Review of IDW Transformers vs Visionaries #1

ScottyP wrote:Great review! Really encapsulates how I felt about it (generally very negatively) while pointing out the genuinely very good art, colors, lighting, letters, and, characterization issues aside, dialogue.

On editorial, man the personnel moves are tough to follow but isn't Tipton involved again? Because it feels that way.

Scrounge1984 wrote:Yeah, this does seem like an issue with checking the hasbro box instead of writing and lack of effort. This is why I'm not entirely against the Unicron reboot, although I haven't been reading as long so I can see why some are disappointed.

Magdalene Visaggio: There's a ton of great concepts in the old Visionaries cartoon from a storytelling standpoint. The basic structure of the show is super compelling. But I knew that that kind of content wasn't going to fly in 2017. So I approached this much like Ron Moore approached Battlestar Galactica: what's the stuff here that matters, versus what's the stuff here's that's designed to sell toys? We only have five issues to work with, so everything needed to be streamlined; initially that meant paring down the cast and simplifying the magical system, which in the show involves multiple animal totems, with some of the players getting magical staves and others getting the power to control ancient vehicles. I basically stripped everything down to something that wouldn't demand copious explanation: everyone gets a staff that can summon holograms, nobody gets more than one totem, etc.

I also really can't stand it when villains exist for the sole purpose of being evil. So I needed to figure out what exactly separates the Darkling Lords from the Spectral Knights. You know, what is the story the Darklings are telling themselves where they're the good guys? So I landed on the idea that they're both factions of a single organization run by Merklynn – the Visionaries, natch – with different philosophies that went into schism. There's more there that's gonna come into play as the book unfolds.

Fico Ossio: We kept the original concept, the idea behind Visionaries and started from there. After we had the story, we worked on what this world and characters should look like and then matched that with the original designs/characters and IDW's Transformers. But overall we wanted to do a complete update from the original for the most part.

Sarah Gaydos: For me, the key was having a believable situation where both the Visionaries and our current IDW version of Transformers all would exist believably in one place, so it just didn't make sense to stick with a vintage look. Fico did a fantastic job of updating the character design and mechanics of the Visionaries. I couldn't be happier with it!

[...]

SPOILER obviously provided many more big moments in the comics for IDW, and you highlighted some of those moments at the end of the book. Fans will want to see [them] avenged, right?

Magdalene Visaggio: And [they're] not going to be the only one to die before all this is over. This is a high-stakes story that is going to have long-term consequences for the IDW G1 franchise.

Fico Ossio: OH YES! I'm looking forward to drawing that.

Sarah Gaydos: Hell yes, I want to see [them] avenged. This book has real stakes, real emotions at play. Mags is doing a fantastic job with balancing all these aspects of intrigue, betrayal, grief, and somehow packing in a ton of heart all at the same time. And Fico's art, with colors by David Garcia Cruz, captures the incredible visuals of New Prysmos, while still bringing the spirit of Transformers everyone knows and loves to life.

[...]

With magic playing such a big part, you chose some interesting characters to combat that in Wheeljack, a scientist, Breakdown and Ironhide, a typically traditional, protective and defensive voice. Talk about playing those personalities up against New Prysmos, Darkling Lords and Spectral Knights.

Magdalene Visaggio: Ha, yeah. I actually didn't get much of a say in the matter, which I think is really cool. So many other characters were occupied in other books and stories, so these were the face characters that were available – which is kind of exactly how it happens in-universe, too; you don't always get to pick your team. I credit David Mariotte for handing me a group of Cybertronian heroes who would be a great foil to the Visionaries I was reinventing.

David Mariotte: It's true, there are a lot of other Transformers doing a lot of other things right now, but we worked with my predecessor, Carlos Guzman, to figure out a core handful of characters that would be available and a good fit. And a lot of them fell into place naturally. Ironhide is a head of security on Cybertron and suddenly there's this whole city with unknown capabilities that he has to deal with. Wheeljack's a scientist who is suddenly up against a force that defies explanation. Breakdown, and I'll never stop harping on how well Mags writes him, has been a background character for a while now, but he finally gets his chance to step up and show Cybertron what he's made out of.

primalxconvoy wrote:The staff seems to have forgotten what will sell COMICS though, and that's having a closer link to how they original characters LOOKED. If they nailed that, and then avoided Mary-Sue characters, this series wouldn't be DOA...

Daniel Adkins wrote:Honestly, I feel bad for the creative team of this book. All the potentially interesting things this series could do will all be overshadowed by a terrible editorial decision. I guarantee that if it weren't for that last page, nobody would have a problem with this series.

Burn wrote:Kup however ... seriously, what the ****? This isn't the Kup I'm used to. Okay maybe if you compare him to his 1986 movie incarnation, where he was cheerful and friendly, but this isn't the 1986 movie, this is IDW. I want the cigar-smoking-to-maintain-his-sanity Kup that hasn't just seen everything, he's seen everything AND spent time in a dead universe.

