TF Views

See? I think we may have reached the root of what I dislike about Transformers. =p

...But he's an alright guy in real life! D=

EDIT: Oh oh, here's one of my BIGGEST pet peeves in TF: Energon being used or even referred to before they arrive on Earth. The *reason* energon was developed (it's more of a process for refining universal energy from any kind of fuel, rather than a specific material) was so the Transformers could survive on Earth. And if I recall rightly (yes, I'm using G1 as 'series-wide canon' here, sorry) the Autobots *never used it*. It was purely Decepticon technology, apparently designed by Soundwave (hey, the storage cubes came out of him anyway). Goodness only knows where the Autobots got their energy. Secret government deals? Something less 'eeeevil' anyways.

.......Ok, maybe energon was always just what they called energy. But that's arbitrary and silly. They invented the cubes on Earth, anyways. It just adds something more to the war context for me.

Furman definitely got lazy. He probably realized early on that he had a built in audience and a generally secure work stream. Tokar's editing back the the day helped cover the worst of Furman's excesses and to keep work flowing his way.

When the franchise started to revive in the late 90s, and Furman was brought in to write convention comics, he had no incentive to put any real effort into his writing. The fan-base was hungry after several years of nearly nothing, and they were favorably disposed towards Furman.

The thing is that Furman is not completely without talent.

But, he is lazy.

He never pushed himself to expand and improve. (Contrast him with somebody like Dan Abnett. Abnett has written over 20 novels in the last decade, and a few before that. Abnett and Furman are about the same age and both worked on TF at about the same time.) For the better part of the last decade, Furman has written a few good to excellent one-shots, and two volumes of "War Within" to his credit. He also has some filler, (what his run on "Armada" averages out into, along wth his early IDW G1 work), and a string of comics bad enough that even the fans called him out on it.

It has been over 15 years since he had a good run on an ongoing book. And, even much of that was him winding down books for Marvel.

Dominic wrote:Megatron does not have a real plan. Like most demagogues, the worst thing that can happen is that he wins too decisively too quickly. There is no indication that Megatron wants the Matrix for anything specific. He has it, and it is nice to have...if not terribly useful.

The point of AHM is bored/lost troops with no direction. There is nothing in AHM that shows that the Matrix is much more than a thing to have. It might be worth studying. But, it has no immediate or apparent use. It is never a focal point in the series beyond "Megatron has it". Even Prime is not overly concerned with the Decepticons retaining it at the end.

As I've said before, Megatron did have a plan...

From issue 11:

Megatron wrote:"Listen to me, Starscream. All of this was planned from the beginning... with meticulous effort! When the war first began, I needed an army, one ruthless enough to overthrow a planet. With the rise of the Autobots my army had to become much more -- A ruthless, vile machine capable of winning at any cost. The goal was to defeat the Autobots no matter what. Once the Autobots were defeated, I would kill the very creature I created to wipe out my enemies in the first place. Once the Decepticons were remolded, recreated into what I'd originally intended them to be be, then and only then, would our reign begin. No infighting, no dissent. Nothing but perfectly controlled peace through unparalleled strength."

So, again, Megatron did have direction. He just spent the *entire series* waiting. Waiting for the Decepticons get so bored that they would revolt, with the intent that then he would kill anyone that didn't stay loyal to him in order to remold the army. It's entirely possible he had a purpose in mind for the Matrix after that point as well. Keeping it hidden from all but two of his troops does suggest a hidden agenda he had in mind for it. Just because the plan wasn't made apparent in this story doesn't mean it was just "something to be had". You need to keep in mind the context from the story, and Megatron's character. It doesn't make sense for him to take something like that with out a purpose for it.

Sideswipe spends a page or two talking about how the war is changing them. Clearly, that also happened with Perceptor and such. Kup got repaired...sort of.

This is hardly a sufficient reason, particularly in terms of Perceptor who refused to use his skills to help save Prime.

Furman is the one who never bothered to show all 6 stages (infiltration up through devastation). Furman decided that was too much work and jumped right into McGuffin territory with ULTRA-ENERGON OMFG!!!!!!

