The Energon Pub

Let me first intoduce myself. Hello I'm known across many forums as The Rev and although I've visited this site over the years enjoying all it has to offer, I've never made the leap as a registered member.

Well ... obviously I'm happy to say all that has changed. So here I am and salutations to everyone!

Before I begin as to why I'm creating this post ... let me say I'm not here to hate. Shane McCarthy has his merits. His execution of drawing out real human emotion and beleivable human characters is possibly some of the best I've read in some time. His dialogue between DJ and Andy Reid was stellar. Colonel Daniel Witwicky's monologue regarding his son's assumed death brought me to tears ... can you believe that ... it was the first time a comic got me that emotional.

Damn you Shane!!!

That is where my praise ends. This afterall is a book about transformers and after following faithfully from the very beginning and enduring Dreamwave's collapse I took up the torch once again as IDW brought upon what I consider the best iteration of Transformers ever!

Why do I say that .... two words ... Furman's storytelling. Yes it was a slow start, but what ensued was a vast universe filled with mystery and mythos. He brought breadth and life into those giant robots giving them an epic existance that I haven't read since the War Within series. Sub plot and sub plot kept me salivating for more. Then came The Magnificance ... then The Reapers ... I was in awe! It seemed as though Simon Furman was chiseling out the definative Transformers universe, it was beautiful.

Then IDW decided enough was enough ... why I'll never know.

What we got was All Hail Megatron and 2 Simon series that quite frankly were sloppy in their execution ... but in all fairness Simon was forced to "tie up the loose ends".

As the thread states ... 10 issues in ... and I'm left wondering what happened to the lush beautiful universe that the Master craftsman, Simon Furman was giving us. Despite my aforementioned praise of Shane McCarthy ... All Hail Megatron just seems, 1 dimensional, fragmented, and confusing. I'm hoping for a huge payoff ... but after 10 issues of "what the f*@ks" I don't know if Shane will do it.

Now I find out that the new ongoing series in November of this year will still not feature Simon's talents. That is the biggest "What The F*#k!" moment of all.

Listen IDW ... and I hope someone is listening ... I'm 35 years old and I need mature .... mature .... as in Simon Furman kind of mature storytelling. I was a kid in the 80's. I enjoyed the Marvel and the cartoon, but please don't give me more of the 80's transformers (AHM) rehash.

With my comics, as in life, I want to move on to new and better things.

The Rev wrote:Why do I say that .... two words ... Furman's storytelling. Yes it was a slow start, but what ensued was a vast universe filled with mystery and mythos. He brought breadth and life into those giant robots giving them an epic existance that I haven't read since the War Within series. Sub plot and sub plot kept me salivating for more. Then came The Magnificance ... then The Reapers ... I was in awe! It seemed as though Simon Furman was chiseling out the definative Transformers universe, it was beautiful.

Then IDW decided enough was enough ... why I'll never know.

What we got was All Hail Megatron and 2 Simon series that quite frankly were sloppy in their execution ... but in all fairness Simon was forced to "tie up the loose ends".

As the thread states ... 10 issues in ... and I'm left wondering what happened to the lush beautiful universe that the Master craftsman, Simon Furman was giving us. Despite my aforementioned praise of Shane McCarthy ... All Hail Megatron just seems, 1 dimensional, fragmented, and confusing. I'm hoping for a huge payoff ... but after 10 issues of "what the f*@ks" I don't know if Shane will do it.

This is prob the best and most concise reason for why people like myself are anti AHM.

The story persee isnt the problem, had this been a new start like Infiltration issue 1 or DW Vol 1 then it would generate some wow as we have no backstory.

What we actually have is an established backstory thrown away in the opening 3 issues, with nothing set up for any future issues of any worth.

I've said in another post that the general plot can be grasped by reading issue 1 and issue 12, I dont feel I would lose by missing out the 10 issues inbetween.

The ion series before with the spotlight, you knew every minute detail was interwoven into the larger mythos. Take Stormbringer and Infiltration when Megatron is having the comms with the Predacons, subtle to miss that its two scenes about the same conversation, but you see the plot from multiple angles and have to work out how it all ties together...in a word, its thought provoking as a story for adults should be.

