AHM #14 (possible spoilers)

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Sat May 09, 2009 3:54 pm

Havent found this anywhere but heres a link to IDWs preview page for AHM 14:

http://www.idwpublishing.com/catalog/issue/686

Finally we find out how sunstreakers head (I'm assuming this is hunter releated) can shut down galaxy wide defences. Ahem.

Quite like the cover, and the return of both Galvatron and cyclonus is welcomed (by me anyway)

Sorry if this has already been posted.

MeGrimlock · Post by **MeGrimlock** » Tue May 12, 2009 8:42 am

I'd welcome Galvatron and Cyclonus' return too, if it were written by Furman. I have the unpleasant feeling that IDW has dropped Furman's storyline about Galvatron (didn't the last page of Revelation end with Galvatron's return many metacycles later?).

The Sunstreaker patch is embarassing: what is that makes AHM so worth that there's this obsession with wrapping uf stuff? Why wasn't the Revelation saga equally worthy?

Hennessy · Post by **Hennessy** » Thu May 14, 2009 12:12 pm

Here's the Hutchison cover

StarscreamX · Post by **StarscreamX** » Thu May 14, 2009 12:47 pm

(didn't the last page of Revelation end with Galvatron's return many metacycles later?).

It didn't explicitly state that, no. Jetfire was talking about all that happened after the Expansion incident but it never out and out said for a fact that Galvatron's return was many years later.

I just hope he'll be the calm, intelligent implacable man rather than his cartoon style "Raving Loony" portrayal.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:13 pm

I think it's a fair bet that an unspecified period of time immersed in a Solar Pool will have altered his mindset to whatever the author requires, to be honest.

Post by **Blackjack** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:39 pm

Halfshell wrote:I think it's a fair bet that an unspecified period of time immersed in a Solar Pool will have altered his mindset to whatever the author requires, to be honest.

Yeah. Ain't it convenient? Same thing happened with cartoon Galvy. Drop him into that lava planet (Thrall? Thrull?) then he becomes a raving lunatic psycho.

Still, his welcome should be welcome. What I really look forward to seeing is Cyclonus, though.

Starfield · Post by **Starfield** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:56 pm

I'm starting to think that Hail and Farewell will still end up being accurate. Sunstreaker is still in Hunter and the pair will be restored as Hunterstreaker. (Like Hi-Q and Optimus.)

Or something.

Post by **Denyer** » Thu May 14, 2009 6:29 pm

http://tformers.com/transformers-idws-a ... /news.html

&quot wrote:while showing reverence to the classic TRANSFORMERS series

In other words, "the original material tended to lack internal logic and leave plot holes you could drive a Mack truck through, and we thought we'd try to homage that" ?

We decided to do the extension because we didn’t want to leave fans hanging

It was always an option to put the story of AHM in AHM's twelve allocated issues, wasn't it? Rather than bolting on continuity patches after moving the timeline forward a year before bothering to close existing storylines. The only reason fans would be left hanging is because, despite the amount of page space dedicated to AHM proper, most of it was Decepticons scratching around on Earth or Autobots scratching around on Cybertron, neither group actually doing much.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Fri May 15, 2009 2:08 pm

Mhm. It's one thing to spill over into extra issues because the story's too damn big. It's another to do it when absolutely nothing happened for the first half of the scheduled run.

"Didn't want to leave fans hanging" is pathetic PR bullshit. If they gave a toss about giving adequate service to storylines that the fans are interested in, then I want to know how the hell they justify Revelation. The Peacekeeper Wars and Serenity had the excuse of "they're not actually letting us make anymore so we have to squeeze it all in to this one" - IDW truncated a year's worth of story so they could tell something less interesting at the same time.

I gave AHM the chance of the full 12 issues on the grounds that "well I'm halfway through so may as well let it finish." Coda is taking the piss and can **** right off.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Fri May 15, 2009 2:52 pm

"they're not actually letting us make anymore so we have to squeeze it all in to this one

But isnt that kind of what happened? IDW decided furman had been in charge for long enough and werent overly happy with sales so they decided to pitch up with a new guy?

Not that I'm advocating their actions - revelations would have been excellent if (a) it had been 2 issues longer (b) had of focused on Jetfire and Nemisis Prime instead of Sideswipe (actually just drop his story) and Double dealer and of course (c) they never used the stupid magnificence thing (A simple mind link when Jetfire used the craddle to control Thunderwing could have explained how he got access to Jiaxus plans)

As it is though Revelations Doesnt read so bad when you have all 4 issues together.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Fri May 15, 2009 3:20 pm

Red Dave Prime wrote:But isnt that kind of what happened? IDW decided furman had been in charge for long enough and werent overly happy with sales so they decided to pitch up with a new guy?

Not my point.

Serenity wasn't in cinemas whilst Fox simultaneously ran "Firefly - the Saffron years, co-starring Tom Welling."

