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[Va'al]

That is one thing I will agree on, and the point that seems to be confirmed from outside of this readership and fandom: this is very much a new Visionaries book, not a Transformers one.

I will cover the rest of the series, because that's how I work, but Transformers are basically used as setting, and more will - apparently - die. I'm not too keen on that, as I said in the review, as we had literally just settled into an aftermath of a EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE story. I do, however, trust Visaggio's writing, her previous work is outstanding, so there's a little hope there.

In the meantime, I'd much rather go see what the Optimus Prime ongoing is doing, in terms of cataclysmic events.

[Burn]

But again, EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE!

And the fact that IDW need to kill off more and more Transformer characters (yeah I realise they have an abundance to draw from) just to launch a different franchise is, well, almost insulting.

How many times can EVERYTHING BE AT STAKE with Transformers? They say peace isn't easy, but geez, it's just one thing after another.

[primalxconvoy]

But again, EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE!

And the fact that IDW need to kill off more and more Transformer characters (yeah I realise they have an abundance to draw from) just to launch a different franchise is, well, almost insulting.

How many times can EVERYTHING BE AT STAKE with Transformers? They say peace isn't easy, but geez, it's just one thing after another.

I remember reading somewhere that Simon Furman (or was it someone else?) wanted to avoid using Unicron these days as it all got a little bit to hammed-up and overly dramatic having "the end of the world" happen all the time. It was akin to working at"The Restaurant at the End if the Universe"...

[Burn]

And this is exactly what's happened. It's ANOTHER threat to Cybertron. All to serve the introduction of another franchise.

It's akin to what Marvel do every year. They have their big multi-issue storyline with it's own main books which tie into the monthly on-goings, and when all is said and done we have a couple of new titles.

At least Marvel have a bit of freedom with their titles, IDW just get a "launch this franchise" mandate, and the whole shared universe ends up suffering for it.

[Va'al]

At this stage in the overall IDWverse? I pretty much agree.

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

[primalxconvoy]

At this stage in the overall IDWverse? I pretty much agree.

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The irony of having Unicron pop up now, of all times, is not lost on us all, right?

[Burn]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

[Va'al]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

[Coptur]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

I agree the Ghostbusters, Turtles and some of Star Trek have been consistent and very good (not read BTTF yet).

I also agree that a combined Hasbroverse could work but the way it's been executed has been rushed and to a poor standard. I also think the problems stem more from Hasbro than IDW.

[primalxconvoy]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

Indeed. Line I've said before, I don't know why they didn't do a G1 version of these reanimated licences, with the more alternate takes as separate universe. Use TFs to garner interest in one-offs, cameos and slow-burn arcs in the TF comics, and then create new, zany reboots in a separate comic series.

They could even have the alternate universe versions crossing over to the "G1" universe as specials every now and then.

Everyone is happy.

[Rodimus Knight]

More race and gender baiting SJW nonsense from IDW, quickly going the way of Marvel. I'm sorry but Leoric is a white guy (along with Matt Trakker from MASK). These characters look NOTHING like Visionaries at all, but rather an obvious SJW political vehicle, for the white/man shaming of much loved franchises of the past. There is nothing wrong with being white. If they want ethnic minority characters, make NEW characters and NEW stories. The Visionaries are white male characters in fantasy knight armor. Deal with it. SJWs are destroying everything I hold dear at the moment. I'm boycotting all IDW publications from now on, until they decide to get rid of the identity politics. This is not Visionaries and it's not Transformers. It's sickening, forced "diversity" and no longer fun.

I get so tired of the “SJW”shield for what people really obviously want to say but don’t have the full fours peg to completely go there. Just spit out what you really want to say and drop th SJW bs.

So bascially you're calling Transcendent30 & primalxconvoy racists??(speaking of four pegs) for not liking Hasbro/IDW changing established character races for no reason other that SJW / Political nonsense.

I didn't like Baxter Stockman being white in the 1989 Turtles cartoon but I guess that makes me racists too..

No no no, it's perfectly all right to whitewash villains. It's non villain characters that are whitewashed that make you racist.