Showing all 6 stages isn't the point. Furman still had Megatron strategically planning out the conquering of the planet, stepping things up (despite the concerns of his troops for deviating from the Infiltration protocol) because of ultra energon. While AHM had no plan to conquer the planet at all, just wild violence. And for what? They weren't even working to get the ultra energon anymore.

I think it is one of the issue summaries. (And, the wiki can always change.)

Yeah, I looked in the issues summery. It wasn't there.

Maybe IDW did not pay him to write it. Given the amount of "baw" "waaaaaah", who can blame them for abandoning a minor plot point?

I'd think complaining about a lack of explanation would be more a motivation to explain it, actually. The wiki mentions a post on the IDW boards mentioned it was cut for not being particularly relevant to the story.

Sparky Prime wrote:

Furman is the one who never bothered to show all 6 stages (infiltration up through devastation). Furman decided that was too much work and jumped right into McGuffin territory with ULTRA-ENERGON OMFG!!!!!!

Showing all 6 stages isn't the point. Furman still had Megatron strategically planning out the conquering of the planet, stepping things up because of ultra energon. While AHM had no plan to conquer the planet at all, just wild violence. And for what? They weren't even working to get the ultra energon anymore.

With all due respect, I look at this and see some of the very unreasonable criticism of McCarthy that I often refer to. While some of the other points you make are vaild, this is not.

Two points:

1) Megatron had no problem with throwing out the six-stage infiltration plan when the situation called for it. The Ore-13 caused him to do just that, in a story written by Furman, not McCarthy. And it also needs to be pointed out that he intended to set Sixshot loose on the Earth to do exactly what he and his troops ended up doing in AHM.

You said "Furman still had Megatron strategically planning out the conquering of the planet, stepping things up because of ultra energon." Megatron didn't step things up, he completely abandoned stages three through five and went straight to stage six, which was open and massive devastation of the planet. We saw the Decepticons doing just that to another planet in Stormbringer, so we know what it entails. There's absolutely no difference between what Sixshot was going to do to Earth, and what Megatron and his troops did. It was always in the cards.

So I think it's completely unfair to criticize McCarthy for writing a story in which Megatron abandons the six-stage protocol when there was clear precedent for the character doing so in Furman's storylines.

2) "They weren't working to get the Ultra Energon any more". They didn't come to Earth for Ultra Energon in the first place. They came, because like so many other planets they attacked, there was a potential for resources. With Cybertron uninhabitable, they had to get the energy and ores and other supplies they needed from somewhere, and they were already on Earth. They would simply be finishing the original job they had come to the planet to do in the first place.

But as you posted above, the actual reason was no longer Energon, it was Megatron's desire to start "purifying" his army of rogue elements. And again, they were already on Earth, so it was as good a place as any.

andersonh1 wrote:1) Megatron had no problem with throwing out the six-stage infiltration plan when the situation called for it. The Ore-13 caused him to do just that, in a story written by Furman, not McCarthy. And it also needs to be pointed out that he intended to set Sixshot loose on the Earth to do exactly what he and his troops ended up doing in AHM.

You said "Furman still had Megatron strategically planning out the conquering of the planet, stepping things up because of ultra energon." Megatron didn't step things up, he completely abandoned stages three through five and went straight to stage six, which was open and massive devastation of the planet. We saw the Decepticons doing just that to another planet in Stormbringer, so we know what it entails. There's absolutely no difference between what Sixshot was going to do to Earth, and what Megatron and his troops did. It was always in the cards.

As I see it, calling in Sixshot was stepping things up. Skipping to stage six isn't the same thing as throwing out the infiltration protocol. Having just one 'bot who is efficient at carrying out a phase by themselves is a lot different than calling in an entire army to do it when the Infiltration units we've seen are generally only carried out by 9 or so Transformers. Not to mention it's much more strategically sound in terms of preserving resources, especially when following a battle strategy, where as Megatron pretty much let the army run wild in AHM. And also, Megatron's troops were very concerned Megatron wasn't sticking to the stages in Devastation. In AHM, there wasn't even any mention of it. It is a huge difference in how things were handled and carried out, even if the end result is the same.

