The Energon Pub

[ZeroWolf]

To be fair, the necrobot turned out to be true I do understand what your saying but it's a dangerous thing to keep pulling the same trick. Though having thought about it, the legends have been true in a sense, i mean the thirteen existed, it's just that shockwave created them.

If all this means though they are going the primacon route though then I'll not be happy. I'll happily take him as the robo satan then the creation of a monkey.

[Daniel Adkins]

No offense, ZeroWolf, but I think you’re letting your knowledge of past lore cloud your judgement. You assume it’s going to be Primus vs Unicron, you assume it’s going to be Primacron, but the one thing you don’t assume is that it’s just going to be something new.

Honestly, I’m so tired of TF fandom never wanting anything new. Everything has to be an homage or a reference or pulled from something else. Especially when the IDW universe has always predicated itself on reinventing and subverting character interpretations: Galvatron isn’t Megatron, Elita One is a ruthless warlord, Ultra Magnus is tiny dude with a mustache. And it’s by thinking outside the box that IDW has been so successful.

[ZeroWolf]

Oh I love new things, I'm a staunch defender of the new characters we got in combiner wars, even if they never got a chance to shine like Rook, and alpha bravo. However I can easily see hasbro leaning in here and giving advice on what to do with unicron. I want to be wrong, I want a new take but I'm pessimistic in what's going to happen. Id much prefer a more lovecraftian approach to unicron.

Now that issue aside there's been something else that's been making me think. We know from future solicitations that the dire wraiths are stadding against the bots but the bestial army comment in this preview makes me wonder if all the beast formers that were with onyx wave are now working for unicron...

[Daniel Adkins]

Uh, we actually have had NO word on Dire Wraiths appearing in this at all. Now, there are those guys who have Unicron horns that make them resemble Vekktral and his crew, but they actually shapeshifted to distinguish himself from the other Dire Wraiths (becuase Alex Milne just felt like drawing something different.) As a reminder, here’s what Dire Wraiths are actually supposed to look like.

[ZeroWolf]

Okay that's a little confusing but thank you for the clear up

[AllNewSuperRobot]

Honestly, I’m so tired of TF fandom never wanting anything new. Everything has to be an homage or a reference or pulled from something else. Especially when the IDW universe has always predicated itself on reinventing and subverting character interpretations: Galvatron isn’t Megatron, Elita One is a ruthless warlord, Ultra Magnus is tiny dude with a mustache. And it’s by thinking outside the box that IDW has been so successful.

Couldn't agree more. G1 is a noose around the neck of this series, preventing it from growing into something more. IDWverse began with reinvention yet over the years they have heavily backpeddled at times. AHM was the biggest example but there have been others. It went as far as Barber and Roberts chose to write the stories they wanted to, under the banner and skin of "Transformers", yet still fell back on the same tired tropes.

The fact they mentioned this "legend" was an outright bad idea. To even mention it, I don't see them deviating with Unicron in the same way as with Galvatron or Thunderwing. Time will tell, yet from this preview alone, I am very skeptical now.

Also, Ultra Magnus was reinvented twice in IDWverse. First as "Judge Dredd in Space" which seemed an awesome concept. Then as a fake suit with a tiny mustached Bot inside.

[ZeroWolf]

To be fair the idea that he was just someone in the suit didn't lessen the dredd in space idea as
It just meant that the guy who was dredd bite the big one somewhere along the line. Makes sense to me anyway besides um started off as someone in armour though dw stated it was just a white prime in the armour, going very toy accurate with that.

[AllNewSuperRobot]

To be fair the idea that he was just someone in the suit didn't lessen the dredd in space idea as
It just meant that the guy who was dredd bite the big one somewhere along the line. Makes sense to me anyway besides um started off as someone in armour though dw stated it was just a white prime in the armour, going very toy accurate with that.

Of course it lessened the idea, his entire personality was changed and diluted. How would it make sense for the character introduced through his Spotlight in 2007 to have died offpanel between Escalation and Last Stand of The Wreckers? (all of these events set chronologically within a year or so)
The MTMTE mustached Bot was in a suit of armour, nothing written prior even remotely suggested the actual Ultra Magnus was.

[ZeroWolf]

He could have easily died before he got on the lost light besides he had some good monents, he just learned to loosen up as well. Also to be fair tryest also didn't like how up himself he got, hence why he wanted to replace him with legislators. As I've said though I'm okay with the change and don't think it lessens anything but then being a dwarfer, I like the homage to ace rimmer your milage may vary

[AllNewSuperRobot]

I thought Thunderclash was supposed to be Ace Rimmer?

At the end of the day, it's a cop-out. Clearly Roberts didn't want to write Judge Dredd in Space, he wanted to write about OCD bureaucrat with an inferiority complex.

Maybe the New continuity will give us an Ultra Magnus that lives upto the pedigree of the name, not a Joke Pretender Shell

[Rodimus Prime]

The MTMTE mustached Bot was in a suit of armour, nothing written prior even remotely suggested the actual Ultra Magnus was.

I might be in the minority on this, but I never got used to Minimus Ambus. Any time I saw Magnus on the page, I saw Ultra Magnus. Whenever I read his dialogue, Robert Stack's voice was in my head. That's not being a Geewunner, because I don't have a problem with the concept of Minimus Ambus. I just never got used to it. Maybe the old version is too ingrained in my memories. Ironically, back in G1 I didn't like the Magnus character much, but I like IDW's characterization of him. Also, I thought the "white Prime in the armor" concept was cool, especially the way it was revealed.

