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

[Cliffjumper]

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?

Oh, you. Don't be such a tart.

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

Assuming there's no closure coming from that last enigmatic sentence fragment, you're proceeding from the false assumption that I dislike MTME. I don't, that's why I've read thirty odd issues of it. I just don't think it's all that for certain reasons I've laid out.

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

I didn't say it should expand but instead maybe either rotate or stop tantalising with glimpses of other characters only to trot out the same few.

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.

No, but he is still reliably dug up for a cheap joke.

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.

I don't think I said he shouldn't be kept around; he just doesn't need to be omnipresent. Trailbreaker is someone who's got about the right level of exposure within the title - it's never quite forgotten he's there so he's not an arsepull when he comes into the mix but at the same time he doesn't need to follow the A plot around every issue.

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?

Your feelings don't seem to actually relate to a lot of what I've said, especially this feeling of absolutism like the idea of shelving characters.

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 probably is part of it. And I know not being on the Lost Light is no guarantee of big action anywhere (ask Tracks and Cliffjumper) but it does seem a waste; Highbrow especially is something of an aberration considering the uses he'd theoretically have whereas IIRC he's only been 'used' as a couple of throwaway punchlines.

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.

I seriously think it's adulation-freeze. Roberts clearly likes Nightbeat so much he's reining himself in too much. I agree with you - I think the nub of his 'problem' is that he has far too much respect for most of what's gone before, and that's why he's largely happier with characters who've had minimal previous work done - Rewind, Ironfist, Whirl, Swerve, Tailgate, Chromedome, Pyro, Guzzle etc. are all blank slates while even the likes of Brainstorm, the Jumpstarters and Impactor are relatively unploughed. Whereas the more exposed Rodimus and Magnus end up as weird exaggerated cariacatures. Ratchet finds the balance a bit better but then he's basically not too far off his Marvel self.

Not so much others as "Everyone".

The better ones have an in-fiction reasoning, though - in Trek it's that the bridge crew are at the sharp end of any exciting situation, making the calls for their various departments. In any cop show it's because your ace detective or team are actively dealing with the situation because they have the skills.

Were the Spotlights included in the Bundle? Hoist and Trailbreaker got their own adventures in there.

No, but I've read Trailbreaker's and it was pretty weak.

[qupte]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. [/quote]

It's more a problem because most of them get mined out pretty quickly and there's an easy out - stop taking the psycho loose cannon on missions, etc.

(will respond to rest in a bit, above has been typed over about 12 hours and I keep losing my thread)

[inflatable dalek]

I seriously think it's adulation-freeze. Roberts clearly likes Nightbeat so much he's reining himself in too much. I agree with you - I think the nub of his 'problem' is that he has far too much respect for most of what's gone before, and that's why he's largely happier with characters who've had minimal previous work done - Rewind, Ironfist, Whirl, Swerve, Tailgate, Chromedome, Pyro, Guzzle etc. are all blank slates while even the likes of Brainstorm, the Jumpstarters and Impactor are relatively unploughed. Whereas the more exposed Rodimus and Magnus end up as weird exaggerated cariacatures. Ratchet finds the balance a bit better but then he's basically not too far off his Marvel self.

I'd think that's fair, Roberts himself has talked about preferring to develop ignored characters.

Ratchet is probably the most consistent G1 character, I don't think any author has ever not done him well (though the Jeffrey Combs voiced "Grumpy old man" he was before getting his new hands was a bit of a departure from how he was before in IDW). The stuff between him and First Aid over Ambulon probably doesn't get as much love as it deserves.

The better ones have an in-fiction reasoning, though - in Trek it's that the bridge crew are at the sharp end of any exciting situation, making the calls for their various departments. In any cop show it's because your ace detective or team are actively dealing with the situation because they have the skills.

There's usually some sort of handwave in MTMTE as well though: Getting grabbed by the Galactic Council, "Compatible Spark types", Swerve and Rewind being the ones out on Punishment Detail when Maximus goes nuts and so on. It is a conceit, but not an especially harmful one IMO.

No, but I've read Trailbreaker's and it was pretty weak.

Ah, so references to everyone's other adventures isn't enough, actually seeing their other adventures isn't enough, you want to see them and for them to be also good? You know what you want? The moon on a stick

Hoist is fairly average as well, that run of Spotlights mainly levelled out as solid rather than spectacular.

[Warcry]

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.

You keep saying that, but what the art actually shows is more like "mild deformation" than "destruction".

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.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but you know...that makes perfect sense.

Generally I'm with you on this...the concept of death fake-outs isn't the problem, it was the frequency of them. And unfortunately for the fairly well thought out story with Tailgate, it had the misfortune of happening right after they playing the "he's dead, Jim...hahaha, fooled you!" card with Magnus twice in the same story arc (three times if you count the big red X over his face in the issue where he got injured), in the same issue as an imagine-sequence that pretended to kill Whirl and not long after pretend-deaths for Rung, Red Alert and all of those crew members who "burned up in the atmosphere" in issue #1.

In isolation I can look at the Tailgate thing and say "you know, that's pretty well done!" but following hot on the heels of all the rest it didn't get much more than an eye-roll and a groan from me at the time.

To his credit Roberts has moved away from that in the recent batch of issues (though not entirely...don't forget the coffin and the fact that he deliberately held Rodimus out of the first couple issues for no reason so we'd believe it might be the real thing), but any points he earned are at least partly offset by bringing Rewind back, so far seemingly just for Tumblr-bait.

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.

Yes and no. People were annoyed by Roberts playing the same they're-dead-but-not-really game with his lead characters, and people were annoyed by Barber casually killing off named characters for shock value as if they were nameless background extras. But I don't think it was the acts themselves that bothered readers so much as the fact that they did those same things over and over again until they became trite and predictable. I shouldn't be able to assume that Rodimus isn't dead because of course he's not, Roberts is writing this book. Nor should I automatically know that Slugslinger's going to die if he randomly pops up in Barber's work and doesn't have a new toy out.

(I will admit to being genuinely pissed off by the "100 Autobots just burned up in the atmosphere/no wait, never mind, they're perfectly fine except these two generics" thing in MTMTE 1 and 2, though. Never have I seen a story backpedal so fast.)

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 only read your posts to find things to argue about. You can't expect me to care about the rest of the content too!

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.

By that logic, the big Batman/Superman crossover movie they're making could feature Bruce Wayne silently standing in the background in every second shot but never actually doing anything and we shouldn't complain because he's not an established character in the Man of Steel universe.

If characters that the fans like (and with Transformers, that's basically everyone) show up and don't do anything, then people are going to complain. Fill out the crowd scenes with generics if you don't want that. Only in Transformers does "throw as many well-known characters as you can into every background shot even if you never intend to do anything with them" pass muster as a creative technique. It's not 1986 anymore and the creative team's jobs no longer depend on cramming as many toys as they can into every issue, but I don't think they got the memo.

Also, Hound was a pretty major player in the Furman era of the IDW books and was basically in command of Cybertron at one point when his unit was guarding Thunderwing's body. It was a while ago, but at the start of MTMTE he was already pretty well established in the IDW universe.

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.

Then why is Smokescreen there to begin with instead of some nobody that the fans don't care about?

That probably is part of it. And I know not being on the Lost Light is no guarantee of big action anywhere (ask Tracks and Cliffjumper) but it does seem a waste; Highbrow especially is something of an aberration considering the uses he'd theoretically have whereas IIRC he's only been 'used' as a couple of throwaway punchlines.

Highbrow in particular is the one that really jumps out at me too, actually. The book has made several references to the backstory he shares with Brainstorm and Chromedome, how they're old buddies who were at the Institute together, etc. But in spite of those two being major characters and their social circle being a big part of the book, I don't think he's even had a single line of dialogue.

[Terome]

I've been thinking about this thread a bit today. I think I agree with the premise - it would be nice to mine some of that potential that has been hanging about for the past three years.

I genuinely thought that Whirl and Cyclonus, at least, would be background characters at this point. And I'm still not completely sold on the Rewind resurrection. The fake-out deaths were cheap and don't age well, especially on a binge-read.

But it's just that I don't mind so much.

Same for cases like Nightbeat. I know he's a totally different character from the guy who got shot in the head and I do wish he'd stayed dead to keep that moment from meaning something. But I like it when he does his things.

I guess my position here is: I am amiable and relatively easy to please. I wouldn't call More Than Meets The Eye the greatest thing in the world but I enjoy it a lot and look forward to reading it.

