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Ok, as we near the end, a slight tangent. Given the above reactions to Star Saber, Defensor and others before, as well as my own misgivings about previous deaths/defeats IE The totally pathetic way Bruticus was "defeated".

Who do you feel has been screwed over the most in the IDWverse continuity? Be that in characterisation, representation etc

Oh, lets keep the discourse civil/adult too.

Personally, my pick is Punch/Counterpunch IE The bot that never was. The fact Legacy of Rust exists, to an unknown level of completion, and was simply shelved for the most asinine of excuses boggles the mind. By rights this is/was the character's only appearance in this continuity, his own mini no less and it will now likely never see the light of day again with the end of this continuity. Meanwhile blatant trash like Heart of Darkness, Transformers/Avengers and the Costa Run will endure through collected volumes. Could this have been up there with The Wreckers mini's in terms of quality? The world will never know..

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Ok, as we near the end, a slight tangent. Given the above reactions to Star Saber, Defensor and others before, as well as my own misgivings about previous deaths/defeats IE The totally pathetic way Bruticus was "defeated".

Who do you feel has been screwed over the most in the IDWverse continuity? Be that in characterisation, representation etc

Oh, lets keep the discourse civil/adult too.

Personally, my pick is Punch/Counterpunch IE The bot that never was. The fact Legacy of Rust exists, to an unknown level of completion, and was simply shelved for the most asinine of excuses boggles the mind. By rights this is/was the character's only appearance in this continuity, his own mini no less and it will now likely never see the light of day again with the end of this continuity. Meanwhile blatant trash like Heart of Darkness, Transformers/Avengers and the Costa Run will endure through collected volumes. Could this have been up there with The Wreckers mini's in terms of quality? The world will never know..

None. I don’t compare previous fiction to current IDW characters because it’s not fair. There more continuities and universes for there to be comeplelty different and new versions.

Could legacy of Rust been good? Maybe/maybe not. There’s a reason they pulled it. It was created while they were wanting to change things in a new direction. It was also an Andy Schmidt creation so keep that that under advisement. People can say negative things about Barber. 1. They’re wrong and 2. Schmidt admitted fully on message boards he didn’t even read what he was being the editor of. John did that.

Only character I won’t say was screwed but was Unfortunate was Scourge. He was just forgotten and killed off panel and confirmed dead in a commentary to an u related book.

I think term screwed over is going to vary from person to person just as randomhero has pointed out and demonstrated. I think though kup got a raw deal but likely he was given the go ahead to go like that based on the fact he probably didn't have a place in the finale.

I'm not really talking about comparisons between previous runs either, that is subjective. I'm purely referring to representation within IDWverse. Scourge was my number two choice also. His entire appearance from Heart of Darkness to CHAOS was a complete mess. I ultimately equate it to: They had plans for Cyclonus and eventual plans for Galvatron, Scourge was the odd one out.

Since we're in the Lost Light thread, my answer will pertain to MTMTE/LL only. And the 2 characters who were most grossly misused were Ultra Magnus and Overlord, in my opinion.

Rodimus Prime wrote:Since we're in the Lost Light thread, my answer will pertain to MTMTE/LL only. And the 2 characters who were most grossly misused were Ultra Magnus and Overlord, in my opinion.

Overlord was never a main character. He was a side story. Roberts made him stupid powerful and indestructible which led to “well why do you do with him?” He had more right to be concluded in a wrecker story than this series

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I'm not really talking about comparisons between previous runs either, that is subjective. I'm purely referring to representation within IDWverse. Scourge was my number two choice also. His entire appearance from Heart of Darkness to CHAOS was a complete mess. I ultimately equate it to: They had plans for Cyclonus and eventual plans for Galvatron, Scourge was the odd one out.

Isn’t that scourge in 99% media? He’s just the lackey of the trio. hHe was in the the cartoon, headmasters, marvel and UK marvel . McCarthy had plans for him but hasbro(not IDW) said no to them.