[AllNewSuperRobot]

Little bot in a suit of Armour = Pretender.

Transformers Lore 101.

If they had Robocop'd him, that would have been a different story (and not a bad idea, actually). I generally found while reading the dialogue of MTMTE/LL, I couldn't "hear" the character voices saying those lines. It all goes with the general disconnect I had with the ongoings post-DoOP.

[ZeroWolf]

I said ace rimmer because of what was revealed in season 7 of red dwarf, namely that the original ace was dead and that a sucession of rimmers took the mantle. Though now I type this I'm also reminded that an old comic hero has done this before...the ghost that walks...the Phantom. Regardless there's also another possibility in play regarding magnus, that of he didn't have a place really post death of Optimus Prime. Barber clearly had plans for rid, and magnus didn't fit in any of them. Prowl, bee and Starscream were the big players of pre-dark cybertron robots in disguise. Roberts was the only one who had an idea of what to do with him.

Now there was an option of doing nothing with him but fans would kick off that a character like um wasnt getting used, so he had to be used...

I suspect we'll get a different take on him next time anyway but I do want to see more of an animated slant again, with him being higher then op in the chain of command. If they do the white prime thing then I want a good storyline why.

[AllNewSuperRobot]

Regardless there's also another possibility in play regarding magnus, that of he didn't have a place really post death of Optimus Prime.

Ok everyone, here's a fun game, Sound Off how many characters you think this applied to?

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Well, we got 9 of the 13 colonies eaten, and it looks like #10 is about to go. So that leaves Earth and Carcer (in orbit around Cybertron). Man, this is gonna be destructive.

Also really glad Milne is drawing the series. His detail is what can make Unicron perfect in IDW

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Unicron has never looked better

[Va'al]

We finally have the full previews for this week's comics from IDW Publishing featuring Transformers, and we're headed for a number of endings - and we finish with Unicron #1 below! Check it all out, and join the discussion in the Energon Pub as we prepare our review for the release date this new comic book day.

Transformers: Unicron #1 (of 6)—Cover A: Alex Milne—GEM OF THE MONTH
John Barber (w) • Alex Milne (a & c)
The Darkest Hour has come. Optimus Prime stages a desperate gamble as the world-eater, Unicron, approaches Windblade’s homeworld—but that’s just the appetizer. The main course is Cybertron (with a side of Earth)... and it’s starting to look like no force in the galaxy can stop the end from coming.
FC • 32 pages • $4.99

Transformers: Unicron #1 (of 6)—Cover B: James Raiz—GEM OF THE MONTH
John Barber (w) • Alex Milne (a) • James Raiz (c)
FC • 32 pages • $4.99

Bullet points:
The end is nigh!
Variant covers by Andrew Griffith, Francesco Francavilla, and Bill Sienkiewicz!

[steve2275]

this looks epic cant wait for the trade

[AllNewSuperRobot]

Unless the issue does something really interesting, I'm definitely dropping the subscription, from the preview alone.

[Decepticon Stryker]

I see the Dark Syde! I can't wait to see the rest of this story develp.

[ZeroWolf]

So we're going to see prime fight primal...or will primal turn and fight alongside the good guys leading bw megs to be turned into bw galvatron in a bizarre mish mash of homages...

That aside thus doesn't add anything other than the page of fighting which we already knew was coming and that page summarising everything to this point.

@AllNewSuper what's made you drop it considering this is pretty much what we've seen in the other preview?

[Randomhero]

Unless the issue does something really interesting, I'm definitely dropping the subscription, from the preview alone.

Yeh you said that 2 days ago when you thought Roberts was the writer

[AllNewSuperRobot]

I was planning to drop it from the first preview. This one hasn't altered that but I will wait for issue one to arrive. The hamfisted Beast Wars cameos really leave a bad taste in my mouth (yes I am aware they come from Shockwave/Onyx Prime in the OP book)

[Randomhero]

So we're going to see prime fight primal...or will primal turn and fight alongside the good guys leading bw megs to be turned into bw galvatron in a bizarre mish mash of homages...

That aside thus doesn't add anything other than the page of fighting which we already knew was coming and that page summarising everything to this point.

@AllNewSuper what's made you drop it considering this is pretty much what we've seen in the other preview?

Man I have no idea what’s the deal with primal. I’m all about new interpretations of characters but having primal as a bad guy leaves some sour taste in my mouth. I’d like to see him switch sides but he’s been a follower of Onyx for 12 million years and is pretty much just a generic robot in ODW.

[Flashwave]

So we're going to see prime fight primal...or will primal turn and fight alongside the good guys leading bw megs to be turned into bw galvatron in a bizarre mish mash of homages...

That aside thus doesn't add anything other than the page of fighting which we already knew was coming and that page summarising everything to this point.

@AllNewSuper what's made you drop it considering this is pretty much what we've seen in the other preview?

Man I have no idea what’s the deal with primal. I’m all about new interpretations of characters but having primal as a bad guy leaves some sour taste in my mouth. I’d like to see him switch sides but he’s been a follower of Onyx for 12 million years and is pretty much just a generic robot in ODW.

WELL, i doynt we'll get thr expose for ot, but maybe since Unicron ate Eukaris, Primal Died, Unicron enslaved the Body.