What's the point in the Lost Light having a crew of 200 and whatever?

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Cliffjumper
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What's the point in the Lost Light having a crew of 200 and whatever?

Post by Cliffjumper »

This is actually kind-of annoying me... why is MTMTE largely about the same ten or so guys? RID I can kind-of forgive because it's got this big political power struggle format which requires a lot of focus on key players but MTMTE's format is basically that it doesn't have one.

And yet when Rung's memory needs a jog it's the same bunch of guys. When Excalibur Stormwatch Ultra Magnus needs to get drunk it's the same bunch of guys. When they find Tyrest it's the same bunch of guys who get teleported down.

Are Smokescreen and Blaster just sitting around going "Boy, Swerve sure does make jokes!" or what? And yet every couple of issues they find another character sitting around on some random planet or whatever who gets incorporated for a bit rather than bringing someone else from the ship into the mix.

Are the other 190 just generics so someone can get killed off in fight scenes while preserving Hasbro characters? What are they for?
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Post by Warcry »

I've wondered the same thing myself, actually.

When the series launched, Roberts made a few sweeping statements along the lines of "these guys won't be the main characters forever and you'll see other characters step into the spotlight later". So I figured that the large crew size was setup for that idea -- that when he was done with Chromedome or Cyclonus or whoever, that the likes of Smokescreen or Hoist would step up to become main characters in turn. In that scenario the large crew size makes sense, because it lets him bring in new cast members without having to plot out detailed introductions for each one of them.

Except that basically hasn't happened, as with the exception of Megatron pretty much all the important characters showed up in the first two issues. I sort of suspect that Roberts realized pretty early on that his characters were the reason why people liked the book in the first place and that shuffling them off en masse for new characters that people might not like as much probably wasn't a great idea.

He hasn't even taken advantage of the idea for secondary characters, really. All of the new second-stringers in the post Dark Cybertron batch of books (Nautica, Riptide, Bluestreak, Nightbeat, Ravage, Getaway) were explicitly not on the ship when it launched, which really does make the other 180ish crewmembers seem a bit pointless.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Mmm, I get that it would be just as bad if every "plotline" saw six different guys but I don't really see why for once they can't leave Whirl behind (because he's as much of a dead end as Swerve; every few issues he has a moment which might just be a development, then next one he's back to being psycho loose cannon kill guy) and take Inferno or Brawn along. If nothing else it'd actually help the characters move beyond all the predictable one-liners and feuds they bat around between each other over and over again.
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Post by Denyer »

Cliffjumper wrote:Are the other 190 just generics so someone can get killed off in fight scenes while preserving Hasbro characters? What are they for?
Probably a mix of that and "to dip into" if the author wants new faces for whatever reason.

Not much different from most Trek series.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Well, on the most basic level the size of the crew suggests the size of the ship (without going into too many spoilers, an issue you've not read yet by my reckoning confirms The Lost Light is-by amazing coincidence- the same size as Red Dwarf*), but I also think it works great in terms of the first "Season" being about the "Lower Decks" characters.

A lot of inverted commas there, so to elaborate...

Yes, the conceit of the pre-Remain in Light issues is we're focusing on two tiers of characters: The command crew who drive the plot (Rodimus; Drift; Magnus) and a bunch of utterly unimportant members of the rest of the 200 (with Ratchet drifting between the two, he seems at home with everyone).

So whilst it's lucky the characters the series focuses on happen to get caught up in the monthly A plot, the series is also at great pains to point out everyone else on the ship is having their own Great Adventures that could carry their own comic. When Rodimus reads the eulogy after the Overlord incident, it's about characters we didn't see. When Rewind wanted to get a group together to recount an important story of Rung, the regulars were his third attempt (and that's a lovely little bit of off-screen world building because who doesn't want to know what Siren and Xaaron were up to together that day?).

And the series does acknowledge the accumulative effect of the same handful of characters getting sucked into things by chance, when Rodimus wants to select people to do a thing in the last storyline pre-Dark Cybertron (I don't think you've read that far so the above is trying to be vague) his careful selection process includes most of them- and leaves one out because he has similar issues with them that you do.

Season 2 then moves the goal posts, for various reasons I won't reveal yet.


*Though that scale thing is really buggered even within Dark Cybertron, early on you're told The Lost Light is five miles across, then later how big can it be when it flies into
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Denyer wrote:Not much different from most Trek series.
Surely RiD is Trek? The one with the storylines that justifies having the captain, the number one, the chief medic, the head of security etc, etc in it every damn time. MTMTE on the other hand is about a bunch of people sitting around running into characters James Roberts wants to write about. The scope is unlimited on paper.
inflatable dalek wrote:Well, on the most basic level the size of the crew suggests the size of the ship (without going into too many spoilers, an issue you've not read yet by my reckoning confirms The Lost Light is-by amazing coincidence- the same size as Red Dwarf*), but I also think it works great in terms of the first "Season" being about the "Lower Decks" characters.
Yay, there's an in-jokey justification. Always welcome in any media, that. This "season" thing is another big pile of shite - comics are not TV series.
So whilst it's lucky the characters the series focuses on happen to get caught up in the monthly A plot, the series is also at great pains to point out everyone else on the ship is having their own Great Adventures that could carry their own comic. When Rodimus reads the eulogy after the Overlord incident, it's about characters we didn't see. When Rewind wanted to get a group together to recount an important story of Rung, the regulars were his third attempt (and that's a lovely little bit of off-screen world building because who doesn't want to know what Siren and Xaaron were up to together that day?).
Nah, calling bullshit on that one. Rodimus' eulogy is another fake-out moment and another way to kill off four or five generics so there are Consequences without Roberts (slash Hasbro) having to lose any of his favourites. Not sure how another dumb joke is much of a signifier either - if anything it was deeply irritating because "off-screen panel world building" could have meant "on-panel change of ****ing faces", but no, because otherwise we wouldn't get Swerve doing crap jokes.