So I think it's completely unfair to criticize McCarthy for writing a story in which Megatron abandons the six-stage protocol when there was clear precedent for the character doing so in Furman's storylines.

Again, I don't see that Furman had Megatron abandon the protocol. Skipping ahead given the circumstances, sure, but it wasn't the same thing McCarthy did really. I don't see anything unfair at all about criticizing how McCarthy handled it when it was established as being such a big issue for the Transformers in Furman's storyline.

2) "They weren't working to get the Ultra Energon any more". They didn't come to Earth for Ultra Energon in the first place. They came, because like so many other planets they attacked, there was a potential for resources. With Cybertron uninhabitable, they had to get the energy and ores and other supplies they needed from somewhere, and they were already on Earth. They would simply be finishing the original job they had come to the planet to do in the first place.

It's irrelevant why they came to Earth in the first place. The discovery of Ultra Energon made Earth stand up above other planets in importance as the only planet, besides Cybertron, they found real energon of any kind.

But as you posted above, the actual reason was no longer Energon, it was Megatron's desire to start "purifying" his army of rogue elements. And again, they were already on Earth, so it was as good a place as any.

But again, Earth was important to them for possessing said energon. Why set the Earth as a stage to purify the army when that risks loosing some of such an extremely rare and valuable resource?

Sparky Prime wrote:As I see it, calling in Sixshot was stepping things up. Skipping to stage six isn't the same thing as throwing out the infiltration protocol.

It's exactly the same thing as throwing it out.

Example: if I go to wash my hands, and all I do is turn on the water and then skip directly to pulling out the paper towel and walking out the door, I haven't just "stepped up" the handwashing procedure. I haven't followed it. By skipping the whole "put my hands in water, use the soap, rinse" steps, I've effectively thrown out the whole procedure.

If Megatron skipped the whole "infiltrate with replicants/forment political unrest/start wars/destabilize/watch humans tear each other apart" stages, and he did after an abortive attempt to start a war during "Escalation", it cannot be said that he carried out the standard six-phase process. He did not. He threw that process out, and told SixShot "go to it". That's just a fact.

Having just one 'bot who is efficient at carrying out a phase by themselves is a lot different than calling in an entire army to do it when the Infiltration units we've seen are generally only carried out by 9 or so Transformers.

The end result is the same. Devastated Earth.

Not to mention it's much more strategically sound in terms of preserving resources, especially when following a battle strategy, where as Megatron pretty much let the army run wild in AHM. And also, Megatron's troops were very concerned Megatron wasn't sticking to the stages in Devastation. In AHM, there wasn't even any mention of it. It is a huge difference in how things were handled and carried out, even if the end result is the same.

And again, the Autobots were gone. Out of the picture. That changes everything. How is this so hard to accept?

When the landscape of war changes, change strategy to adapt. It makes perfect sense.

So I think it's completely unfair to criticize McCarthy for writing a story in which Megatron abandons the six-stage protocol when there was clear precedent for the character doing so in Furman's storylines.

Again, I don't see that Furman had Megatron abandon the protocol. Skipping ahead given the circumstances, sure, but it wasn't the same thing McCarthy did really. I don't see anything unfair at all about criticizing how McCarthy handled it when it was established as being such a big issue for the Transformers in Furman's storyline.

See above. Megatron threw it out when it suited him, both in Devastation and All Hail Megatron.

It's irrelevant why they came to Earth in the first place. The discovery of Ultra Energon made Earth stand up above other planets in importance as the only planet, besides Cybertron, they found real energon of any kind.

I think we're going to have to read between the lines here. What happened to both Megatron and Thunderwing in the end? The ore-13 gave them an enormous power boost for a time, but they crashed and burned in the end. Skywarp had to rescue Megatron. There's plenty of reason to believe that it simply wasn't worth pursuing the use of it.

I'll concede that it was, and is, a dropped plot point that needs to be dealt with. I think we could probably both agree to that.

andersonh1 wrote:It's exactly the same thing as throwing it out.

