Transformers - ongoing series

[Onslaught Six]

Can you really blame Costa for that, though? This is the story he's decided to tell. Sure, he won't be writing TF forever, and whoever ends up on the book after him--be it two issues or twenty issues from now--will probably go in a different direction. But is that necessarily bad? Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, and such?

Also, as soon as good scans of this issue hit the Interwebs, I have a little collage to do:


As soon as scans of this issue come out, I'm doing a collage page:

[Dominic]

It is not that I "blame" Costa necessarily. If nothing else, it would be silly to argue he is obligated to water down or restrict his writing so as to not make future writers look bad.

The problem is that the concepts and ideas that Costa is now making a key part of the comic are, for lack of a better term, dangerous. If being written by the wrong writer, they could taint the characters and franchise. This could be the result of either active malice and self-indulgence, (a Morrison or a Stracynski), or simple laziness and ineptitude (a Furman), on the part of the writer. And, let's face it, while there have been and are some great writers on TF, there have also been some terrible writers.

Making the characters canonically stupid and amoral, (as Costa is doing), beats the hell out of the characters being conveniently stupid and amoral, (think "Star Trek"). But, it can go very wrong very quicky. Remember "Watchmen"? Putting aside whatever one may think of that book, Moore is known to have a few regrets about it. The most commonly discussed, (as far as I know), is that comics took a darker turn for the sake of being darker after "Watchmen" and "Killing Joke". Moore>Dixon>Miller>Diggle Costa>Dixon>Furman>?????????

Costa can handle it. Roche can handle it. But, can we assume who ever comes later can handle the status quo and concepts Costa and Roche will leave in their wake?


Dom
-of course, a full reboot would solve some of this.....

[andersonh1]

-of course, a full reboot would solve some of this.....

I'm done with reboots. I want to see the current continuity continue to grow and develop a history. I don't think I'd have any interest in starting over again from the ground up and investing in yet another version of Prime, Megatron, et. al.

[Sparky Prime]

Random thoughts:
The training scenes in issue #8:
Many people complained about the pacing of issue 8, with no small amount of griping focusing on the scenes with the humans training. This is objectively more an indictment of the readers, (and their lack of patience), than Costa. The whole point of the scene was to contrast Spike and his leadership style with Megatron (shown in issue 7). I really hope that IDW does not force Costa to write down to appease readers who miss this sort of thing.

I don't see where you're getting these conclusions from Dom... Issue 7 really doesn't show anything about Megatron's leadership style at all, given he's still completely out of action undergoing repairs. Rather, the whole point of that issue was to show how splintered the Decepticons have become with out a capable leader in charge. While the purpose behind issue 8 is defining Spike's character, expanding on his background and convictions not his leadership. The griping on that issue I wouldn't really say was on the pacing either. Every other issue Costa has written has primarily focused on the Transformers. That issue on the other hand completely shifts the focus onto the humans, specifically on Spike. It's a bit jarring to the audience to have such a sudden and total shift in focus like that. I don't see that this shows a lack of patience on the readers part, rather, just that they'd rather the main focus remain with the Transformers, not on the humans.


At any rate... issue 11 was very good. Nice to see the Autobots learning from their mistakes and adapting their strategies. There were a lot of pretty good character moments in this issue with a good mix of action. And it's interesting to see the Decepticons that got left behind seem to be allying themselves with certain governments. One thing I thought was a bit strange in this issue though... Why does Cosmos have a dome over his head? He appears to have been drawn with his G1 body, so I'm not seeing why the dome was added.

[Dominic]

Issue 7 is largely Megatron musing on the state of the Decepticons without his leadership, contrasting it with other guys who could (in theory) do the job. Starscream has ambition, but no real goals. Razorclaw has fratricidal goals. Shockwave's goals are ambitious, but have little to do with leading a faction. All of this paints a pretty good picture of the kind of leader that Megatron is.

There were people who complained about the pacing of issue 8, especially the time spent showing Spike's men in training and around the base. (Pacing is a near constant source of complaints on this book actually. The fact that Costa is writing to industry standard, (for the compilation), seems to be lost on more readers than one might expect. Part of writing is defining characters....and that includes the humans in this story.

What I think is intersting about issue 11 is that we have not yet seen Autobots throwing in with non-western states. Either way, we need figures of the Figueroa illustrated Predacons. Cosmos looked to be based on the TFU/Henkei mould. I need to dig mine out to compare the details.

I'm done with reboots. I want to see the current continuity continue to grow and develop a history. I don't think I'd have any interest in starting over again from the ground up and investing in yet another version of Prime, Megatron, et. al.