The narrative stream is too constant for anyone else to be having serious adventures, and if there were any given any serious mention ("Of course, Sunstreaker's still having his ears refitted after that business on Planetiainbanksreference!") I must've missed it.

Postmodernism and lampshading are the death of media as a storytelling device. I might as well be wondering who's looking after the bar in the Queen Vic when Danny Dyer's off starting some drama.
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Post by Tetsuro »

It's so they can suddenly introduce some random obscure chilhood favourite of yours as having been aboard all along only to kill them off so they won't have to off any of the main characters.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote: Yay, there's an in-jokey justification. Always welcome in any media, that. This "season" thing is another big pile of shite - comics are not TV series.
A tip of the hat to one of the main influences on the series (though equally possibly an unintentional one, IIRC the "And us with our map" gag was unintentional channelling Roberts was subsequently quite annoyed about for having done without realising) is hardly Earth shatteringly destructive.

Not sure what the aversion to using the terms "Seasons" is (I think Skyquake has similar issues), it stopped them relaunching with new issue 1's post Dark Cybertron- I wonder if the growth of digital sales and still having every previous issue 1 on sale has played a part in putting them off that idea, it would only get confusing for potential new readers- whilst at the same time having a clear New Jumping On Point. It's harmless enough regardless. If enough comic companies start using it as a term (I've no idea how widespread it is outside of cancelled TV show titles) it becomes a comic thing anyway.
Nah, calling bullshit on that one. Rodimus' eulogy is another fake-out moment and another way to kill off four or five generics so there are Consequences without Roberts (slash Hasbro) having to lose any of his favourites. Not sure how another dumb joke is much of a signifier either - if anything it was deeply irritating because "off-screen panel world building" could have meant "on-panel change of ****ing faces", but no, because otherwise we wouldn't get Swerve doing crap jokes.
Rodimus' eulogy was hardly a fake out coming on the back of the death of one main character and one substantial supporting character, it just firmly showed that the character's we follow are just part of a wider tapestry.

Whilst the fake out death's absolutely are a problem- to the point that well after a year after the last one with Magnus people still point blank refused to believe in a major death a few months ago even though the art made it fairly clear what was happening- I think Pipe's demise was one of the absolute highlights of the series. Roberts dancing around an area he's not to hot on (generally his big fight scenes are a bit rubbish) and rather than having Overlord rip through lots of characters he makes the entire sequence revolve around one little guys horrible, pointless death. Fantastic moment.

Of course, there were complaints during the first season that the focus was just on the same characters. Then when the second season started with an arc focusing mostly on new characters there were complaints that the regulars were missed. I guess you can never win.

I don't think either Roberts or Barber intended for their books to wind up focusing on as tight-knit groups as they wound up doing (well, at least before toy-shilling became a thing, again, all credit to Barber for taking one for the team by doing most of that even if the end result could be messy, "I am Tankor and I must speak!"), certainly both fought to get character's they wound up not doing very much with. Each just found a group dynamic that worked and was popular and wound up sticking pretty much to it on the grounds that if you're doing something right you might as well run with it.
The narrative stream is too constant for anyone else to be having serious adventures, and if there were any given any serious mention ("Of course, Sunstreaker's still having his ears refitted after that business on Planetiainbanksreference!") I must've missed it.
Possibly, there's all sorts of constant references to what other characters are up to, the funneral, the citations for others after they took down Snap Trap's team, the montage of others Rewind has done his talk to, Magnus vision citing the dubious past actions of people he's walking past in the corridor and so on.


Postmodernism and lampshading are the death of media as a storytelling device. I might as well be wondering who's looking after the bar in the Queen Vic when Danny Dyer's off starting some drama.
It'd probably be annoying if it was the only thing the book had, but it's insanely dense reading. Roberts packs a hell of a lot in there that goes way beyond cultural references and self-aware nods, it drips with historical and philosophical and even scientific allusions that the stories don't depend on you to get but do reward closer reading, which is a good part of the reason the threads for MTTME always wind up so long.

Plus, Transformers is generally a self aware pop culture reference full franchise and has been from almost the start, at least since Spider-Man popped up in his wisecracking way. Probably since O made pointed out how like a Spielberg movie the whole thing is. Certainly from the "Prime told me there'd be days like this!" line in the cartoon. It's just at its best, then as now, there's always other stuff going on even when the tongue is in its cheek as well.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I do have a problem with 'Seasons' used on comics, for exactly the reason Cliffjumper states. Comics are not TV. Buffy Season 8 (from Dark Horse) gets away with it for absolutely being a direct follow on from the TV series. Its a different medium, and aping other media just seems a bit desperate, tbh. If it is as new start, then why not #1's? Marvel in recent years has taken the #1 thing to extremes, randomly rebooting titles with #1s to generate interest from casual buyers (its also something I don't like as they then revert to the original numbering for anniversary issues, which is annoying).