If you are going to SJW characters, you also need to do it with the Villains and the Heroes, but from what I saw, none of the Villains changed Race in the MASK story. I'm not familiar enough with Visionaries to comment on their part.

The other problem with doing it in MASK, is you had a strong Black Character on the Heroes' side already. There was no reason to change Tracker.

As far as the guys running Visionaries.com go with liking it, there are often people like that who are just happy to see their dead property put back into a spotlight and are unlikely to say too much negative about it when it finally gets updated again until the rest of the fan base turns against it. I give you Dan Akroid who had nothing but nice things to say about the new Ghostbusters movie before it came out, then when it flopped and flopped hard, that's when all his complaints came out.

[Va'al]

We had moved on. Please follow suit.

[primalxconvoy]

More race and gender baiting SJW nonsense from IDW, quickly going the way of Marvel. I'm sorry but Leoric is a white guy (along with Matt Trakker from MASK). These characters look NOTHING like Visionaries at all, but rather an obvious SJW political vehicle, for the white/man shaming of much loved franchises of the past. There is nothing wrong with being white. If they want ethnic minority characters, make NEW characters and NEW stories. The Visionaries are white male characters in fantasy knight armor. Deal with it. SJWs are destroying everything I hold dear at the moment. I'm boycotting all IDW publications from now on, until they decide to get rid of the identity politics. This is not Visionaries and it's not Transformers. It's sickening, forced "diversity" and no longer fun.

I get so tired of the “SJW”shield for what people really obviously want to say but don’t have the full fours peg to completely go there. Just spit out what you really want to say and drop th SJW bs.

So bascially you're calling Transcendent30 & primalxconvoy racists??(speaking of four pegs) for not liking Hasbro/IDW changing established character races for no reason other that SJW / Political nonsense.

I didn't like Baxter Stockman being white in the 1989 Turtles cartoon but I guess that makes me racists too..

No no no, it's perfectly all right to whitewash villains. It's non villain characters that are whitewashed that make you racist.

If you are going to SJW characters, you also need to do it with the Villains and the Heroes, but from what I saw, none of the Villains changed Race in the MASK story. I'm not familiar enough with Visionaries to comment on their part.

The other problem with doing it in MASK, is you had a strong Black Character on the Heroes' side already. There was no reason to change Tracker.

As far as the guys running Visionaries.com go with liking it, there are often people like that who are just happy to see their dead property put back into a spotlight and are unlikely to say too much negative about it when it finally gets updated again until the rest of the fan base turns against it. I give you Dan Akroid who had nothing but nice things to say about the new Ghostbusters movie before it came out, then when it flopped and flopped hard, that's when all his complaints came out.

Mind you, even if they gave the main leader of Venom a suntan, he'd be Miles Blacker...

[ZeroWolf]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

Indeed. Line I've said before, I don't know why they didn't do a G1 version of these reanimated licences, with the more alternate takes as separate universe. Use TFs to garner interest in one-offs, cameos and slow-burn arcs in the TF comics, and then create new, zany reboots in a separate comic series.

They could even have the alternate universe versions crossing over to the "G1" universe as specials every now and then.

Everyone is happy.

Problem is what content exists for them to say it's the original interpretation in the first place. Take Rom, he originally had a good comic series when he first came out but that is held by marvel now, hence IDW having a blank slate. As for Visionaries, I can recall the comics slightly as they were doubled up with other series like Zoids in the UK (there's one that would be interesting in a IDWverse) and seeing a couple of episodes here and there so it was certainly a surprise to see them brought back again.I will add my voice though to the chorus and say that this shouldn't have been the way visionaries were introduced, especially if it's then used to clear house of characters that have no use at the moment. It would have been better if it was introduced via Rom.

Although I've just realised there is some deja vu here as the dilemma that the visionaries is in, it's a bit like the transformers in the live action movies, deciding what to do about using earth as their new home...

[Rodimus Knight]

We had moved on. Please follow suit.

So what you're saying is that if things are posted while we're sleeping you don't want us to post / comment on them when we wake up, simply because you have moved on?

Just want to check.

[Va'al]

We had moved on. Please follow suit.

So what you're saying is that if things are posted while we're sleeping you don't want us to post / comment on them when we wake up, simply because you have moved on?

