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Kup probably looks so good because McCarthy probably didn't read Spotlight:Kup. Or any of the other stuff published prior to the run (which would explain Sunstreaker, F15s rather than 22s, why Megatron likes Starscream ...)

I did like the comment in the recent Simon Furman Q and A which indicated that McCarthy had had very little contact with Furman about what was going on (re the comment about Devastator)

Which is probably because Shane McCarthy doesn't really give a fat rats about continuity (or plot, or the ability to build a story beyond "decepticons kill lots of hoomans! pow!")

Orin_Thomas wrote:I did like the comment in the recent Simon Furman Q and A which indicated that McCarthy had had very little contact with Furman about what was going on (re the comment about Devastator)

I believe that Furman stated that he and McCarthy had no contact, and that it was up to Denton Tipton to make sure that the 2 writers work collaborates as seamlessly as possible.

Kinda hard to imagine it. I know when Furman was doing the UK gig he always weaved in and out of what was going on in the USA books.

Yes AHM is a transformers story - it just doesn't seem to fit into the IDW setup - it comes across as a reboot of something that was multi-layered, textured and epic. Now its just bland.

The decepticons have razed countless worlds - so where is the excitement for them in them kicking around earth? Shouldn't they be moving on - in the -tion series they had stacks of these infiltration operations going on and Megatron had important stuff to keep his eye on. Now its all Weekend at Bernies in New York.

Art is great, but the story doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

McCarthy is an Aussie from Perth and although I'm wrapped that an Aussie is finally writing TF - I just wish he'd wanted to tie his story into what had gone before rather than taking it in his own almost completely new direction.

i_amtrunks wrote:

Orin_Thomas wrote:It feels as though there is a big reset button going to be pushed at the end of AHM so that Simon Furman can get on with telling the broader story.

I wonder if we could do a fan-base survey and see what percentage believe that AHM will be struck from the established Furmanverse, and what percentage believe it will remain cannon...

I like it but I don't see how it could remain cannon. I mean after all that weird crap in the first few minis, optimus suddenly had the matrix in his chest for Megs to rip out?

Ok, just bought and read everything from SP Sideswipe on, and Im trying to get my head around whats going on

So at the end or revalations the Autobots are doing fine Prime is alive, The crisis they leaft eath for is gone

the Decepticons were last seen finishing off the reapers
and are still on earth with the Dynobots, Hot Rod and Sunstreaker along with the headmasters
what Shockwave doing?

Nemisis and Galvatron are dead along with most (all?) the dead universe guys, even thogh they can't die

so between then and AHM Prime finds the matrix, Sunstreaker, presumably onionless, meets up with the Autobots but the Dynobots have a different fate whatever that may be

the Deceptacons, Launch a Galaxy wide plan to finish off the bots, and do pretty well with it, defeating prime and taking the matrix. possibly due to a traitor

The Cons also perfect gestalt technology, reconfigure their forms but haven't revealed themselves properly to the earthlings

and there are countless other loose threads to tie up aswell, all in all it seems like the Transformers had a pretty eventful year, and to be honest I think I'd rather read about that, still though for all its faults AHM isn't that bad and definitely has potential, hopefully they will explane what exacty happend before and tie everything together neatly

after AHM inevitbly finishes with the Autobots returnig and saving the day it will be interesting to see where they go from there

we know the 13 is coming but will that be Transformers; Origin or will it be set in the present

Chronic wrote:and there are countless other loose threads to tie up aswell, all in all it seems like the Transformers had a pretty eventful year, and to be honest I think I'd rather read about that, still though for all its faults AHM isn't that bad and definitely has potential, hopefully they will explane what exacty happend before and tie everything together neatly

Yes, I think AHM will fill in the previous year's gap via flashbacks, etcetera. Hopefully, he won't have one 'bot reel off a page of expositional dialogue!

turkishproverb wrote:I like it but I don't see how it could remain cannon. I mean after all that weird crap in the first few minis, optimus suddenly had the matrix in his chest for Megs to rip out?

Did it actually say in AHM that the Matrix was within Prime? Perhaps he acquired it at some point between "Revelation" and AHM. I can't remember what happened to Nemesis Prime's Matrix but maybe it's a purified version of that?

With all that's going on in AHM, Prime being near dead, me and my boys are screamin' out "WHERE THE HELL'S ULTRA MAGNUS"?

Even if he does show, could make a huge difference any way?

trence5 wrote:With all that's going on in AHM, Prime being near dead, me and my boys are screamin' out "WHERE THE HELL'S ULTRA MAGNUS"?

Even if he does show, could make a huge difference any way?

Maybe, maybe, something's going to happen to him in Maximum Dinobots. Perhaps the Machination will be brought down and, by the time we reach All Hail Megatron, Magnus is dealing with Scorponok in some way. I honestly believe that Magnus can deal with some stuff.