It's good to reaffirm that perspective!

[zigzagger]

I guess my position here is: I am amiable and relatively easy to please. I wouldn't call More Than Meets The Eye the greatest thing in the world but I enjoy it a lot and look forward to reading it.

Yep, that's pretty much where I am at with the book too (shocking, I know).

That's not to say I haven't quibbled over MTMTE's shortcomings as well -- I have done so openly (i.e. the DJD, Magnus's OCD schtick, etc) -- and I think it's important to point them out. Keeps discussions balanced and, quite frankly, more interesting

And, likewise, I too agree with the premise of this thread. It's crossed my mind.

Thinking on it, it's something I've expressed from time to time in the MTMTE threads. Completely agree with the complaint about Highbrow though, what with his past co-workers being in close proximity, and still have issues with characters like Xaaron or Sunstreaker being under-utilized, both of whom you'd think have something to say or do knowing their history in the IDW-verse.

Sunstreaker in particular was always a baffling one for me, and felt like a huge missed opportunity. Fallout from AHM aside, you'd figure Fortress Maximus would've had words with him, since the invasion of Garrus-9 was partly Sunstreaker's fault. Hell, at very least we should've seen some kind of exchange between him and Ratchet, since both of them go all the way back to the -Ations. So much lost potential there.

[Cliffjumper]

Surely the DJD made him film because they're sadistic bastards tormenting him rather than out of any desperate desire for home movies?

Okay. So they randomly decided to completely torment the one guy who'd died on 'our' Lost Light and then let him wander off for no apparent reason. It's a massive contrivance either way. To be fair I didn't personally think Rewind was dead for one second (sent off into space locked in a box with a bad guy who'll be back one day and blown up in a nice detail-free explosion when we're talking about a book where favoured characters can survive having heads obliterated), I just didn't expect the Backwards resolution to be used when it shits over both Rewind and Chromedome while also remaining insultingly implausible.

I'm still agog that character deaths in IDW's universe can have any impact on anyone. Transformers is a tough gig in this respect because you never know what Hasbro/future writer is going to come up with that'll cause revertion and the characters have a history of being repaired but I don't think anyone's really cheapened it as much as IDW have; it means the occasions where someone's come in and said "look, you've got to have Nightbeat back" are less forgivable because we're already on X years of having writers who simply do not follow through.

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.

I think it's a gimmicky concept (like Optimus Prime 'dying' at the start of the MTMTE/RID reboot) and some of the way it's been applied is hokey (making him captain just doesn't fly) but the idea's got potential that's coming through.

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.

Not so much guessed as wasn't surprised; they're two different things, like the way you'd never guess before reading DW V2 that Magnus is Prime's white twin brother in armour but you're not exactly surprised when it actually comes out. It's the same with the senator - he's obviously going to end up being turned into some big bad, preferably the most ironic and cruel. Who he actually turned into is effectively irrelevant because that he turns into some great soulless evil is quite heavily telegraphed.

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.

No, he's already done that with the leads of the book, most of whom stagnate quite badly. Seriously, between his establishment as dangerous weapons lunatic and his reveal as a Decepticon plant (thanks to a Decepticon insignia being printed on the inside of his faceplate... uhhhh?*) where exactly does Brainstorm develop?

* = the whole Rewind/DJD/alternate Lost Light arc was outright weak to me, I'm afraid. The disappearing characters/ship part was padded and predictable (did anyone NOT guess why people were disappearing before Notbeat? Did anyone for a split second think the Lost Light would be ditched so early on?), the idea that a duplicate ship full of our heroes could be created and then wholesale butchered all without anyone really noticing is cheap (and I have big problems with the power levels of the DJD because we all know if/when they run into the Lost Light crew they're not going to massacre them) and the resurrection was contrived.



There's usually some sort of handwave in MTMTE as well though: Getting grabbed by the Galactic Council, "Compatible Spark types", Swerve and Rewind being the ones out on Punishment Detail when Maximus goes nuts and so on. It is a conceit, but not an especially harmful one IMO.

You keep saying that, but what the art actually shows is more like "mild deformation" than "destruction".

Yeh, he's not dead.

Generally I'm with you on this...the concept of death fake-outs isn't the problem, it was the frequency of them.

Yup. This has probably been exaggerated due to the fact I read the first five or six trades in the space of a few days rather than monthly but you're just numb after a while.

[inflatable dalek]

You keep saying that, but what the art actually shows is more like "mild deformation" than "destruction".

His brain was pushed into a forcefield! Now, (a seeming minority, as discussed before the reaction on Twitter was mass upset) people not buying it is largely Roberts fault for going to that well too many times before but that's not a problem with the art, indeed it seems to be trying very hard to say "No more pissing about with this" as a statement of intent.

Indeed, the feint with his almost imediate return in the past and the offer of possible salvation seems to be making a similar statement.

Though for my sins, it didn't click until it was mentioned in the podcast interview in the 38 thread (which I may mention again in this post) that the whole "Don't go to that planet" thing with Trailbreaker was a part of the overall Back to the Future pastiche and a variation on Marty trying to warn 1955 Doc about his shooting.

in the same issue as an imagine-sequence that pretended to kill Whirl and not long after pretend-deaths for Rung, Red Alert and all of those crew members who "burned up in the atmosphere" in issue #1.

Oh, I think that one worked great. Partly because it was resolved immediately, but mainly because you really needed something to hammer home that Cyclonus was seriously considering it and would have been fully capable of following through, but chose to change. Without it there'd be some ambiguity that he didn't kill Whirl simply because his Klingon code of honour wouldn't let him slay an unarmed and badly damaged opponent.

To his credit Roberts has moved away from that in the recent batch of issues (though not entirely...don't forget the coffin and the fact that he deliberately held Rodimus out of the first couple issues for no reason so we'd believe it might be the real thing), but any points he earned are at least partly offset by bringing Rewind back, so far seemingly just for Tumblr-bait.

Didn't mind the coffin thing so much as that felt more like a case of "So what's going on here then" than OMG Rodimus is dead! Plus, considering how dickish Optimus was in putting Megatron in joint charge on a civilian mission that a military dictator like Prime should have dubious authority over (presumably it was a condition on being allowed to leave the planet?) I didn't have any issues with Rodimus retreating into a sulk in protest.

(I will admit to being genuinely pissed off by the "100 Autobots just burned up in the atmosphere/no wait, never mind, they're perfectly fine except these two generics" thing in MTMTE 1 and 2, though. Never have I seen a story backpedal so fast.)

Oh yes, I missed that off the list of bad ones, but it's a good call. Issue 1 would have ended just as well if it had been a case of "These guys are in danger, we need to go rescue them!".

I only read your posts to find things to argue about. You can't expect me to care about the rest of the content too!

And you wonder why I keep repeating myself?

By that logic, the big Batman/Superman crossover movie they're making could feature Bruce Wayne silently standing in the background in every second shot but never actually doing anything and we shouldn't complain because he's not an established character in the Man of Steel universe.

Ah, but I didn't say they couldn't add new characters

It's more like how The X-Men movies treat lots of actually proper main characters from the comics, what's the point of giving (and I'm going to have to go for an example whose role increased across the films as my brain is fritted on the rest of background mutants at the moment) a major mutant like Cyclopse background roles and three lines in the original trilogy rather than creating a new character fans won't be disappointed in being marginalised?

Thinking on it, there's probably a dull real world practicality reason for that and things like Smokescreen. You've got a large school/ship to fill, it's just easier and quicker to create the guys in the background from pre-existing fodder than try to come up with all new powers/new robot designs for folks who won't get much page/screentime. Certainly based on his twitter feed, keeping up with Roberts scripts often pushes Milne to the edge of a nervous breakdown, one place he can save time is probably something of a relief.

Only in Transformers does "throw as many well-known characters as you can into every background shot even if you never intend to do anything with them" pass muster as a creative technique.

Well, as said the X-Men movies do it (any comic readers, do crowd shots in the school do the same there?), and that like Transformers is one of the few franchises to have a ridiculous amount of named characters, and I suspect our boys have it beat by a massive margin. Saying "Other people don't really do this" when it'd basically be impossible for most of them to fill out a crowd of a 100 with every one someone the reader will recognise is somewhat unfair, they literally can't do it anyway.

The real problem was that in Dreamwave and a lot of IDW no one was actually keeping track of which characters were where, luckily that's something Barber seems to have a much better handle on.