I used to like the old 'volume' system comics used to have. Honestly, if you're buying comics as digital or collected editions, its a nightmare. I can't understand why its so difficult to work out what stories are from what era - comics and trades that have a clear numbering system printed on them that you can see and make sense of in a comic shop somehow turn into a confusing stew online.

I think the characters thing does have some ground as a criticism - especially for MTMTE. We've a crew of 200 characters to choose from, but instead, the current focus is on a bunch of ...new additions to the crew!

Again, the toy pimping Idon't mind when its limited to stuff like the Spotlights (which I wish were a more regular thing) than being jammed into ongoing stories/ crossovers, as Dark Cybetron showed.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

inflatable dalek wrote:A tip of the hat to one of the main influences on the series is hardly Earth shatteringly destructive.
But it's also hardly a good explanation for a glaring problem either.
Not sure what the aversion to using the terms "Seasons" is (I think Skyquake has similar issues), it stopped them relaunching with new issue 1's post Dark Cybertron- I wonder if the growth of digital sales and still having every previous issue 1 on sale has played a part in putting them off that idea, it would only get confusing for potential new readers- whilst at the same time having a clear New Jumping On Point. It's harmless enough regardless. If enough comic companies start using it as a term (I've no idea how widespread it is outside of cancelled TV show titles) it becomes a comic thing anyway.
It's not just the term, though it is stupid. It's the idea that 20-odd issues of a comic can be retroactively declared a "season" and we're somehow meant to take that as an excuse for the limited scope and lazy storytelling - "Hey, it was only Season One"; Animated syndrome.
Rodimus' eulogy was hardly a fake out coming on the back of the death of one main character and one substantial supporting character, it just firmly showed that the character's we follow are just part of a wider tapestry.
No, it showed that some nobodies got killed off-panel. Like Matrix Quest.
Fantastic moment.
Passable moment from a Vic Chalker ripoff character. How long do you think he'll stay dead for? Longer than Nightbeat? Longer than Evil Medic Guy?
I guess you can never win.
Or you could try introducing balance and variety from the start considering the title's format allows plenty of space for it. Why not have Rung's magic bullshit brain restore involve Siren, Xaaron etc. with Rung and Rewind as a link to the current cast, then bring a few different bots into the mix? You could even have had a B-plot about Swerve doing something stupid at his bar to keep the sig friendly jokes ticking over and prevent the obviously discerning readership from getting terrified about change.
Each just found a group dynamic that worked and was popular and wound up sticking pretty much to it on the grounds that if you're doing something right you might as well run with it.
The guy behind Mrs Brown's Boys probably has much the same ethos.
Possibly, there's all sorts of constant references to what other characters are up to, the funneral, the citations for others after they took down Snap Trap's team, the montage of others Rewind has done his talk to, Magnus vision citing the dubious past actions of people he's walking past in the corridor and so on.
So that's two debatables, one mention and another visual joke (the past actions... were they all undertaken after joining the Lost Light?).
It'd probably be annoying if it was the only thing the book had, but it's insanely dense reading. Roberts packs a hell of a lot in there that goes way beyond cultural references and self-aware nods, it drips with historical and philosophical and even scientific allusions that the stories don't depend on you to get but do reward closer reading, which is a good part of the reason the threads for MTTME always wind up so long.
Seriously? It's throwaway pap that frequently touches on intriguing ideas and histories only to remain focused on lame jokes, second-hand characterisation, vague mystery, insincere poignancy and a general safe attitude. Roberts needs to trust in his big ideas instead of trotting out cheap crowd-pleasing "HAY BRIEFCASE!!!!" gags.
Skyquake87 wrote:Again, the toy pimping Idon't mind when its limited to stuff like the Spotlights (which I wish were a more regular thing) than being jammed into ongoing stories/ crossovers, as Dark Cybetron showed.
The toy pimping really has shown that Bob and Si could teach Roberts and Barber a thing or two; Crosscut isn't the worst thing IDW have ever done because there's serious competition, but he's certainly in the top ten. I do think the Nightbeat thing was hilarious, though - for once, IDW got it right and actually killed off a character for proper and in a really funny way. And they just happened to pick someone who'd get a new toy four or five years later, and being corporate stooges they have to get down, suck cock and undo the only brave and unexpected thing they've ever done. And the only reason it stands out so much is because they've been so shit-scared of killing characters off.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote:But it's also hardly a good explanation for a glaring problem either.
But even beyond the other arguments, isn't the important things always happening to the regular characters a basic conceit of all fiction set in a place with a large number of employees? Does anyone other than Columbo investigate celebrity murders? What are all the other people sitting in the NCIS office actually doing? What sort of insane shift pattern does the Enterprise have than means all seven of them work for 8 hours together and then for the next 8 at least one of them has to be on the bridge despite how knackering that must be for everyone who isn't Data?