While I don't like the disconnect between the Furman stories and All Hail, I do like that series on it's own. The scenes with Starscream and Megatron facing off have been really well done (especially the most recent one where Screamer basically asks Megatron what the point of everything he's doing is, and Megs can't really answer, it's like an 8 year old trying to get an answer out of GW Bush) and the scene with the human European governments planning to save the day was nice. A little bit of redemption for the 60 years of America saving the world in every single fictional representation of a war. Of course, being that it's in a book called All Hail Megatron, I suspect its going to end badly for them.

Liked the Jazz and Kup bits too, as well as someone remembering that Prowl outranks Jazz.

What I wanna know is that are the cartoon stories different from the comics? I don't have a comic shop near me and if it isn't, I could just watch all the shows.

wigglez323 wrote:What I wanna know is that are the cartoon stories different from the comics? I don't have a comic shop near me and if it isn't, I could just watch all the shows.

They are very different.

The IDW comics place the G1 characters you know and love in a different timeline, other than the characters, there is no real link between G1 cartoon and the comics.

i_amtrunks wrote:

wigglez323 wrote:What I wanna know is that are the cartoon stories different from the comics? I don't have a comic shop near me and if it isn't, I could just watch all the shows.

They are very different.

The IDW comics place the G1 characters you know and love in a different timeline, other than the characters, there is no real link between G1 cartoon and the comics.

Thanks for the help. Now on to Google Earth...

Leonardo wrote:

Chronic wrote:and there are countless other loose threads to tie up aswell, all in all it seems like the Transformers had a pretty eventful year, and to be honest I think I'd rather read about that, still though for all its faults AHM isn't that bad and definitely has potential, hopefully they will explane what exacty happend before and tie everything together neatly

Yes, I think AHM will fill in the previous year's gap via flashbacks, etcetera. Hopefully, he won't have one 'bot reel off a page of expositional dialogue!

turkishproverb wrote:I like it but I don't see how it could remain cannon. I mean after all that weird crap in the first few minis, optimus suddenly had the matrix in his chest for Megs to rip out?

Did it actually say in AHM that the Matrix was within Prime? Perhaps he acquired it at some point between "Revelation" and AHM. I can't remember what happened to Nemesis Prime's Matrix but maybe it's a purified version of that?

No, they won't have one bot reel off a page of expositional dialogue but they will have to release that AHM Coda to overcome and explain all the damn inconsistencies!

I'm sorry, there are moments in AHM that I really like (some of the characterisation for example and, ironically, EJ Su's art in #7) but I'm feeling really let down. I mean, a few years ago IDW and Furman took a chance and they rebooted the series and made it a galaxy-wide story with eddies and currents of stories hinted at and made a new, tantalising mythos based around the TFs. It was something more serious than what we grew up with, it was a comic that wasn't a toy advertisement first and a story second. You had something that was up there with some of the other major comics out there - a comic that was no longer a childishly guilty pleasure. It went from being a comic that kids read to something meatier and more grandiose.

Then All Hail Megatron came along. As I said to McCarthy when I wrote to him, he took a story that was well-established and going in a certain, well-defined direction and seemingly ignored a majority of it. He put a lot of the readers out because his story was just that bit too far removed from what we had grown to know.

His plot doesn't make a lot of sense due to the inconsistencies and lack of common sense on his behalf. I'm sorry but an advanced alien race aren't going to revert back to older alt modes after taking on cutting-edge modes (ie. The Seekers), the Witwickys are now in and the original 3 human characters are gone without a trace other than one shot of Hunter as Sunstreaker's head in #7 (seriously, the Witwickys?! Why?! Were they really a necessity??), why has the comic become a toy advertisement again (TF Universe modes anyone??)?. I want to know why McCarthy can't let go of the 80s!

This coda that IDW are releasing to "bridge the gap" is such an obvious back-pedal that it's not funny. An attempt to try and wedge in something that is just too far removed from the established story. If this Coda comes out and the last page is of Wheelie waking up and realising it was all a bad dream, I swear I'm going to throttle someone!

Let Furman get back to doing what he was doing and stop trying to "shake things up a bit"! The series was going along really well IMO. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I know this is just my opinion and everyone has one, I'm just wanting to vent a bit of the frustration I feel because every time I get into my oldest favourite comic and feel like things are rockin' along, something happens to screw with it. Marvel G1 cancelled (after a very good run, admittedly), Marvel G2 (cancelled after 12 issues), Dreamwave (cancelled because Pat Lee is an egotist), and now this.

I dont want to de-rail the current discussion.. but I just read AHM #8 and DAAAY-UUUMMM!! I'm saying nothing about the plot or what happens.. incase no-one else has read it yet.. but there were at least two points that kinda shocked me somewhat..