Also, Hound was a pretty major player in the Furman era of the IDW books and was basically in command of Cybertron at one point when his unit was guarding Thunderwing's body. It was a while ago, but at the start of MTMTE he was already pretty well established in the IDW universe.

I just knew I'd pick the guy who'd done lots I'd forgotten about. Bugger.

Ziggy makes some excellent points about how Sunstreaker in particular could have been used, that is a missed opportunity there and one that hadn't occurred to me.

Okay. So they randomly decided to completely torment the one guy who'd died on 'our' Lost Light and then let him wander off for no apparent reason. It's a massive contrivance either way. To be fair I didn't personally think Rewind was dead for one second (sent off into space locked in a box with a bad guy who'll be back one day and blown up in a nice detail-free explosion when we're talking about a book where favoured characters can survive having heads obliterated), I just didn't expect the Backwards resolution to be used when it shits over both Rewind and Chromedome while also remaining insultingly implausible.

See, that's how I was expecting to feel, but that silent page (and Megatron's lie with the ambiguity over whether it's self-motivated or if he's really trying to be kind) sold it for me.

[Even with the confirmation in 38 that Brainstorm is a Decepticon, I've not entirely abandoned my theory Rewind is in a Vesper Lynd situation and it was him who betrayed the ALL to the DJD as they have Dominus Ambus and were using him to apply pressure.]

To go with Warcry's point about the relevence of bringing Rewind back, I actually think the last story gave him a role only he could fill that neatly justified it. His database is unique, and it's corruption allowed him to fill that Guinan in Yesterday's Enterprise role of letting everyone know there is an alternate timeline, and exactly how bad it is. Without knowing about the Functionist reality it's likely Whirl wouldn't have done what he did in 38 for a start.

I think it's a gimmicky concept (like Optimus Prime 'dying' at the start of the MTMTE/RID reboot) and some of the way it's been applied is hokey (making him captain just doesn't fly) but the idea's got potential that's coming through.

What I like about it so far is how Roberts has walked a line between giving Megatron lots of great speeches and insight into his thought process, but at the same time leaving it nicely ambiguous about how genuine his change of heart is and his goals. His conversations with Pax and Ravage can be read several ways, very nicely done.

Seriously, between his establishment as dangerous weapons lunatic and his reveal as a Decepticon plant (thanks to a Decepticon insignia being printed on the inside of his faceplate... uhhhh?*) where exactly does Brainstorm develop?

Off the top of my head:

His Perceptor obsession has increased from having being insecure about who is the better scientist to an ever growing number of Perceptor pictures and models in his lab to having a pin on monacle(interestingly despite it leading into 38 that seems to have developed from a couple of art gags from Milne that Roberts liked and then extended upon).

Despite being a maker of hideous weapons designed only to kill, he's a complete and utter coward who shies away from all physical confrontation.

He'll lie cheerfully about anything, including his own bravery and how much Perceptor admires him.

I'll spoiler this as, even if you're not going to read it (though it does wrap up so much 38 does make for a nice "Last" issue if you never plan to carry on) it's the most recent issue:

SPOILER! (select to read)

All of which plays into the last issue where it turns out that, despite being a Decepticon, his motivation for changing history is down to wanting to get the great love of his life back, the Perceptor like (to the point of being based visually on the Animated version) Quark.

His cowardice/inability to kill then sees him trying to prevent the war through "Nice" means- saving Terminus; knocking out Past-Rung to try and prevent the bar room brawl- before running out of options means he has to try and shoot Megatron... and then can't bring himself to look another person in the eye and pull the trigger.

That's not bad for someone who was, before the last story, on the second tier of characters.

* = the whole Rewind/DJD/alternate Lost Light arc was outright weak to me, I'm afraid. The disappearing characters/ship part was padded and predictable (did anyone NOT guess why people were disappearing before Notbeat? Did anyone for a split second think the Lost Light would be ditched so early on?), the idea that a duplicate ship full of our heroes could be created and then wholesale butchered all without anyone really noticing is cheap (and I have big problems with the power levels of the DJD because we all know if/when they run into the Lost Light crew they're not going to massacre them) and the resurrection was contrived.

We all seem to have twigged to the truth pretty quickly there, and in interviews I think Roberts has said he played out the mystery one issue more than he should have in retrospect (or at least seeded too many clues).

Not hugely bothered by the DJD doing so well there for various reasons I went on about at length at the time (inside help- and even if he wasn't the one that betrayed them Brainstorm likely didn't help the others by giving them access to his super weapons- and the difficulty of fighting with the confines of a spaceship the crew don't want to damage against an enemy who doesn't care and so on).

[Cliffjumper]

The thing that bothers me the most is there's something unsettling (and not the intentional kind) about 'their' LL crew who are, give or take a year or two's zany adventures the same guys we all know and know from 'our' Lost Light all being butchered and no-one really seeming to give much of a shit just because there are other versions of them out there. Are there really no other repurcussions to something like that than outing a traitor and getting Chromedome's partner back?

Trailbreaker won't be dead, if for no other reason that Hasbro spent years getting the trademark back and there'll be more toys. It really is a shame that DW and the dodgy first few years of IDW got left to it and now that we have two of the best long-term TF writers since Furman's Marvel days and Hasbro are back to the meddling.

Regarding the hand-waving of taking all the usual characters along for anything, it still fails to make sense. For example, in the time travel one you wouldn't take Whirl along, no-one would. You would never, ever, ever need to take a nihilistic idiot who can't follow orders on a mission to the past.

On the burnt-up generics that one of them's a former Wreckers field leader who left the team for unknown reasons was rather a missed opportunity. Regarding Inferno, Sunstreaker, Xaaron, Smokescreen etc. I realise someone has to be in the background not doing much but I think MTMTE's format could easily have slotted the odd character in for the odd issue without queering the pitch; as it is the cast come across as quite cliquey.

It is something other fiction suffers from but I don't particularly see that as an excuse when the format of the book doesn't really demand it and opportunities to deviate from the approach have been avaliable and ignored. However, I think the comparison with the X-Men films is something of a false analogy; each has, say, two hours to tell what's got to be a single roughly coherent arc and appeal to as many demographics as possible. MTMTE has had two years and many arcs and basically has to keep eight thousand converts happy. Comics are comics, comparing them to other media forms is a bit of a dead end whatever their influences because the bottom line is MTMTE isn't an X-Men film.

[Cliffjumper]

Regarding RID in general I thought it did largely a good job as a Big Guns G1 book in the mould of, say, DW V3 up until the end of Dark Cybertron. It had a good concept and was involving in its' own way even if it had so many plot twists law of averages meant some were going to be very silly indeed (combiners are either the result of top secret super experiments by an insane genius or of five guys who know each other getting lost).

Characterwise the approach is a bit more of a Marvel one in that Barber just picks half a dozen key characters, a few satellite allies and anyone else is fighting over scraps and the approaches were kind-of a bit mixed. IDW Prowl is basically DW Shockwave, Arcee's still a mad bitch, Bumblebee's a parody of S3 Rodimus but felt Starscream, Metalhawk, Megatron, Ironhide, the Dinobots, Dirge and Blurr all came out of it quite well.

The post-DC relaunch isn't that good, though, far too many loose threads that were best left loose, a very forced-feeling switch to Earth and a really lousy Galvatron.

[inflatable dalek]

The thing that bothers me the most is there's something unsettling (and not the intentional kind) about 'their' LL crew who are, give or take a year or two's zany adventures the same guys we all know and know from 'our' Lost Light all being butchered and no-one really seeming to give much of a shit just because there are other versions of them out there. Are there really no other repurcussions to something like that than outing a traitor and getting Chromedome's partner back?

Hard to say at this stage with them hitting the ground running right into the next story, though Rewind himself is obviously having trouble coming to terms with what he saw. I suspect the main lasting consequence (as, and I agree with you it's perhaps a shame, I suspect the other characters actually thinking through the horror of their alternate deaths is unlikely to happen) will be to Megatron. Skids speech to him about what wearing that badge means seemed to hit home in particular.

Trailbreaker won't be dead, if for no other reason that Hasbro spent years getting the trademark back and there'll be more toys. It really is a shame that DW and the dodgy first few years of IDW got left to it and now that we have two of the best long-term TF writers since Furman's Marvel days and Hasbro are back to the meddling.

Hopefully if there's ever a mandate to "Do" Trailbreaker again it can be kept nice and simple via flashback, as could have easily been done with Nightbeat tbh (as Warcry says, Streetwise could have easily filled the grumpy detective role). Hasbro seem to mainly want short sharp bursts of promotion for each toy rather than prolonged exposure, his death here wasn't that long after he got an entire issue to himself to pimp his Generations figure so sustainability shouldn't be an issue.

