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Well seeing as Scotty mentioned the H-word
I actually think that including some Hasbroverse elements from the get-go is the way forward (it certainly beats shoehorning them in 10 years down the line).
It doesn't have to be anything major! For example, human military characters will inevitably appear at some point, so why not have those be some of the lesser-known Joes from a concurrently running GI Joe series. No big deal of WOW LOOK THESE GUYS ARE THEM THERE JOES, just a little editorial box like "Check out Roadblock et al's other adventures in GI Joe #1-5, if you like! Or don't, if you dont!".
The slightly more far-out properties like the Micronauts and ROM might be a bit harder to work in, but then again any space-based group of TFs could easily happen across a few Solstar Knights for an issue or so and then go on their merry way.
Perhaps cold hard capitalism means that for it to be worthwhile including these other IPs they have to make a song and dance about it, but it'd feel much more realistic if it was just the occasional crossing of paths as a cameo/guest role every now and then.

...then again, I'd welcome the commercialised event-style crossover with open arms if it brought Action Man back to us. Revolutionaries was a wonderfully fun and fantastically dumb series which did Revolution better than Revolution itself did, and I'll hear nothing to the contrary

Actually Rom and micronaughts are better fits them you would think of for a expanded tf universe, they were certainly the elements that worked a lot better when everything happened. I mean look at how Rom was able to fit into what happened in unicron.

Va'al wrote:I like the idea of a separate thread, and was thinking (last night) of implementing it from the new continuity onwards - but also, given that there are plenty of spoilers to come, might as well start now, no?

Thread Two already exists: https://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/idw-transformers-the-reboot-discussion-thread-t110889.php

Feel free to reappropriate either for general discussion and/or previews and reviews. I can't guarantee I will always be around to run the latter though, a lot of Real Life stuff to contend with currently.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Va'al wrote:I like the idea of a separate thread, and was thinking (last night) of implementing it from the new continuity onwards - but also, given that there are plenty of spoilers to come, might as well start now, no?

Thread Two already exists: https://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/idw-transformers-the-reboot-discussion-thread-t110889.php

Feel free to reappropriate either for general discussion and/or previews and reviews. I can't guarantee I will always be around to run the latter though, a lot of Real Life stuff to contend with currently.

You misunderstood the point, I'm afraid. But thanks.

ArmadaPrime wrote:Well seeing as Scotty mentioned the H-word

This isn't an Adults Only board! Wait I think I misunderstood

ArmadaPrime wrote:..then again, I'd welcome the commercialised event-style crossover with open arms if it brought Action Man back to us. Revolutionaries was a wonderfully fun and fantastically dumb series which did Revolution better than Revolution itself did, and I'll hear nothing to the contrary

I agree with so much of what you said but especially this part. Revolutionaries keeps on giving too, Barber planted seeds in that book like a Spring after a poor harvest. I hope Hasbro learned a lesson from the "universe" experience with IDW: be patient! Other than Joes in Rom, none of this was supposed to crossover in earnest for a very long time at the outset. Probably also why Micronauts suddenly shifts from microgalactic war to just "our heroes on the run" very, very quickly.

I'm reminded of the Sunbow Episode "The Big Broadcast of 2006". Wherein we were shown a myriad of other planets and races. This is how you make the the "shared" universe idea work organically. Keep Rom, the Micronauts even the Visionaries on their worlds. That are in the same universe as Cybertron, Nebulos, Earth et al.

Stop cramming everyone onto one planet. Transformers struggles to fight a secret Civil War and be "Robots in disguise" on a practical level, when you have GI Joe, MASK etc all flying over the US. I'd even go a step further and keep the vast majority of Transformers off of Earth as well. Yet some writers (and fans) seem fixated on keeping a space faring race grounded.

To be fair, only the visionaries didn't have their planet, which we learned the fate of. Rom and micronaughts worked quite well, it's just earth that things need care

Starting up a new continuity though, it wouldn't hurt to keep everyone in their own toy boxes initially. So each series can stand (or fall) on it's own merits.

one thing I think they need to decide form the beginning however is...Will this new TF series be based solely on the Original Transformers, or will it be all inclusive (inclusing charactres form BW, RiD, Movieverse, Prime etc...) . I don't really have a preference one way or another, they just need to make it clear form day one. Another issue I had with IDW was that it started out strictly with original characters. BW had it's own series, but in time, when nothing else was done with BW, characters from all different continuities were just thrown in without any real explanation.

But they never stuck to the toon cast though, spotlight hot rod had doubledealer and banzai-tron in it, and spotlight galvatron had skram in it who was g1.5/g2.
@All new- who I agree that they need to stand on their own, but with the ties that do suggest it's the same universe so they aren't so independent that they have to suddenly explain where the fighting giant alien robots have suddenly appeared from.

Also keeping them away from earth (or letting them there for very short trips if absolutely necessary) is a good idea as well.

