Didn't issue #1 of this comic truncate the millions of years down to hundreds?
Energon Universe - ongoing Transformers and G.I. Joe comics from Skybound
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Didn't issue #1 of this comic truncate the millions of years down to hundreds?
Jetfire's expedition to "save" Cybertron seems to suggest he was looking for a solution for centuries but was in stasis himself for millions of years.
Either way it's unclear what the exact chronology is but hundreds of years, millions, ultimately I'm just happy the story beat of Transformers in stasis is back and they're not just on Earth as new arrivals.
Bugger me then. I watched the first few episodes of Bee and Windblade collecting memories and never really returned to it.
Season 1 is nothing like Seasons 2-4. It's like night and day. Get caught up to speed, or at least just start on Season 2 and go forward.
Cyberverse probably skips the part you most interested in, season 1 has basically 2 parts to it: first is unlocking Bee's memories, then its more about finding the Ark. But the series basically skips over 99% of the awakening stuff, and the war on earth robots in disguise stuff, with season 2 taking place after a fairly big time skip to a "final battle" ish scenario before new character arrives and gives them a new goal.
SO while Cyberverse is very much worth watching; if your interest is in seeing how they handle the awakening part? They don't. Not really. They give a quick rundown of that, but largely just skips to the next story they want to tell, now with a full Autobot and Decepticon cast.
In essence (but not in total alignment with every detail), the Transformers: Battlegrounds game gives an idea of what the war on Earth between Seasons 1 and 2 of Cyberverse was like, as the show itself wasn't interested in retreading old G1 ground (because the "Autobot/Decepticon war on Earth" has been done countless times over), instead preferring to focus on new storytelling ideas that took the focus beyond the scope of the traditional Earth war.
I still don't understand why the conflict that's been waging on an alien planet for millions of years has to be directly analogous to whatever the current climate is at the moment here in real life.
Like, I get drawing inspiration from it, sure. But I don't understand why just because the real life political situation now is no longer what it was then that reboots of the fictional world have to move away from it, too. Like, not everything has to be a metaphor for what's happening today, especially when it's based on a cartoon from 40 years ago about a fictional situation taking place four million years ago.
But really, I'm just mostly sick of them chasing the Allspark.
And I absolutely respect and appreciate that decision.
Transformers is and likely always will be a story made by humans for the consumption of humans, and as such, will be heavily colored by the human experience. People write what they know, you know, and people know their own lives very well.
Nobody is a million year old shapechanging robot, so writing from that perspective is always going to be a little sus.
So if it's the human authorship that's the problem, I guess we'd have to seek fiction from elsewhere.
"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon."
I think that sort of gets to the root of what I find so refreshing about Skybound so far. A lot of people seem to be angry at it for "rehashing" the G1 cartoon's premise, but really? A lot of this stuff seems refreshing in light of the stuff we've gotten since the 07 movie. It's a "back to basics" approach I'm digging.
I also really like Void Rivals. The whole EU has a really cool "science fantasy" vibe I dig that's totally distinct from what others have done recently.
People go on about it "treading old ground" Yeah, but its old ground that hasn't really been tread on since the 80's. Maybe 90's if you wanna count G2. The only other series that even does a "crash and wake up from stasis and adapt to modern world" is Animated. Cyberverse kinda, but as stated it really skips over that part becuase of "its been done before". Dreamwave tries but ends up kinda like an "Ultimate" version of the mythos, but still skips the initial awakening element. IDW never did it. Prime we never really got it, though RiD2015 infers that it had a similar to 80's origin iirc, despite Prime itself self seeming to allude to a more 2007 movie origin. Maybe you can kinda sorta count BW since they do deal with the Ark. We've never really had a true proper 'retelling' of the 80's origin, and doing it with sorta modern standards. That's part of what interests me in this, seeing how this will turn out since its already sorta different; more different then IDW Beast Wars was at its start imo.
It's a real shame everyone always forgets the underrated gem that was the Devil's Due TF/Joe comics series.
Right. I don't just want the G1 MtMtE opening, but I like the idea of revisiting that setup as a starting point and seeing what can be done with it with, as you said, modern standards.
Between doing that, the art style, the sort of timeless quality the Earthbound setting has, the space fantasy feel of Void Rivals, and the hints about Megatron I'm both super interested and all in on this.
That was the one where Cobra found them and woke them all up, right? I much prefer that one to the (Dreamwave?) one where the art was so murky and it seemed like almost everyone died.
Void Rival still hasn't really captured me, it just feels too safe and too slow. And the most recent issue feels like the TF character is just shoved in there as it completely random and has no effect on the story. It feels like forced there. Like "oh yeah, this is supposed to be part of the Transformers universe. *shoves random scene on cybertron in the middle of story* But this, the Mystery of Megatron and how he might show up in GIJoe, possibly mode-locked like he was in Marvel G1 for a time; but in an honestly more interesting way just on premise... I'm all there for that stuff.
I think you guys are conflating multiple things. The issue I have with this comic isn't specifically that it's repeating the ark crash; as that's such a minor element in the long rung. It's that the comic, so far, seems completely incurious on including any elements of the franchise that didn't exist in the g1 cartoon in some manner or another. It's a smaller cast, sure, but all but one are from the 1984 roster, and the character who isn't didn't even get a redesign so she sticks out like a sore thumb. All of the cameo characters over in Void Rivals have been G1 toon ones as well; nothing from the Marvel comics so far, or anything that came afterwards.
The thing is, I can go and read Marvel G1 or watch the G1 cartoon anytime I want; I come to a new comic or show to get a new things. New characters, new ideas, new possibilities that in turn feed into the franchise and can be utilized in the future. When the comic doesn't hae new stuff like that, it means I'm going to have to scrutinize the familiar elements because, you know, that's all there is.
(And note: this isn't a comment on the quality of the comic, this is entirely about my personal opinion about how much this comic interests me.)
Another thing to consider, if this was just DWJ's 6 issue passion project and we'd be moving on, that'd be one thing: but this is very importantly setting the stage for at least the next several years of Transformers comics, so the ethos of how this universe is being built will have ramifications for like the next five years, if not longer. That fact alone is going to bring a lot scrutiny from me.
The thing is, I can go and read Marvel G1 or watch the G1 cartoon anytime I want; I come to a new comic or show to get a new things. New characters, new ideas, new possibilities that in turn feed into the franchise and can be utilized in the future. When the comic doesn't hae new stuff like that, it means I'm going to have to scrutinize the familiar elements because, you know, that's all there is.
(And note: this isn't a comment on the quality of the comic, this is entirely about my personal opinion about how much this comic interests me.)
Another thing to consider, if this was just DWJ's 6 issue passion project and we'd be moving on, that'd be one thing: but this is very importantly setting the stage for at least the next several years of Transformers comics, so the ethos of how this universe is being built will have ramifications for like the next five years, if not longer. That fact alone is going to bring a lot scrutiny from me.
Oh its not just you, I've seen comments along these lines all across the internet.
I mean, not entirely. Look at how much of a celebration of nearly all 40 years of the franchise Legacy United is! G1, Beast Wars, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Beast Machines, Car Robots/RiD2001, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Animated, Prime, and even Cyberverse. (Plus we've gotten G2, RiD2015 and even flippin' Kissplayer toys!)