Regarding the hand-waving of taking all the usual characters along for anything, it still fails to make sense. For example, in the time travel one you wouldn't take Whirl along, no-one would. You would never, ever, ever need to take a nihilistic idiot who can't follow orders on a mission to the past.

Depends on how many "Spark compatible" types there were aboard, with them not knowing what Brainstorm was actually up to having as much muscle along as possible was actually not a bad idea, especially as he's proven trustworthy in high tension situations before as when out in the field in Remain in Light (I actually don't think Rodimus- or anyone other than Cyclonus- is aware of his self serving moments like being happy to sacrifice Tailgate and Rewind to kill Cyclonus).

To tie back into the possible disadvantages of reading everything in one go, it might be worth remembering at the point they go back in time it had been about a year since the end of the first season, and both Dark Cybertron and the ALL storyline had only featured the bulk of the main cast in cameos. Rodimus and Cyclonus were the only Lost Lighters to get a huge amount to do in the former (it's really more an RID story guest staring the other book, the fight against the Mini-Cons feels very much like "We've promised a crossover so we better involve them, but let's stick them in an subplot away from the main action till we need them"). Magnus minds the shop and the others tend to have one moment each (punching Prowl, bantering with Arcee) inbetween shooting things. I have the feeling Mainframe may actually get more lines than some of them.

Then with the later, it was mainly about the new characters. So the time travel stuff, though pushing the suspension of disbelief, was about touching base with the core cast again really. And there were people in the discussion threads disappointed we'd seen so little of them in the preceding 12 months.

On the burnt-up generics that one of them's a former Wreckers field leader who left the team for unknown reasons was rather a missed opportunity.

Sandstorm? Punishment might be worth checking out if you enjoy Barber's Cybertron based work as that really goes into Sandstorm and what happened there in quite some depth. It also has a good handle on exactly how ****ed up the Dinobots actually are rather than "Cool".

Characterwise the approach is a bit more of a Marvel one in that Barber just picks half a dozen key characters, a few satellite allies and anyone else is fighting over scraps and the approaches were kind-of a bit mixed. IDW Prowl is basically DW Shockwave, Arcee's still a mad bitch, Bumblebee's a parody of S3 Rodimus but felt Starscream, Metalhawk, Megatron, Ironhide, the Dinobots, Dirge and Blurr all came out of it quite well.

I think I'd agree with that list of who worked and who didn't (though some, like Metalhawk, suffered from having one thing that got a bit tired as it went on) with the exception of Megatron. I just didn't like how Barber tried to write him as a master chess player who had every contingency planned because the plot just wasn't well thought out enough to pull it off. It just wound up feeling that Megatron would go "No honest, I was planning this all along" no matter what unlikely or contrived thing happened that seemed to work against his intent.

Weirdly he's currently writing G.B. Blackrock in exactly the same way.

Plus, it didn't really feel like the guy who thought sticking Prowl's head on top of a monster was a good idea was a good fit for the same guy who would decide to become an Autobot, and the shift in styles as Roberts took over the writing of him during DC is painfully noticeable even though I otherwise thought the two authors got a lot better at meshing in the second half.

I'd add Wheeljack to the list of good characters from that book as well.

EDIT: Cliffy's mention of demographics and sales figures gives me an excellent excuse to segway into mentioning some surprising and good news I don't think has come up elsewhere here, the last issue of MTMTE made the top 20 on American Comixology and top 10 in the UK (apparently all the TF books are selling a lot more digitally whilst physical sales basically stay the same, probably a sign of how the franchise is one that's always appealed more to people who perhaps don't normally buy comics. It still seems to be way ahead of RID though).

Even allowing for the fact we've no idea of actually sales numbers or how many it takes to reach the top of the digital chart... that's actually kind of mental. Between that and the last issue also the third most trending thing on Tumblr (I've no idea what that means as I am old, but apparently it's A Good Thing) it does feel to me as if Roberts may be closer to the end of his time on Transformers than the start.

The only reason I can't see him following Nick Roche into trying to crack more "Mainstream" comic work off the back of this is if he simply isn't that bothered (in the above mentioned podcast interview it's perhaps telling he seems to have put some thought into his prefered successor already- Roche unsurprisingly- but also that when asked about what he'd like to write for a tokenistic mention of Spidey is the only non-TV based property he comes up with. I suspect he's not that into comics generally).

[Warcry]

That's not to say I haven't quibbled over MTMTE's shortcomings as well -- I have done so openly (i.e. the DJD, Magnus's OCD schtick, etc) -- and I think it's important to point them out. Keeps discussions balanced and, quite frankly, more interesting

I think the fact that there are so many things in this book that annoy me but I keep coming back for more just underscores how good a job Roberts does overall. RiD didn't annoy me half as much, but I stopped reading it because it didn't give me any characters to care about (well, other than Metalhawk) and also wasn't anywhere near as much fun. Whereas even when I think a MTMTE issue was stupid or downright bad I still enjoy it because there are so many little good things going on.

Thinking on it, it's something I've expressed from time to time in the MTMTE threads. Completely agree with the complaint about Highbrow though, what with his past co-workers being in close proximity, and still have issues with characters like Xaaron or Sunstreaker being under-utilized, both of whom you'd think have something to say or do knowing their history in the IDW-verse.

I'm constantly forgetting that Xaaron is even there. When Roberts brought him in for Chaos Theory I expected him to be an important character, but I don't think he's even had dialogue since then.

Sunstreaker in particular was always a baffling one for me, and felt like a huge missed opportunity. Fallout from AHM aside, you'd figure Fortress Maximus would've had words with him, since the invasion of Garrus-9 was partly Sunstreaker's fault. Hell, at very least we should've seen some kind of exchange between him and Ratchet, since both of them go all the way back to the -Ations. So much lost potential there.

Sunstreaker is really a failing of every writer post-Furman, though, not Roberts specifically. McCarthy made him a traitor, sure, but then he killed him. Costa brought him back to do nothing and Roberts has only really used him in Spotlight: Hoist. With his backstory and how important he was to the early IDW stories -- almost single-handedly driving the entire Earth-based plot up until All Hail Megatron -- it's a bit of a travesty that he's not one of the universe's major characters.

Okay. So they randomly decided to completely torment the one guy who'd died on 'our' Lost Light and then let him wander off for no apparent reason. It's a massive contrivance either way. To be fair I didn't personally think Rewind was dead for one second (sent off into space locked in a box with a bad guy who'll be back one day and blown up in a nice detail-free explosion when we're talking about a book where favoured characters can survive having heads obliterated), I just didn't expect the Backwards resolution to be used when it shits over both Rewind and Chromedome while also remaining insultingly implausible.

I was happy to overlook Rewind being spared at the time, because I was hoping that bringing our version of the Lost Light back would undo his existence to heap even more tragedy on Chromedome's shoulders. Him surviving without explanation when practically nothing else did, though, is a real head-scratcher and does make me take a more jaded look at the whole contrived series of events that led to it.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if "our" Rewind is also alive and will show up later, just for the added drama.

* = the whole Rewind/DJD/alternate Lost Light arc was outright weak to me, I'm afraid. The disappearing characters/ship part was padded and predictable (did anyone NOT guess why people were disappearing before Notbeat? Did anyone for a split second think the Lost Light would be ditched so early on?), the idea that a duplicate ship full of our heroes could be created and then wholesale butchered all without anyone really noticing is cheap (and I have big problems with the power levels of the DJD because we all know if/when they run into the Lost Light crew they're not going to massacre them) and the resurrection was contrived.

I enjoyed that arc as a diversion from the norm, and as a bit of sci-fi horror. I don't think anyone reading it didn't expect it to be undone by the end, but as long as the journey is fun I don't mind. It also gave the new guys something to do, which was needed even if it was a bit heavy-handed.

Actually, my biggest complaint with the second "season" is that Roberts hasn't done much to mix and match the new and old crewmembers. Nightbeat is buddies with Chromedome and Nautica has an ill-advised crush on Brainstorm, sure, but when it came time for action we got one arc with the new guys (plus Skids) running around the alternate Lost Light and then one arc with the old guys (plus Riptide) running around in the past. I think there would be fewer "they're overusing characters!" complaints if the current arc had featured something like Rodimus, Chromedome, Rewind, Rung, Riptide, Nautica, Bluestreak and First Aid. That way, even if they're using the same group of characters, the combinations are different and we'd get to see interactions between people who so far haven't had much if anything to do with each other.

