Transformers - ongoing series

[Gomess]

And then there's still people wishing for DW to come back. Yes, really.

Pat Lee doesn't count.

[Dominic]

Again as O6 pointed out, I don't think Furman ever intended to keep it as a creeping invasion, that Megatron would abandon it at some point. Making it interesting is moot if that wasn't the direction the story was going to stay on in the first place.

I know that Furman did not intend to go through the whole process. What I was saying was that the fact that Furman did not think that the basic idea of an invasion was kewl enough shows how lazy he got. Having the (not quite established) status quo get blown to hell was so much kewler.


Dom
-at least there was no Unicron.

[Shockwave]

I know that Furman did not intend to go through the whole process. What I was saying was that the fact that Furman did not think that the basic idea of an invasion was kewl enough shows how lazy he got. Having the (not quite established) status quo get blown to hell was so much kewler.


Dom
-at least there was no Unicron.

I call BS on this. Completely. Anyone can show "tEh Invading RoBotz!" Furman actually went beyond that and itroduced the idea that there could be a more covert process to it and what happens when that process goes wrong. That takes more effort than just "Giant Robot attack!" Ok, so maybe it wasn't his greatest work ever but it certainly wasn't his worst. And again, none of this PROVES laziness.

[Sparky Prime]

I call BS on this. Completely. Anyone can show "tEh Invading RoBotz!" Furman actually went beyond that and itroduced the idea that there could be a more covert process to it and what happens when that process goes wrong. That takes more effort than just "Giant Robot attack!" Ok, so maybe it wasn't his greatest work ever but it certainly wasn't his worst. And again, none of this PROVES laziness.

I agree. Furman spent several mini-series as well as various Spotlight issues building up the plot before Devastation had Megatron finally abandon the 'creeping invasion'. That's a lot of time and story space to dedicate to the invasion plot. I don't see how leaving it shows laziness on Furman's part at all, especially if it wasn't his intention to go through each phase of it in the first place. It suggests quite the opposite actually, for Furman to have such dedication to that plot to push it for 3 years (give or take) before finally deviating from it. And by that point IDW was clearly looking to 'shake things up' anyway.

[andersonh1]

Yeah, I don't see any laziness on his part. The story began with Megatron coming to punish Starscream's unit for going rogue, and abandoning established procedure. The six part invasion procedure was never the primary focus of Furman's plot. It existed to give Megatron motivation and as a means to break away from the random nature of prior continuities where no battle plan existed. The characters and how they reacted to the discovery of ore-13, which would upend the war, was the primary focus of the plot, as well as establishing a reason for the Earth to become very important in the war of attrition.

[Dominic]

I was not knocking Furman's ability to get up at 7am (GMT) and be at work by 9am. (In fact, Furman seems to do very well in this regard.) I was knocking him for intellectual laziness in the sense that he could have built up a new status quo that would have been loaded with possibilities before having everything go all nutty.

And, much like that frustrating kid we all knew, (and maybe once were), he could have done better if he wanted to.


Dom

[Sparky Prime]

I don't think anyone was talking about Furman's work ethic... And I still don't see how you can say he was intellectually lazy. He didn't spend 3 years on the creeping invasion plot for nothing.

[Onslaught Six]

The -ation books weren't the "creeping invasion." That was something else entirely. All Hail Megatron is not where Megs threw out the Infiltration plan.

[Shockwave]

Furman's work on ation wasn't lazy. Intellectually or otherwise. It had pacing issues for sure, but it doesn't mean he's lazy. I actually think that's been Furman's main problem for a while now is that his work is all build up with little pay off. If he went back to telling character driven stories like he used to back in his Marvel UK days he'd be great.

[Dominic]

Yeah, but having a character, (or better yet, concept), driven story takes more work than writing "and then this happens, and this, and then...."

Furman tends towards the latter.