TF Views

I still have yet to see Scrapper, Thrust, Ramjet, Bumblebee or Shockwave come back. Some of those have been dead for a long time.

Scrapper and Bombshell may well come back because of the new toys. Normally, I could forgive this, but with the TF books becoming more and more beholded to "stasis quo", like the big 2, I am less willing to over-look this sort of thing.

Thrust and Ramjet have been shown as being reverse engineered and their remains are in proximity to a McGuffin. I assume they are coming back..... Not happy about it. But, I am assuming it is in the works.

"Replaced a dead character with a quantum duplicate" is just as much of a comic-book cop-out to undo a death and you know it.

This.

remember Sunstreaker apparently dying back in Escalation...

I concede that Thundercracker objectively should have stayed dead, as should Sunstreaker. (I like what Costa did with Thundercracker. And, I tend to think he had some ideas for Sunstreaker that were never delivered on as Costa's run got was cut short.)

Metalhawk died again, so that it okay.

Suntreaker's death in "Escalation" was not really a death, as Furman always intended to bring Sunstreaker back as a head-master. Similarly, Costa had a plan Ironhide, so that "death" does not count.

But, the C and D listers have largely stayed dead so far. The Technobots were probably not meant to come back. The dead seekers were dead (complete with visible remains in the case of Ramjet).

The guys from Garrus 9 ("Last Stand of the Wreckers") have stayed dead. (On the other hand, Maximus is arguably an exception to this.)

Ratbat is dead.

A few Lost Light crew have died.

BWprowl wrote:To-may-to, to-mah-to. "Replaced a dead character with a quantum duplicate" is just as much of a comic-book cop-out to undo a death and you know it.

I didn't say it wasn't a cop-out. My point was simply that this isn't the same Rewind come back to life, so he didn't "get better". The Rewind that died is still dead, and this is a duplicate who has had an entirely different experience since the Lost Light originally left Cybertron. It's a way to bring the character back to life without actually undoing his death.

And assuming Brainstorm is even actually there to kill Megatron. Yeah, we see him pointing a 'gun' at Megatron in the last page, but with Roberts, a gun is only a plain ol' gun like half the time. Especially with *Brainstorm* involved, that thing could do literally anything, for all we know.

Considering the war never happened in the altered timeline we've seen with the Functionalists becoming ever more controlling of Cybertronian society without anyone to stop them, and the database entry Ultra Magnus has on Megatron was erased at the end of this issue, not to mention Brainstorm pointing a gun at the newborn Megatron... All signs would seem to suggest Megatron never existed in the altered timeline. But like I said: I expect another twist in the story.

Dominic wrote:But, the C and D listers have largely stayed dead so far. The Technobots were probably not meant to come back. The dead seekers were dead (complete with visible remains in the case of Ramjet).

The guys from Garrus 9 ("Last Stand of the Wreckers") have stayed dead. (On the other hand, Maximus is arguably an exception to this.)

Ratbat is dead.

A few Lost Light crew have died.

You could say the same thing for C and D listers in Marvel or DC. Doesn't change that death hasn't ever been depicted as a permanent thing in those comics. IDW's Transformers comics isn't any different with a revolving door for death.

Runamuck and Runabout are still dead.

The Rewind that died is still dead, and this is a duplicate who has had an entirely different experience since the Lost Light originally left Cybertron. It's a way to bring the character back to life without actually undoing his death.

There is a guy on page with the same name and look as the guy who died. And, he functionally is the same guy. That is stupid.

You could say the same thing for C and D listers in Marvel or DC. Doesn't change that death hasn't ever been depicted as a permanent thing in those comics. IDW's Transformers comics isn't any different with a revolving door for death.

Yes, it is a problem with Marvel and DC.

But, TF largely avoided that problem until fairly recently, making it unique. The less differentiation there is between TF and the Big Two the less reason there is to read it (especially when TF taking the habits of Marvel and DC is an obvious downgrade).

Dominic wrote:There is a guy on page with the same name and look as the guy who died. And, he functionally is the same guy. That is stupid.

Obviously he's functionally the same guy, he's a duplicate. But, in that he is a duplicate that was created when the Lost Light left Cybertron, he's also not the same Rewind we've seen for pretty much this entire series. Think of situations like Will Riker and Thomas Riker, or Peter Parker and Ben Reilly. With both of those examples, they each started out as functionally the same guy, right? But yet, they are each their own individual. That's a pretty important distinction. The only difference here is that Rewind could assume his duplicates life because the Rewind from 'our' Lost Light died.