The new story spoons feeds a plot with lots of flash, but no substance to why and you know missing an issue wont affect the general reading, I find this criminal that a company whose revenue depends on selling issues, is putting out more of this type of story hoping it will increase sales.

Whats probably worse is that there are a lot of TF fans who like this and didnt like Furmans ion series....each to their own, but I feel its a sad day when the franchise and the media it generates is driven by the desires of people who prefer the kind of story telling we had when we watched the cartoon as children, I for one prefer an adult storyline that Furman provides, but with established characters who I love from my childhood.

But then again, this is a child's comic so perhaps it will never happen.

Please IDW listen to your fans, if you cant put Furman back in the driving seat full time, at least give him a chance to ride shotgun??

AHM is written very differently than a Simon Story. More of a moody drama.

Simon's writing is has about a thousand threads going on at once. It's wonderful, but also at times hard to keep track of and sometimes things would drag on too, like remember the multi-issue car chase with Wheeljack, Hotrod and the Head-Streakers?

I love both, but AHM is a nice step to the side, a chance to slow down and see some of the interactions with the characters on a deeper level. Yes though, this is at the expense of the thrill ride action we've grown accustomed to with the IDW stories up until AHM.

Both Simon and Shane will most likely continue on writing more stories for us, I'm sure we're not closing in on the end of either of their involvement in Transformers. I'm just grateful we're spoiled enough to get to enjoy both styles of story telling.

ponycorn wrote:AHM is written very differently than a Simon Story. More of a moody drama.

Simon's writing is has about a thousand threads going on at once. It's wonderful, but also at times hard to keep track of and sometimes things would drag on too, like remember the multi-issue car chase with Wheeljack, Hotrod and the Head-Streakers?

I love both, but AHM is a nice step to the side, a chance to slow down and see some of the interactions with the characters on a deeper level. Yes though, this is at the expense of the thrill ride action we've grown accustomed to with the IDW stories up until AHM.

Both Simon and Shane will most likely continue on writing more stories for us, I'm sure we're not closing in on the end of either of their involvement in Transformers. I'm just grateful we're spoiled enough to get to enjoy both styles of story telling.

Much better...much less one sided than my post

Seriously though, like I said I guess its each to their own, I love the thousand plot lines at once, guess I just love having a puzzle in a story to figure out

OK, first off I haven't read All Hail Megatron yet, I plan to when it comes out in TPB.

Second as I've gotten older my tastes in comics has also changed gone are the days when just a lot of stupid action sequences and a cool costume would be enough to keep me hooked for anywhere from 1-25 issues. I want, no I NEED characters with a personality, conflicts, problems, to make me a buy a comic book. The hero battling the villian bores me to death because I've read that a million times. A hero battling with his or her conscience is far more exciting to me.

Cyberstrike wrote:OK, first off I haven't read All Hail Megatron yet, I plan to when it comes out in TPB.

Second as I've gotten older my tastes in comics has also changed gone are the days when just a lot of stupid action sequences and a cool costume would be enough to keep me hooked for anywhere from 1-25 issues. I want, no I NEED characters with a personality, conflicts, problems, to make me a buy a comic book. The hero battling the villian bores me to death because I've read that a million times. A hero battling with his or her conscience is far more exciting to me.

You very well may fall in love with AHM then. It's more inter-personal drama and in-fighting than I've seen in any other Transformers story thus far. Personal Demons? There's more than a couple characters tearing themselves apart inside in this one.

ponycorn wrote:You very well may fall in love with AHM then. It's more inter-personal drama and in-fighting than I've seen in any other Transformers story thus far. Personal Demons? There's more than a couple characters tearing themselves apart inside in this one.

Agreed.

I fell off reading sometime around the time of the Blurr Spotlight, so I was surprised to see what the heck had happened to jump off All Hail Megatron, or why certain characters were what they were.

That being said, AHM is pretty dang good, for the reasons you mentioned above. I love how the "new" Kup, Perceptor and such are characterized in there. Though there was some stuff from before (that whole "Galvatron" business) that seemed to drop off. The Drift and Jazz Spotlights kick ass too (especially the latter).

im also going to agree that simon went down hill half way through devastation, though i will admit the last 2 issues of maximum dinobots were awesome. and i loved ahm since issue 4