Scrapper, Thrust, Ramjet, all still dead. I
Point on Thrust and Ramjet. But, smart money is on Scrapper coming back.
As for your complaints, I don't see them. Not sure what you mean by "sliding time scale". Events happen then events happen after those events. T
I have explained the time scale more than once. TF used to happen more less in real time. Since "Dark Cybertron", IDW has gotten more fast and loose about that, complete with moving a real world event (Occupy) back 3 years....because uh, they wanted to.
Comics have almost always referrenced current events going all the way back to WWII, so not sure why IDW would lose points for that.
Again, (as explained multiple times before), for IDW the time-slide and shallow references to current events are not only relatively new, they are obvious down-grades. I can remember a time (less than 5 years ago) when TF was not pulling that shit. With the big 2, I expect it, and am less offended (by virtue of lower expectations on that question).
Now, TF is just another comic. And, the big two are publishing other comics that happen to be better at the moment. TF has less to set it apart from, let alone above, other comics.
Transformers has always had macguffins, that's almost a part of what TF is. And it didn't back write anything, it just added an explaination for part of that setting that wasn't there before. That didn't directly contradict anything that was established before so it's not a back write.
The Enigma of Combination is an exceptionally stupid McGuffin to begin with. Back-writing it as a corner-stone in the foundation of human development is a lazy cliche that makes it even worse.
I'd like to remind you that the first thing Barber wrote for the TF franchise was the Sector 7 series in the lead-up to DOTM. You remember that one? Probably not. But if you did pay attention, it specifically tried to tie together and make all the disparate movie prequel books fit. This is what Barber does.
Papering over mistakes and inconsisties is different from going back and taking something that was self-contained and/or resolved and making it *kewl*.
"Sector 7" and other movie books that tried to reconcile inconsistencies were arguably needed. They are in the same category as Marvel's explanation for the racist Captain America of the 1950s. (And, even that ended up being made stupid later because Brubaker could not leave it alone. Had to bring back 1950s Captain America and redeem him or something.)
Mirage AND Ironhide are having the visions. Who are getting new toys as repaints in Wave 4? Could it be...Mirage and Ironhide? Guess who the other guys are? Prowl and Sunstreaker! Money says Sunstreaker will have visions soon and probably Prowl will too, and it all leads to them (stupidly) combining with Prime.
No question, Hasbro mandated that Mirage go back to Cybertron. But, IDW is pulling it off in a way that reads like a low grade comic (when IDW has previously done better).
I've been waiting to post this. Here is my impression of Dom buying comics:
Again, with TF, being like the big two is a clear (and recent) downgrade.
More importantly, if TF is going to be like the big two, there is no reason to hold it to any other standard. (I gave Costa's run or "Re-Generation One" passes on problems because they were doing things that few, if any, other books were doing.) At the moment, Marvel is doing better comics than DC or IDW. (Gonna write more about that in the comics thread.) IDW's TF comics are less unique and generally less good than they were, which is why a property that used to securely sit at the top of my pull-list is now dangling at the bottom.