Just want to check.

I never sleep. Try keeping up, darling.

[ricemazter]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

Indeed. Line I've said before, I don't know why they didn't do a G1 version of these reanimated licences, with the more alternate takes as separate universe. Use TFs to garner interest in one-offs, cameos and slow-burn arcs in the TF comics, and then create new, zany reboots in a separate comic series.

They could even have the alternate universe versions crossing over to the "G1" universe as specials every now and then.

Everyone is happy.

Problem is what content exists for them to say it's the original interpretation in the first place. Take Rom, he originally had a good comic series when he first came out but that is held by marvel now, hence IDW having a blank slate. As for Visionaries, I can recall the comics slightly as they were doubled up with other series like Zoids in the UK (there's one that would be interesting in a IDWverse) and seeing a couple of episodes here and there so it was certainly a surprise to see them brought back again.I will add my voice though to the chorus and say that this shouldn't have been the way visionaries were introduced, especially if it's then used to clear house of characters that have no use at the moment. It would have been better if it was introduced via Rom.

Although I've just realised there is some deja vu here as the dilemma that the visionaries is in, it's a bit like the transformers in the live action movies, deciding what to do about using earth as their new home...

I don't think we even really need all the separate universes. I feel, overall, the Hasbro universe was just incredibly rushed, with all these conflicting elements that don't really work together. What would've made more sense is to take maybe a year and a half and introduce these extra franchises in 2 issue crossover stories between the different transformers ongoings at the time. Have Rom meet the lost light crew in space (don't even have his eventual ongoing take place on earth), introduce your new Joe team in OP/RID, then wait for feedback. See what works and what doesn't. Maybe launch a couple limited series with these characters solo in a way that's isolated and self contained. Then, when you know what's popular, do your big dumb crossover and have everyone go back to their newly launched ongoings.

[Va'al]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

Indeed. Line I've said before, I don't know why they didn't do a G1 version of these reanimated licences, with the more alternate takes as separate universe. Use TFs to garner interest in one-offs, cameos and slow-burn arcs in the TF comics, and then create new, zany reboots in a separate comic series.

They could even have the alternate universe versions crossing over to the "G1" universe as specials every now and then.

Everyone is happy.

Problem is what content exists for them to say it's the original interpretation in the first place. Take Rom, he originally had a good comic series when he first came out but that is held by marvel now, hence IDW having a blank slate. As for Visionaries, I can recall the comics slightly as they were doubled up with other series like Zoids in the UK (there's one that would be interesting in a IDWverse) and seeing a couple of episodes here and there so it was certainly a surprise to see them brought back again.I will add my voice though to the chorus and say that this shouldn't have been the way visionaries were introduced, especially if it's then used to clear house of characters that have no use at the moment. It would have been better if it was introduced via Rom.

Although I've just realised there is some deja vu here as the dilemma that the visionaries is in, it's a bit like the transformers in the live action movies, deciding what to do about using earth as their new home...

I don't think we even really need all the separate universes. I feel, overall, the Hasbro universe was just incredibly rushed, with all these conflicting elements that don't really work together. What would've made more sense is to take maybe a year and a half and introduce these extra franchises in 2 issue crossover stories between the different transformers ongoings at the time. Have Rom meet the lost light crew in space (don't even have his eventual ongoing take place on earth), introduce your new Joe team in OP/RID, then wait for feedback. See what works and what doesn't. Maybe launch a couple limited series with these characters solo in a way that's isolated and self contained. Then, when you know what's popular, do your big dumb crossover and have everyone go back to their newly launched ongoings.

That, I believe, would've been the plan - and they did do the GI Joe lead-in with Optimus Prime/Transformers, which I believe worked quite well and gave us Revolutionaries too!

[ZeroWolf]

As I said, I do hope in a good story from the team working on the book, once the bitterness for this issue dies down. And I am invested in Optimus Prime as it currently runs. Less so in Lost Light for now. There is little else outside of those, if you discount Rom & The Micronauts, and then we're up to Unicron already. So we'll see.

The potential is there.
For me personally though, I have no nostalgic investment in Visionaries.