Randomhero wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:Since we're in the Lost Light thread, my answer will pertain to MTMTE/LL only. And the 2 characters who were most grossly misused were Ultra Magnus and Overlord, in my opinion.

Overlord was never a main character. He was a side story.

My point exactly.

Randomhero wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I'm not really talking about comparisons between previous runs either, that is subjective. I'm purely referring to representation within IDWverse. Scourge was my number two choice also. His entire appearance from Heart of Darkness to CHAOS was a complete mess. I ultimately equate it to: They had plans for Cyclonus and eventual plans for Galvatron, Scourge was the odd one out.

Isn’t that scourge in 99% media? He’s just the lackey of the trio. hHe was in the the cartoon, headmasters, marvel and UK marvel . McCarthy had plans for him but hasbro(not IDW) said no to them.

What plans did he have?

Randomhero wrote:Isn’t that scourge in 99% media?

So we're calling G1, upto 1991 (at the latest for Marvel UK) "99%" of media now? I mean they've all had toys name after them since but Scourge, as he was traditionally depicted, had been absent for a long time.

Likewise depending on when it was written in G1 comics, Scourge was been depicted as the brains and Cyclonus the lackey, but that is semantics. At the end of the day he is part of The Iconic Trinity of Transformers.

Galvatron got a reinvention in IDW. Cyclonus, much like Ultra Magnus got Two reinventions, contentious as they are. Meanwhile next to nothing new was done with Scourge. Even the idea of the Sweeps were botched, as they appeared out of thin air because a writer was too lazy to give Galvatron an army of individuals in CHAOS.

Plus you can't really dismiss Scourge's lack of exposure/development as because he is just a lackey. meanwhile Runabout, Runamuck and even one and done Ramjet got more time to shine than he did and they are all nobodies.

I think hasbro has changed the definition of the trinity and who they are now as I think it could be prime, bee and megs

ZeroWolf wrote:I think hasbro has changed the definition of the trinity and who they are now as I think it could be prime, bee and megs

They are not that kind of Trinity, the DC kind. They are a trio of linked characters. Synonymous with each other.




The irony of this image, eh?



Even their concept art was drawn together

Then maybe hasbro decided that it was time to break it? Take things in a new direction. I mean why should that be kept? Next you'll be arguing that prime and megs should be kept (my tongue is firmly in cheek here, I know how you feel about those two being trotted out again and again, so I'm just a little confused as to why you think this trinity matters)

Because I like Scourge and I think someone could really do something different and interesting with him and the Sweeps concept. Which no one has since his debut. Considering how they really reinvented Thunderwing, Arcee etc it is such a missed opportunity to one of the most visually unique Transformers to just say "New IDWverse, same old Scourge".

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Because I like Scourge and I think someone could really do something different and interesting with him and the Sweeps concept. Which no one has since his debut. Considering how they really reinvented Thunderwing, Arcee etc it is such a missed opportunity to one of the most visually unique Transformers to just say "New IDWverse, same old Scourge".

Because there really isn’t much to do with him. dreamwave tried. They introduced him in war and peace and it was “holy crap scourge!? In 2002!? And he’s not affiliated with unicron?!” One year later: NOPE! Spawn of unicron nothing truly special. Sweeps? Nope spawns of unicron

In defense of IDW they did do something different and interesting wth scourge and the sweeps. He’s an ancient cybertronian. Made the sweeps Galvatron a army and none of it was connected with Unicron.

If you’re wanting different they did. Whether you like it or not they did do something different with them.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I think hasbro has changed the definition of the trinity and who they are now as I think it could be prime, bee and megs

They are not that kind of Trinity, the DC kind. They are a trio of linked characters. Synonymous with each other.




The irony of this image, eh?



Even their concept art was drawn together

Their concept and everything is made together the same reason the 86 autobots is. They were the new toys. The only new Decepticons in the movie and the sweeps were just the seekers with a different look. How many seekers popped up in season one? So many genetics. They just decided by the movie to make them identical to save animation costs.