Plus, it's not as if 200 is an insanely large amount (just slightly more than the full total of people I "work" with), if this were a problem wouldn't it be more of one for the RID/Windblade/The Acy's that are based on Cybertron and dealing with at least thousands living in Iacon? Does anyone other than Swindle do any buisness deals? What are the odds of lead character Starscream being the one the Titan makes a fuss of?

It's not just the term, though it is stupid. It's the idea that 20-odd issues of a comic can be retroactively declared a "season" and we're somehow meant to take that as an excuse for the limited scope and lazy storytelling - "Hey, it was only Season One"; Animated syndrome.
Whilst I think it was a term that they didn't start using till near the end of it (presumably because they hadn't decided on what was going to happen next, due to lead in times the Skids pack was written as a potential last ever issue as either a renumbering or a straight up new title were being seriously considered for post Dark Cybertron at that time), I don't think anyone has been less than enthusiastic in promoting the first season.

Indeed, one thing I really like about the early issues of both MTMTE and RID is the tremendous sense of pace, it really feels like neither book is pissing about anyone after years of drawn out plotting and at the time it was actually mildly surprising to see things like Tailgate's desire to be a Decepticon get wrapped up so quickly with no faffing. The increase in longer stories for both books has-at their best- given them more room to breath by that sense of pelting through gave them a nice zing feeling.


Passable moment from a Vic Chalker ripoff character. How long do you think he'll stay dead for? Longer than Nightbeat? Longer than Evil Medic Guy?
I hadn't heard of Vic Chalker before (assuming you mean the mutant and not the rocker the description of him on the Marvel wiki doesn't sound hugely like Pipes) so it's hard to comment there, but as far as the second point goes... well if you start thinking like that doesn't that completely ruin all Transformers fiction? Or indeed anything where the writer is working for hire on somebody else's franchise?

Roberts himself has been fairly upfront when asked about the Megatron as Autobot thing that he can't control what either Hasbro or his successors might decide down the line, he can only try to make us care about it now. I'd say the same applies to any deaths, just accept it for now on its own merrits and worry about what might happen three or whatever years down the line when it happens.

There's one resurrection early in season 2 (which I'm going to guess you haven't reached yet as I can't see you liking it and using it as exhibit A in your argument) that beforehand I was worried about happening as I thought it would be a terrible idea that would undo the very good work on that character's original departure. I wound up being pleasently surprised at how well it actually worked with a real emotional punch at the end.

The guy behind Mrs Brown's Boys probably has much the same ethos.
That's a bit of a strawman argument though as it surely applies to anyone working in serial fiction and you can find as many good example of writers responding to feedback when it came to characters as bad (Spock, Spike and Rollin Hand just being the first examples of "Hey, this is working, let's do more of it!" that paid dividends which popped into my head).

"I'm enjoying my work and it's proving to be popular... best mess things about then" said no writer ever.


Seriously? It's throwaway pap that frequently touches on intriguing ideas and histories only to remain focused on lame jokes, second-hand characterisation, vague mystery, insincere poignancy and a general safe attitude. Roberts needs to trust in his big ideas instead of trotting out cheap crowd-pleasing "HAY BRIEFCASE!!!!" gags.
Seriously. At it's worst I think MTMTE is still easily the best Transformers fiction in years and a strong contender for ever. At it's best, I'd hold it up alongside my all time favourite writing.

Now, I'm lucky in that it very much runs alongside my own tastes when it comes to fiction (anyone who is a fan who hasn't read him should really check out Robert Rankin, a similar "What actually matters is your mates and a pint" ethos and jigsaw clicking together plot structure) but I think the humour, emotion, plots and silliness do generally all balance out very well.

Now, I do think Roberts has his weaknessess and doesn't get everything right, and to be fair I'll go into that when I'm not posting when I should already be out the door and on the way to work. Stay tuned! (I'll respond to your points in the other thread tomorrow as well).


The toy pimping really has shown that Bob and Si could teach Roberts and Barber a thing or two; Crosscut isn't the worst thing IDW have ever done because there's serious competition, but he's certainly in the top ten. I do think the Nightbeat thing was hilarious, though - for once, IDW got it right and actually killed off a character for proper and in a really funny way. And they just happened to pick someone who'd get a new toy four or five years later, and being corporate stooges they have to get down, suck cock and undo the only brave and unexpected thing they've ever done. And the only reason it stands out so much is because they've been so shit-scared of killing characters off.
Yeah, the toy promotion in Dark Cybertron (and just before it), was pretty much a mess and where both authors struggled. Thankfully they (and Scott) seem to have a better handle on it now, I actually came out of her own series liking Windblade and with all the pitfalls that had to be avoided there that was something of a surprise.
Skyquake wrote:I think the characters thing does have some ground as a criticism - especially for MTMTE. We've a crew of 200 characters to choose from, but instead, the current focus is on a bunch of ...new additions to the crew!
True, but that's sods law that the bulk of new toys that had to be introduced were of characters that definitely weren't on the ship (with Riptide in retrospect a new character you couldn't be sure either way on so as to obscure the truth of the mystery Nightbeat investigates in the bottle issue).
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Post by Skyquake87 »

inflatable dalek wrote:Now, I'm lucky in that it very much runs alongside my own tastes when it comes to fiction (anyone who is a fan who hasn't read him should really check out Robert Rankin, a similar "What actually matters is your mates and a pint" ethos and jigsaw clicking together plot structure) but I think the humour, emotion, plots and silliness do generally all balance out very well.
I agree with this. This is why I enjoy MTMTE, in all honesty. I like there to be balance between whimsy and genuine drama and sci-fi stuffs, it just makes the book feel more lively and relatable...and human, I suppose. There's a bunch of characters here that I enjoy reading about and have to come to care for. I haven't felt like this about Transformers probably since Beast Wars.