I didnt realise that the series was running for more than 8 issues.. has it said or written somewhere how many issues AHM is running for?

Sorry in advance if this is obvious information.. I've been playing catch up with IDW's stuff for a while now.

zero-kaiser wrote:I didnt realise that the series was running for more than 8 issues.. has it said or written somewhere how many issues AHM is running for?

Sorry in advance if this is obvious information.. I've been playing catch up with IDW's stuff for a while now.

AHM is a year long story, a 12-parter.

In addition there will also be a 4 issue coda released after issue #12 that will be used to align AHM and it's preceding series "Revelations" and "Maximum Dinobots" into a more connectible series.

So effectively AHM is a 16 parter....

Oh and Spotlight: Cliffjumper will be used as the 17th part of AHM...

i_amtrunks wrote:

zero-kaiser wrote:I didnt realise that the series was running for more than 8 issues.. has it said or written somewhere how many issues AHM is running for?

Sorry in advance if this is obvious information.. I've been playing catch up with IDW's stuff for a while now.

AHM is a year long story, a 12-parter.

In addition there will also be a 4 issue coda released after issue #12 that will be used to align AHM and it's preceding series "Revelations" and "Maximum Dinobots" into a more connectible series.

So effectively AHM is a 16 parter....

Oh and Spotlight: Cliffjumper will be used as the 17th part of AHM...

I think They need to get the guy that was doing the artwork for Dreamwave to do the artwork for the IDW comics!

Grimlock1991 wrote:
I think They need to get the guy that was doing the artwork for Dreamwave to do the artwork for the IDW comics!

Yeah... uh... if I'm not mistaken, I believe that's Pat Lee and he doesn't hold much standing with TF fans after the DW debacle...

Grimlock1991 wrote:I think They need to get the guy that was doing the artwork for Dreamwave to do the artwork for the IDW comics!

But it wasn't one guy - it was about 6 or 7 different guys, all of whom weren't Pat Lee as he was too busy buying Ferraris with the writers paychecks...

Seriously, what do you like about the non-War Within DW artwork, as mal-proportioned, inconsistent and slack jawed as it is?

Well Spotlight Cliffjumper turned out to be unrelated to anything AHM specific. Unclear whether this spotlight occurred prior to the "ation" or after AHM.

Sort of surprising that they didn't have a new "event" comic starting up to get whatever synergy they could out of the second movie.

Here is a list of things that they'll probably do, even though I think these things kinda suck

• Hey we need an event! = Bring in Unicron.
• Kill and then revive Optimus Prime (though they sort of did that in both "ation" and AHM)
• Kill and then revive Megatron
• Time Travel (well it worked with Target 2006 and Time Wars)
• Much more Drift. Driftimus Prime.
• Optimus Prime decides to relinquish command of the Autobots and then changes his mind just in time to save the day.
• Sunstreaker just turns up as though *nothing had happened* (retcon: It was one of them Sunstreaker clones in AHM 8 )
• Ultra Magnus turns up, but doesn't remember the Tyrest accords.
• Sixshot is shown in a background panel being pwned by Drift because Drift is so AWESOME (he's the new Wolverine)
• Cover art that at some point has Drift riding Grimlock like a cowboy
• Ultra Energon is briefly mentioned as a background joke
• Shockwave is seen on a monitor reporting in from Cybertron. This is unrelated to ultra-energon
• A whole mini-series related to Drift called Drift:Origins
• Optimus Prime suffers an orbital bounce accident and gets split into Good Optimus Prime and Evil Optimus Prime. Drift must work with Perceptor to reintegrate Optimus Prime BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
• A group of famous Autobots get stuck inside a computer program (called Vector Sigma probably) where it looks like they are getting killed off, except that we don't know it is a computer program and we are all OMGZ they killed Prowl! and then we find out it is only a simulation and Prowl is cool and then they get out and Drift says something funny and ROTFL

Now McCarthy is gone, perhaps they can get guys who can not screw around with a well written series.

I dont think that whatever IDW do next can stuff up as badly as AHM did. I trust Roche to do something spectacular with his new mini-series, if it isnt, I think I will be done with IDW.

Orin_Thomas wrote:Well Spotlight Cliffjumper turned out to be unrelated to anything AHM specific. Unclear whether this spotlight occurred prior to the "ation" or after AHM.

Sort of surprising that they didn't have a new "event" comic starting up to get whatever synergy they could out of the second movie.