Oh, I think that one worked great. Partly because it was resolved immediately, but mainly because you really needed something to hammer home that Cyclonus was seriously considering it and would have been fully capable of following through, but chose to change. Without it there'd be some ambiguity that he didn't kill Whirl simply because his Klingon code of honour wouldn't let him slay an unarmed and badly damaged opponent.

Ambiguity can be a good thing, though!

But either way, the problem isn't any one of them in isolation. It's the cumulative effect of so many of them piled on at once. Three pretend-deaths in one issue is going to make the readers numb, even if all three are brilliantly plotted on their own.

Didn't mind the coffin thing so much as that felt more like a case of "So what's going on here then" than OMG Rodimus is dead! Plus, considering how dickish Optimus was in putting Megatron in joint charge on a civilian mission that a military dictator like Prime should have dubious authority over (presumably it was a condition on being allowed to leave the planet?) I didn't have any issues with Rodimus retreating into a sulk in protest.

Which is okay on its own, but then you have the entire crew treating Megatron as if he's in sole command, with absolutely nobody even mentioning the word "co-captain" or making any reference at all to the fact that Roddy was sulking.

Also, as an aside...why exactly is Megatron co-captain anyway? I don't mean in the "Optimus temporarily went nuts" sense. I mean in story terms...what would have changed it he had just joined the crew as a regular guy, or even an "advisor" to Rodimus? The crew doesn't really seem to take his authority seriously (refer to Magnus and Perceptor completely disregarding him in the latest issue), he wound up locked in a closet with Ravage on the one away mission he led and the only time he's really exercised his authority so far has been to make Trailbreaker the head of security (which was almost immediately rendered moot by TB dying the next time he appeared). It really does feel like it was nothing but a gimmick imposed on the book to increase the WTF factor and try to drive sales.

Oh yes, I missed that off the list of bad ones, but it's a good call. Issue 1 would have ended just as well if it had been a case of "These guys are in danger, we need to go rescue them!".

Not only that, but it would have made way, way more sense.

It's more like how The X-Men movies treat lots of actually proper main characters from the comics, what's the point of giving (and I'm going to have to go for an example whose role increased across the films as my brain is fritted on the rest of background mutants at the moment) a major mutant like Cyclopse background roles and three lines in the original trilogy rather than creating a new character fans won't be disappointed in being marginalised?

Is that really a fair comparison, though? I seem to recall Cyclops being fairly prominent in the first movie. It's wasn't until X2 that he was marginalized. I think the closest comparison here would actually be Red Alert, who was advertised as a main character, showed up in the first couple issues and then proceeded to contribute nothing to the plot until he "killed" himself.

There are a lot of recognizable mutants in the later films who do nothing but hang out in the background, though, and I'll definitely agree with you that it's rooted in the same "the fans will be happy from just seeing their favourites!" mentality.

Well, as said the X-Men movies do it (any comic readers, do crowd shots in the school do the same there?), and that like Transformers is one of the few franchises to have a ridiculous amount of named characters, and I suspect our boys have it beat by a massive margin. Saying "Other people don't really do this" when it'd basically be impossible for most of them to fill out a crowd of a 100 with every one someone the reader will recognise is somewhat unfair, they literally can't do it anyway.

Most franchises couldn't do it to the same extent, sure, but even shows with fairly large supporting casts generally don't. You never saw Barclay or Ro show up on TNG just to stand in the background and not have any lines, for example. Of course there's an element of practicality to that, as it obviously would cost a lot more to get Michelle Forbes or Dwight Shultz than it would to hire some random extra.

You're definitely right that it's easier in comics to use existing character models to fill out crowd scenes, though, and that's probably the main reason why the Lost Light is full of familiar faces. I suppose they could split the difference by using recoloured character models as crowd-fillers, but that would just generate a new series of complaints.

To go with Warcry's point about the relevence of bringing Rewind back, I actually think the last story gave him a role only he could fill that neatly justified it. His database is unique, and it's corruption allowed him to fill that Guinan in Yesterday's Enterprise role of letting everyone know there is an alternate timeline, and exactly how bad it is. Without knowing about the Functionist reality it's likely Whirl wouldn't have done what he did in 38 for a start.

Honestly, it wouldn't have been all that difficult to sidestep the issue if Rewind was absent. It could have been the ship's database that was getting corrupted instead, or the ship could have started picking up transmissions and news reports from Functionist Cybertron.

The thing that bothers me the most is there's something unsettling (and not the intentional kind) about 'their' LL crew who are, give or take a year or two's zany adventures the same guys we all know and know from 'our' Lost Light all being butchered and no-one really seeming to give much of a shit just because there are other versions of them out there. Are there really no other repurcussions to something like that than outing a traitor and getting Chromedome's partner back?

I totally missed that, but that's a good point. Shouldn't a good chunk of the crew be almost as creeped out as Rodimus was when he was confronted with his own dead body? I mean I can totally see the likes of Swerve or Whirl being too stupid to care, but the more thoughtful crewmembers like Magnus should be at least a bit nonplussed by such a blunt reminder of their own mortality.

I would say "well, maybe the newbies didn't say anything about what they found", but I have a hard time believing the likes of Riptide or Nautica would keep their mouths shut.

Sandstorm? Punishment might be worth checking out if you enjoy Barber's Cybertron based work as that really goes into Sandstorm and what happened there in quite some depth. It also has a good handle on exactly how ****ed up the Dinobots actually are rather than "Cool".

I think he's talking about Hyperion, one of the guys whose bodies Skids scavenges in the second issue who (according to some of the text stories) used to lead the Wreckers.

It just wound up feeling that Megatron would go "No honest, I was planning this all along" no matter what unlikely or contrived thing happened that seemed to work against his intent.

Though since that was exactly how Megatron was characterized in AHM, I suppose that might have been on purpose? Barber does really enjoy referencing past continuity.

It definitely doesn't fit with Roberts' warrior-poet characterization, though.

Even allowing for the fact we've no idea of actually sales numbers or how many it takes to reach the top of the digital chart... that's actually kind of mental. Between that and the last issue also the third most trending thing on Tumblr (I've no idea what that means as I am old, but apparently it's A Good Thing) it does feel to me as if Roberts may be closer to the end of his time on Transformers than the start.

I definitely got that impression from the last issue, if nothing else. Tying up all those loose ends at once did feel a bit suspicious otherwise.

Truth be told though, I couldn't blame the man. Last Stand of the Wreckers started in January 2010, which means he's been writing Transformers books for IDW pretty consistently for more than five years now. It doesn't seem like that long, but it's getting to the point where he's probably penned more TF comics than Budiansky did in the 80s. And since he does seem like more of a prose-writing fan than a comic one (based on his interviews anyway), I wouldn't be surprised to see him leave to go looking for a new challenge.

[Unicron]

I totally missed that, but that's a good point. Shouldn't a good chunk of the crew be almost as creeped out as Rodimus was when he was confronted with his own dead body? I mean I can totally see the likes of Swerve or Whirl being too stupid to care, but the more thoughtful crewmembers like Magnus should be at least a bit nonplussed by such a blunt reminder of their own mortality.

I would say "well, maybe the newbies didn't say anything about what they found", but I have a hard time believing the likes of Riptide or Nautica would keep their mouths shut.

Aside from the fact that unlike Rodimus, none of the crew actually had to look their own corpse in the face, no one has had time to face their own mortality. Megsy and Rewind turned off the alt LL's quantum generators, the shuttles started reappearing and repopulating at about the time the Rodpod contacted our Lost Light to warn them of Brainstorm, which was also about the time he incapacitated the crew. Story-wise not much time has passed, so news of the alt-LL and it's crew getting massacred hasn't had time to spread or be reflected on.
Besides, even if Siren got on the PA to announce it after the news came in, more important matters came up, like saving history and all that.

[inflatable dalek]

I think the fact that there are so many things in this book that annoy me but I keep coming back for more just underscores how good a job Roberts does overall. RiD didn't annoy me half as much, but I stopped reading it because it didn't give me any characters to care about (well, other than Metalhawk) and also wasn't anywhere near as much fun. Whereas even when I think a MTMTE issue was stupid or downright bad I still enjoy it because there are so many little good things going on.