Daniel Adkins wrote:

Burn wrote:Kup however ... seriously, what the ****? This isn't the Kup I'm used to. Okay maybe if you compare him to his 1986 movie incarnation, where he was cheerful and friendly, but this isn't the 1986 movie, this is IDW. I want the cigar-smoking-to-maintain-his-sanity Kup that hasn't just seen everything, he's seen everything AND spent time in a dead universe.

You didn't read Revolutionaries, did you? Kup has been cheerful and friendly for quite some time. Heck, that even goes back to his (ex)RID appearances.

Burn wrote:
Kup however ... seriously, what the ****? This isn't the Kup I'm used to. Okay maybe if you compare him to his 1986 movie incarnation, where he was cheerful and friendly, but this isn't the 1986 movie, this is IDW. I want the cigar-smoking-to-maintain-his-sanity Kup that hasn't just seen everything, he's seen everything AND spent time in a dead universe.

ricemazter wrote:For people who have read the issue, is Action Man even mentioned once?

primalxconvoy wrote:

I agree that many of the humans are a bit "Mary Sue" in these comics. Most TFs would win, easily

Also, I still don't like the new Leoric, for the save reasons I didn't like the new Matt Tracker. I'm all up for character development, new characters or characters changing jobs/positions of authority, but extensive changes with no reasons why, just for the sake of it seem to be insensitive to the source material and fans of the original show, aesthetic, etc.

Wake me up when Leoric looks like this: - http://visionaries.wikia.com/wiki/Leoric

Transcendent30 wrote: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.

Ebonyleopard wrote: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.

Daniel Adkins wrote:So the guys over at TheVisionaries.net have posted their thoughts (http://www.thevisionaries.net/articles/crew%27s-thoughts-on-transformers-vs-visionaries-issue-1/13), and they're pretty positive. It seems people who aren't necessarily huge Transformers readers are more likely to enjoy the book. I know one of the people at my local comic shop who had no TF experience whatsoever and picked the book up because Mags worked on it, and she absolutely loved it.

Burn wrote:Why are people assuming I haven't read the other titles? I have. The whole transition from messed up to happy-go-lucky felt like it happened overnight, there was no slow transition. I mean come on, he was old, cranky, and had spent a long time in the dead universe and the only thing that kept him from going nuts was a cigar.

But along comes a flesh bag and he suddenly gets over all that trauma? gah.

ricemazter wrote:For people who have read the issue, is Action Man even mentioned once?

Not from memory. It appeared to be a permanent reassignment to Cybertron for him.

Ebonyleopard wrote:For the first time, this book has finally made me feel fed up with other lesser Hasbro properties being shoved into Transformers and having Transformers suffer and come off the worst for it. This issue doesn’t even explain where the hell the Visionaries came from. They’re just suddenly, poof, there. Or am I missing some key reading material that sets this up?

Ebonyleopard wrote:

Transcendent30 wrote: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.

Va'al wrote:

primalxconvoy wrote:The staff seems to have forgotten what will sell COMICS though, and that's having a closer link to how they original characters LOOKED. If they nailed that, and then avoided Mary-Sue characters, this series wouldn't be DOA...

I've had enough of this trite, pointless, repeated, monotone comment from you.
Say something actually critically constructive, or stay away from commenting.

Burn wrote:

Ebonyleopard wrote: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.

Va'al wrote:No one is destroying anything. The old works still exist.

There is no pandering to any vocal minority (by this I assume you mean people who whine the loudest, and they come from many sides; look at how Scarlett's Strike Force went down), only business practices. I'd like to see comics publishers actually believe in the diversity they claim to be promoting, by hiring more marginalised creators instead of just working on their casts - IDW is sort of doing that, but editorial is still a mess and we're seeing results of good ideals with shoddy practice, and creators getting the short stick of reader response in a lot of cases.


Now, all of you, get back on the topic of discussing the issue at hand. Thank you.

Va'al wrote:No one is destroying anything. The old works still exist.

There is no pandering to any vocal minority (by this I assume you mean people who whine the loudest, and they come from many sides; look at how Scarlett's Strike Force went down), only business practices. I'd like to see comics publishers actually believe in the diversity they claim to be promoting, by hiring more marginalised creators instead of just working on their casts - IDW is sort of doing that, but editorial is still a mess and we're seeing results of good ideals with shoddy practice, and creators getting the short stick of reader response in a lot of cases.


Now, all of you, get back on the topic of discussing the issue at hand. Thank you.

Burn wrote: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.

Va'al wrote: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.

Va'al wrote: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.

Burn wrote:

Va'al wrote: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 wrote:

Burn wrote:

Va'al wrote: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.

Va'al wrote:

Burn wrote:

Va'al wrote: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 wrote:

Ebonyleopard wrote:

Transcendent30 wrote: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..

Rodimus Knight wrote:

Coptur wrote:

Ebonyleopard wrote:

Transcendent30 wrote: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.

primalxconvoy wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Burn wrote:

Va'al wrote: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.

Va'al wrote:We had moved on. Please follow suit.

Rodimus Knight wrote:

Va'al wrote: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.

ZeroWolf wrote:

primalxconvoy wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Burn wrote:

Va'al wrote: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...