The Energon Pub

Taste is pretty much subjective, personally, I love his art as well.

Indeed. While at the same time, just because you like something, doesn't mean it's good. Especially when it comes to this art on an objective level.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Indeed. While at the same time, just because you like something, doesn't mean it's good. Especially when it comes to this art on an objective level.

Even then I doubt you'll get consensus. I mean, look at modern art, or something I recently learned about in the NFT thread, invisible art. You may not care for this style but it doesn't make it bad. It just means it doesn't do anything for you. The ultimate decider on the art will be when IDW look at sales data, which will be very soon.

ZeroWolf wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Indeed. While at the same time, just because you like something, doesn't mean it's good. Especially when it comes to this art on an objective level.

You may not care for this style but it doesn't make it bad.

As I said, objectively, this art is bad. In terms of panelling, composition, anatomy, scaling, perspective etc IE All the important arty-farty bits a professional should be trained in. Even genuinely stylised comic book art at least follows the basics.

I'm pretty sure IDW themselves would disagree with that.

I doubt that. The general metric for the talent of the last few years seems either inexperienced and/or cheap.

I like how Blackarachnia isn't open to taking any lip from Terrorsaur.

It reminded me of how much more interesting a character Blackarachnia was, in Season One. Before she was diluted into "love interest".

This art aint got nothing on John Romita Jr

william-james88 wrote:This art aint got nothing on John Romita Jr

Given their output since IDWverse 2.0, ironically I imagine even JRJR and Rob Liefeld are likely out of IDW's price range

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:JRJR

Jar Jar?

Just read #9. An interesting character piece. Razorbeast is very likable and I'm very glad that he was not killed off. Hope to see more of him interacting with more of the main cast in forthcoming issues.

Yep, as something new, I liked the approach to Razorbeast in this issue. Unlike the return of the Graffiti Vok.
I assume Razorbeast was part of the BW2/Neo series. But I only previously knew of him in media from The Gathering/Ascending (wherein he seemed a bit too generic).

If this series does end in 12 issues, however. The main positive for me would be that Skold and Nyx are cast into obscurity, toyless, where they belong.

Once more, on the art front...

It is so sad we go from this sublime cover art by Alex Milne :


To, perhaps the worst Beast Mode so far...


Perspective? Hello?

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assume Razorbeast was part of the BW2/Neo series.

He was a Wave 1 Hasbro toy.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assume Razorbeast was part of the BW2/Neo series.

He was a Wave 1 Hasbro toy.

I assumed he was part of the BW2/Neo series, based on his prevalence and importance in The Gathering/Ascending. I had the original figure.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assume Razorbeast was part of the BW2/Neo series.

He was a Wave 1 Hasbro toy.

I assumed he was part of the BW2/Neo series, based on his prevalence and importance in The Gathering/Ascending. I had the original figure.

His importance in those comics was purely Furman picking some non-show character and making them important, like what he did for Thunderwing and Bludgeon back in Marvel G1. It's a thing that Furman was known for doing.

While yes, his toy was released in Japan redecoed in gold as the Beast Wars Neo character Randy (one of the most notorious, self-destructive victims of GPS ever), but he was only ever a single-episode guest star and very one-dimensional. 99% of the Western fandom hadn't even seen Randy's episode (let alone the majority of either JBW cartoon) back when The Gathering/Ascending came out. Nobody gives a hoot about Randy as a character.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assume Razorbeast was part of the BW2/Neo series.

He was a Wave 1 Hasbro toy.

I thought the op was referring to the fictional appearance of th character, not the toy

Sabrblade wrote:His importance in those comics was purely Furman picking some non-show character and making them important, like what he did for Thunderwing and Bludgeon back in Marvel G1. It's a thing that Furman was known for doing.

While yes, his toy was released in Japan redecoed in gold as the Beast Wars Neo character Randy (one of the most notorious, self-destructive victims of GPS ever), but he was only ever a single-episode guest star and very one-dimensional. 99% of the Western fandom hadn't even seen Randy's episode (let alone the majority of either JBW cartoon) back when The Gathering/Ascending came out. Nobody gives a hoot about Randy as a character.

All these years and I assumed Razorbeast featured because he meant something to the Japanese series. Furman's character choices for The Gathering/Ascending continue to be infuriating...

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:All these years and I assumed Razorbeast featured because he meant something to the Japanese series. Furman's character choices for The Gathering/Ascending continue to be infuriating...

Japan mainly only cares about Lio Convoy when it comes to the JBW-original characters.

As for Furman, it's just what he did in Transformers fiction. Take nobodies and try to turn them into somebodies.

Well, that, and give spotlight to Grimlock. He loves Grimlock (crafty comics Grimlock, not dumb caveman cartoon Grimlock).

Oh yeah, Furman has always had his favourites. From the Part Work, I know he couldn't think higher of Grimlock or Galvatron in the Marvel run. To a lesser extent in the -Ations run too.

As per The Gathering/Ascending, there were so many (relegated to visual cameos) that would have been more interesting to use than a Warthog... Sigh

So Beast Wars must have sold well, it's going past #12. Good that it's succeeded.

Hopefully involving a creative team change.

Nope, same team. IDW probably don't see a reason to mix up the staff if sales are strong

ZeroWolf wrote:Nope, same team. IDW probably don't see a reason to mix up the staff if sales are strong

Assuming that is mutually exclusive. Transformers as a franchise has often fell foul of people buying into anything, just to cater to their nostalgia.
Sales don't equate quality, just how many buy it.

I recently thinned out my single issue collection. Among the cull, was IDW's awful Unicron mini series and, aptly, this entire series to date. I read them through once, when they arrive and that's it. As I see no value in them, I dropped them off at a local charity shop.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:His importance in those comics was purely Furman picking some non-show character and making them important, like what he did for Thunderwing and Bludgeon back in Marvel G1. It's a thing that Furman was known for doing.

While yes, his toy was released in Japan redecoed in gold as the Beast Wars Neo character Randy (one of the most notorious, self-destructive victims of GPS ever), but he was only ever a single-episode guest star and very one-dimensional. 99% of the Western fandom hadn't even seen Randy's episode (let alone the majority of either JBW cartoon) back when The Gathering/Ascending came out. Nobody gives a hoot about Randy as a character.

All these years and I assumed Razorbeast featured because he meant something to the Japanese series. Furman's character choices for The Gathering/Ascending continue to be infuriating...

This is why Furman chose Razorbeast:

Razorbeast was more of a handy blank slate, onto which I could write a character. I already had the idea for ‘The Pack,’ a sort of covert Maximal Mission Impossible team, so it was matter of finding a suitable ‘agent.’ Razorbeast’s name (and the fact that he was one of the first BW toy releases in the US) kind of stood out for me, though I’m glad I didn’t actually see the toy (physically) until later. It might have put me off him.

He liked the name, without ever knowing what he looked like beforehand.