenario here (using that metaphor a lot lately) where we agree on a lot of this stuff, just at different levels we're willing to tolerate certain things.

The art was a needed departure from what had been in place for decades, and Figueroa nicely blended the movie with the origional style.

All except the "nicely" part.

That is fine. But, acknowledge the back-written nature of some parts of that ongoing narrative.

That is a meta issue outside the narrative, the question they framed was about the narrative itself. You are not wrong in your point, but it's outside the scope of their question.

And, if the medium is going to be stuck in low grade, why the hell should we bother with it?

Right. I don't bother with soap operas because they're trashy, and this is why they're trashy. If comics are going to be like that, what is the point?

For the record, if Rewind comes back on Roberts' watch, I will not call it a back-write. I will assume that Roberts planned for Rewind to survive his apparent demise.

I'll not be terribly surprised, there's a few cheap outs there as I mentioned prior, but I'll be disappointed because the emotional drama in that moment, the sacrifice Rewind knows he's making and then the painful choice Chromedome makes in response to shoot the pod will all be rendered meaningless, those feelings the fiction evokes will be moot and I'll be left wondering why I spent my time and money on issue 15 when none of it mattered.