Preview for IDW Transformers vs The Visionaries #1

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.

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.

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.

Transcendent30 wrote: *End of rant.*

Deadput wrote:How come IDW goes out of their way to portray most organics as stupid, smug bastards?

Daniel Adkins wrote:Am I just crazy? Why am I the only person who seems to like Fico Ossio? (Though I'd much prefer if Sebastian Cheng was back on from Revolutionaries)

Soundwave902 wrote:

Daniel Adkins wrote:Am I just crazy? Why am I the only person who seems to like Fico Ossio? (Though I'd much prefer if Sebastian Cheng was back on from Revolutionaries)

I usually like Ossio's art on humans and usually 'bots, like Ironhide and Kup, but sometimes the 'bots look a little iffy, like Victorion and Windblade

Story by
Magdalene Visaggio
Art by
Fico Ossio
Colors by
David Garcia Cruz
Letters by
Gilberto Lazcano
Cover by
Andrew Griffith, Angel Hernandez, Brendan Cahill, and Fico Ossio

Cybertron has been invaded. The Transformers encounter unwelcome guests at the heart of Cybertron—and they may not have their hosts’ best interests at heart. Refugees from another world, the Visionaries’ startling magical abilities could make them powerful allies… or dangerous enemies.

Welcome Eisner-nominated writer Magdalene Visaggio (Kim and Kim, Quantum Teens are Go, Secret Empire: Brave New World, Edge of the Venomverse) to the IDW family!
The Visionaries make their explosive return to comics!
Magic vs. metal!
Variant covers by Brendan Cahill and Angel Hernandez!

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.