TF Views

AHM was far from terrible, but regardless, this is the exact thing they said about AHM. What are the odds that, within the first five issues, you'll find more continuity niggles, but without the good story that AHM is to make up for it?

Sorry for my long absence. Things have been hectic.

Okay, I figure most of the recurring AHM stuff will come up again, so I will start with the last few posts.

The ongoing series is going to be in context with earlier comics, but will probably have lots of convenient "reset" elements to it. Earth will be mostly rebuilt, the Transformers will be in hiding. And, it will look enough like the very beginnings of the franchise to justify a new numbering system, and essentially ignore the last 4 years. I fully expect IDW's to give Costa permission to ignore previous material.

This is going to be IDW's second soft-reboot. The whole thing smells like the kind of thing I have come to expect from the big 2. (The minute Johns or Morrison comes aboard, I am out.)


I am cautiously optimistic about Costa. He wrote the most readable of IDW's "GI Joe" titles, damnably faint as that praise is. I am hoping he can write passably on a title that is not set up to be as faux-macho as possible.

I really like Figueroa's new art. Unless Costa *really* blows it, Figueroa's will be eniugh to carry the book for me.


Dom
-in too many places at once.

Mmm. I'm going to do exactly what I did with AHM and Maximum Dinobots, and wait until I'm six months late to the party and everyone is all "Wow this actually doesn't suck."

Onslaught Six wrote:AHM was far from terrible, but regardless, this is the exact thing they said about AHM. What are the odds that, within the first five issues, you'll find more continuity niggles, but without the good story that AHM is to make up for it?

It all depends on how any given writer handles a story. In McCarthy's case, he ignored and even contradicted various things from the continuity. That, coupled with the many other problems it had, makes AHM a terrible story. For Costa, it's too early to tell, his first issue isn't even due for release for a while. But from the interviews, it appears he does plan on acknowledging and addressing the continuity right away, unlike McCarthy's approach. That alone is enough to make me optimistic to see what Costa will do with Transformers.

I can't resist buying any TF comics so I'll get this and stick with it regardless of how bad it sucks. I do wish they weren't changing the designs though. I like the new designs, but I was perfectly happy with what we have now.

And I'm of the opinion that even when McCarthy ignored or retconned continuity, the core story was good enough to make up for that. I gave that book to a friend who hadn't read any of IDW's stuff and he thought it was the best thing he's read in months.

Onslaught Six wrote:And I'm of the opinion that even when McCarthy ignored or retconned continuity, the core story was good enough to make up for that. I gave that book to a friend who hadn't read any of IDW's stuff and he thought it was the best thing he's read in months.

You can't get around continuity just because you thought the "core story" was good enough to make up for it. Continuity is part of the "core story". Things like Sunstreaker's Headmaster trauma in particular is a big part of the continuity and was his entire motivation for what he did in AHM. And as I've said, continuity isn't the only problem McCarthy had in writing this story.

...Yes you can. I can choose to ignore problems in the story if I so desire. I acknowledge that they're 'there.' I just don't *care.*

One can make the same argument with ROTF--it had hasty editing and all sorts of continuity issues, but a lot of people didn't care about those and enjoyed it.

Onslaught Six wrote:...Yes you can. I can choose to ignore problems in the story if I so desire. I acknowledge that they're 'there.' I just don't *care.*

This isn't what you said earlier though. You said the core story makes up for the problems, but as I responded, the problems go to the very core of the story in this case, making it so you can't have the story alone make up for it. Now you're saying you're ignoring the problems, which is something completely different from the core story making up for them.

One can make the same argument with ROTF--it had hasty editing and all sorts of continuity issues, but a lot of people didn't care about those and enjoyed it.

I'd disagree that ROTF had "all sorts" of continuity issues actually. A few, but not as many as some seem to think.

Sparky Prime wrote:

Onslaught Six wrote:And I'm of the opinion that even when McCarthy ignored or retconned continuity, the core story was good enough to make up for that. I gave that book to a friend who hadn't read any of IDW's stuff and he thought it was the best thing he's read in months.

You can't get around continuity just because you thought the "core story" was good enough to make up for it. Continuity is part of the "core story". Things like Sunstreaker's Headmaster trauma in particular is a big part of the continuity and was his entire motivation for what he did in AHM. And as I've said, continuity isn't the only problem McCarthy had in writing this story.

Sure you can. Look at O6, he's living the dream!