At the final Auto Assembly this weekend, there was a fair bit of talk about sin – and not all of it was due to the Christian conferance which was also taking place in the same hotel. We’re talking about the Sins of the Wreckers, the upcoming IDW miniseries being written by Nick Roche! The majority of this information came from a panel on the Sunday afternoon of Auto Assembly, where Nick Roche took to the stage alongside Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, and James Roberts to talk about IDW’s Transformers comics including the main series as well as sins.
Check it out after the break, with thanks to TFW2005 member Mort for providing us with a summary.
Roundup of the IDW Q&A Panel by TFW2005 member Mort
22 August, Auto Assembly 2015
James Roberts, Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, Nick Roche
WARNING – SPOILERS FOR PAST ISSUES
Panel started with chat around the last 12 months (Dark Cybertron, Sins of the Wreckers announcement).
Q: Give us a tease about characters that will appear in Sins of the Wreckers.
A (Nick): The first issue cover is more or less the hero cast. Stakeout and Hubcap the two not normally associated with Wreckers. Both a very big part of the story. The sequel to LSOTW is trying to find who’s left. “What jerk wrote the last series to leave us without a cast?!” Can’t speak more to cast without spoilers.
Prowl has been kidnapped and left an automated message behind, saying that if he ever goes missing, he only wants one team to come find him: “My best friends, the Wreckers.” Arcee is hugely involved because she’s one of the few characters that still holds any value in Prowl for what he’d done. They’ve had their ups and downs and she’s starting to realise what a duplicitous character he is, but she’s the one interested in finding him. Everyone else, not so much.
One of the ideas / the working title behind SOTW is ‘WreckerLeaks’. It’s about the release of data and whether people should know about the dark deeds that have gone on at Prowl’s hands under the Wreckers. What was on the Aequitas data slug. It’s a battle for WreckerLeaks essentially and whether it’s the right thing to do. What happened in the real world is what SOTW is about: people are going to get silenced. Is silencing them the right thing to do for the greater good?
LSOTW was about drama and melodrama and the feels. SOTW has humour in it, but you really need to look for it. It starts serious, but there are new faces in it so you have to cast some light else they’ll be too stiff as characters. A bit of lighter Roadbuster and Stakeout and Hubcap in there, but Verity is the impetus to the whole thing.
Q: How much direction do you get for cover art or do you do your own thing?
A (Nick/Alex): A lot of direction from James. Asked to do different things. Will take their own approach. Would be interesting to see what they’d come up with if they’d been given the same theme.
A (Andrew): Free to draw what he wants. Will coordinate with the alternative cover artist directly.
Q: Why do you love Thunderclash so much? Hard to feel a connection to him.
A (James): Not surprised there’s no connection, we’ve only seen him through other characters. He existed as a motivator for the quest when the Matrix was destroyed. He made a dramatic appearance in issue #42 and he’ll come back. If you’re not sure what to feel about him yet, that’s understandable. Not important to James personally.
Q: Are there any MTMTE season 1 plot threads that haven’t been addressed yet?
A (James): Whatever is under Aequitas, some think there may be a mystery around Rung, Dominus Ambus is still unaccounted for, some people think there’s someone we’d recognise under Tarn’s mask, Agent 113, the ship the Scavengers came across. A few things.
Q: A lot of new characters in the first issue of MTMTE. What informed the decision?
A (James): Blank canvases. Can create their personalities and write the story around getting to know them.
Q: How does the Cybertronian economy work? Some characters are said to have more money than others (Drift, Cyclonus).
A (James): There is a currency and the value fluctuates. Economy broadly analogous to ours. People can be wealthy (Drift does well for himself). We go there a little bit more in the upcoming Scavengers two-parter.
Q: Where did the idea for the DJD come from?
A (James/Nick): Simon Furman first came up with Banzaitron’s Secret Intelligence, then fleshed out in Bullets. James thought Nick came up with the DJD name.
Q: When ideas are mandated (eg Combiner Wars), how difficult is it and how fun is it to accommodate them?
A (Andrew): Starscream’s changing body aside, Hasbro has been really good at not forcing things on. When Combiner Wars came, John Barber thought elements fitted in to what was happening in the comics at the time and apparently that wasn’t random (Hasbro get their ideas from the comics). It’s a circular thing. Many MTMTE toys have come out.
A (James): There is a Cyclonus CW figure and he’s part of a combiner, but given where MTMTE was, there was no suggestion that he should be part of the event. Some things you can incorporate, others would be stretching it too far. Both sides listen.
Q: Given Whirl’s success in ending the minicon war, how do you see him tackling Unicron?
A (James): “Will Whirl fight Unicron? Is that what it boils down to? Yes! Absolutely. Issue #49. It’s just a one-off thing.”
Q: Speaking off, Unicron is the only character that’s been absent for 10 years. Which one of you has the Unicron pitch?
A (James): Don’t go there. Internal discipline. Maybe one day or maybe not. The end of the war has lasted 4 years, so some things do stick in the world of comics.
Q: “Like Megatron becoming an Autobot?” [sarky Q from David W]
A: “Some things do stick in the world of comics, don’t they?” [sarky A from James R]
Q: The introduction of new worlds meshing into one. How much of this is Hasbro minded and how much is writer/artist driven?
A (Nick/James/Andrew): Real question is how many G1 characters are we running out of. Loads of potential in the colonies. 10 years into IDW continuity. Huge amount of Beast Wars fans out there. If there’s a way to organically [ha] bring them in, that’s great. The NAILs as well. No reason why a character like Sky-Byte can’t be in the books.
Q: Black Shadow’s partner Blue Bacchus from Victory – do the two of them know each other in IDW?