Rockne O'Bannon wasn't forced to squeeze a year's worth of Farscape plot into three hours solely because the network decided they wanted him to junk the existing story in favour of an exciting new arc focussing on the Zenetian Pirates.

In the scheme of "coda stories that blatantly consist of a massive story arc crammed into a fraction of what was intended", Revelation has to deal with the fact it ran concurrent to a different story in the same continuity that stole its publication schedule. And was crap. And, as such, leaves a far more bitter taste in the mouth.

Peacekeeper Wars may not be perfect, but has the excuse of "well, at least they managed to finish it despite being cancelled".

If IDW weren't willing to let Furman actually finish telling the story, why the hell give him the two years he got? Would an extra two months (and lets face it, most of Revelation's problems could have been ironed out by the addition of two extra issues... the irony being the preceding six issue minis could actually have been chopped down to four) have really sunk the ship?

If nobody's watching a season of 24, are Fox going to wait until episode 19 before canning it? Unlikely.

Bollocks to the whole ****ing company.

I wouldn't mind so much if All Hail Megatron wasn't insultingly bad and IDW's response to criticism wasn't so abhorrent.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri May 15, 2009 10:02 pm

So if these issues are a "Must read" does that not imply that the previous 12 issues weren't?

I'm pretty much down with Halfshell on this, and am equally amused and cheesed off at the attempts at damage limitation being presented as a bold new direction. I can see me not making it as far as my original intent to see who's on the ongoing at this rate. After pretty much twenty years of sticking with the comics through good times and bad this camels back now only needs one more straw.

MeGrimlock · Post by **MeGrimlock** » Sat May 16, 2009 9:22 am

inflatable dalek wrote:So if these issues are a "Must read" does that not imply that the previous 12 issues weren't?

LOL!

I agree with you and Halfshell just about everything, and I would like to add that maybe this is the "partial reboot" that Zander Cannon inadvertently mentioned a few months ago.
Maybe IDW is trying to say: "We were just kidding with AHM and screwing all the good changes Furman brought. Now we're going back to stick with his continuity, even if AHM rebooted just about everything. And we will do incredibly complex capers to wrap everything together, doing exactly the kind of continuity-lover-fanboy job that doesn't draw occasional readers and that we were trying to drop when we launched AHM. And we'll go back to our previous style, but we'll do it with OTHER writers, just because."

Rossum · Post by **Rossum** » Sat May 16, 2009 4:21 pm

This makes me curious about what the first pitch for AHM was, and how the story was originally meant to play out. I know the sudden jolt into continuity in the second half was supposedly planned all along, but the fact that there are loose ends like the Matrix that need to be wrapped up in extra issues kinda really suggests that the story didn't get to go as written.

Likewise, if they did make major changes to address fan complaints, I wonder why. Given that the sales for AHM have been OK, and there seems to be an equal, or maybe greater, number of people (online, anyway) who love it as those who hate it, it wouldn't be surprising if they had chosen to stay the course and ignore the disgruntled fans entirely.

Patapsco · Post by **Patapsco** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:48 am

I've been pondering this for a while, so I'll throw it out there: How the hell do IDW's editors keep their jobs? We've had the convoluted mish-mash of Devastation which is followed up by a derailed mess in Revelation, a now a soft reboot which pays not attention to continuity in AHM, which was then shoe-horned back into the main continuity and now has to have four more issues to fill out details which were ingnored in the main 12 issue run. So again, how do the editors still have jobs?

MeGrimlock · Post by **MeGrimlock** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:55 am

Hmm, actually they don't, or so it seems to me. Isn't this the third/fourth change of editor?
Taylor, that other one I don't even remember because he lasted like 5 minutes, that interregnum when Eric Holmes did that stuff about Megatron's origin and no one cared, Tipton, Schmidt...

StarscreamX · Post by **StarscreamX** » Mon May 25, 2009 8:50 pm

Maybe IDW is trying to say: "We were just kidding with AHM and screwing all the good changes Furman brought. Now we're going back to stick with his continuity, even if AHM rebooted just about everything. And we will do incredibly complex capers to wrap everything together, doing exactly the kind of continuity-lover-fanboy job that doesn't draw occasional readers and that we were trying to drop when we launched AHM. And we'll go back to our previous style, but we'll do it with OTHER writers, just because."

Yes, because nothing draws in casual readers like crappy cliched stories with characters that have all the depth of a paddling pool.

If it's a choice between conitnuity-heavy stories that rely on what's gone before or AHM's first 9 issues, I'll go with option one.

Rossum · Post by **Rossum** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:22 am

StarscreamX wrote:Yes, because nothing draws in casual readers like crappy cliched stories with characters that have all the depth of a paddling pool.

It's pretty evident that a number of fans look to the comics to see their toys walking and talking and fighting more than anything. Story and depth come second, if at all.