Furman reveals ending to cancelled DW Energon series

Comics, cartoons, movies and fan stuff.
Post Reply
User avatar
Blackjack
Posts: 9112
Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 1:04 pm

Furman reveals ending to cancelled DW Energon series

Post by Blackjack »

http://simonfurman.wordpress.com/2010/11/

and

http://simonfurman.wordpress.com/2010/12/

For the uninitiated: Basically the Energon series folded when Dreamwave went bankrupt. Simon Furman had kept quiet about it for some time, but because he has a lot of spare time now he's putting up the story outlines for the remaining Energon issues up in his blog.
User avatar
Neuronutter
Protoform
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:24 am
Location: Halifax, NS

Post by Neuronutter »

So...does anyone really care?
User avatar
Blackjack
Posts: 9112
Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 1:04 pm

Post by Blackjack »

Nope. But I put it here anyway just for the sake of reporting it.

Although to be fair the story was more interesting than IDW's current output.
User avatar
Lord_Unicron
Protoform
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:58 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Lord_Unicron »

Blackjack wrote:Nope. But I put it here anyway just for the sake of reporting it.

Although to be fair the story was more interesting than IDW's current output.
Well, that is true. I hope they will reveal the storyline which was created for Dreamwave's G1 ongoing and their WW. I really liked their stories (and art).

IDW is having to many continuity errors, character bashes and crappy art for me to continue reading their comics.
User avatar
Warcry
Posts: 13934
Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2002 4:10 am
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Post by Warcry »

Lord_Unicron wrote:Well, that is true. I hope they will reveal the storyline which was created for Dreamwave's G1 ongoing and their WW.
For the Ongoing at least, Mick and Patyk refused to say word one about what they had planned until Hasbro or IDW pay them the money that Dreamwave swindled them out of. They also refused to take on new work on the franchise until they saw the money, IIRC, which so far has worked out about as well as you'd expect it to. Apparently IDW has everything that was finished (art, scripts, etc) but can't or won't publish it because the creators were never paid.

Didn't Furman or one of the artists post scripts or art for The Age of Wrath a few years back?
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

Furman won't put the War Within stuff online as he's currently hocking photocopies of the scripts at conventions, according to the comments section on the above links he might deem to put a synopsis on t'internet at some point. He's only putting the Energon stuff out because he knows it wouldn't shift. I do hope someone who's actually brought the scripts puts scans out there at some point just to shoot his mercenary tendancies down. Or better yet if IDW did it, after all, they own all this cak now don't they? And with Furman dependant on them for comic writing work he's hardly going to complain if they did.

As for the Energon stuff itself, as with the actual published issues it seems a bit crap. Especially teh shock plot twist that it's not Earth in danger but some planet we've never heard of. Which in theory is a fine subversion of expectations but in practice is going for something less interesting that the obvious.

I always thought it was a shame the momentum the Armada comic had built up (easily the most consistently good title DW did, despite being the only one not entirely based around nostalgia) died very quickly once the title changed. I think the amazingly crap issue 18 didn't help. The main thing I remember about Energon is the bint clearly being blown into thousands of tiny little pieces in a block wide explosion at the end of one issue, only to turn out to be completely OK in the next. Something Furman did again in one of the ...tion issues...
but because he has a lot of spare time now
Hahahaha, you is shameless.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
User avatar
Neuronutter
Protoform
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:24 am
Location: Halifax, NS

Post by Neuronutter »

Warcry wrote:For the Ongoing at least, Mick and Patyk refused to say word one about what they had planned until Hasbro or IDW pay them the money that Dreamwave swindled them out of.
It doesn't look too likely does it. As for refusing to work for the only license you've worked on before where the fans know who you are, well that's just daft.
Cliffjumper
Posts: 32206
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2001 5:00 am

Post by Cliffjumper »