That being said, I also had no nostalgic investment in Rom either, but Rom VS Transformers was a good read. Difference being? Rom was set in the past and they were free to do what they want. Visionaries is in the present and is locked in with a number of other threads.

And we shouldn't bag IDW completely. They do a fantastic job with the Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Back to the Future. It's this shared Hasbro universe mandate that is hurting the books. The shared universe can work, just don't tie them so tightly together.

True. I can see why, and we have pointed out before on the boards too, but it's still not paying off.
It's a shame, as I can see IDW doing an actual slow build and crossover well with the various teams, had they been left to their own timings and schedules.

Indeed. Line I've said before, I don't know why they didn't do a G1 version of these reanimated licences, with the more alternate takes as separate universe. Use TFs to garner interest in one-offs, cameos and slow-burn arcs in the TF comics, and then create new, zany reboots in a separate comic series.

They could even have the alternate universe versions crossing over to the "G1" universe as specials every now and then.

Everyone is happy.

Problem is what content exists for them to say it's the original interpretation in the first place. Take Rom, he originally had a good comic series when he first came out but that is held by marvel now, hence IDW having a blank slate. As for Visionaries, I can recall the comics slightly as they were doubled up with other series like Zoids in the UK (there's one that would be interesting in a IDWverse) and seeing a couple of episodes here and there so it was certainly a surprise to see them brought back again.I will add my voice though to the chorus and say that this shouldn't have been the way visionaries were introduced, especially if it's then used to clear house of characters that have no use at the moment. It would have been better if it was introduced via Rom.

Although I've just realised there is some deja vu here as the dilemma that the visionaries is in, it's a bit like the transformers in the live action movies, deciding what to do about using earth as their new home...

I don't think we even really need all the separate universes. I feel, overall, the Hasbro universe was just incredibly rushed, with all these conflicting elements that don't really work together. What would've made more sense is to take maybe a year and a half and introduce these extra franchises in 2 issue crossover stories between the different transformers ongoings at the time. Have Rom meet the lost light crew in space (don't even have his eventual ongoing take place on earth), introduce your new Joe team in OP/RID, then wait for feedback. See what works and what doesn't. Maybe launch a couple limited series with these characters solo in a way that's isolated and self contained. Then, when you know what's popular, do your big dumb crossover and have everyone go back to their newly launched ongoings.

That, I believe, would've been the plan - and they did do the GI Joe lead-in with Optimus Prime/Transformers, which I believe worked quite well and gave us Revolutionaries too!

Then what happened? Why did things go the way they did?

[Va'al]

That, I believe, would've been the plan - and they did do the GI Joe lead-in with Optimus Prime/Transformers, which I believe worked quite well and gave us Revolutionaries too!

Then what happened? Why did things go the way they did?

Again, this is not confirmed, only inferred and speculated upon, but essentially the whole thing was sped-up from Hasbro and editorial. It happens. The writers, for the most part, have done their best with what they had.

[ebonyleopard]

Just say you don’t like white male characters being changed to other ethnicities or genders and be done with it instead of tap dancing around the obvious crux of you’re argument.

I don't like ANY characters having their race and/or genders swapped around.

I find it incredibly lazy, rather than spending the time developing and building new characters, they simply take existing characters and turn them on their heads.

Marvel has, and continues to receive a lot of criticism for this, but I've never understood why because those race/gender swapped characters often exist alongside the original characters.

What IDW have done by swapping Leoric and Matt Tracker is pandering to a vocal minority who want more diversity, and that vocal minority are often labelled SJW's (and having been on the receiving end of a vindictive SJW simply because I supported a fish and chip shop, I have no time for such people). Generalising? Yeah, but they've honestly done themselves no favour.

Is the swap a big deal though? No. My gripe with Matt Tracker was the fact he was young and inexperienced, forget the colour of his skin! I can't comment on Leoric as, having already said so, I don't have much history with Visionaries, but to me, if they stay true to the character (which again, I feel they didn't do with Tracker) then it really shouldn't be an issue.

The book had bigger problems anyway.

