LE0KING wrote:Kurona wrote:
This franchise's tone has really gone far since the days of Optimus Prime playing basketball with Spike.
I think Last Stand of the Wreckers is where this series changed for me. It stopped being a fun, childish comic and suddenly became a serious and dark world whith a smiley face painted over it.
To be fair, IDW was aimed at an older audience from the start -- aside from of course the G1 setting drawing in nostalgia-induced audiences more than anything, you did have a darker tone and greater complexities than you'd expect from a children's franchise and it did as a result break away from a lot of those tropes.
That said, I think you are right in stating LSotW as the point where they really started taking advantage of the higher-than-normal age of their target demographic. Arguments could probably be made for Everything in its Right Place, mind; but LSotW is certainly where things got 'gritty', for lack of a better term.
... anyway, let's get back to talking about children's toys! Who have the pleasant gimmick of tearing the head off fan-favourite characters and turning them into a little robot!