Here is a list of things that they'll probably do, even though I think these things kinda suck

• Hey we need an event! = Bring in Unicron.
• Kill and then revive Optimus Prime (though they sort of did that in both "ation" and AHM)
• Kill and then revive Megatron
• Time Travel (well it worked with Target 2006 and Time Wars)
• Much more Drift. Driftimus Prime.
• Optimus Prime decides to relinquish command of the Autobots and then changes his mind just in time to save the day.
• Sunstreaker just turns up as though *nothing had happened* (retcon: It was one of them Sunstreaker clones in AHM 8 )
• Ultra Magnus turns up, but doesn't remember the Tyrest accords.
• Sixshot is shown in a background panel being pwned by Drift because Drift is so AWESOME (he's the new Wolverine)
• Cover art that at some point has Drift riding Grimlock like a cowboy
• Ultra Energon is briefly mentioned as a background joke
• Shockwave is seen on a monitor reporting in from Cybertron. This is unrelated to ultra-energon
• A whole mini-series related to Drift called Drift:Origins
• Optimus Prime suffers an orbital bounce accident and gets split into Good Optimus Prime and Evil Optimus Prime. Drift must work with Perceptor to reintegrate Optimus Prime BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
• A group of famous Autobots get stuck inside a computer program (called Vector Sigma probably) where it looks like they are getting killed off, except that we don't know it is a computer program and we are all OMGZ they killed Prowl! and then we find out it is only a simulation and Prowl is cool and then they get out and Drift says something funny and ROTFL

Hahahaha! Orin, Some of those are legit, awesome ideas and the others are just plain hilarious!

My take on the IDW-verse: I like that(for the most part) I didn't get the cartoony sense of "Megatron has master plan, new doomsday device threatens to destroy the universe, Hound gives Spike a sensual massage, Somebody forms Devastator, Dinobots and Prime save the day, roll the end credits" out of MOST of the IDW stuff. AHM exploded out of the box as a VERY dark, very SERIOUS story, as this kind of comic should be. There are plenty of circumstances that we have NO knowledge of, so I'm not going to point fingers and say that the ending Sucked or anything like that. The ending was a bit of a let down, but i still loved the series overall. I am itching to see what happens with these "Coda" Stories, and what happens next. I am VERY pleased with the IDW stuff; I used to only read Transformers and Star Wars comics, and now I pretty much only read Transformers; I think t hey are doing their best with the series and the sky is the limit for them. Does anyone even remember that the Quintessons were hinted at in Spotlight Wheelie? And lest we forget, METROPLEX is in the picture now! We know the Dinobots are gonna bust Grimlock out of jail(plus, can Magnus REALLY keep a Dinosaur with a bad attitude in check forever?), The Autobots will figure out Combiner Tech... Things will continue to get better, I'm sure. Although I would like to see a Variant cover or something of Drift riding Grimlock Cowboy-style.

My Vol 2 premium edition just turned up, so went through and reread both Vol 1 and Vol 2 in one sitting (which is a pretty awesome way to do it) and one of the conclusions that I came to about the Furmanverse was that it was much darker than what Shane McCarthy had done.

Why?

Well it is pretty clear that for all their teams around the galaxy, the Autobots are losing. They basically seem to be saying "when the decepticons turn up on a planet they go through these different phases and if they get to this phase your up the creek". It doesn't sound as though the Autobots can do much about it and when we see the Wreckers they admit that the battle to save the particular planet that they are on is hopeless anyway.

So the Decepticons are winning on pretty much every planet they decide to visit. They have a system and there looks like bugger all the Autobots have been able to do to stop it. In AHM the Autobots seem to be able to stop the Deceps on earth without Earth being totally destroyed. AHM not as dark as Furmanverse where Optimus Prime basically says "look this place is toast anyway, we will do what we can but ... don't get too attached to the poony hoomans".

In the Furmanverse Cybertron is so messed up that you can't go down there without an environmental suit. In the Macarthy verse you seem to be able to wander around in the open and, barring clearing out the insecticon infestation, Cybertron doesn't look nearly as trashed as it did in StormBringer.

In AHM the conflict seems to have been focused on earth (though without mention of ultra-energon this seems rather odd). In the Furmanverse it spanned multiple fronts. In bringing the conflict down to one planet, McCarthy essentially let the Autobots win. In the Furmanverse, even if the autobots did win on earth, there was still a galactic conflict going on where they were in retreat.

Well, now we have the Coda, a new series taking place after AHM, plus a miniseries for Bumblebee, and an other one for the Wreckers.

Orin_Thomas wrote:Kup probably looks so good because McCarthy probably didn't read Spotlight:Kup. Or any of the other stuff published prior to the run (which would explain Sunstreaker, F15s rather than 22s, why Megatron likes Starscream ...)

I did like the comment in the recent Simon Furman Q and A which indicated that McCarthy had had very little contact with Furman about what was going on (re the comment about Devastator)

Which is probably because Shane McCarthy doesn't really give a fat rats about continuity (or plot, or the ability to build a story beyond "decepticons kill lots of hoomans! pow!")

Kups new body is explained in Spotlight : Drift
Preceptor Made it for him which is why preceptor was with the wreckers on the assault of the ship.