Example: if I go to wash my hands, and all I do is turn on the water and then skip directly to pulling out the paper towel and walking out the door, I haven't just "stepped up" the handwashing procedure. I haven't followed it. By skipping the whole "put my hands in water, use the soap, rinse" steps, I've effectively thrown out the whole procedure.

It is not the same thing.

The washing hands thing doesn't even work as an example here. There is really only one way that procedure works to get to the end result. The same cannot be said for battle strategies though. Obviously there is more than one way to conquer a planet in which plans can change or be skipped as thought necessary.

If Megatron skipped the whole "infiltrate with replicants/forment political unrest/start wars/destabilize/watch humans tear each other apart" stages, and he did after an abortive attempt to start a war during "Escalation", it cannot be said that he carried out the standard six-phase process. He did not. He threw that process out, and told SixShot "go to it". That's just a fact.

Megatron was still sticking to a strategy of the infiltration protocol by deploying Sixshot though, so it cannot be said he threw out the entire process. Yes, it changes the planned protocol considerably having skipped so many steps, but that's beside the point.

The end result is the same. Devastated Earth.

Not the point. Furman establishes strategy to get there. McCarthy just has the Decepticons go on a rampage to conquer Earth. It's a waste of energy on their part and doesn't even acknowledge the departure from the strategies they had previously used.

And again, the Autobots were gone. Out of the picture. That changes everything. How is this so hard to accept?

When the landscape of war changes, change strategy to adapt. It makes perfect sense.

As I've said several times already... Regardless of the Autobots being out of this picture, it's a waste of resources for the Decepticons to be randomly attacking, not adhering to any sort of strategy to efficiently conquer the planet. And it doesn't make sense given the energy crisis.

See above. Megatron threw it out when it suited him, both in Devastation and All Hail Megatron.

Megatron didn't throw out the whole thing in Devastation though, he skipped ahead. Obviously this changes the plan, but it's still part of a strategy. AHM was an attack with no strategy behind it. The Decepticons were just attacking wildly.

I think we're going to have to read between the lines here. What happened to both Megatron and Thunderwing in the end? The ore-13 gave them an enormous power boost for a time, but they crashed and burned in the end. Skywarp had to rescue Megatron. There's plenty of reason to believe that it simply wasn't worth pursuing the use of it.

Sure, the ultra energon has the weakness of burning out faster, especially as the Transformer is forced to draw more power from it. But that is not reason enough for them to abandon it. Heck, even knowing of it's weakness, Megatron still sped up plans to get control of the planet because of that energon. It's still the most powerful fuel source they know of. And it would give them an edge, despite using it up quicker.

I'll concede that it was, and is, a dropped plot point that needs to be dealt with. I think we could probably both agree to that.

Well we can agree on that much at least then.

Sparky Prime wrote:It is not the same thing.

The washing hands thing doesn't even work as an example here. There is really only one way that procedure works to get to the end result. The same cannot be said for battle strategies though. Obviously there is more than one way to conquer a planet in which plans can change or be skipped as thought necessary.

If Megatron skipped the whole "infiltrate with replicants/forment political unrest/start wars/destabilize/watch humans tear each other apart" stages, and he did after an abortive attempt to start a war during "Escalation", it cannot be said that he carried out the standard six-phase process. He did not. He threw that process out, and told SixShot "go to it". That's just a fact.

Megatron was still sticking to a strategy of the infiltration protocol by deploying Sixshot though, so it cannot be said he threw out the entire process. Yes, it changes the planned protocol considerably having skipped so many steps, but that's beside the point.

Here's the problem with your reasoning, and why I think my analogy does work. Each successive step in the process sets up the following one. In the case of the six-stage strategy, the replicants would infiltrate various governments, which would lead to increased tension between countries, which would lead to all-out conflict, which would lead to a lot of death and destruction of the military of the nations of the world. The desired end goal is that Earth is left greatly weakened when Sixshot finally arrives.