Have you read Garth Ennis' run on Hellblazer, dalek? that might tickle your fancy if you haven't.
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Honestly don't know if I think take Cliffjumpers comments that seriously. His dislike of MTMTE seems to be based mostly on how much everyone else likes it. I get it nothing being everyones cup of tea and if someone doesn't like it, no problem. But the

But to make digs at a comic based on an fairly large cast because it doesn't expand to an even large cast?

To keep bringing up his favourite, Swerve, as a dead end that seemingly is always getting more story even though the guy has been nothing more than a background character for the most part and his last major issue was the holiday planet in issue 13 (25 issues ago!). Swerve is a bit of comic relief that you don't like - fine. But don't make out that Roberts forces him into all the main plot lines because that simply isn't the case.

By the way, your other favourite whirl has had a nice additional arc within the current plotline dealing with Megatron. Nothing ground breaking but enough justification for keeping that "dead end" around too.

On both these characters though the feeling I got from CJs dislike of them is simply that they are popular and Roberts relies on them too much - which is bollocks. And why bother creating characters at all if they have to be shelved once their main arc is done?

The dislike of the seasons thing is understandable I suppose (just another word from volume though at the end of the day) but I don't get the connection to the limited scope and lazy story telling. Honestly Cliff, have you read these comics? Like them or not - there is a huge amount of background work that has gone into these things and to still be having fairly solid pay-offs in issue 38 to things that preceded issue 1 (as in the LSOTW text stories and chaos theory) just doesn't match the idea that its all lazy hack work. Even when things don't quite work as planned there have been some nice bits of story telling - the use of Magnus closing hand in his death montage, the pre and post narrative in issue 12, the parallels between Megs and Trail cutter in issue 34....

I could go on but I know you'll disagree with me. But honestly? I just feel you come across like the snob music/movie/comic fan. What everyone likes is clearly wrong and only you can see the wood from the trees.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffy broke Dave.

More seriously, I'd say it's unfair to assign ulterior motives to Cliffy's dislike of the book without some sort of mind probe involved. I had the same thing happen to me with Mad Regeneration One fans claiming my dislike of the book was solely down to my Anti-Furman agenda. It was bloody annoying.

Cliffy is at least getting some good debating going even if I think some of his arguments are flawed (as he no doubt does mine).

Plus, he and Cyberstrike, who I believe is the other regular who isn't so hot on the book, are suddenly kindred spirits. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

@Skyquake: Yeah, bang on with my own views there. The way the characters behave just feels real (it's certainly basically the same as my place of work) which nicely grounds the big SF ideas.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Red Dave Prime wrote:WAAAAAAAH
I'm very, very sorry I was mean about your robot comic that you like.
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I'm not.
Response to serious posts will follow when I'm not juggling a toddler (a real-life toddler, that is). Having this folder buried in another layer really does make it a pain to keep an eye on these things. Still, got to keep the grubby unbelievers at arms' length, what?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

inflatable dalek wrote:But even beyond the other arguments, isn't the important things always happening to the regular characters a basic conceit of all fiction set in a place with a large number of employees?
"But other things do it".

My point is if Roberts only wants to write ten characters what do the other 190 do? Not a lot apart from dying if they're made up seems to be about the sum of it, and it destroys suspension of disbelief. If the others are always having big adventures a) can we, like, see some of them to break up the #epicbantz and b) it's a strange thing that favoured characters keep getting involved in their own big adventures, usually in the same rough grouping.

It's not below decks stuff because they all go and **** up Tyrest while Sunstreaker and Brawn are talking to their agent about how nice it would have been to get a couple of non-speaking background panel cameos in RiD. It started as below decks and initially it's refreshing to see people who aren't from 1984 but after 20-odd issues they've had more exposure than most Transformers. I'm up to 37 now and TBH the cast refresh hasn't helped - we're just going to have Riptide and Nautica worked into the ground for the next year or so.
the description of him on the Marvel wiki doesn't sound hugely like Pipes) so it's hard to comment there,
Joke character repeatedly comically injured on a semi-regular basis. Then dies. Seriously, all Pipes has to him is "get hurts quite often then dies". He's got a cute toy but other than that it was pretty hard to feel anything. Like I say, I'm on #37 and I don't care to read any further (OMFG WILL BRAINSTORM DESTROY MEGATRON?!?!?! How about "no"?) but it really wouldn't surprise me if the time travelling shakes out that an alive Pipes is back on the Lost Light with his arm in a sling or somesuch.
but as far as the second point goes... well if you start thinking like that doesn't that completely ruin all Transformers fiction? Or indeed anything where the writer is working for hire on somebody else's franchise? Roberts himself has been fairly upfront when asked about the Megatron as Autobot thing that he can't control what either Hasbro or his successors might decide down the line, he can only try to make us care about it now. I'd say the same applies to any deaths, just accept it for now on its own merrits and worry about what might happen three or whatever years down the line when it happens.
No. No-one is making Roberts repeatedly use fake deaths for cheap suspense. There are other ways to inject drama into something beyond pretending to kill someone off, which is one of the absolute cheapest devices in comics. If Hasbro aren't letting Roberts or Barber kill off Hasbro characters they need to stop using it as a plot device.