Whilst I like RID a lot more than many, I'd agree with this too. Sooner or later the crest will end and we'll be back to consistently pap comics, so I'm enjoying it whilst I can.

I'm constantly forgetting that Xaaron is even there. When Roberts brought him in for Chaos Theory I expected him to be an important character, but I don't think he's even had dialogue since then.

Did he say anything where doing the ceremonies at the post-Overlord funeral in his snazzy cape? Agreed he's an odd one to have relgated to the background, perhaps Roberts trying to not indulge every UK fanboy tendency (the same restraint that's seen present day Impactor not turn up)?

Considering he was basically Brainstorm's boss on Kimia hopefully he'll get a moment as the aftermath of that is dealt with, assuming Brainstorm's main role as a double was to pass on Autobot weapon advances (I still wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand in Skyfall. If he didn't, security there really was awful) and also delay their research down blind allies then Xaaron pretty much had a total failure that people should be asking about.

Mind, he was a bit of a **** in Bullets so perhaps it's for the best he's underused lest I have a Nightbeat reaction.

Which is okay on its own, but then you have the entire crew treating Megatron as if he's in sole command, with absolutely nobody even mentioning the word "co-captain" or making any reference at all to the fact that Roddy was sulking.

Well Rodimus is the only one using the actual "Co" word, and Megatron actually making a more effective commanding officer (and how insidious that charisma actually is) is rather the point I suspect. Rodimus being off hiding doesn't actually affect things that much.

Also, as an aside...why exactly is Megatron co-captain anyway? I don't mean in the "Optimus temporarily went nuts" sense. I mean in story terms...what would have changed it he had just joined the crew as a regular guy, or even an "advisor" to Rodimus? The crew doesn't really seem to take his authority seriously (refer to Magnus and Perceptor completely disregarding him in the latest issue), he wound up locked in a closet with Ravage on the one away mission he led and the only time he's really exercised his authority so far has been to make Trailbreaker the head of security (which was almost immediately rendered moot by TB dying the next time he appeared). It really does feel like it was nothing but a gimmick imposed on the book to increase the WTF factor and try to drive sales.

It's definitely an idea it's struggled with. That six month time jump didn't help, I can see why they did it (from RID's perspective two major disasters happened to the characters on the same day, giving some breathing space and bringing things back into "Real time" after some highly compressed storytelling was a good idea) but not seeing the early days of that leadership does hurt the idea.

Is that really a fair comparison, though? I seem to recall Cyclops being fairly prominent in the first movie. It's wasn't until X2 that he was marginalized. I think the closest comparison here would actually be Red Alert, who was advertised as a main character, showed up in the first couple issues and then proceeded to contribute nothing to the plot until he "killed" himself.

Well, I only made a film analogy because you did first.

And like a genius who is subtly rendering his own point meaningless, I of course meant Colossus rather than Cyclops. But this was part of my evil plan all along!

Most franchises couldn't do it to the same extent, sure, but even shows with fairly large supporting casts generally don't. You never saw Barclay or Ro show up on TNG just to stand in the background and not have any lines, for example. Of course there's an element of practicality to that, as it obviously would cost a lot more to get Michelle Forbes or Dwight Shultz than it would to hire some random extra.

Ha, if I picked a bad X-Men example due to a brain fart, your choice of Ro falls down as well. There are episodes of TNG when Michelle Forbes (in what was basically her first big role, she's not "Special Guest Star" status and expense yet) does just sit there at the helm saying "Yes Sir, No Sir", most notably Cause and Effect and her role in Power Play isn't much bigger (which makes a quarter of her total appearances). There's a reason Forbes jumped ship and turned down DS9.

I only really mention this to try and regain some face after the C-Men mix up.

Honestly, it wouldn't have been all that difficult to sidestep the issue if Rewind was absent. It could have been the ship's database that was getting corrupted instead, or the ship could have started picking up transmissions and news reports from Functionist Cybertron.

Well, there's a bit of that with the Magnus vision going dark on Megatron, but just relying on that would have been far less dramatic and certainly having "Lived" through that timeline gives him far more motivation for his 38 actions than someone else just have read about them would have.

I think he's talking about Hyperion, one of the guys whose bodies Skids scavenges in the second issue who (according to some of the text stories) used to lead the Wreckers.

Gottcha. He's no Cyclops though.

Though since that was exactly how Megatron was characterized in AHM, I suppose that might have been on purpose? Barber does really enjoy referencing past continuity.

It was rubbish there as well. I'll give McCarthy this credit though, at least he would have been writing before The Dark Knight Joker made it standard for all villains.

Truth be told though, I couldn't blame the man. Last Stand of the Wreckers started in January 2010, which means he's been writing Transformers books for IDW pretty consistently for more than five years now. It doesn't seem like that long, but it's getting to the point where he's probably penned more TF comics than Budiansky did in the 80s. And since he does seem like more of a prose-writing fan than a comic one (based on his interviews anyway), I wouldn't be surprised to see him leave to go looking for a new challenge.

Yeah, I think he'll definitely want to outstrip Bob, and after that will be game for a change. Which is good as writer burn out is always a worry.

[Red Dave Prime]

Oh, you. Don't be such a tart.

Deep down, you know you love it.

Anyway, there's a lot of fodder in this thread. Couple of things I'd like to address though.

I will admit to being genuinely pissed off by the "100 Autobots just burned up in the atmosphere/no wait, never mind, they're perfectly fine except these two generics" thing in MTMTE 1 and 2, though. Never have I seen a story backpedal so fast.

Ok, I'm attributing this to Warcry but damn near everyone has come out with this as a complaint and I really think its unfair. Before anyone jumps on me for being an apologist, go re-read the last few pages of issue 1. Rodimus makes his little speech to drift about the 40 bots who flew out of the ship not being dead and that no-one dies on his watch in what I'm guessing is a call-back to his spotlight. He then pledges to find them and fix them. The next bit is Rodimus asking Magnus where to start looking and Magnus points to a supposed meteor shower. Rodimus quips "what, under the metor shower" and Magnus points out that its not a meteor shower, its actually the autobots igniting as they pass through the planets atmosphere (something which Rodimus did himself in his own spotlight). Rodimus mumbles thats its not a good start but thats all. No-one says anyone is dead. The reaction from both Magnus and Rodimus is certainly not compatible with 40 autobots being destroyed. Its a simple joke

Given that of the named autobots who flew out are ever used in a plot its hardly likely that IDW needed to "climb down" on this one. It wouldnt have mattered if they were dead or not. I really feel many have assumed one thing when it was in fact the other. Only roberts I suppose can answer that one so maybe Dalek can ask him? Happy to accept being wrong but I never read it as 40 bots destroyed or killed when it first appeared and it still doesnt read that way now.

Now the rest of my points relate to Cliffjumper - no personal grudges here or anything and as above, I'm happy to be corrected / disagreed with on any of this. But the main point of my comments was that I feel Cliffjumper comes across as unrealisticly harsh with his points, to the point where I honestly wasnt sure if he was just trolling.

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.

Firstly in the first 20 or so issues, MTMTE had main plots relating to Rodimus, Magnus, Drift, Ratchet, Chromedome, Rewind, Rung, Overlord, Whirl, Tailgate, Cyclonus and Skids (12) with a heavy dose of side quest plots linking in Swerve, Brianstorm, Pipes, Tyrest (to an extent, his influence is there from issue 2), First Aid, Fort Max, Red Alert and Tailgate (8). Thats a main cast of about 20, 18 if you take out the two villains, but not including the issues with the scavengers or DJD, or characters who get small cameos. Thats a pretty healthy spread of characters for a 24 page comic. Not saying you couldnt bring in other characters but to what real benefit? As volume 2 began we get a pretty large influx of new characters as well with several of the above put aside bar some small appearances.

Second, regarding MTMTEs format - everything about the first bit of promo work for it (the initial cover with Rodmius flanked by the main cast, the 12 individual covers which focused on the main cast and the back page which listed the crew) indicated that MTMTE was an ensemble piece focusing on a main group of characters. Even Roches promo group shot features no surprises over the main cast. I can understand you not wanting it to be this but whatever gave you the impression it was going to be something else?

To quote Roberts in his issue one intro "MTME is lost in Space. Its Star Trek meets Dark Star, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Its Justice league International as re-imagined by Stephen Moffat. It's Arrested Development with Alt Modes. It's - It's - look, it's a bunch of mechanoids fighting and bickering, right, and havent you always wanted to see that?.