When Megatron actually sent Sixshot in to attack, none of the above had happened. The various nations of the world still had fully armed and functional militaries. So it really doesn't matter that there was a plan in place to deal with resistance before Sixshot arrived, because the plan was not followed and the desired goal of weakening the planet was not achieved.

The end result: Sixshot would have attacked a fully armed and dangerous planet. In AHM, Megatron and his army attacked a fully armed and dangerous planet.

It's a waste of energy on their part and doesn't even acknowledge the departure from the strategies they had previously used.

If one or two of the Decepticons had brought up the fact that they'd thrown out the strategy again, only to have Starscream (or whoever) say "things have changed. We don't need it any more", would that have made a difference to you? I think it would for me, even though I really have no problem with the story as it stands. It would still be preferable for what came before to be acknowledged.

As I've said several times already... Regardless of the Autobots being out of this picture, it's a waste of resources for the Decepticons to be randomly attacking, not adhering to any sort of strategy to efficiently conquer the planet. And it doesn't make sense given the energy crisis.

They don't randomly attack anything. They hit New York, which is a symbolic victory. They then isolate and fortify the city, and then go out to systematically attack and wipe out other military units in the United States and then overseas. There is a pattern to how they fight. And clearly, energy isn't an issue, given the ease with which they outfight the human military they come up against. I think a protracted fight with the Autobot forces is the danger to their energy reserves. A quick and decisive fight against humans was a different story.

Megatron didn't throw out the whole thing in Devastation though, he skipped ahead.

Given that critical goals and results were not achieved, the Decepticons might as well have just arrived on the planet and started attacking. Starscream's group wasted their time putting stages one and two into action, because the intended results never happened since Megatron called in Sixshot early.

Why do you think Astrotrain and the others were so concerned? It wasn't just because procedure was being violated. I doubt they cared about that. They were concerned because Megatron's actions meant they were going to have to fight a fully armed and dangerous planet, rather than one which had been crippled severely by internal conflict.

I'll concede that it was, and is, a dropped plot point that needs to be dealt with. I think we could probably both agree to that.

Well we can agree on that much at least then.

I wonder if it ever will come up. Andy Schmidt has hinted that the Decepticon replicants (or whatever they were called) might play a part in a future storyline, and that's another dropped plot point. Whatever happened to Senator Holt? So I hope Ore-13 is at least given a mention as well. We'll have to see.

I was there with the rest of you when Dreamwave's TF series began, let alone ended, and I don't *ever* remember their books generating as much discourse.

I see what you are saying. But, DW got an unfair rap for being badly written. "Micromasters" was a good series, regardless of what the fashonable opinion is. McDonough was a damned good writer.

Yeah, I looked in the issues summery. It wasn't there.

They may have changed it. I recall seeing it, and McCarthy even complained about it on his FaceBook.

This is hardly a sufficient reason, particularly in terms of Perceptor who refused to use his skills to help save Prime.

Clearly Perceptor is a jerk.

Megatron may well have not known what, if anything, was to be done with the Matrix. And, thus making it better kept a secret so he could avoid saying "I dunno what ta do wiv it".

And, planning for his army to get all fratricidal on his butt is not much of a plan. Yeah, it is a plan, but the sort of "I do not have a better" plan.

While AHM had no plan to conquer the planet at all, just wild violence. And for what? They weren't even working to get the ultra energon anymore.

He had to give the boys something to do.

Again, I don't see that Furman had Megatron abandon the protocol. Skipping ahead given the circumstances, sure, but it wasn't the same thing McCarthy did really. I don't see anything unfair at all about criticizing how McCarthy handled it when it was established as being such a big issue for the Transformers in Furman's storyline.

Remember, Sixshot bailed after "Revelations". Megatron could not just call him up and say, "Hey, wanna work this weekend?"

andersonh1 wrote:Here's the problem with your reasoning, and why I think my analogy does work. Each successive step in the process sets up the following one. In the case of the six-stage strategy, the replicants would infiltrate various governments, which would lead to increased tension between countries, which would lead to all-out conflict, which would lead to a lot of death and destruction of the military of the nations of the world. The desired end goal is that Earth is left greatly weakened when Sixshot finally arrives.