You’re arguing over a toy franchise that’s what, had 2 pieces of merchandise made in the past 30+ years, a cartoon series that aired for one season 12 episodes and has had zero North American release save for four vhs tapes made at the time and one British released dvd, a six issue Marvel comic that few people remember let alone have, and a toy line that consisted of 12 toys and this is the franchise you are seriously going to complain about them doing a rethink and redesign? Seriously? I was of age when this toy line came out, I remember seeing the show, but I couldn’t tell you jack about the story the characters personality, anything. So this nostalgia whining under the shield of a SJW about the redesigns of characters nobody has thought about or vastly cared about is beyond ridiculous and makes me see why many of these old franchises never see a reimagining or relaunch. And you’d think fans of a toyline that literally reinvents itself every five years would be used to the concept of change and it’s frankly embarrassing seeing how close minded some truly are at the ideal someone not like you wants to play in your personal sandbox and bring their friends along.

A more reasonable argument would have been to simply say I’d have preferred they would have just updated the original character designs and created newer characters since the original toyline only had one wave of toys. That would have reasonable and I’d have actually agreed with that without the insertion crutch of “SJW” because that totally changes the argument and makes you come off a certain way that wound be very unPC to express in these forums.

[ricemazter]

That, I believe, would've been the plan - and they did do the GI Joe lead-in with Optimus Prime/Transformers, which I believe worked quite well and gave us Revolutionaries too!

They kind of did a GI Joe lead in with OP/RID, but only insofar as it just established that GI Joe existed. It bore no resemblance to the ongoing we eventually got with the cast or tone or status quo going forward. The closest to that was Revolution where, I think, Scarlet, Roadblock, and Mayday were involved (I barely remember anything about Revolution).

Revolutionaries was fun, but didn't really conclude so much as just lead in to First Strike awkwardly before all the fun stuff, Kup/Action Man, the entire action man cast, and goofy stuff fell off the map to make way for a new new status quo.

Not that I'm ragging on the shared universe. Rom and the Micronauts had some promise before they fizzled out (would've been better if Rom was set in space and the Micronauts stayed in their universe). I actually liked GI Joe, Action Man, and Revolutionaries (all of which are gone). I only hope that Rom and the Micronauts will be good because I'm running out of Hasbroverse comics that I enjoy.

[primalxconvoy]

Just say you don’t like white male characters being changed to other ethnicities or genders and be done with it instead of tap dancing around the obvious crux of you’re argument.

I don't like ANY characters having their race and/or genders swapped around.

I find it incredibly lazy, rather than spending the time developing and building new characters, they simply take existing characters and turn them on their heads.

Marvel has, and continues to receive a lot of criticism for this, but I've never understood why because those race/gender swapped characters often exist alongside the original characters.

What IDW have done by swapping Leoric and Matt Tracker is pandering to a vocal minority who want more diversity, and that vocal minority are often labelled SJW's (and having been on the receiving end of a vindictive SJW simply because I supported a fish and chip shop, I have no time for such people). Generalising? Yeah, but they've honestly done themselves no favour.

Is the swap a big deal though? No. My gripe with Matt Tracker was the fact he was young and inexperienced, forget the colour of his skin! I can't comment on Leoric as, having already said so, I don't have much history with Visionaries, but to me, if they stay true to the character (which again, I feel they didn't do with Tracker) then it really shouldn't be an issue.

The book had bigger problems anyway.

You’re arguing over a toy franchise that’s what, had 2 pieces of merchandise made in the past 30+ years, a cartoon series that aired for one season 12 episodes and has had zero North American release save for four vhs tapes made at the time and one British released dvd, a six issue Marvel comic that few people remember let alone have, and a toy line that consisted of 12 toys and this is the franchise you are seriously going to complain about them doing a rethink and redesign? Seriously? I was of age when this toy line came out, I remember seeing the show, but I couldn’t tell you jack about the story the characters personality, anything. So this nostalgia whining under the shield of a SJW about the redesigns of characters nobody has thought about or vastly cared about is beyond ridiculous and makes me see why many of these old franchises never see a reimagining or relaunch. And you’d think fans of a toyline that literally reinvents itself every five years would be used to the concept of change and it’s frankly embarrassing seeing how close minded some truly are at the ideal someone not like you wants to play in your personal sandbox and bring their friends along.