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

Part of the scenery? I dont mean to be glib but maybe Roberts just fancied a setting which add a sense of scale beyond his main cast while also giving him a handy out for deaths and new characters if he needed it? That he doesnt use the other 190 characters isn't really a valid complaint to me. Maybe at some point he has a plot line devised that would bring 100 of those characters into focus, but even if he doesn't... so what? whats the major (or minor ) problem.

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]

I'm guessing the reason we dont "leave" whirl and swerve behind is because for the most part is that those are part of the character that roberts wants to write about and has invested time and effort in plotting out what he wants to do with them.

But there's another problem here - in both Whirl and Swerves case you imply them to be majorly overused. I take thats unfair. But lets be fair and have a look at it.

In Issue 1 and 2, Whirl gets as much time as any. Issue 3, he is part of the Sparkeater hunt for a few pages, but in no way could be considered a major player in this. Issues 4 and 5 we get no Whirl. Issue 6 is when we get the first real insight into how he got to be the way he is. Issue 7 & 8 is mostly the decepticon stuff so not much going on. We get the annual where he pops up as the guy rodimus takes / sends when he expects trouble - given the guys mindset and the fact he is an ex-wrecker makes a lot of sense. Even here though he is very much a background character. Yes he gets jokes but thats Roberts way of writing just about everyone (look at how he wrote the scavengers). Whirl is present again, albeit in a relatively minor role, in the shadow play stories which again makes sense given the focus on Orion Pax and the time linked to Chaos Theory. Next up is issue 12 where we get a major dose of Whirl. We see his love for acting the hard man and leading the charge, but we also see his cowardice in trying to take out cyclonus. So we're getting more on the character. He is not just being thrown in for some background yuks. Issue 13, we could make an argument that he could have been swapped out but the events of the issue fit perfectly with his established character. Its an issue meant as a fun breathing space before the Overlord issues so no surprise that Roberts would pack the more comical side of the crew. Overlord saga hits and whirl takes a major break for the next three issues until remain in light begins where he returns to finish off his arc with Cyclonus. For a character being listed as one of the major 12 none of that feels like over use and in every case we get a bit more of his character or the plots he is involved in.

Swerve has a similar path but appears even less and has no major events outside the annual and shooting Rung linked to him. . In season 2, Whirls main arc revolves around his relationship with Megatron and is suitable charted out and swerve has been pretty much non existent. So to me, the problem seems to be more that you dont like the two characters (and thats fine) rather than Roberts forcing them in where they dont need to be.

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.

And TV series are not Seasons either in the truest sense of the word. Its simply used as a way to name a collection of issues. But given how Roberts described MTMTE in issue 1 its not an entirely unjust usage.

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.

This was the quote that probably annoyed me the most. Whatever the feelings about seasons vs series vs volumes stuff, how is it meant to be used as an excuse and more to the point - limited scope and lazy storytelling? Given how so much of "season one" fed off set ups from LSOTW and Chaos Theory and how much it set up into "season two" while still having to deal with the train wreck of Dark Cybertron I dont think there is a limited scope in MTMTE. Its created a better back story to the whole cybertron society and conflict that just about anything that came before and most of it ties together pretty damn well. Roberts has covered relationships, the perverting of dogma, the effects of an all powerful government altering their own population for their own aims, a version of the caste system, along with other issues. Regardless of whether these are new ideas or poorly done, it's not exactly limited in the themes its trying to cover. Do other comics do it better? I'm sure they do. But I still think MTMTE is covering a lot of different ground.

As for Lazy Storytelling, again I could understand you finding it poor or whatever but its clear that Roberts has put a lot of thought and effort into fleshing out his stories and characters. He has tried to surprise his audience. Whether he has succeeded isn't the point. You want lazy? Read the Costa stuff and compare it to Roberts.

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.

Not sure how to take this. Rodimus gives a eulogy for one robot at the start and while it is a fake-out of sorts (I always assumed it played up so the reader will assume its Rewind or Pipes maybe) I don't see the "killing off four or five generics" comment as being anyway related here. But hey, another dig at swerve.

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.

I genuinely dont get the reference to Postmodernism here and genuinely dont understand its place here. I'm not saying this as a dig at you, I just dont follow what your point is. As for Lampshading - I would have thought it is somewhat essentially for Transformers. But as a wider context, yes we could insist that everything is exteremly realistic but I dont know if would necessarily suit most forms of storytelling if used as a constant. Not really arguing you here, just differing with you.

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

If you wondered why I thought you disliked MTMTE overall it was a combination of what I quoted already and this paragraph. And to argue with the paragraph - you can have lame jokes and second-hand characterisations (I differ but for the most part I put that down to both tastes and exposure to the medium which I realise you have a lot more of than me). I'll argue that for the most part the vague mysteries have either been explained or evolved to the point where I think if they were made any clearer you would have a go at Roberts for hand holding his audience too much. Insincere poignancy? I'll disagree but I suppose this is dependant on how much you attach to the cast. You didn't seem to and I did so moments like Pipes death, Rodimus confrontation with Rung over the Overlod situation, Swerves loneliness and Dominus Minimus realising the true horror of their situation worked quite well for me. "HAY BRIEFCASE!"? Well, thats pretty much been dealt with pretty well, in a manner which pays off scenes from 3 years earlier. Not bad for throwaway pap.

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.

Corporate stooges or just people who have secured a licence with terms and conditions? I mean, sure they could have fought with Hasbro over bringing Nightbeat but... to what end? So a few fans can be happy that at least Nightbeat stayed dead but now Hasbro are giving them less leeway? And given that Roberts is a fan of Nightbeat I'm sure that probably had more to do with him coming back as anything else. Whether he has done the character well or not is a whole different issue.

Anyway, Think I have typed enough. If the tone of my original post was overly confrontational, it wasn't my intention. Hopefully this clarifies why I felt Cliffjumper was being unfair with his criticism.

[inflatable dalek]

I think Roberts has said that making the whole of DC about the dead horse that is the Dead Universe started from "Hey, we've got to bring Nightbeat back, ****ing awesome biatches! Big role for him". Which shows enthusiasm isn't always a good thing.

[Red Dave Prime]

I'll take Barber and Roches enthusiasm over Costa, Metzen and Dille any day.

[Warcry]

Aside from the fact that unlike Rodimus, none of the crew actually had to look their own corpse in the face, no one has had time to face their own mortality.

Fair point. Nobody else was directly confronted with it the way he was. It's a lot easier to write it off as nonsense when you don't have to look at your own coffin.

Did he say anything where doing the ceremonies at the post-Overlord funeral in his snazzy cape? Agreed he's an odd one to have relgated to the background, perhaps Roberts trying to not indulge every UK fanboy tendency (the same restraint that's seen present day Impactor not turn up)?

That's probably got something to do with it...he doesn't want to use the character just because he loves him, but still wants to have him around so he has the option just in case. It ends up looking a bit arbitrary to me as a reader, though.

Mind, he was a bit of a **** in Bullets so perhaps it's for the best he's underused lest I have a Nightbeat reaction.

But Xaaron was always an asshole! Back in the Marvel days he sent Micromaster assassins to kill his own troops when the Decepticons captured them.

It's definitely an idea it's struggled with. That six month time jump didn't help, I can see why they did it (from RID's perspective two major disasters happened to the characters on the same day, giving some breathing space and bringing things back into "Real time" after some highly compressed storytelling was a good idea) but not seeing the early days of that leadership does hurt the idea.

There's not much to suggest that it's not the early days of his leadership, though, is there? It's six months after Dark Cybertron, but I don't think it's specified how long after the even the trial starts, how long it took or how long after it they left. They might have only been in space for a few days or weeks by the time #28 starts.

And like a genius who is subtly rendering his own point meaningless, I of course meant Colossus rather than Cyclops. But this was part of my evil plan all along!

I didn't even remember Colossus being in the movies, so I'll give you that one.

Ha, if I picked a bad X-Men example due to a brain fart, your choice of Ro falls down as well. There are episodes of TNG when Michelle Forbes (in what was basically her first big role, she's not "Special Guest Star" status and expense yet) does just sit there at the helm saying "Yes Sir, No Sir", most notably Cause and Effect and her role in Power Play isn't much bigger (which makes a quarter of her total appearances). There's a reason Forbes jumped ship and turned down DS9.

I completely forgot Ro was in Cause and Effect (she certainly did a whole lot more than an extra in Power Play, though, even if she wasn't the featured character). You know what I mean, though. TV shows usually don't bring in proper actors just to stand in the background the way TF comics do with well-known characters.

