Your demands for ROTF

[Mattman65]

ok, I can see your reasoning on that. but getting on trak again I got My own theiry about what the tital intales.

as everyone that seen the move atlest once owns that Most of the D-cons are at the bottom of the atlanic and Megatron's Spark and the Allspark was destroied, also that Starscream left the plante, Baricade and other are unacounted for and that Prime in essince said "Autobot come home!".

also in ANY transformers we ALL know one thing Megatron is a 100% bada$$. case in point
G1 Megatron was dunked in Lava, went thought the Space brige and got the suffing kick out of him and STILL comeback

BW and BM Megatron also took a lavabath, then fuse was G1 Megatron's spark (and in a deleted seen ripped out as well) ATOMIZED, turned to a spark-like ghost, survie a quntom energy wave (that two other preds DID NOT!) and still kick but

Armada-Energon-Cybertron Megatron took a LOT of punishment eatin' but Unicron, bening one of them.

So it stands for reason that Megatron going to came back and given the powers of the AllSpark (or at lest 99.99% of it) that he going to bring some help of I'm betting the Rise of the fallen is in turms of Megatron coming back. IMO

[BWprowl]

Oh yeah, 'cuz they've otherwise done such a great job of keeping TF continuity sensible through all these years.

True enough, but the BW cartoon was consistent within itself. I think it would have been a shame to tarnish that with a comic that changes those events.

Man, did you read Omega Point? BW Comic continuity was already beyond saving.

Look, I love BW and all, but at this point, I'm not so much concerned with preserving its microscopic show continuity as I am with whether or not the story that's in front of me is any good. Even if "The Gathering" had gone and torn the continuity a new one, I'd still be able to pop in my BW DVDs and go "Oh hey, the first three eps of Season 2 are still solid Rawk", and in that case, we might've gotten a decent comic out of the deal too. To me, it wouldn't matter how many fractyl continuities it created as a result because, like I said, TF Continuity's totally shot to hell anyway.

[Sparky Prime]

Oh yeah, 'cuz they've otherwise done such a great job of keeping TF continuity sensible through all these years.

True enough, but the BW cartoon was consistent within itself. I think it would have been a shame to tarnish that with a comic that changes those events.

Man, did you read Omega Point? BW Comic continuity was already beyond saving.

Look, I love BW and all, but at this point, I'm not so much concerned with preserving its microscopic show continuity as I am with whether or not the story that's in front of me is any good. Even if "The Gathering" had gone and torn the continuity a new one, I'd still be able to pop in my BW DVDs and go "Oh hey, the first three eps of Season 2 are still solid Rawk", and in that case, we might've gotten a decent comic out of the deal too. To me, it wouldn't matter how many fractyl continuities it created as a result because, like I said, TF Continuity's totally shot to hell anyway.

What about the Omega Point? It's an alternate time line that ends with Shokaract never finding The Marix of Conquest, thus it writes itself out of existence. The only one who really remembers it is Apelinq.

I see your point, but personally I prefer that writers avoid making fractal continuities. It's possible to write a good story with out completely changing a past story.

[Onslaught Six]

[What about the Omega Point? It's an alternate time line that ends with Shokaract never finding The Marix of Conquest, thus it writes itself out of existence. The only one who really remembers it is Apelinq.

I think Primal does, too, but he has to be forcibly reminded, and even then it's fuzzy.

Regardless, Omega Point only took place in convention-exclusive comics.

I see your point, but personally I prefer that writers avoid making fractal continuities. It's possible to write a good story with out completely changing a past story.

If that was there intent, then they could have just 'not gone to prehistoric Earth in the first place.' Mags and the Gathering guys, that is.

Anyway, back on topic for a moment:

I really hope we get some Decepticons with 'real' personalities. Go back and read the bios for most of them, especially the non-movie guys. Many of them are "[x] doesn't really hate the Autobots, he just likes to blow shit up," or worse, "[y] is so eeeeeevil! Because he's a bad guy!"

Let's have some moral ambiguity and real character traits. The reason the 84-85 cast (and the 86 cast, to a degree) is so beloved is because they have 'real' character traits and flaws. Mirage is a lazy rich boy who doesn't really care about the war. Thundercracker is a doubtful soldier rebel. Prowl is a prick. Kup is a crotchety old man. And so forth.

Now think of how many 'other' TFs have personalities that fleshed out, with the exception of the BW show cast. There's the occasional flash of brilliance, but rarely does it happen. Take CybMudflap, for example. His personality ends up being "I was an Autobot, but now I'm a Decepticon!" And that's it.

[BWprowl]

I agree with you on most of the Movie Decepticons, with the exception of Bonecrusher, whose sole defining trait wound up being way too much fun for the community.

A few of the off-screen 'Cons are okay. I'm rather fond of Dropkick the Emo-Con, myself.

[Sparky Prime]

I think Primal does, too, but he has to be forcibly reminded, and even then it's fuzzy.

Regardless, Omega Point only took place in convention-exclusive comics.

Primal mentions in the Wreckers comic that Apelinq seems familiar and that his story seems like the truth, but he doesn't appear to actually remember those events himself. And then the Oracle erased his (and Nightscream's) memory of meeting all of them anyway...

