TF Views

Furman got lazy over the last 10 years. Unicron being over-used was partly Hasbro's fault. But, Furman should bear some of the blame. "Beast Within" is almost universally reviled. There is also the fact that Furman has not shown that he has had any new ideas in the better part of a decade.

"Maximum Dinobots" was a huge shock by virtue of it not sucking.

Nothing he has said or done in recent years gives me any reason to believe that he is going to make a backward looking series worthwhile.


Dom
-would have to drop another (likely better) book to make room for a new Furman title.

Dominic wrote: It is beyond me how somebody could like "Prime" better than the current ongoing. Costa can write. The staff on "Prime"...not so much.

I gave Costa over a full year to prove he could write and he failed to impress me. Sorry you don't like TF:Prime, but I've been getting much enjoyment out of it.

What do you mean Costa cannot write though? So what if he did not have TFs on every page.

He had an actual idea or three, and used the TF books to run with it. And, he showed some intelligence in his writing.


Dom
-Barber and Roberts had better deliver the goods.

"Cannot write" in this context clearly means "cannot write *a story that appeals to me*". Which is perfectly Valid. Dom seems to be arguing that there are specific Rules to Writing a Good Story, and can't believe that Crab would prefer a story that breaks the rules over one that subscribes to them.

Honestly, isn't it as simple as having different tastes?

I mean, we all KNOW chocolate ice cream is disgusting in our hearts, and yet...

My point is that Costa's writing shows thought and intelligence. The writing on "Prime"....does not. Hence my suprise that somebody would rank "Prime" higher than the ongoing.

Dom
-it looks too much like poop not to eat.

I know you're not gonna like this, but "thought and intelligence" are as subjective as everything else when it comes to comic books and TV shows.

Dominic wrote:Furman got lazy over the last 10 years. Unicron being over-used was partly Hasbro's fault. But, Furman should bear some of the blame. "Beast Within" is almost universally reviled. There is also the fact that Furman has not shown that he has had any new ideas in the better part of a decade.

"Maximum Dinobots" was a huge shock by virtue of it not sucking.

Nothing he has said or done in recent years gives me any reason to believe that he is going to make a backward looking series worthwhile.


Dom
-would have to drop another (likely better) book to make room for a new Furman title.

Define lazy. Because I would define it as just coasting along with no real thought to what one is doing (Dom's description of Hama's current GI Joe writing is a perfect example of this). I also take Lazy as a particularly scathing insult. You have to really really REALLY think pretty low of someone in order to call them lazy. Now, as the last remaining Furman fan on the planet I can tolerate a lot of what gets said about him. Hack, sure not a problem. Ran out of ideas, ok, I can live with that one too. But not lazy. Them's fightin' words right there. Producing low quality work doesn't automatically make someone lazy. That's a really terrible term to be throwing around Dom. Seriously, why not just go one step further and call him a furry? Besides, you make it sound like absolutely everything for the last ten years has been worthless which is just not the case. War Within was great, the -ation books we all just recently agreed were well written, not to mention the various Spotlights and Maximum Dinobots. All of that was in the last decade. You're only focusing on the bad and not acknowledging the good and that's really not fair.

Shockwave
-The furry comment was for scale more than anything else.

Furman did finally make me like Arcee, I'll give him that.

My main problem with the -ion series is that one's enjoyment of it was basically inversely proportionate to how much they like All Hail Megatron, and since -ion came first and grabbed everyone's attention and got them all attached to some ideas (that in my personal opinion, were exceedingly mediocre), All Hail Megatron now constantly gets shit on by most of the fanbase simply because McCarthy dared to not play Follow the Leader with the fandom's messiah and didn't just keep writing Furman's story (which Furman had somehow managed to not finish after all that time. Say what you will about AHM, but at least the story was over after just twelve issues). I mean seriously, look at TFwiki's big list of complaints about AHM, it basically all boils down to "Wah it didn't match up with the comic books that came before it wah!". I dunno, maybe I should blame AHM for not just being an alternate universe story, but I'd rather blame fans of the -ion series for thinking that story was worth continuing.

So yeah, it's not that I think Furman's IDW run was *bad* per se, just overrated to the detriment of the other titles around it.

BWprowl wrote:All Hail Megatron now constantly gets shit on by most of the fanbase simply because McCarthy dared to not play Follow the Leader with the fandom's messiah and didn't just keep writing Furman's story

Any reader would expect an ongoing story to stay consistent with what had been previously established, regardless of if a new writer took a new direction or not. And Furman wasn't the only one who'd written stories for IDW's Transformers run at that point, with "Megatron: Origin" written by Eric Holmes, and a few of the Spotlight issues by other authors.

(which Furman had somehow managed to not finish after all that time.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. It's not uncommon for comic book writers to stay on a series for years, slowly building up various plots points.

Say what you will about AHM, but at least the story was over after just twelve issues).

Sixteen. Remember they added the "Coda" issues to the run to try and smooth out some things...

I mean seriously, look at TFwiki's big list of complaints about AHM, it basically all boils down to "Wah it didn't match up with the comic books that came before it wah!". I dunno, maybe I should blame AHM for not just being an alternate universe story, but I'd rather blame fans of the -ion series for thinking that story was worth continuing.

I don't see that fans necessarily wanted Furman's story to continue (I remember I was personally looking forward to a new story direction), just some consistency with it. And again, I don't see how you can blame the fans for expecting consistency in what's supposed to be an ongoing story. Besides, there are complaints on that wiki list beyond matching up with the stories before it.

Maxumim Dinobots was the finish to those stories. It effectively wrapped up all the loose ends from the -ation books and paved the way for AHM and the ongoing. having just re read all of that (I'm still rereading AHM), it actually is pretty consistent.