But, TF largely avoided that problem until fairly recently, making it unique. The less differentiation there is between TF and the Big Two the less reason there is to read it (especially when TF taking the habits of Marvel and DC is an obvious downgrade).

How has TF avoided it until fairly recently? TF has been killing off and bringing characters back to life ever since G1. Even if you narrow that down to just the IDW comics, it's hardly just recently that they've had characters come back from death.

To add a completely different point of discussion... Anyone notice the color of Megatron's spark? Roberts has confirmed Megatron to have a .1% spark, but the spark he had as Brainstorm was aiming at him appeared blue rather than green. And I'm betting that's intentional.

Dominic wrote:

"Replaced a dead character with a quantum duplicate" is just as much of a comic-book cop-out to undo a death and you know it.

This.

Here's a weird one: What's the precedence for the individual Insecticons having clones in IDW? I know there was the Swarm and all that shit, but is it possible, in theory, for there to be "another" Bombshell running around? Or that the dead one was just a "copy" of Bombshell? (We've all seen this excuse used to justify the Insecticons appearing after their deaths in TFTM, AND simultaneously an explanation for why there are so many Sweeps when Unicron only creates two.)

Suntreaker's death in "Escalation" was not really a death, as Furman always intended to bring Sunstreaker back as a head-master. Similarly, Costa had a plan Ironhide, so that "death" does not count.

This is so fascinating to me, the way episodic mediums work, because growing up, I didn't really consume such things. Sure, there would be "episodic" cartoons or TV like Rugrats or something, but nobody dies in those, and episode air order often doesn't matter or is ignored by networks. Power Rangers existed, but it (again) doesn't really have strict precedent for characters "dying" or coming back. (Early Rangers would have a habit of popping back up again in later seasons, like Tommy returning as the White Ranger, but it was never explicitly stated that old Rangers couldn't gain new powers. I know, ass-pulling shit.) Beast Wars may have been the first show where characters died, and stayed dead (or didn't) that I ever watched. I didn't read comics on a close enough basis to know whether certain characters were "currently dead" or not, and "adult" drama TV shows like the X-Files were beyond my interest. Probably the closest analog I have? Pro wrestling.

Triple H (current COO of WWE and semi-retired rassler) did a live podcast with Steve Austin the other day on the illustrious $9.99 WWE Network. (If you don't have the network, Austin put it up for free on his regular podcast, so you can at least listen to the conversation, if not see it.) And one of the things he pointed out is, you don't know where they're going with the storylines. Just like comics! It's not like with a movie, where you sit down for two hours and things happen and then that's it, whatever happened definitively happened (relatively speaking) and that's just the end of it. With comics, Superman can presumably die in this issue and come back in the very next one. We all know from the way the industry works that it's virtually impossible for them to respond to fan reaction and change it so Superman didn't really die at the end of the last issue in the very next one, but it IS possible for him to return...six months down the line. But how do we know that they aren't planning to bring back Superman in six months already from the start? We don't. So it's like, it's impossible to tell if this death is meant to be for him to come back anyway, or if he's going to come back as a consequence of real-life editorial or fan bullshit.

Maybe Daniel Bryan was always going to face (and possibly lose) to Roman Reigns at Fastlane to challenge Reigns' dominance as the new #1 contender for the WWE Title. Maybe that was the plan from day one. It's too easy for Bryan to just win the Rumble and go after Brock, he has to go after Reigns first, and in the process they could easily cement Reigns as being cool and dominant, even if it's not "his" year. And that's totally cool. But we'll probably NEVER know that it wasn't the plan from the very beginning, just like we might never know if Ramjet was killed just so they could bring him back.

The funny thing here is that, by this very comparison, I have pointed out that character death in a Transformers book is about as important as a win or a loss in a worked (read: scripted) professional wrestling match.

(On the other hand, Maximus is arguably an exception to this.)

Was Maximus ever confirmed dead in Last Stand? I always assumed that he was just in "critical condition" the way Springer has been for the last 3-4 years. (When is he coming back, you think?)

To add a completely different point of discussion... Anyone notice the color of Megatron's spark? Roberts has confirmed Megatron to have a .1% spark, but the spark he had as Brainstorm was aiming at him appeared blue rather than green. And I'm betting that's intentional.