Honestly, in what is probably a controversial opinion, I think the Reboot needs to veer even further away from Sunbow. It will be 2019 when this New continuity starts, 35 years on, it might be time to let G1 go, as a series foundation.

When did I mention Sunbow? I said Original Transformers, meaning anything from 1984-1991, which includes all toy, comic, and animated series characters. (Most fans call it G1, but I find that term to be condescending, so I always refer to it as "Original Transformers", or original Series, similar to how Trekkies refer to Original Star Trek, or OST. ).

Like I said, if in issue one, we see characters from various continuities, that is fine. What I just don't want to see is something like this; characters randomly popping up for no reason:

I've been thinking about this over the weekend and I'm increasingly ok with a reboot.

There are a number of characters who have had their story paths closed off or stunted short through this run. I am not saying that to condemn this current continuity, but just as a matter of fact. You can't tell them all.

A fresh perspective carrying along all the gains and lessons from this run with a new take on the who, what, and why...all with new character emphasis.

That's an interesting path to go down for me. After all, if one continuity goes on for too long, either the character development gets spoiled for need of something new or eventually becomes too unfamiliar to keep everyone on board.

o.supreme wrote:When did I mention Sunbow? I said Original Transformers, meaning anything from 1984-1991, which includes all toy, comic, and animated series characters. (Most fans call it G1, but I find that term to be condescending, so I always refer to it as "Original Transformers", or original Series, similar to how Trekkies refer to Original Star Trek, or OST. ).

Like I said, if in issue one, we see characters from various continuities, that is fine. What I just don't want to see is something like this; characters randomly popping up for no reason:

Okay but skram, was from after that period. He debuted in 1993. In fact, Clench appeared in megatron origin issue 2.

That said, I would expect that the reboot will draw from all corners of tf, simply because it allows the writers the most room to work with. It also allows for them not having to worry about keeping to personalities set ages ago.

Not that there isn't room as well for idw to do a more cartoon orientated ongoing alongside the reboot.

I hope the reboot keeps up what IDW started with this series in that character from all generations are welcome. Who said Beast Wars guys couldn't be different and exist at the same time as the regular G1 guys? Who said movie characters and RiD characters and Prime characters have to stick to that series.

I like how the ending continuity Transcended so many characters into the broader generations view point we got. It made it far more fun. It was also fun to get the new characters. We had great interactions and lineups featuring old G1, complete other continuities, and new characters all featured together.

IDW was what the generations toyline always needed to be honestly.

o.supreme wrote:
Like I said, if in issue one, we see characters from various continuities, that is fine. What I just don't want to see is something like this; characters randomly popping up for no reason:

I am super confused by this. Your first sentence is a direct contradiction of the second, which precedes an image from Optimus Prime #1. It is literally "characters from various continuities" in an "issue one". Edit: I was wrong and it's issue 11, but they are seen in issue 1. Leaving this here to laugh at myself

The colonist soldiers, aside from Slide's now-repetitive whining, have been an imaginative bright spot in OP for me.

ScottyP wrote: I am super confused by this. Your first sentence is a direct contradiction of the second, which precedes an image from Optimus Prime #1. It is literally "characters from various continuities" in an "issue one". Edit: I was wrong and it's issue 11, but they are seen in issue 1. Leaving this here to laugh at myself

The colonist soldiers, aside from Slide's now-repetitive whining, have been an imaginative bright spot in OP for me.

It's not a contradiction. Those characters may have appeared in issue #1 of "Optimus Prime", but that was many years into the overall continuity, (issue #336 if you want to get technical).

All I'm saying is establish firm rules from day one if it's going to be an all inclusive TF based comic, or not.

Ah, ok. I super disagree, but I understand your point now!

I think the way IDW did it was extremely promising and, at times, lived up to that promise. However, when it wasn't truly explored directly and in earnest outside of Caminus and three issues of Windblade Vol. 2, that was a bit disappointing. Did we ever even see the surface of Devisien?

I guess I just worry introducing Cybertronian expansion/colonialism at the outset will lead to Override and Hot Shot racing Crumplezone and Dirt Boss for 12 issues

ScottyP wrote:Ah, ok. I super disagree, but I understand your point now!

I think the way IDW did it was extremely promising and, at times, lived up to that promise. However, when it wasn't truly explored directly and in earnest outside of Caminus and three issues of Windblade Vol. 2, that was a bit disappointing. Did we ever even see the surface of Devisien?

I guess I just worry introducing Cybertronian expansion/colonialism at the outset will lead to Override and Hot Shot racing Crumplezone and Dirt Boss for 12 issues

I understand, but it would not be that difficult, for me at least. Issue #1 of the marvel comic back in 1984 had quite some prolific crowd shots. If you do the basic -"Long ago, life existed on Cybertron...but not life as we know it..." and show a few crowd shots, of bots across all different continuities, and I'm good. You are establishing a basis at the outset that nothing (including new characters) is out of bounds.