Neuronutter wrote:It doesn't look too likely does it. As for refusing to work for the only license you've worked on before where the fans know who you are, well that's just daft.
These are the ones who used rubsigns in-story and doomed us to years of "Don't bother making an Ultra Magnus figure, just paint Prime white". They are not smart people.
User avatar
Blackjack
Posts: 9112
Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 1:04 pm

Post by Blackjack »

Ah, I remembered War and Peace. One of the first Transformers fiction I read when I was still a newbie and haven't discovered the 'net TF fandom. I thought Ultra Magnus was kind of a cool character. The naïve, heroic-to-a-fault yes-man. But suddenly he walks up to where Shockwave and Optimus are fighting and shows himself as a white Optimus.

It was a big WTF??? moment before I realized the white Optimus was supposed to be Magnus.
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

Yep, it only works if your completely familiar with the original toy. Which I suppose you could argue most of the readership were, but I certainly wasn't.

I'd never owned Magnus, and at the time didn't know the cab was a white Optimus Prime (having never seen it transformed by itself ), nor that it formed the centre of the robot mode.

I think I'd always assumed, thanks to the UK letters page stating a few times when asked that the cab "wasn't "anyone" that it was a totally separate toy to Magnus that just came with him to pull him in carrier mode. It never showing up in fiction was never any odder than Prime's trailer vanishing all the time. This meant that whole sequence basically made no sense to me. I wonder how many others were in the same boat, especially as the early Dreamwave stuff sold to more than the dedicated fanbase thanks to the 80's nostalgia boom.

In fairness to Mad Brick (old jokes never die) I'd probably have taken exactly the same "**** off" approach to any future Transformers work as they did. I'd quote the "Fool me twice..." saying if not for the fact Pat Lee seemingly managed to fool them (and indeed, everyone else) buggerloads of times before they caught on.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
Cliffjumper
Posts: 32206
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2001 5:00 am

Post by Cliffjumper »

inflatable dalek wrote:I think I'd always assumed, thanks to the UK letters page stating a few times when asked that the cab "wasn't "anyone" that it was a totally separate toy to Magnus that just came with him to pull him in carrier mode. It never showing up in fiction was never any odder than Prime's trailer vanishing all the time.
I'm open to correction here (I'm not researching it to check), but IIRC the cab robot wasn't advertised (IIRC it did feature in the instructions), and was a nice little bonus for me... But the only real paint apps it has are those to add detail to the Full Magnus (assuming you were lucky enough to have one of the ones they'd bothered painting), and while it did time as a surrogate Prime for a year or so with me (much to the chagrin of my parents, but let's be honest, Magnus was and is a shit toy) I don't think many people thought of it as more than a part (in the same way no-one with half a brain believed that Six-Gun thing)... For the Diaclone, Powered Convoy was shown to simply have two stages of robot mode, but I always got the impression with Transformers that it was simply less effort to leave it there than re-engineer the thing.

I certainly have trouble believing that anyone has a non-modified MP/Revoltech/Classics Magnus and is actually convinced by the whole thing.
User avatar
Blackjack
Posts: 9112
Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 1:04 pm

Post by Blackjack »

The white Magnus deco is uninspired and plain, too. At least with Nemesis Prime/Scourge/Black Prime/Sleep Convoy/Whatever-they-are-going-to-call-the-black-repaint the deco looks okay. I can't believe anyone would even think that it is Magnus...

To be fair, Six-Gun had an appearance in the cartoon. For all of ten seconds....
User avatar
Warcry
Posts: 13934
Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2002 4:10 am
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Post by Warcry »

Cliffjumper wrote:Magnus was and is a shit toy
Nah, they just advertised the worst part of it. You can argue about the white deco not being great, but his small robot mode beats out G1 Optimus just on account of being able to hold his gun properly. His car carrier mode isn't anything to sneeze at either, because unlike 90% of Transformer alt-modes even today it actually does something. And as far as looks go, Optimus Prime can't hold a candle to Ultra Magnus when he's got three or four Autobot cars loaded onto his trailer.