I am so far functionally removed from this book that I don't know what the fuck this means. And it's not because I don't like the book or don't want to read it!

Onslaught Six wrote:I am so far functionally removed from this book that I don't know what the fuck this means. And it's not because I don't like the book or don't want to read it!

Aren't you the one telling everyone all over the place that these are literally the best TF comics ever? Shouldn't you...be reading them first?

Here's a weird one: What's the precedence for the individual Insecticons having clones in IDW? I know there was the Swarm and all that shit, but is it possible, in theory, for there to be "another" Bombshell running around? Or that the dead one was just a "copy" of Bombshell? (We've all seen this excuse used to justify the Insecticons appearing after their deaths in TFTM, AND simultaneously an explanation for why there are so many Sweeps when Unicron only creates two.)

There was some wacky back-write to explain Bombshell showing up in "Spotlight:Blaster" and having that contradicted in "All Hail Megatron". But, I forget the details.

But how do we know that they aren't planning to bring back Superman in six months already from the start? We don't. So it's like, it's impossible to tell if this death is meant to be for him to come back anyway, or if he's going to come back as a consequence of real-life editorial or fan bullshit.

Presentation and context matter.

In the case of Rewind, Roberts almost definitely intended to bring him back as.....a quantum duplcate (?!?!?!). But, it reads like a back-write, which is arguably a problem unto itself.

In the case of Ramjet, the death was clearly meant to stick and everybody was just supposed to move the hell on.

I tend to think that McCarthy meant for Sunstreaker and Thundercracker to stay dead. Costa just weaseled around that because he needed those characters. (In the case of Sunstreaker, I do not think he got around to the ideas that would have justified undoing the death.) Ironhide was clearly meant to come back,and it was thematically consistent with Costa's run on the series, (Ironhide losing years of hard-earned life lessons and then having years more crammed in to the space of a few days).

Maybe Daniel Bryan was always going to face (and possibly lose) to Roman Reigns at Fastlane to challenge Reigns' dominance as the new #1 contender for the WWE Title. Maybe that was the plan from day one. It's too easy for Bryan to just win the Rumble and go after Brock, he has to go after Reigns first, and in the process they could easily cement Reigns as being cool and dominant, even if it's not "his" year. And that's totally cool. But we'll probably NEVER know that it wasn't the plan from the very beginning, just like we might never know if Ramjet was killed just so they could bring him back.

I know fans (commonly referred to as "smarks" with varying degrees of derision and affection) who can call matches, even angles. They know the business well enough, follow the press and can read trends. ("Boooooooo-tista"?)

I deliberately try not to be a smark as I like wrestling on a visceral level. I just want to enjoy the performance and humour of the individual matches more than anything else.)

I have to admit that a lot of the backstory in this book bores me to death. All the stuff about the functionalist government and who has what philosophy about who can change into what and all the forged vs. constructed cold or whatever... it's all less than compelling to me. That's probably yet another reason I have a hard time caring about some of the plotlines in this series.

And while I'm on the subject, the idea that characters like Whirl and Shockwave have similar one-eyed faces because they were subjected to "empurata", some mutilation/punishment, has always seemed like bad connect the dots fanfiction to me. "Hey those characters have the same type of face. Why is that? I think we need a story to explain it!" Well, no we don't, not really. And then there's shadowplay, stripping away emotions, which led to that abysmally bad ending to Dark Cybertron where Shockwave regressed or was in contact with his old self and decided that he was horrified by what he had become. Yeah, he wasn't a bad person because he made bad choices, but because of a millenia old procedure that stripped him of his conscience. Right...

Sparky Prime wrote:To add a completely different point of discussion... Anyone notice the color of Megatron's spark? Roberts has confirmed Megatron to have a .1% spark, but the spark he had as Brainstorm was aiming at him appeared blue rather than green. And I'm betting that's intentional.

Perhaps in trying to kill Megatron (if indeed that's what he's doing), Brainstorm instead mutates his spark and turns him into a .1% bot. I hope it's not yet another case of a major Decepticon becoming a tyrant because of some outside influence (like Shockwave) rather than because he made a series of choices that led him down a darker and darker road, but it wouldn't surprise me if we do see Megatron influenced by Brainstorm's actions in the past.