Well, they need to a year ago, but y'know.
There's one resurrection early in season 2 (which I'm going to guess you haven't reached yet as I can't see you liking it and using it as exhibit A in your argument) that beforehand I was worried about happening as I thought it would be a terrible idea that would undo the very good work on that character's original departure. I wound up being pleasently surprised at how well it actually worked with a real emotional punch at the end.
The cassette guy? Pretty numb by then, TBH, though not enough for how hugely contrived the whole thing is - the DJD suddenly decide they need to record this one, the only recording device avaliable is the only regular from the main crew who's dead at that precise moment, he then manages to run away from the DJD who then shrug their shoulders and wander off. It got that crucial status quo back I suppose.





Yeah, the toy promotion in Dark Cybertron (and just before it), was pretty much a mess and where both authors struggled. Thankfully they (and Scott) seem to have a better handle on it now, I actually came out of her own series liking Windblade and with all the pitfalls that had to be avoided there that was something of a surprise.
Nightbeat
Nightbeat's been the worst thing about the sequel so far for me. Roberts can't write him; he doesn't really get him in Eugenesis where he's just a nice well-rounded Autobot, but in MTMTE he's annoyingly off-key. It's probably just that he likes the guy too much and sort-of panics, the way Furman always wrote a crap Optimus Prime.

Megatron's the highlight so far; Roberts writes a great Prime and Megatron because he really gets inside their heads while keeping them as inspiring quasi-mythical superbeings
Red Dave Prime wrote:Honestly don't know if I think take Cliffjumpers comments that seriously. His dislike of MTMTE seems to be based mostly on how much everyone else likes it. I get it nothing being everyones cup of tea and if someone doesn't like it, no problem. But the

But to make digs at a comic based on an fairly large cast because it doesn't expand to an even large cast?

To keep bringing up his favourite, Swerve, as a dead end that seemingly is always getting more story even though the guy has been nothing more than a background character for the most part and his last major issue was the holiday planet in issue 13 (25 issues ago!). Swerve is a bit of comic relief that you don't like - fine. But don't make out that Roberts forces him into all the main plot lines because that simply isn't the case.

By the way, your other favourite whirl has had a nice additional arc within the current plotline dealing with Megatron. Nothing ground breaking but enough justification for keeping that "dead end" around too.

On both these characters though the feeling I got from CJs dislike of them is simply that they are popular and Roberts relies on them too much - which is bollocks. And why bother creating characters at all if they have to be shelved once their main arc is done?

The dislike of the seasons thing is understandable I suppose (just another word from volume though at the end of the day) but I don't get the connection to the limited scope and lazy story telling. Honestly Cliff, have you read these comics? Like them or not - there is a huge amount of background work that has gone into these things and to still be having fairly solid pay-offs in issue 38 to things that preceded issue 1 (as in the LSOTW text stories and chaos theory) just doesn't match the idea that its all lazy hack work. Even when things don't quite work as planned there have been some nice bits of story telling - the use of Magnus closing hand in his death montage, the pre and post narrative in issue 12, the parallels between Megs and Trail cutter in issue 34....

I could go on but I know you'll disagree with me. But honestly? I just feel you come across like the snob music/movie/comic fan. What everyone likes is clearly wrong and only you can see the wood from the trees.
Well, the thing is that you're proceeding from the false...

Nah, still too funny.
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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Wow. Zing. Think you are reading far too much agro into my initial reply.

And you go ahead and be as mean as you like to my ickle wickle comic Cliffy. Gotta get some pleasure in life, am I right?
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Post by Warcry »

Cliffjumper wrote:My point is if Roberts only wants to write ten characters what do the other 190 do? Not a lot apart from dying if they're made up seems to be about the sum of it, and it destroys suspension of disbelief. If the others are always having big adventures a) can we, like, see some of them to break up the #epicbantz and b) it's a strange thing that favoured characters keep getting involved in their own big adventures, usually in the same rough grouping.
I hadn't thought about it in quite this way, but now that you mention it...it's probably not a coincidence that the A-plot of my favourite recent issue was two second-stringers and two background grunts basically standing around a room talking for a dozen pages.

I do wonder, though...would the main characters doing everything be anywhere near as noticeable if the background crew were a bunch of no-name extras like on Star Trek rather than familiar characters with well-known bios and personalities? If the rest of the crew were people like Ammo, Atomizer, Dipstick and Turbine, I think it would be way less obvious than it is with the likes of Smokescreen, Hoist, Highbrow, Inferno, Blaster etc. mostly standing around not doing anything.
Cliffjumper wrote:Nightbeat's been the worst thing about the sequel so far for me. Roberts can't write him; he doesn't really get him in Eugenesis where he's just a nice well-rounded Autobot, but in MTMTE he's annoyingly off-key. It's probably just that he likes the guy too much and sort-of panics, the way Furman always wrote a crap Optimus Prime.
I thought it was just me!