A more reasonable argument would have been to simply say I’d have preferred they would have just updated the original character designs and created newer characters since the original toyline only had one wave of toys. That would have reasonable and I’d have actually agreed with that without the insertion crutch of “SJW” because that totally changes the argument and makes you come off a certain way that wound be very unPC to express in these forums.

Regardless of how "hard core" one has to be regarding any franchise, the introduction of a revamped and significantly changed IP into a fairly stable franchise is an issue for me. Other methods of introducing such drastic changes have been postulated, so it's puzzling why IDW chose the method of delivery and degree of change that they did.

As for Transformers changing; that's the whole point. Also, I would go so far as to state that we've had fairly close to G1 depictions of the characters, and/or reasons as to WHY changes occurred. For example, Optimus Prime changed his name back to Orion Pax for a while for reasons; he didn't just get introduced into, another comic after years of absence as a female bot with a pink coloured tree alt mode.

Thus, it's jarring change of an established character design, in the context of an established and fairly stable existing universe that's the issue. If these were their own comic, with their own universe, then I would certainly voice my concerns, but the points you've made would be more relevant in that context.

[ebonyleopard]

More race and gender baiting SJW nonsense from IDW, quickly going the way of Marvel. I'm sorry but Leoric is a white guy (along with Matt Trakker from MASK). These characters look NOTHING like Visionaries at all, but rather an obvious SJW political vehicle, for the white/man shaming of much loved franchises of the past. There is nothing wrong with being white. If they want ethnic minority characters, make NEW characters and NEW stories. The Visionaries are white male characters in fantasy knight armor. Deal with it. SJWs are destroying everything I hold dear at the moment. I'm boycotting all IDW publications from now on, until they decide to get rid of the identity politics. This is not Visionaries and it's not Transformers. It's sickening, forced "diversity" and no longer fun.

I get so tired of the “SJW”shield for what people really obviously want to say but don’t have the full fours peg to completely go there. Just spit out what you really want to say and drop th SJW bs.

So bascially you're calling Transcendent30 & primalxconvoy racists??(speaking of four pegs) for not liking Hasbro/IDW changing established character races for no reason other that SJW / Political nonsense.

I didn't like Baxter Stockman being white in the 1989 Turtles cartoon but I guess that makes me racists too..

No you just called them racist because if that’s what I wanted to say, rest assured I have absolutely no problem using the term when it is appropriately warranted. Close minded perhaps, but more so foolish going to bat over a franchise that was originally barely a franchise and who’s stories and characters even people who were alive to have seen it first hand barely remember without the aid of a wiki or some other outside source for reference. You see, the nuance is in the argument. To say you don’t like the change of a character because you prefer that they stay as close to the original canon as possible, just update it, is one thing and totally reasonable. When you lead off complaint about character designs being re imagined as something of a different race or gender specifically as that being the primary issue is something else all together. Because you are no longer worried about the character, it becomes solely about the race or gender of the character.

Example, they update visual design of a character, but make him still be white, but otherwise the character acts nothing like the character originally would or had, the SJW argument would go, you’d be fine with it because at least the character is still white. On the other hand, if they make a white character black, but have everything else about the character exactly like the previous incarnation, but your main hang up is the characters skin color, then your argument isn’t about characterization at all.

You Baxter example is a perfect one. In the cartoon they changed the character. Now if you were coming to it originally reading the comic, you would know he was originally black. But it really was the change of the character’s race that made 80s cartoon Baxter problematic, it was the fact he acted nothing like his comic book version. That’s the sam pie when you compare 2000s cartoon Baxter to 2011 cartoon Baxter. While both being black, 2000s is the better take on the character because he’s the best representation of the comic version, which is also why IDW Baxter is good because he too embodies the spirit of the character. It’s not about his race but his character.

I know that’s very TLDR but I hope that’s a bit more clearer so words won’t be needed to be put in my mouth.

[Burn]

Guys, I'm all for a discussion regarding gender/race swapping, but this isn't the thread for it. Yes, a Visionaries character has had their race swapped, but there's more to the book than just that.

Let's keep it about the book.

As I said, I'm for discussion regarding gender/race swapping, if you want to create a thread about it in General Discussion by all means, please do.