The problem is that every fictional representation he got emphasized his super-robot mode and how awesome it was, setting an entire generation of kids up for disappointment.
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote:I'm open to correction here (I'm not researching it to check), but IIRC the cab robot wasn't advertised (IIRC it did feature in the instructions), and was a nice little bonus for me...
About the closest instance of any non instruction hint of how the cab and trailer work is one of the ladybird books drawing him very closely based on the toy and a few of the white cab details showing from behind (plus the frankly terrifying empty eyed head).

Tellingly, whilst letters to the UK comic asking about the cab were fairly common none of the ones I've seen ever asked why it looked like Optimus, just who this huy who came with Ultra Magnus was. I wonder if many children actually made the connection between the two? Or if Marvel just didn't print those letters as Hasbro might not like it being made obvious a lot of readers already had part of the toy...

In hindsight the cartoon actually jumps through some impressive hoops to try and fudge Magnus' transformation (much as it does with Rodimus). Isn't there a bit in The Rebirth where he's standing next to Optimus and both transform in exactly the same way, turning into the cab with the trailer rolling in behind?

The irony is, Magnus was presumably chosen for inclusion in the film as Diaclone usage was pretty much dead simply because he did have that whole Prime thing going on, it was intended to provide a bit more of a red herring as to who the new Autobot leader was ("Optimus gives the glowing ball to the guy with the same toy and latin style name, he must be the genuine new top dog absolutely"). Didn't really work.

And look, we've forgotten about Energon already.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
User avatar
Neuronutter
Protoform
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:24 am
Location: Halifax, NS

Post by Neuronutter »

inflatable dalek wrote:And look, we've forgotten about Energon already.
Well, why not. Energon is pretty forgettable.
User avatar
Skyquake87
Protoform
Posts: 3986
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:34 am

Post by Skyquake87 »

A shame the synopsis for these Energon issues has only limped out now. I quite enjoyed the Energon comics at the time. I'd refute the suggestion that Armada was the better title. The opening arc in Armada is quite slow. Really slow, like everything's happening in slow motion. There's no danger or dynamism to the thing. The use of scale to show how big the regular Transformers are compared to the Mini cons would be great, but quite a lot of the time, this means we just get horrible contorted drawings of Megatron (always thrusting his crotch at us like some randy uncle at a wedding) and so on. The moon based storyline is excellent, but the following 'World's Collide' is tiresome nonsense. Although Furman clearly isn't happy when not writing for 'proper' Transformers, he eventually throws some weight behind Energon and figures if this is all he's getting, he may as well make the most of it. Sure, characterisation is at a premium, but it zips along at a fair old pace and the story is decent enough to outshine the painful noodlings of the p*ss- poor cartoon. Its just a shame that too much time has past for me to be bothered about how this would have concluded.
Cliffjumper
Posts: 32206
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2001 5:00 am

Post by Cliffjumper »

The Moon one was great until the last issue... Furman's great at set-up, not so much at going anywhere. I prefer Armada just because Energon made no impression on me whatsoever - I remember the Snowcat one being alright, but I remember the rest of it going on for ages without looking like going anywhere. The final evaluation is that both were pretty ****ing awful, though.
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

I enjoyed the first few Armada issues, but thought it fell off a bit once they got to Earth and Furman's opening two parter was terrible (and yes, Mr. Lee's art was a large part of this but the script was awful as well. It felt like that, as this was the specific kids comic Furman was actively trying to write for a younger audience than usual and failing. Probably because it's something he never really did back in the Marvel days...). After that though it settled down into becoming a generally fun comic that generally benefited from not being about Big Events, with even the crossover stuff generally being more underplayed than Dreamwave would have done in one of their more fanboi baiting titles, Galvatron and company aren't allowed to overpower the regulars which is a nice thing.

Energon I found suffered from most of the problems Furman's had for the last decade, lots of little plots ultimately going nowhere. It was just begging to be canned early really.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
Post Reply