Roberts' version of Nightbeat is painful. Why would a self-described lover of the old Marvel books take one of the most fun, lively characters from that continuity and turn him into a joyless, prickly shell of himself? I mean, if he wanted to write an asocial detective as a Sherlock reference, the work-obsessed (but otherwise painfully underdeveloped) Streetwise was literally right there.

Actually, that's been a pattern for me with most of Roberts' characters. The ones who've basically never done anything before, like Chromedome or Rewind or Tailgate or Whirl, I'm a big fan of (except for Swerve, he can **** off). But when he works with established characters in MTMTE, aside from Ratchet they've usually wound up looking pretty contorted. Sometimes he'll make them likeable anyway (Prime, Megatron and Cyclonus are all quite good) but in other cases (like Magnus, Skids, Rodimus and now Nightbeat) it's a train wreck. His take on Drift was especially ugly, a complete parody of what the character is supposed to be. And yes, I know Drift wasn't exactly popular when MTMTE started...but you can rehabilitate a character without effectively shouting "screw you" at the coworker who created him (and yes, I know McCarthy isn't exactly popular either).
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cliffjumper wrote:"But other things do it".
Not so much others as "Everyone".
My point is if Roberts only wants to write ten characters what do the other 190 do? Not a lot apart from dying if they're made up seems to be about the sum of it, and it destroys suspension of disbelief. If the others are always having big adventures a) can we, like, see some of them to break up the #epicbantz and b) it's a strange thing that favoured characters keep getting involved in their own big adventures, usually in the same rough grouping.
Were the Spotlights included in the Bundle? Hoist and Trailbreaker got their own adventures in there.

Remain in Light is perhaps a bad example to hold up of this as it's very much the point where they do stop being Lower Decks style characters, Rodimus goes out of his way to pick them (except Swerve) because of their prior experiences, as opposed to the more random (though yes, still requiring a . It's a shift in focus for the series.

I know it's unusal for Transformers comics, which traditionally love to keep throwing new characters in at a rate of knots, but considering it's far more common for an ongoing series (in any medium) to focus on a small cast even in an environment with a lot of people who may or may not be interesting in their own right it just seems a bit strange to be complaining about it.
No. No-one is making Roberts repeatedly use fake deaths for cheap suspense. There are other ways to inject drama into something beyond pretending to kill someone off, which is one of the absolute cheapest devices in comics. If Hasbro aren't letting Roberts or Barber kill off Hasbro characters they need to stop using it as a plot device.
Oh yes, the fake deaths were a big bugbear of mine.

Not because of characters being in jeopardy or even seemingly being killed, I'm not an idiot and accept the potential of risk to the leads even though they're obviously completely safe is a perfectly normal part of drama and especially the old fashioned serial cliffhanger storytelling of an ongoing comic book.

My issue was simply how it was done so often in the early days. Rung wasn't killed? Fair enough, but after presenting him as such it's mildly rubbish to have him revealed to have survived in such an offhand way in a throaway line in the next issue. Same with Red Alert and the second time Minimus is seemed to be killed (though Magnus' first ressurection I didn't have a problem with as it was an actual part of the mystery).

Thankfully that seems to have stopped now, even if it's legacy lives on and still hurts the book and you get things like many people assuming Trailbreaker hadn't been killed even though the art is fairly explicit on the destruction of his brain module.

The shame is, when Roberts does it right he really gets it right. I love how Tailgate is handled, his terminal disease is introduced and then the story plays with your expectations by introducting three different ways he might be saved (the Miracle Moon, an Ambus who may be the same one mentioned as having researched the illness and Pharma's super lab) and undrmining all of them as the adventure goes along, whilst at the same time introducing the actual solution in a entirely throwaway manner with the reminder that swords like Drift's are supposed to have magic powers.

With the actual McGuffin nature of the sword not mattering a jot as what actually saves Tailgate is Cyclonus not killing Whirl and achieving redemption in his own arc.

From a structural point of view, that's just perfect writing (ironically in a story that otherwise has a wonky structure, MTMTE may not have been hit as hard as RID was by the arrival of Dark Cybertron but right at the end there it does wobble), successfully misdirecting you whilst still playing fair and giving a fantastic payoff (I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Magnus Cyclonus handshake).

I occasionally have delusions of fiction writing (some of you have had the misfortune of seeing various submissions I've made over the years), but that's the sort of perfection that makes me realise just how inadequate my efforts are.

Of course, the irony is, whilst Roberts was being berated for not following through on killing characters, Barber was coming under fire for killing off too many toy based bots. And the bait and switch on that in RID was one of the finest rug pulls in that series, indeed one of the last really great moments before things started to go badly wrong ("It's not a trap if you know it's a trap!" oh **** off and die Bumblebee. Oh, you did. Thanks).