Funny how you make the claim "When the landscape of war changes, change strategy to adapt. It makes perfect sense." Yet in this situation you refuse to accept exactly that? Yes, normally Sixshot would only be called in once the planet had already been weakened by their own infighting, but Megatron's real target by deploying him was to get rid of the Autobots by any means necessary, not the humans.

If one or two of the Decepticons had brought up the fact that they'd thrown out the strategy again, only to have Starscream (or whoever) say "things have changed. We don't need it any more", would that have made a difference to you? I think it would for me, even though I really have no problem with the story as it stands. It would still be preferable for what came before to be acknowledged.

Yes, it would have made a difference to me. That would have at least acknowledged the departure from their protocols, and established some sort of reason for leaving it behind.

They don't randomly attack anything. They hit New York, which is a symbolic victory. They then isolate and fortify the city, and then go out to systematically attack and wipe out other military units in the United States and then overseas. There is a pattern to how they fight. And clearly, energy isn't an issue, given the ease with which they outfight the human military they come up against. I think a protracted fight with the Autobot forces is the danger to their energy reserves. A quick and decisive fight against humans was a different story.

That's the thing, if you're going to systematically attack a planet, you don't start with a "symbolic" destruction of just one city. The strategic thing to do is hit lines of communication and sites of government leadership across the globe first. Heck, that would even be more symbolic than attacking just New York.

As for energy, while the Decepticons may not have much trouble fighting against humans, but they are still spending more energy doing all the work themselves than if they'd stuck to the Infiltration Protocols. You need to look at the bigger picture here. Even if they have the resources to successfully take the Earth, what is their long term projections on fuel?

Given that critical goals and results were not achieved, the Decepticons might as well have just arrived on the planet and started attacking. Starscream's group wasted their time putting stages one and two into action, because the intended results never happened since Megatron called in Sixshot early.

Why do you think Astrotrain and the others were so concerned? It wasn't just because procedure was being violated. I doubt they cared about that. They were concerned because Megatron's actions meant they were going to have to fight a fully armed and dangerous planet, rather than one which had been crippled severely by internal conflict.

Again, Sixshot wasn't sent to attack the whole planet, he was sent after just the Autobots. It's possible the Decepticons could have returned to their Infiltration Protocols after that, despite the news of the Transformers existence getting out as a result. It'd be more difficult, but with how covert the operation is, still possible.

And yes, the others were actually concerned the procedure was being violated. Thundercracker even made the comment "A whole lot of careful, by-the-numbers strategy is about to just fall apart!" They thought Megatron was loosing it for calling in Sixshot early.

Dominic wrote:They may have changed it.

Clearly, so the question is how is it a "mis-read" when it's no longer there?

Clearly Perceptor is a jerk.

Perceptor is not a jerk, it's a case of mis-characterization.

Megatron may well have not known what, if anything, was to be done with the Matrix. And, thus making it better kept a secret so he could avoid saying "I dunno what ta do wiv it".

And, planning for his army to get all fratricidal on his butt is not much of a plan. Yeah, it is a plan, but the sort of "I do not have a better" plan.

Again, given the legends of the Matrix containing ultimate power, Megatron most likely had some plan to try an access said power. He wouldn't have take it in the first place (or apparently started the entire war over it) with out some purpose in mind for it.

And remolding the Decepticon army into what he originally intended is actually a great idea on his part. With all the infighting and dissent, it's only a matter of time until the Decepticons would rip each other to pieces otherwise.

He had to give the boys something to do.

Again, why Earth with it's incredibly rare and valuable resource? Why not any one of the other planets the Decepticons are in the process of conquering?

Remember, Sixshot bailed after "Revelations". Megatron could not just call him up and say, "Hey, wanna work this weekend?"

Sixshot isn't Megatron's only big gun. It's been shown Black Shadow and Overlord also operated much like Sixshot does as a phase six weapon of mass destruction. Of course Overlord busy dealing with the Wreckers, but we don't know what Black Shadow was up to.