It was just jarring for me that early on in IDW BW had it's own series, clearly separate from mainline IDW. Then 9 years into a 13 year run, we get Eukaris, and those same characters with little to no explanation. I know most fans don't mind, it's just a pet peeve of mine. Sure everyone is welcome, lets just establish that right away so fans expectations can be adjusted accordingly. I mean, I'm never going to reject a book that is strictly "Original Transformers", I think that is great, if they decide to go that direction (which somehow I doubt) its just the randomness that bothers me.

o.supreme wrote:It was just jarring for me that early on in IDW BW had it's own series, clearly separate from mainline IDW. Then 9 years into a 13 year run, we get Eukaris, and those same characters with little to no explanation.

There were like, literally a year of stories explaining how this came to be...

Counterpunch wrote:

o.supreme wrote:It was just jarring for me that early on in IDW BW had it's own series, clearly separate from mainline IDW. Then 9 years into a 13 year run, we get Eukaris, and those same characters with little to no explanation.

There were like, literally a year of stories explaining how this came to be...

Also, the IDW stories from Beast Wars "Gathering" and "Ascending" were based in a whole other universe, they were set to take place during the Beast Wars show and then right before Beast Machines started. They were not the same continuity. They were a lot like what Regeneration 1 was

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

o.supreme wrote:It was just jarring for me that early on in IDW BW had it's own series, clearly separate from mainline IDW. Then 9 years into a 13 year run, we get Eukaris, and those same characters with little to no explanation.

There were like, literally a year of stories explaining how this came to be...

Also, the IDW stories from Beast Wars "Gathering" and "Ascending" were based in a whole other universe, they were set to take place during the Beast Wars show and then right before Beast Machines started. They were not the same continuity. They were a lot like what Regeneration 1 was

I understand that the early BW books were a completely separate continuity (I actually liked those stories) but.. I guess I cant recall much of the details of the main IDW books depsite owning them all. From my recollection, characters like Rattrap & Gelshark just started showing up. If someone would be so kind as to point out their first appearance showing how they got to Cybertron, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

o.supreme wrote:I understand that the early BW books were a completely separate continuity (I actually liked those stories) but.. I guess I cant recall much of the details of the main IDW books depsite owning them all. From my recollection, characters like Rattrap & Gelshark just started showing up. If someone would be so kind as to point out their first appearance showing how they got to Cybertron, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

No, that's not really true. IDW started its continuity with Infiltration. the 2 Beast stories and the RG1 were both separate. And the continuity started with Infiltration is the one that is coming to an end.

Even the early books were ok with pulling from several parts of G1, with Nightbeat, Hardhead, Sixshot, Leadfoot, and Skram, among others, showing up. They pulled from all parts of G1 from the getgo.

Then All Hail Megatron basically knocked it back down to the core 84-85 crew, and the following ongoing struggled to move out of that. It was when the current run, with Death of Optimus Prime, started that we began to get all the others. They wanted to add more depth, you needed characters from colonies and the characters that ran from the war and came home to fill things up. Heck, with as far and wide as the war went, you could include characters you hadn't seen before because they were elsewhere.

Death of Optimus Prime is where the true diversity kicked in, and it was done to make the cast larger and to help characters transcend into G1, basically. It took from all transformers continuities, and it worked, and that is why we have cool team ups and wide varieties of casts.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote: IDW started its continuity with Infiltration. the 2 Beast stories and the RG1 were both separate. And the continuity started with Infiltration is the one that is coming to an end.

ok...I'm not really sure where the disconnect is, but, we've already established all this, we are on the same page. I know where mainline IDW started (I've been purchasing it since issue #0 in Oct 2005), and I know where it's ending

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:They wanted to add more depth, you needed characters from colonies and the characters that ran from the war and came home to fill things up. Heck, with as far and wide as the war went, you could include characters you hadn't seen before because they were elsewhere.

ok so when I was reading (whatever issue it was), and Rattrap is just on Cybertron for no apparent reason, and then Sky-Byte (I realize I said Gelshark earlier, I apologize, I prefer the original Car Robots and often go to those names automatically) , Waspinator etc... the reader was to assume "colonies" ( I was racking my brain thinking there must have been some time displacement or dimensional vortex story I missed...) even though the discovering of said colonies story did not develop until much later. got it.

Again, to go back to my original point...it was very jarring without proper explanation, and one of many reasons I'm glad current IDW is ending. They have a clean slate in 2019, a chance to do things right, especially if they want to be all inclusive. I'm just glad I'll feel no obligation. If it's bad, I can stay away. If it's good, I can read the trades when they come out.

I personally didn't find it that jarring, as to me it's the same as when characters just turned up for no reason in the original cartoon, I mean where did the protectorbots come from? Omega Supreme just appeared and the constructacons just appeared...and then built megatron in the past...

I do understand your position though os, and it is a matter of wait and see for everyone. Personally, I want it as far reaching as possible in terms of cast, really sell that this war is being fought with tens of millions at each others throat.