In theory, I can see what you are saying. I would like to see a linear continuation of this series. But, realistically, Costa will leave at some point in the next two years. As it stands now, he will be leaving a status quo that will be *very* difficult to write well. I would actually prefer to see a clean start than seeing mediocre to bad writers dilute Costa's work. (Of course, it probably does not need to be said that I would be happy to avoid this for as long as possible.)

Dom
-running on Mountain Dew and .....not much else.

[Sparky Prime]

Issue 7 is largely Megatron musing on the state of the Decepticons without his leadership, contrasting it with other guys who could (in theory) do the job. Starscream has ambition, but no real goals. Razorclaw has fratricidal goals. Shockwave's goals are ambitious, but have little to do with leading a faction. All of this paints a pretty good picture of the kind of leader that Megatron is.

I don't see that Megatron is contrasting others who might do the job to his own leadership at all. It seems to me he's musing more over how those Decepticons, despite being in positions of influence, have chosen to go about their own business when left to their own devices. Razorclaw is a survivalist, and given the limited resources has turned to 'survival of the fittest' among the troops. Shockwave, being a scientist first, has buried himself in his work. Soundwave, the only loyalist, remains locked in the ship to maintain Megatron's repairs. And Starscream in his arrogance doesn't have a clue how to lead, only holding the position due to the symbolism the Matrix gives him. I can see that comic shows Megatron is the guiding influence to the Decepticons that keeps them on track, but I don't agree that it shows what kind of leader Megatron is at all.

There were people who complained about the pacing of issue 8, especially the time spent showing Spike's men in training and around the base. (Pacing is a near constant source of complaints on this book actually. The fact that Costa is writing to industry standard, (for the compilation), seems to be lost on more readers than one might expect. Part of writing is defining characters....and that includes the humans in this story.

Sure, pacing is an issue that some have mentioned with that story, but I don't think that was really the issue most fans had with it. Rather, it's the nearly total focus on Spike that put people off. People want the Transformers in a Transformers comic. Taking some time to define the human characters is fine, it's just that story could have been balanced out better to actually include the title characters, rather than Spike too easily and quickly taking out a Construction on his own in the last few pages.

[Dominic]

Megatron's leadership is illustrated through deduction, he is not like those other guys.


Issue 8 is not a story. It is part of a story. There was no need for Costa to have Optimus Prime and other TFs prominently in issue 8, so they were not in there.

I do agree that Scrapper died far too easily.


Dom

[Sparky Prime]

Megatron's leadership is illustrated through deduction, he is not like those other guys.

Again, that sounds like it assumes Megatron is contrasting them to his own leadership, which I don't see that he's doing. Also, even assuming he isn't like those other guys (personally I would have to say Megatron actually shares traits with all of them, which again, shows Megatron as a guiding/unifying force to the Decepticons), this doesn't illustrate Megatron's leadership. It gives no indication of what Megatron's own style of leadership is, all that tells us is he's somehow different.

Issue 8 is not a story. It is part of a story. There was no need for Costa to have Optimus Prime and other TFs prominently in issue 8, so they were not in there.

I was actually just avoiding using the word "issue" twice in the same sentence to describe two different things but story still fits, as it is a term used to describe a sequence of events, which this is, it's just part of a larger story in itself. And I don't agree that Prime and others didn't need to be there. One of the points of the issue shows how Spike hates machines, so much so that he goes out to single-handedly kill one on his personal vendetta. How then does he reconcile with the fact he's the one pushing for working with machines by that point? This issue doesn't cover that and I think it would have helped to see Spike coming to terms with some machines, namely the Autobots, while still wanting to fight the Decepticons.

[Onslaught Six]

Megatron's leadership is illustrated through deduction, he is not like those other guys.

Again, that sounds like it assumes Megatron is contrasting them to his own leadership, which I don't see that he's doing. Also, even assuming he isn't like those other guys (personally I would have to say Megatron actually shares traits with all of them, which again, shows Megatron as a guiding/unifying force to the Decepticons), this doesn't illustrate Megatron's leadership. It gives no indication of what Megatron's own style of leadership is, all that tells us is he's somehow different.

Megatron's leadership style was already well-defined within All Hail Megs. That was the entire *point* of that book.

[Sparky Prime]

Megatron's leadership style was already well-defined within All Hail Megs. That was the entire *point* of that book.

Yeah, there is that as well. Which is another reason I really don't see that issue 7 is supposed to be looking at his leadership as Dom suggests.