I can’t say I will miss IDW Transformers. I wasn’t a fan of the direction post-DoOP.
IDW to Lose the Transformers License?
- Thread starter ZakuConvoy
- Start date
Yup, it is interesting to see... IDW certainly had its ups and downs. I'm just glad we got those ups to go with downs. Furman actually told an original story to begin things (that I wish hadn't been truncated with Revelation). Then we had the nadir, I feel, with All Hail Megatron's big miss, and the Costa/Andy "continuity is dumb" Schmidt... kinda amazing that Barber and Roberts were able to turn it around so effectively (though it did fall off a bit at the end). The current stuff is decent but I don't think I'm going to terribly miss it the same way I miss stuff like Escalation/Devastation, or MTMTE at its zenith.
We'll see what Skybound (presumably) will do... there's definitely room for improvement on IDW in some areas, especially in terms of art (something I think IDW sometimes seemed to skimp on.) Oh, and maybe publishing their comics on time...
My chief worry is that things will move back to the (early) Dreamwave direction, and everything will aim for the 1984 cartoon continuity except "mature" (i.e blood and guts, not thoughtfully/emotionally mature).
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Yeah, I guess the article says that IDW will still have MLP and DnD. No idea about Clue...though (get it? Cluedo? meh...)
www.hollywoodreporter.com
You know what? I'll take that one step farther. Barber managed to make AHM and Costa's run...actually kind of interesting in retrospect. AHM was actually the beginning of Thundercracker's heel turn (and introduced the Matrix which would be important later on). And Costa's run introduced a bunch of smaller concepts that would inform the early parts of Barber's run, like Spike, Jazz's murder of a human, and Bumblebee leading the Autobots. Barber really was a continuity wizard. He managed to make these two (at the time) low points of the run into something that I have a hard time saying to skip, when I think about it.
IDW to Lose ‘G.I. Joe,’ ‘Transformers’ License at End of 2022 (Exclusive)
The company still has a year's worth of stories planned, including a celebration of Joe's 40th anniversary.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
You know what? I'll take that one step farther. Barber managed to make AHM and Costa's run...actually kind of interesting in retrospect. AHM was actually the beginning of Thundercracker's heel turn (and introduced the Matrix which would be important later on). And Costa's run introduced a bunch of smaller concepts that would inform the early parts of Barber's run, like Spike, Jazz's murder of a human, and Bumblebee leading the Autobots. Barber really was a continuity wizard. He managed to make these two (at the time) low points of the run into something that I have a hard time saying to skip, when I think about it.
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Yeah, Phase 2 really put a lot of effort into picking up the pieces left from Phase 1. It's nice in an industry that often treats continuity as a burden on creativity and not a tool to paint with.
Barber taking over really cemented it, which was a godsend after crap like "Continuum" and editors who seemed offended that people gave a damn about continuity. Like, how dare we.
Rescue Bots
Robots in Disguise 2015
Lost Light
Something that doesn't center around the war, or effectively dispenses with it altogether in favor of some other scenario wherein large mechanical shape-shifting aliens have unusual adventures.
I'm guessing the other Hasbro properties are a seperate thing from GI Joe & Transformers in terms of licensing, thou I expect evenly IDW will loose those as well, I think Hasbro is simply looking to avoid the fall out they had to deal with when Dreamwave went bust, which is why they are moving Transformers & GI Joe to another company, after all IDW is MASSIVELY in the red and show no signs of turning that around and from what I gathered, they sold off their only profitable division which was board games, so, I think within the next year or two, IDW will loose it all if they can't turn their fortunes around!
Come to think of it, y’know what I would find interesting? A mix of Rescue Bots and the post-Rebirth idea, to make something like that Botcon G2 comic: a generation of TFs built on Earth who consider that their home planet, and don’t have any emotional connection to Cybertron or the war.
"Transformers! Copyright reuse!"
"Transformers! Financially obtuse..."
"Transformers! Autobots pray their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons sells copies..."
"TRANSFORMERRRRRRRSSSS-YourAdHereCashOnly-Do!Do!Do!"
"Transformers! Financially obtuse..."
"Transformers! Autobots pray their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons sells copies..."
"TRANSFORMERRRRRRRSSSS-YourAdHereCashOnly-Do!Do!Do!"
That could work, thou first you need to establish the actual war and what the characters want to protect, sure there is just Earth but that is kind of board, so, something more ground level, say a human family or prehaps something similar to the character of Jan from Victory, where's the bulk of the family is victims of the war and a human child is left with no living family and the bots decide to take upon themselves to raise the child and protect them, prehaps there a groverment location for orphans of the war and they interact with the Autobots who been built on Earth and they learn co-existance and about the world around them!
I would still like to see what IDW2 was trying to do. I really liked the idea of a chronological telling from the beginning of the war to the end. And I enjoy slow burn stories, to a sane limit.
Imagine this story told with Marvel G1 pacing. There was potential here.
Imagine this story told with Marvel G1 pacing. There was potential here.
I do hope this is at least handled more sensibly than the recent Buffy move. It would be a shame to see all of IDW's books go out of print at the end of the year, and from Hasbro's point of view having critically acclaimed books like MTMTE disappear to new readers would seem crazy.
They could take the most creative approach ever in Transformers: Explain how the original Marvel comics and Sunbow cartoon are in the same continuity! And for those who were not around in the early days of alt.toys.transformers...trust me, the attempts got REAL creative...
It's very simple. First Marvel G1 happened. Then Marvel G2. The UK stuff that can fit also all happened during both of them. Then, the Maximals and Predacons went back in time to start the Beast Wars. Because of them, history changed, which led to the events of the cartoon happening instead. Then, in the far future, Beast Machines happened. The end.
I remember reading things like memory wipes to explain Kup “never” having seen Unicron before despite being there for both attacks, a rebuilt Matrix, Time Wars-type stuff and more.
I also remember someone’s fan fiction about how the Maximals rose to power. It involved a Bot-Maximal war. Those were the days.
Cybertron is Earth in the far future of the Matrix franchise. The Sentinels of the Matrix are precursors to the Quints.