Quite an ingenious idea and saved them a bit of time. Still, the closest idea I could think of giving scourge a new lease of life is to say that there was only one of him but in an effort to create an immortal spark and body to match, started experimenting on himself. He does have a sort of alchemist look after all. This is how the sweeps came into being as clones he uses to share his mind between. Sort of a transformers ultron in some regard

But to get back on track in a way and since this is a lost light thread the one character I’ve never enjoyed in the series sadly is Rodimus. He’s awful. Roberts took everything written for him in costas ongoing and threw it out the window. You can say how much you hate costas ongoing but he was a damn good character writer when it came to the second half of his run. Yes the first year of the ongoing is rough but I won’t say a bad thing about year two. It’s where mike shined.

Rodimus was a good character in the ongoing. He started out selfish and reckless but by the end he earned his name, rank and trust as Optimus’s second in command by chaos. He grew as a character. You saw him go from telling Optimus off to believing he could be a prime to abandoning everyone just to get back to matrix to show he’s great and then dying, coming back and seeing ironhide and group on Cybertron to show him the wrongs he’s commited.

MTMTE ignored all that and made him an uncharismatic character again who was selfish and reckless all over again that got crew memeber killed on more occasions it should have and every arc that had a tragedy it “no more. No more distraction, no more deaths. We save lives” next issue, it’s like that conversation never happened.

I wish I could say the moment Getaway makes his point. And Rodimus looks legitimately shocked and then goes in to save Getaway made me feel something but we’ve had similar scenes for 80 issues.

ZeroWolf wrote:Quite an ingenious idea and saved them a bit of time. Still, the closest idea I could think of giving scourge a new lease of life is to say that there was only one of him but in an effort to create an immortal spark and body to match, started experimenting on himself. He does have a sort of alchemist look after all. This is how the sweeps came into being as clones he uses to share his mind between. Sort of a transformers ultron in some regard

And it worked. I have 4 generations scourges and 4 titans return scourges and one legends Scourge.


My own personal fanon of the sweeps is Scourge is an outlier that can copy his template to protoforms and legitimate clone himself. They don’t have sparks they’re just drones but he’s mentally connected to
All of them. It was an idea I came up with when I was a kid for Cyclonus to finally have his armada but eventually went to Scourge. This was way before the term outlier was conceived by Roberts, I just called it an ability.

I mean, Shockwave had that ability, though it was only expanded upon in the Transformers: Devastation game.

The way you describe his ability makes me think of agent Smith in the matrix reloaded, which could be another concept for the character...or insecticons. Having characters bitten and then slowly having codes rewritten, being re-formatted forcibly.

As for rodimus, I cant sat I was bugged too much about his character. With rodimus I always found it jarring how he was handled in season 3 of the toon compared to the movie

ZeroWolf wrote:The way you describe his ability makes me think of agent Smith in the matrix reloaded, which could be another concept for the character...or insecticons. Having characters bitten and then slowly having codes rewritten, being re-formatted forcibly.

As for rodimus, I cant sat I was bugged too much about his character. With rodimus I always found it jarring how he was handled in season 3 of the toon compared to the movie

Which is crazy to think that half of season three was already produced when the movie came out and they actually wrote him that way not knowing kids didn’t like him and wanted Optimus back. It makes sense if you strictly look at him as a young, inexperienced leader that is learning but man, Rodimus has some bad moments.

I totally understand I’m on my own with how Rodimus was portrayed in MTMTE/LL and totally respect people who don’t agree with me but I am someone who is enjoy costas ongoing by the end. Yes the first arc is rough and I did almost drop it after issue three but issue four with thundercracker got me to stay and the second volume International Incident is bad but right after with rodimus infiltrating the Decepticons to retrieve the matrix till his final issue I loved.

Some of my enjoyment probably comes from listening to some interviews he did for the underbase podcast. During the revenge of the Decepticons story he was so full of energy and really liked writing the book. Mike Costa is a transformers fan. And then when the final issue of chaos came out they had him back and the dude just sounded broken. He got crapped on so bad and fans were not afraid to hit behind their social media and forums telling him how much they hated him and his series. I felt for him. He’s a good dude and a good writer but he was being given some bad directions by editor Andy Schmidt. Costa was suppose to do MTMTE. He came up with the idea of a quest for the Knights of Cybertron but halfway through Chaos he said “I’m done. I don’t want write for transformers anymore.” The dude sounded defeated and those podcasts were only 6-8 months apart.