The cassette guy? Pretty numb by then, TBH, though not enough for how hugely contrived the whole thing is - the DJD suddenly decide they need to record this one, the only recording device avaliable is the only regular from the main crew who's dead at that precise moment, he then manages to run away from the DJD who then shrug their shoulders and wander off. It got that crucial status quo back I suppose.
Surely the DJD made him film because they're sadistic bastards tormenting him rather than out of any desperate desire for home movies?

Nightbeat's been the worst thing about the sequel so far for me. Roberts can't write him; he doesn't really get him in Eugenesis where he's just a nice well-rounded Autobot, but in MTMTE he's annoyingly off-key. It's probably just that he likes the guy too much and sort-of panics, the way Furman always wrote a crap Optimus Prime.
Yeah, I've no idea what's going on with Nightbeat (I can only assume Warcry doesn't read my posts as I've been going on about this for ages). I could buy him being different as a result of being in a Dead Universe for years after being shot in the head, but everyone else reacts to him as if he's always been like that. Which he wasn't as recently as the flashback in Shadowplay from the same author. Very odd.
Megatron's the highlight so far; Roberts writes a great Prime and Megatron because he really gets inside their heads while keeping them as inspiring quasi-mythical superbeings
You do like to be contrary ;).

Most people seem to have taken a while to warm up to Megatron because the whole "Now an Autobot" idea is such a reach (it's not so much Magneto leading the X-Men as Hitler being made Mayor of the Isle of White), I think it took till the chat with Ravage for it to really click for most of us.



From the other thread rather than trying to carry on conversations at cross-purposes...
How can you spoil a reveal about a thirty-year old character doing what they've been doing for thirty-odd years?
Well fair enough, if you genuinely think you'd have guessed before turning that page that the Senator was Shockwave (or maybe even did, I'm assuming you read the RID follow up issue first) then more power to you.

But absolutely no one else did. In a series where the way Roberts generally plays fair with set up and that has attentive fans it's not uncommon for the major plot beats of an issue to be worked out in advance (though even at my smartest there's always enough curveballs there to keep it interesting), but I'm not aware of a single person who actually worked that one out in advance.

What I love about that, beyond the surprise and the horror of it, is how it works on multiple levels. If you're a long standing fan it subverts the usual joke about Shockwave being Behind Everything, this time he's the victim of the real puppet masters behind the scenes.

[Probably unintentionally that one though, Roberts didn't know Dreamwave had already done a "Ultra Magnus has a little guy inside him" story and therefore may not have been fully aware of the "Shockwave did it" gag, IIRC he didn't get back into TF comics until Nick Roche got his first gig. But it works.]

If you're not a long standing fan, or even haven't heard of Shockwave, it's the brutal mutilation of a sympathetic (though Roberts nicely doesn't make pre-alteration Shockwave out and out nice, there are edges there) minor character but more importantly an insight into a regular's backstory. That final shot had happened previously to Whirl, and it suddenly brings his entire character into focus. Very nicely done.

The follow up in RID dropped the ball badly (Shockwave just went back to work without comment from anyone else?) and Dark Cybertron played into the "Shockwave did it" cliché wholeheartedly, but Shadowplay does it about perfectly.
Warcry wrote: I do wonder, though...would the main characters doing everything be anywhere near as noticeable if the background crew were a bunch of no-name extras like on Star Trek rather than familiar characters with well-known bios and personalities? If the rest of the crew were people like Ammo, Atomizer, Dipstick and Turbine, I think it would be way less obvious than it is with the likes of Smokescreen, Hoist, Highbrow, Inferno, Blaster etc. mostly standing around not doing anything.
That's a good point, but it's worth remembering that whatever attatchment we have to their toys and previous iterations, most of these guys are just reccuring background extras as far as IDW (and even beyond, when was the last time Hound got to do anything before his nice and understated role as third in command in the first season? The opening of the cartoon?) are concerned. Off the top of my head Blaster and Sunstreaker and the only previously heavily featured players to be treated in that way (and both have had moments), wondering why Smokescreen never gets more to do is like asking why Star Trek never did an episode about Mr. Leslie.

And sure, Roberts could be taking these long ignored characters and fleshing them out (and hopefully he or someone else will do that one day), but he's already doing that with the actual lead characters of the book. Trying to do everyone would be much less satisfying, and probably more like one of the things I wasn't so hot on with Eugenesis where it hops about madly from character to character and subplot to subplot but only allowing Nightbeat's (funnily enough) thread to properly play out.
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Post by Unicron »

inflatable dalek wrote:Yeah, I've no idea what's going on with Nightbeat (I can only assume Warcry doesn't read my posts as I've been going on about this for ages). I could buy him being different as a result of being in a Dead Universe for years after being shot in the head, but everyone else reacts to him as if he's always been like that. Which he wasn't as recently as the flashback in Shadowplay from the same author. Very odd.
Just to randomly comment on a tiny thing...
A possible answer to this is Information Creep. Their memories of what he was like have degraded and their exposure to him now makes them think he always acted that way. Remember, his appearance at the beginning Shadowplay wasn't part of anyone's telling of their recollections, it was part of the framing of the story for the reader's benefit, sort of like the Shockwave reveal at the end.

Of course, that theory falls apart when you remember he was active and alive until a couple of years before Dark Cybertron, though he was a bit of a loner. Could still work, but it's a stretch.
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