In other comic preview news, courtesy of Newsarama we have the full preview for IDW‘s upcoming Transformers #52 – the third part of All Hail Optimus.
“Transformers #52
ALL HAIL OPTIMUS part 3! OPTIMUS PRIME has declared the Earth to be his territory… but even he can’t go it alone. Now he reaches out across the galaxy to form a coalition—of old friends and older enemies.”
The full issue will be out next Wednesday on April 20th, but if you’re not averse to spoilers you can check out the preview after the jump!
Rob
As always great post. The voices do sometimes sound a bit silly. I actually like his flawed characters.
Susha
well said, well put, hats off. agree
Seeaich
I am also going to assume that as I'm not hating on Barber. I have much respect he's resolved a few Meereenese Knot's plotwise reconciling IDW's leap from Furmanism to AHM to this modern hybrid of the two quite brilliantly under the circumstances, as well as making the space for Roberts to tell his stories. I just think he needs a co-writer/creator to push him to greater heights. It may not be everybody's cup of tea but just a dash of the creative madness that Barber & Scioli have co-created in TFs Vs. GI Joe added to FormerlyRID could take it next level.
There's some wonderful ideas and world creation here but it's a rich tapestry with a lot of loose threads (besides the necessary ones required for serial storytelling).
I don't do 'my comic's bigger than yours' because I want them both to succeed, and their success to fan the flames of the franchise to keep it alive and viable.
Sockie
Assuming you meant to reply to me…
Sales still speak the loudest. I'm not arguing about who has the most "dedicated" fanbase or whatever (FYI, I know of many comics and other stuff that sell pretty well, yet you'd be hard-pressed to find much discussion about online, it doesn't always mean a whole lot), I'm just saying that assuming it's mostly MTMTE fans who buy exRiD just because of MTMTE connections is a very large assumption to make. Windblade, SOTW, and other minis sell less than both MTMTE and ExRiD–and yet they also have those MTMTE connections you're claiming are responsible for exRiD's sales.
Susha
i'm not even gonna argue against, cos piling on Barber seems just mean.
I however will say that mtmte has a diehard fanbase which has reversed on these very forums (radicons are always full of mtmte customs), are you going to argue that RiD had/has anything like the following mtmte has?
Autovolt 127
Agreed.
Sockie
Barber still gets a lot of praise from a lot of people, and sales speak louder than online complaints–exRiD and MTMTE both sell around the same (and you're saying exRiD only sells because it supplements MTMTE sure sounds like a claim that'd be difficult to back up). I think you're overestimating how much hate he receives. McCarthy and Costa had far more universal dislike than Barber does. Also, Barber's the editor of the line (except for the books he writes), not the "chief writer." There is no one with that title.
Seeaich
You've sort of answered your own query there, political naivety isn't at odds with Prime *Pre-War*. That's, what, 3 or 4 million years ago? One would have thought he might have learned a thing or two in the intervening.
I believe that the IDW history has stated that the civil war went 'Cold' at some periods, one could argue it was running Cold at the start of 'Infiltration', to me that's political war.
There also must have been periods during the early war when Prime will have had to deal with Neutral city states. The Autobots may be a shadier bunch in the IDW-verse but (apart from Prowl) they're unlikely to have just rolled through and annihilated a Neutral population to get what they want/need as the Decepticons would.
Plus speaking of the established moral grey area, with a bunch like that involved in the faction there wasn't one power grab, overt or covert coup attempt?
I have no problem with Transformers being written for kids, but this is not that. IDW are clearly aiming at maturity in theme and characterisation whilst throwing some great ideas out there but a lot of the time they fail to connect those dots in a satisfying fashion (with the exception of Robert's flashback arcs, where we see a competent, capable Prime who can still lose and/or fail despite that due to the nature of circumstances or the actions of others).
Susha
this. I agree Barber (and IDW) have totally misunderstood their audience imo. The only reason TF sells is that it supplements MTMTE, which is interesting thanks to its good writing, + original plotlines + a genuine knowledge of TF stuff.
Barber is just into world building, what is strange is that with all the hate he has recieved he has become the chief writer at IDW. ROberts taking a break seems even more probable than Barber going to do something else.
Its a pitty cos hes tried really hard and lots of times, and it feels bad to rant about the poor mans work here, but we don't buy the stuff for charity.
I wonder how hard it would be to make a sample of transformer comic audience through comixology and calculate the average age of the buyers..
SMOG
Haha! I didn't mean to say that he really was the same as Bayformer Prime… just that his anger issues certainly are reminiscent.
Put me in the camp who expects (and prefers) characters to act out of a clear sense of motivation and internal rationale, beyond simply the requirements of melodrama and narrative contrivance. My feeling is that a good writer is one who can take characters with different perspectives, goals, and methods… and puts the audience in a position where they understand, and even relate to, where they are coming from, even when you disagree with them. In essence, the reader is "on the side of" whoever the principal character is at the moment, in some sense.
Barber's approach seems to be the opposite. By contrast, he makes every character's flaws and errors in judgment equally apparent, and allows us, viewing them from the outside, to see everyone as petty, ignorant, wrong-headed, naive, or transparent. He makes it all too easy to dislike EVERYONE. I just get very impatient with that.
In this case, Optimus is traditionally a "paragon" type of character. However, I don't feel that this makes him dramatically impossible to use or relate to… there's a number of ways to make that work. Instead, Barber is playing him as a "cop on the edge" with delusions of grandeur. It's not a good play on the character, in my opinion.