A (James): “I’m going to say yes! They do know each other.”
Q: Who were the first 112 agents?
A (James): “You’re not going to get anything out of me at this stage.” Megatron asks something similar in the preview to #44. There aren’t actually another 112 agents.
Q: Do you chart all the character relationships in IDW?
A (James/Andrew): Both writers keep them in their head. There is a fan made chart out there that looks gratifyingly complicated.
Q: Of all the colony worlds, which would you like to draw from an aesthetic point of view?
A (Nick): Cybertron era. Galaxy Force, Nitro Convoy stuff. Beast Wars characters because they’re different.
A (Andrew): Junkions as a colony would be fun.
A (Alex): More Caminus.
Q: The designs of the Camiens in not-RID #44.
A (Andrew): Wanted to make them diverse. No particular direction in script other than gender (two female, one male). Originally one was going to be based on Crasher from Gobots. They were handing out flyers so he made them into flying vehicles. Josh picked the colours.
Q: We’ve established multiple Primes. Are there 13 artefacts to be found? (the Matrix, the Enigma)
A (James): The story will dictate. There have been a lot of new concepts in the past 18 months. Still figuring out how to proceed.
Q: Are there any societies on the LL, like a Rodimus fanclub?
A (James): “In his head there is, yeah.” Would love to write stories focusing on that kind of stuff. 200+ characters and many adventures. We just happen to be following a certain group. There’s a community noticeboard in Dark Cybertron that gives an idea of other things happening.
Q: Can you name anything else from the Nautica list of inside jokes she’s ticked off?
A (James): Good question, but couldn’t think of any on the spot.
Q: Do you enjoy writing or drawing deaths?
A (Alex): Immensely. Right before the death of Ambulon, a fan had come up at BotCon and told him he was her favourite. Alex: “Oh, really?”. He had just drawn that page. Told fan he was sure nothing was going to happen.
A (Andrew): Inked the page where Rotorstorm gets it. He thought it was one of the most grotesque deaths he’d ever seen. Not one of his, but he also still holds out that Pipes had it coming.
A (Nick): Reaction to new Wreckers has been really nice. Has spoken to many people at AA so far and everyone in the new cast is someone’s favourite. “Five issues, count them down.” Doesn’t enjoy drawing deaths, but there’s pressure to get it right. Ironfist’s death was strange because it happened off panel. Pyro’s death was cool. Used to joke with Simon when doing Maximum Dynobots that they were torturing themselves, because Grimlock and Hot Rod are their favourite characters.
A (James): From a writer’s perspective, the death scene itself not as important as how they got there. Making a death impactful is satisfying.
A (Nick): As an artist, you know that art will also sell more. He was tempted to put the original art of Rung getting shot on sale right away because he had that small window when everyone thought he was dead. It’s also satisfying, creatively, to know you had a character’s final moments to draw (was the one to pull the trigger on them).
Infosaur
I think the Prowl/Arcee dynamic is more akin to M & 007, but then who would be Moneypenny?
Autovolt 127
I think Nick Roche and James Roberts could totally pull off Unicron.
It's for the best because then they would all have to die.
Bumblebee765
Love that group shot of all the Wreckers, and still super excited for Sins!
JasonPrime
Just my opinion but in my book if you get roped into helping a team that is basically ALWAYS sent on suicide missions, then you are part of that team.
Obsidian X
It worries me that Guzzle isn't on the cover or mentioned. Better not have killed off that badass little fucker!
I wish we had gotten a miniseries of Impactor and Guzzels shenanigans in space, the minicomic in LSOTW hardcover only wet my appetite.
Hopefully he is fine and in this.
Anyway.. LOVE Last stand of the wreckers, Roches writing and his art as long as he doesn't go too cartoony (I'm looking at you Infestation), can't wait!
Susha
ok well ty.
Sockie
I'm just going off what Roche, who's writing SOTW, said; according to him, Kup and Perceptor aren't members of the Wreckers. (and neither are Blurr, Blaster, or Drift)
Susha
JasonPrime
ah yeah, thanks.
Bass X0
That was Bumper.
Sockie
Roberts isn't involved with the writing on this one.
That's actually wrong. Roche says Kup and Perceptor still aren't Wreckers, they just came along for that mission.
Nope.
JasonPrime
On a side note, wasn't Hub Cap killed off in 'Origin'?
JasonPrime
Back when IDW first started publishing the TF books and they said "No Unicron." I was like "Thank God." Coming off the 'Unicron Trilogy' I had my fill. Now though, I'd honestly love a Unicron storyline to see how these guys handle it and I think it would fit in nicely to the post civil war world they have now where 'Bots and 'Cons have to work together against 'the ultimate evil.'
TF14
What? They were never Wreckers, they, along with Blaster and Perceptor simply served aboard Kup's ship. Kup and Perceptor weren't even made Wreckers until right before the Garrus 9 mission.
Autovolt 127
Yeah I can also a lot of Light Yagami too…the way Barber writes Prowl as more of a smart-alec bastard.
I wouldn't mind Prowl having a complete mental breakdown like Light had at the end of the series.
they're totally banging each other.
Susha
nice. good to be reading roche/roberts again. hurra!
but; … weren't drift and blur on the wreckers ship at some time? was it when the wreckers crash landed on cybertron and got saved by hotrod and then went on to save prime and co? I'm thus asuming that mess up we had back then resulted in blur and drift not having ever been wreckers today? still the episode I'm on about is drifts spotlight, are we censoring that too?
Megastar
I'd miss him also and I get more of a Light Yagmi meets Batman vibe from Prowl.
Rockdown
Prowl and Arcee again….