I only really mention this to try and regain some face after the C-Men mix up.

Well, you tried.

Ok, I'm attributing this to Warcry but damn near everyone has come out with this as a complaint and I really think its unfair. Before anyone jumps on me for being an apologist, go re-read the last few pages of issue 1. Rodimus makes his little speech to drift about the 40 bots who flew out of the ship not being dead and that no-one dies on his watch in what I'm guessing is a call-back to his spotlight. He then pledges to find them and fix them. The next bit is Rodimus asking Magnus where to start looking and Magnus points to a supposed meteor shower. Rodimus quips "what, under the metor shower" and Magnus points out that its not a meteor shower, its actually the autobots igniting as they pass through the planets atmosphere (something which Rodimus did himself in his own spotlight). Rodimus mumbles thats its not a good start but thats all. No-one says anyone is dead. The reaction from both Magnus and Rodimus is certainly not compatible with 40 autobots being destroyed. Its a simple joke

I see where you're coming from, but I disagree with you on a few points there.

First of all, Rodimus did enter the atmosphere of a planet in his spotlight. But he did it on purpose and used a comet as a heat shield. Getting tossed in completely unprepared and unprotected is a totally different story (and doesn't the spotlight itself tell us how risky and dangerous it is? I haven't read it in ages.)

Secondly, I read Rodimus's whole "Oh, we'll go rescue them, no big deal!" speech not as proof that the crew were actually okay, but that Rodimus was a moron.

Thirdly, maybe it's because I'm a space nerd, but "burning up in the atmosphere" isn't something that I'll ever believe you can just walk away from with a few dents and scratches. Chunks of metal the size of transformers burn up in our atmosphere not that irregularly, and by the time they hit the ground there's not much left. And then they have to survive hitting the ground at terminal velocity.

I won't dispute that they could survive, because Transformers in MTMTE seem to be nigh-on unkillable save for when the plot calls for drama, but the fact that everyone (bar two nobody generics) survived basically unharmed does beggar belief. Now if Ratchet had spent the next six weeks rebuilding the victims' ruined bodies (and maybe gone to Delphi looking for help with that), that would be a different story.

Given that of the named autobots who flew out are ever used in a plot its hardly likely that IDW needed to "climb down" on this one. It wouldnt have mattered if they were dead or not. I really feel many have assumed one thing when it was in fact the other. Only roberts I suppose can answer that one so maybe Dalek can ask him? Happy to accept being wrong but I never read it as 40 bots destroyed or killed when it first appeared and it still doesnt read that way now.

I don't think IDW "climbed down" from killing the characters off when they were originally intending to, I think they chose to end the first issue with a deliberately dishonest "OMG THESE GUYS ARE IN PERIL THE STAKES ARE REAL BUY ISSUE #2!!!!!" teaser that they backed off of as soon as the first page in the next issue. It's sadly common in comics of all stripes, but IMO it really hurt the ability of the series to tell serious stories going forward by training the reader to believe that nothing that happened would have any lasting consequences (something that the repeated death fake-outs and returns from the grave have only exacerbated).

Part of the scenery? I dont mean to be glib but maybe Roberts just fancied a setting which add a sense of scale beyond his main cast while also giving him a handy out for deaths and new characters if he needed it? That he doesnt use the other 190 characters isn't really a valid complaint to me. Maybe at some point he has a plot line devised that would bring 100 of those characters into focus, but even if he doesn't... so what? whats the major (or minor ) problem.

Because all of those other characters are someone's favourite, and it's annoying to constantly have them trotted out for cameos by creators who never intend to do anything with them.

[Red Dave Prime]

Thirdly, maybe it's because I'm a space nerd, but "burning up in the atmosphere" isn't something that I'll ever believe you can just walk away from with a few dents and scratches. Chunks of metal the size of transformers burn up in our atmosphere not that irregularly, and by the time they hit the ground there's not much left. And then they have to survive hitting the ground at terminal velocity.

But anything that enters an atmosphere at any type of veloicty from space will burn - be it meteors, space shuttles or transformers. Every succesfull shuttle landing has involved burning of the shuttle as it enters the atmosphere.

EDIT: Just to add to this - in the annual it is implied that several of the crew who flew out the breach are still offline.

I think they chose to end the first issue with a deliberately dishonest "OMG THESE GUYS ARE IN PERIL THE STAKES ARE REAL BUY ISSUE #2!!!!!" teaser that they backed off of as soon as the first page in the next issue. It's sadly common in comics of all stripes, but IMO it really hurt the ability of the series to tell serious stories going forward by training the reader to believe that nothing that happened would have any lasting consequences (something that the repeated death fake-outs and returns from the grave have only exacerbated).

Disagree that the robots in peril was meant as a cliffhanger. I think it was more of an excuse to keep the Lost light on a planet they HAD to explore so that Skids can have his fight with the guardians and join the crew.

I would completely agree that the fake outs have been damaging. Rungs is pretty bad in that it could have been simply a very damaging chest blast with a "will he survive?" cliffhanger but when his head got blown to pieces I thought that that was a straight out death. The Magnus follow up deaths are also terrible, especially as the next issue Pharma gets his head blown off and we are expected to assume he is dead (or are we ?:glance::glance::glance:)

Because all of those other characters are someone's favourite, and it's annoying to constantly have them trotted out for cameos by creators who never intend to do anything with them.

Fair enough on that one. I suppose the lost light should be a lot more z-list robots (would fit in with them following Rodimus)

A handy solution to this would be to allow other writers to do these stories based on the lost light crew - one shots that are part of MTMTE with Roberts as a sub-editor. It would give him a bit of a break here and there and would be appreciated by fans overall I think.

[Ryan F]

"Why focus on just a few core characters when there are 200 to choose from?"

"Well, Star Trek does it. CSI does it."

Sorry to paraphrase / misquote people there, but I'm not sure this argument holds much water. Star Trek focuses on a core group of eight or so actors because of the realities of TV production - you pay the regular cast the most money, so it makes sense to utilise the guys already on-contract rather than focus on the guest cast.

Is it realistic for a TV show to hire a good actor for a meaty part and then relegate them to an extra so you can focus on other characters?

At least Star Trek tried to do this, a bit - Chief O Brien was a nothing background character for ages before he got his time in the sun; Voyager's Seska had some small appearances before being revealed as an important character etc.

But as a comic, the only limit is the writer's imagination - he doesn't have to worry about actors' salaries, how many episodes they're contracted for, or worry about George Takei throwing a hissy fit because he only has one line that week.

Why limit yourself to acting like a TV show, when TV writers would die for some of that creative freedom?

[Red Dave Prime]

"Why focus on just a few core characters when there are 200 to choose from?"

"Well, Star Trek does it. CSI does it."

Sorry to paraphrase / misquote people there, but I'm not sure this argument holds much water. Star Trek focuses on a core group of eight or so actors because of the realities of TV production - you pay the regular cast the most money, so it makes sense to utilise the guys already on-contract rather than focus on the guest cast.

Is it realistic for a TV show to hire a good actor for a meaty part and then relegate them to an extra so you can focus on other characters?

At least Star Trek tried to do this, a bit - Chief O Brien was a nothing background character for ages before he got his time in the sun; Voyager's Seska had some small appearances before being revealed as an important character etc.

But as a comic, the only limit is the writer's imagination - he doesn't have to worry about actors' salaries, how many episodes they're contracted for, or worry about George Takei throwing a hissy fit because he only has one line that week.

Why limit yourself to acting like a TV show, when TV writers would die for some of that creative freedom?

I dont think that TV shows have a main cast just because of cost. After all they are bringing in new actors every episode anyway - if anything it would make more economic sense to have a fresh cast every week (in the style of Twilight zone, outer limits etc.) Not only that but many shows have a good line up of recurring cast members - not just Trek with characters like Q (who appears in about 7 episodes of TNG but can be rightly considered a meaty character) and the main klingons but also comedies like Scrubs and dramas like the Good Wife (i'd argue the good wife has a better line up of b-characters than a but thats another forum)

You also have to consider the concept of each show - Star Trek is set on a space ship so certain main characters will have prominence. But that didnt mean that Picard was front and centre every issue. CSI is based on a division of the police force. Naturally, the officers in that division are going to feature.

As a writer, surely its a benefit to have a set of main characters be in most episodes / issues to allow you to build up these characters, develop them and give the reader/ viewer something to follow. If MTMTE reset the cast list every 4 issues I think it would lose a lot.