If that was there intent, then they could have just 'not gone to prehistoric Earth in the first place.' Mags and the Gathering guys, that is.

You forget that the Tripredacus Council ordered Magmatron to go to the past to capture Megatron after Ravage had failed. This just happened to provide him with the perfect cover to capture the remaining stasis pods for more troops.

Anyway, back on topic for a moment:

I really hope we get some Decepticons with 'real' personalities. Go back and read the bios for most of them, especially the non-movie guys. Many of them are "[x] doesn't really hate the Autobots, he just likes to blow shit up," or worse, "[y] is so eeeeeevil! Because he's a bad guy!"

Couldn't agree more. We really didn't get to know any of them for the first movie. It'd be nice if they focus more on them in the next one to bring out their personalities.

[Onslaught Six]

You forget that the Tripredacus Council ordered Magmatron to go to the past to capture Megatron after Ravage had failed. This just happened to provide him with the perfect cover to capture the remaining stasis pods for more troops.

You're still misunderstanding my point like you've done the 'entire time we've been arguing this.' If the writers wanted to leave the BW show elements alone, they should've simply 'not had them go to prehistoric Earth ever.' It's just a justification Furman used to put them there.

[Sparky Prime]

You're still misunderstanding my point like you've done the 'entire time we've been arguing this.' If the writers wanted to leave the BW show elements alone, they should've simply 'not had them go to prehistoric Earth ever.' It's just a justification Furman used to put them there.

We haven't been arguing about leaving elements of the show alone though, we've been talking about leaving the established continuity of the show alone. Or at least that's what I've been talking about since I first commented about "The Gathering" in this thread. If I misunderstood then you should have been more clear about what you were talking about. Obviously Furman wanted to connect elements of the show to the comic, but to do it in a way that wouldn't change the already established continuity of the show.

[Onslaught Six]

You're still misunderstanding my point like you've done the 'entire time we've been arguing this.' If the writers wanted to leave the BW show elements alone, they should've simply 'not had them go to prehistoric Earth ever.' It's just a justification Furman used to put them there.

We haven't been arguing about leaving elements of the show alone though, we've been talking about leaving the established continuity of the show alone. Or at least that's what I've been talking about since I first commented about "The Gathering" in this thread. If I misunderstood then you should have been more clear about what you were talking about. Obviously Furman wanted to connect elements of the show to the comic, but to do it in a way that wouldn't change the already established continuity of the show.

I meant since we first started arguing about this, like two years ago on BWTF, when The Gathering came out.

And obviously, IDW/Hasbro/Furman/Yee (because he did do the sourcebook and no doubt had some kind of input on The Gathering/Ascending) just wanted to make the fangirls go all "SQUEE SILVERBOLT IN THE BACK OF TWO PANELS!!"

The point is if they wanted to use show elements in the comic, then either go full-on and branch off to a new continuity where you're free to screw with stuff (Even if the new continuity is 'distinctly' Oh Shit Magmatron Fucked Things Up) or don't use the show characters 'at all.'

And honestly? I'd be able to excuse all of this. I'd be full willing to just put all of the stupid continuity headache and idiocy to the side...if the core story itself was at all enjoyable. Instead, we get massive pagetime from Razorbeast, a toy that no one except Will Smith has ever paid attention to, and on top of that, he's an idiot. We also got crappy art (because Don can't draw amnimals worth crap) and a crappy retread of Omega Point except now it has some Cyberbeasts and Hardhead (wtf?) and a horrible horrible sourcebook.

So I'm attacking the pretense under which a lot of the suckittude came. Granted, if the whole thing was set on Cybertron or another planet, well...it probably still would've sucked.

Alternate Story Idea #27: Magmatron is sent back in time by the Tripreds as per usual (stupid as it is) but something goes wrong and Magmatron ends up on Earth in 1997. Meanwhile, a Maximal exploration ship (not unlike the Axalon) picks up on the signal and follows it, shoving a bunch of random BW guys like Razorbeast and Polar Claw and Wolfang there, too. Realizing that they are in the past, the Maxis take various measures to leave traces of themselves to alert Magnaboss of what went down. Eventually this leads to LioConvoy and crew showing up in 1998 to save them and arrest Mags. Big Revelation is that they were never on G1 Earth In 1997 at all, but on IDW Universe Earth in 1997.

[Sparky Prime]

The point is if they wanted to use show elements in the comic, then either go full-on and branch off to a new continuity where you're free to screw with stuff (Even if the new continuity is 'distinctly' Oh Shit Magmatron Fucked Things Up) or don't use the show characters 'at all.'

So basically your saying its your opinion that they should have either done something completely different with the show characters or not at all? That's fine, but personally, "Gathering" is exactly what I wanted. Something that connects with the show, yet doesn't screw up the events we saw. As I said before, I felt "Gathering" had a lot of potential with what they could do next but was disappointed with what they actually did. Given how fast the BW show was wrapped up, I think there is certainly some room for interpretation there. Not to mention they could have done something like showing us how exactly Waspinator made it back to Cybertron. Would have been cool if he had hitched a ride with the comic characters. But unfortunately Furman did a rehash of the Omega Point instead.