So that was an hour long bitch fest that I honestly could have done without, seriously
, but then I've always called it like I see...er,um...hear it with you guys(and Gals).
I'm someone who actually enjoyed a lot of aspects of IDW, overall continuity aside, I really felt like there was a lot of good stories that came out of those plot lines, alongside some obvious duds as well.
Overall I guess I would agree, the overreaching continuity doesn't work really great, but that really does happen in many franchises, particularly when more than one author is invloved in the writing process.
Thats why we have retcons in Star Wars, one huge continuity just is unable to survive without mistakes, individual authors having different takes on charcaters and events, so on.
I think thats what we've run into a couple times with IDW now. Different authors bringing their different spins to the characters and stories, thus making it end up like something that is patched together with duct tape and hope for higher sales.
I personally quite enjoyed the early Furman arcs in the story. I though Infiltration was really good, utilizing the core characters with the smart additions of Runabout and Runamuck as covert Decepticon agents on Earth.(Though their eventual deaths were not well thought out at all, I'll get to that.)
Infiltration and Escalation were really a nice, slow build. It felt like pieces were being moved into place for something fun. Some of the plot panned out, some didn't. I really thought the opening parts of Devestation with Sixshot were excellent, as was the build surrounding the Skorponok lead Machination.
For me the Dead Universe junk went no where, and instead of making a reputation for an autobot or two 'Bout and "Muck ended up killed by some goofy, non-Tranformer monster in kinda lame fashion. Thumbs down for that part from me.
I'm all for character death, even major character death in stories. I think it adds a lot to the feel and suspense, but do it in such a way that you are promoting other characters with the deaths.
So other than the Dead Universe arc I did enjoy the rest of the Furman plots, all the way to their rushed conclusion in the Dinobot books. They felt like a real story with a start, a middle and an end, not the meandering I usually associate with Comic books in general.
Adding to the main Furman arc were the spotlights in impressive fashion. How could someone not like the entire Ultra Magnus arc? From his re-imagining of his character into somewhat of a rogue lawbot with the excellent Swindle cameo and his eventual ties into the main arc with Skorponok?
I really liked the Six Shot spotlight as well even though it went all Dead Universe on me, I thought it really made out Sixshot to be the bad ass he needed to be. Cool stuff.
Spotlight Hotrod(and it subsequent plot with Double Dealer) really was another high for me. I loved how Hotrod was presented, how he lost his team and over compinsated with Dealer because of that incident. Again a nice, contained story even if it was intermingled with some stuff I didn't enjoy from the DU.
And picking on Hotrod because he plunged through the atmosphere(ala TFTM) is a pretty weak thing to be critical of Protoman
,I personally thought it was really cool.
Perhaps my favorite of all the Spotlights was the Wheelie oneshot. It was just a great little self contained story that could have fit as well as a G1 origin in 1984 for Wheelie as it did for the IDW verse. It has such a timeless, fun quality to it.
As for the other early Spotlights that I really enjoyed, Kup was a standout with a very dark, ambitious tale that I still feel is an excellent one shot by any standard.
Prime's, Shockwave's and Soundwave's were all fun as well, each in there own way. Ramjet's, well, his stunk. As well the Nightbeat/Hardhead arc wasn't something I really enjoyed.
Now moving on more into the AHM timeframe. I admit I had difficulty with the series at times. Thye gave away the Sunstreaker plot from the Furmanverse, at least in terms of him living long before. Shitty continuity, but thats what often happens when different authors get their fingers in the cookie jar.
There are numerous issues of AHM that I really did enjoy though, and just when I was really starting to get into it it up and ended............I still don't know how Prime went from dead to alive over the course of a couple panels.......
Spolight wise, AHM had some awesome ones. Jazz was my favorite of course with the great Bot single handly taking on and beating the Predacons.....(No it wasn't make believe, Jazz is just being modest
). That was all kinds of awesome for Jazz fans.
The Blaster spotlight was really fun as well with a little who done it plot, and I really liked the Blurr Spotlight as an excellent one shot as well. Cliffjumper and Drift I really didn't take to, although I guess we had to have Drift's backstory appear someway, somehow.
Max Dinobots served to complete the Furman plots in a loose way, tying up the Shockwave Spolight and Machination plots well enough. Again I liked that the plots had an end point, even if I felt it was rushed, even if some of the Dinobot stuff was really kinda meh.
Which brings us to Transformers #1. We'll see how that goes but thus far I reasonably interested, though it still feels more like a continuity reboot(just like AHM) than a continuation. I'm hopeful for interesting stories none the less.....
Continuity is truly not the be all, end all of a comic or book series, especially when most of the critcism seems to revolve around a single, crappy continuity book that had zero to do with the stories as a whole.
I think if one is to condemn IDW just because one or two of the jig saw pieces of the continuity don't fit together that, well, they are going to miss out on some really fun stories and interesting new takes of characters we've know for over 25 years.
I've still yet to read Stormbringer or Megatron Origins, but I'll get there.