Maybe my enjoyment for some writing is empathy but I did enjoy some of those stories and the characterization some were given.

Everything you needed to know about Hot Rod/Rodimus was in his Spotlight. His impulsive nature, his sense of guilt etc All of the MTMTE/LL stuff I've read has been regurgitating the character development, growth and complexity covered in a one shot from 2006.

As for Costa's run Space Opera, particularly the interplay between Wheelie and Hot Rod, was the only positive of that run.

As For Scourge:

Randomhero wrote:Because there really isn’t much to do with him. dreamwave tried. They introduced him in war and peace and it was “holy crap scourge!? In 2002!? And he’s not affiliated with unicron?!” One year later: NOPE! Spawn of unicron nothing truly special. Sweeps? Nope spawns of unicron

In defense of IDW they did do something different and interesting wth scourge and the sweeps. He’s an ancient cybertronian. Made the sweeps Galvatron a army and none of it was connected with Unicron.

If you’re wanting different they did. Whether you like it or not they did do something different with them.

No, IDW didn't do anything new or interesting with Scourge. He was an ancient Cybertronian? True. So was Galvatron, Cyclonus etc In contrast there was no Spotlight: Scourge. In fact there was no new characterisation at all. Look back on how Scourge is "reformatted" and the Sweeps were formed, it's the laziest written shite in the world.


All Hail Megatron #14

Basically McCarthy saying "Look it's Scourge! Don't you remember?" and the Sweeps just pop into being for the same reason.
There was no character work whatsoever by IDW. Even more ironic when you consider all the work they threw into the former blank slate that was Thundercracker aka he who would become Scourge in G1. They gave new personalities to Galvatron and Cyclonus and Scourge was left as a fan service visual.
Wait! there was some character development, The Sweep army were cannibals, I almost forgot that

Randomhero wrote:Their concept and everything is made together the same reason the 86 autobots is. They were the new toys. The only new Decepticons in the movie and the sweeps were just the seekers with a different look. How many seekers popped up in season one? So many genetics. They just decided by the movie to make them identical to save animation costs.

The business and marketing side of things are largely irrelevant when discussing lore and canon though. The point of the concept image was that they were made in scale to each other. Whether a cynical view now dismisses that as "they are the new toys" is beside the point. They existed in tandem from day one.

To me, there are so many avenues to explore through Scourge. As I've mentioned before, they never went into how the Insecticon Cloning tech works and by extension Scourge and his Sweeps. A Hive Mind? Are they all clones or is Scourge different on some level? Can Scourge shift his consciousness to other Sweeps?
You could explore these themes, as well as those of identity IE How does being around clones affect your grip on reality, your sense of self?

McCarthy didn’t bring Scourge into the IDW. Andy Schmidt did. The editor of transformers at the time. He wrote that issue of All Hail Megatron. Same guy who gave Galvatrons ability survive outside the dead universe longer than anyone to cyclonus and admitted he forgot who had that ability. Same guy I’ve said before admitted he didn’t even read the books he was editor of because “we didn’t read them at marvel”

Like I’ve said a Scourge has always been portrayed as a lackey in almost all previous fiction. Could more be done? Sure but that could be said about anyone. Could make Squawkbox into a leader of Decepticons for anyone cares.

End of the day barber didn’t want to do anything with him so he killed him off which was probably a good cal because it came to be one of the factors that drove Cyclonus to leave Cybertron and join the Lost Light. In some ways excluding him-while unfortunate- kinda helped In certain ways.

That's why, bring it back, it is fair to say scourge got screwed over in IDW. Because, unlike Cyclonus and Galvatron, he was unwanted and it showed.

As an aside, I posed this question in the LL thread, as opposed to the OP one, as this thread tends to have more footfall.