Mind you, that is the core premise behind the All Hail Optimus storyline (which I found to be a tedious and predictable concept from the outset)… but I think that Barber (as usual) is overselling it, and making it hard to generate any real tension or moral conflict.
Add to this the fact that over the past few years, I've come to find Barber's character "voice"… the way he writes dialogue… to be increasingly irritating. This preview just sort of reminds me of all the reasons I dropped this book in the first place.
Anyway, rant over. If you like it, you like it.
This, very much. I think the issue is that Barber always writes his characters as essentially dumb. They are never really smarter than the lowest common denominator. They are always painted in very broad strokes that feel like they are aimed at 10-year-olds. Which is not the audience for these comics. Or ANY comics these days, most likely.
zmog
Susha
but prime being a noob in politics isn't at odds with what we saw in shadowplay (mtmte) and primacy? I thought he stopped being naive after sentinel prime? or maybe after megatron ripped him apart shortly after?
Seeaich
This is exactly the sort of thing I'm referring to, and no matter how many times people wheel out the 'a great leader in war is not a great leader in peace' defence to the IDW approach, I don't see how you can play the 'Prime is politically naive and easily emotionally manipulated' card. He would've *had* to politic to keep his faction together throughout the war and let's face it, all respect to japanese culture (or Michael Crichton's interpretation of it), business may be war but politics is war even moreso and Prime having navigated 4 million years of war should have a much better grasp of tactics.
There is the foundation for an interesting story here, but it (& our heroes & villains) could be written so much smarter.
raindance773
For what it's worth, democracies and republics aren't quite exactly the same thing. Democracies operate solely on the highest number of votes, or rule by simple majority. Republics operate on voting for representatives who in turn vote on the laws and rulers – the delegates in turn have an awful lot of power because they can vote how they want to vote, unless they are bound by some law to vote in a certain way.
Plus, props to whoever brought up Metalhawk. We keep getting force fed that "SS is an okay guy – feel sorry for him because Optimus isn't giving him a chance." Well, the dude's a murderer. Repeatedly, in fact.
And again, no one seems to mention that Starscream was the one person Megatron was grooming to take over for him. The NAILs had to have known SS from the start because he was one of the first Decepticons. He was there from the start of the war. Moreover, he's hiding his own history from his counsel and OP is calling him on it. Windblade seems to just be playing the game. And I'm still not sure why OP hasn't brought up the Matrix – the source of the Transformers – anointed him. Odd.
Susha
well finally this leads to some story speculation.
Maybe then this is all about the functionists? We have seen in monstrosity that the quintessons also exist in the IDW universe, and the legend cyclonus tells of tf creations is very mythological, maybe too much.
So assuming that cybertronians were created by quintessons (with a designated function similar to the g1 cartoon) then it would be safe to assume that transformers were by definition made to obey and not act independently. After all they are machines, they serve the programing they were given more to the letter than dna would? mhhh
if this were true, maybe no matter how hard they try, governance, and thus self determination are almost against their nature.. sorry programming.
so maybe Ten shouldn't be the only one taking the ambus test!
Seeaich
I'd settle for some competency from Prime, I find it hard to believe a Prime as dunderheaded as IDW's seems in his contemporary appearances could have stalemated Megatron in 4 million years of war.
Haywired
Maybe that's the point with Cybertronians ending with people like Starscream or the Senate…
Maybe they're simply not prepared to live in democracy?
Certainly your average Athenian citizen had more common sense and political education than these guys.
Looks like Megatron was right after all. For this species tyranny might work the best.
Rob
See I think what makes this Optimus different is two fold:
A. He may have the desire at times to "kill them all!", but doesn't because he recognize its a stupid emotion to have in the same way how we recognize kicking a wall is a bad idea when we're angry. Movie Optimus does not make this distinction.
B. The universe he is in does not cater to him. In other words a poor decision is met with consequences. Unlike movie Optimus who can shoot defeated foes or abandon the innocent to make a point and not get a visit from a Tyrest Accord enforcer.
I am enjoying Barber's work, but different strokes for different folks .
SMOG
Oh, this series features Bayformer Prime? The whole council's faces are in grave danger!
Blah. The writing still feels simplistic, and Optimus is increasingly acting like a barbarian warlord.
"Bucko"??
This preview reminds me why I dropped the title. Dammit Barber… stop sucking!
zmog
Susha
I think u missed my point. I wasnt advocating aristoteles view of democ. just putting it out there. Tbh the issue of reprsentation seems even more acute than in ancient greece. Atleast, aside from women, under age boys, slaves and non proprieters everybody else got to vote. Seems they didn't even get that on cybertron. AND even worse there seems to be no mention of how long starcscreams mandate will last.. For life? When are elections?
So basically he avoided his election, won thanks to 'divine right' and plans not to hold elections EVER. And bots listen to him when he accuses others of despotism… Apparently governance is not something cybertronians looked into?
Sockie
No, I don't think that. There are some people lurking out in the wilderness like Bludgeon and Monstructor, but I can't see there being any settlements we hadn't heard about before now suddenly popping up. Cybertron only just became able to support life again, and the Autobots were keep tracking of all incoming ships (which would have little reason to land anywhere outside of the place where all the other ships were landing, especially with how hostile the rest of the planet is). Plus, Megatron was manipulating Cybertron's energies to make sure everyone stayed together in one place in Iacon. I'm not really sure where another settlement on Cybertron would suddenly come from–the colonies introduced in Windblade are already fulfilling a similar role, anyway.