TFARCHIVE FORUMS

Not sure when exactly it started.

Many of the Transformers cartoons have a certain "fun" feeling to them, with a lot of jokes here and there, even when the actual story might be presented as serious (see: Beast Wars; haven't seen much of Animated to tell if it's like that there too).

Meanwhile, the comics generally have a more "serious" tone. This goes back all the way to the old Marvel comics: Even when the plot was outright silly (see: various stories by Bob Budiansky, no offense intended), they were rarely, if ever, presented as being "fun". There were hardly any really witty lines, or scened deliberately intended to make the reader laugh, or rejoice. It only became worse when Furman took the reign and started his epic Unicron saga.

A rare exception were some of the "Earthforce" stories from the later UK issues. My favorite story (albeit technically preceding the actual "Earthforce" stories) is "Starting Over!" with Wheeljack and Prowl that contained some hilarious fourth wall humor poking fun at increasingly bizarre gimmicks from the toyline. Several other Earthforce stories were similarily intended to be funny, with varying degrees of success.

It really started to go downhill with Generation 2, which was heavily influenced by the "grim 'n gritty" 1990s comics that were popular at that time (Image Comics, various Marvel titles which also went that route). Lots of characters died, epic drama... but fun? None that I remember.

The Dreamwave comics were also mostly "Serious Business" drama. The very first Generation 1 mini, in particular, was effectively a fanboy reinterpretation of the G1 cartoon "but more serious". Which also translated into "less fun".

Now, personally, I think the early IDW comics started out with a somewhat "fun" feeling. Infiltration had this sense of adventure, including human characters, as well as Transformers, with quite some witty dialogue. In contrast, Stormbringer was the usual "Serious Drama" stuff, which is probably why I found it utterly boring. Subsequently, the IDW G1 comics generally spiralled downwards into a more "drama"-esque direction, though Furman's stories at least retained a few elements of humor and "adventure" fun (Hot Rod, the Dinobots, Hunter/Sunstreaker). Then came All Hail Megatron, which was a setback to the worst Dreamwave days. Drama, drama, drama, heavy-handed dialogue and not a lot of "fun". You know which story I really, really liked? Spotlight: Wheelie. A good, character-centric "adventure" story with just the right balance between "drama" and "fun". Even Spotlight: Ramjet with its overblown humor was more enjoyable than AHM.

IDW's Beast Wars comics also managed to take everything that made Beast Wars enjoyable and then replace it with stock "drama" material. Boring, flat characters doing nothing that ever came across as being actually important to the reader while being utterly dull and no-fun in the process.

And then there's the Movieverse comics. Say what you want about the movies' "toilet humor", but they did also contain quite a share of genuine, quality humor that didn't rely on genitalia references. Now, the movie comics? They're flat, dull and almost entirely lack the movies' humor. Nowhere is this as apparent as in the comic adaptations of the movies. I count TWO genuine instances of humor carried over from the movies (Jetfire, the Twins' banter inside Petra), both of which were badly executed and came across as utterly heavy-handed. In Chris Mowry's defense, he at least attempted to mimick the first movie's humor in the first issue of "Alliance" (to which degree he succeeded is a matter of opinion), but... what happened after that? Was there an editorial mandate that "Transformers comics shouldn't be fun", or was Mowry just too busy weaving his two minis around the ROTF script that he no longer found the time to worry himself with humor?

Some of the worst offenders were the early BotCon comics, which took a character like Devcon, who was a fairly affable guy in his only cartoon appearance, and turned him into a sociaopathic loner in his 3H incarnation. Supposedly the writer, a self-proclaimed "fan" of Devcon, had forgotten what his favorite character had actually acted like in his single canonical appearance. I hear the Collectors Club and BotCon comics by Fun Publications are similarily heavy-handed and lack any sense of fun. Fun Publications, indeed.

Hey, does anyone remember "Shattered Expectations"? Remember how this over-the-top, utterly humorous comic was one of the most well-received pieces of Transformers fiction in this fandom ever? And how we were all let down when it turned out to be an April Fool's joke by people who had never in their life imagined that a large portion of this fandom might actually like something like that? And then the real Shattered Glass comic turned out to be just the regular Serious Business stuff? Why has no publisher taken notes from this experience yet?

Opinions? Does anyone agree that Transformers comics should be less full-time drama, and involve a little more "fun"? Or do you think it's perfect the way it is right now, and Transformers comics should be treated as Serious Business instead of juvenile humor crap?

For G2, the only fun moments I can think of is some banter between Megatron and Optimus Prime and the Grimlock's muzzle crack from Megs. The banter I'm referring to is where Megatron is admitting that he's an idiot for resurrecting Starscream after another betrayal and Prime following up with his "I'd record that for prosperity...". Then, it goes right back into the serious stuff again.

For my opinion, yes, I would like to see more fun injected into TF comics. Serious shows and movies with fun like "Die Hard", "Lethal Weapon", "Avatar: The Last Airbender", and even the DCAU were enjoyable for me to watch. I have always liked the way humor can break the tension in a story. So, I would like to see the overall story remain serious but I would like to see humor added. Not juvenile humor all the time (though it would fit a bot or two) but more witty lines particularly from Prime since he does tend to be dull.

I think it was Vin Ghostal that pointed out in another thread that Prime's probably at his most enjoyable in the G1 episode, "Kremzeek". There he's shown to be fallible, says a few rather humorous lines, and generally has egg on his face throughout the entire story.

Thing is to me that fun doesn't just have to mean humour (though there is quite a bit in the Marvel stuff - Furman Dinobots tend to knock one-liners off each other, as do the Sparkabots, while Robot-Master and Boblock are aimed for laughs even if they don't get them. It just doesn't tend to be particularly goofy. There are other examples like Nightbeat, who never really seems to be taking things entirely seriously. In G2 the impromptu Megatron/Prime team-up has some real gold in it too.

Fun can mean just being a straight slice of action and/or adventure too, and this to me is where IDW have (generally) failed. They seem to have confused mature with taking everything far too seriously, and the whole universe has "grim and broody" going through it like a stick of rock. Of course there are the odd exceptions like Hot Rod or the Ramjet Spotlight (though that worked because it sits in a pile of Ultimate wannabe crap, and wouldn't have done as anything much longer), but the overall tone is just too po-faced for something about a bunch of alien robots who turn into cars. I mean, take Maximum Emobots - Grimlock towing around four whiny bitches when the chance was there for some characters not to be pondering The Ominous Capalised Word Of The Arc. G1 Swoop was one of my favourite characters; IDW Swoop is a prat. The IDW stuff could do with pulling its' head out of its' arse a bit - but not too much.

The problem is there's a fine line between grim and crap like the kids' show. For my money (and bear with this), for inter-Transformer banter the first Bay film was pretty on the money with the Autobots - they sort of have believable "on" and "off" modes, in the case of the latter it's the whole scene at Sam's house that sticks out and there are signs that - say - Ratchet and Ironhide would probably be hanging out together even if they weren't on a vital mission to Earth. Which is sort of my other problem with IDW - there's no (well, very little) friendship in it (Kup's value to Springer is expressed partially as loyalty and soldierly respect; Blaster's to the Autobots is largely for propaganda value and hero worship), because it's all grim and quasi-military. The Marvel run wasn't perfect, but the odd thing did get in there, while the cartoon again went too far the other way and pretty much devalued the concept by making the Autobots a hippy love in.

The IDW stuff just ain't got no soul, man.

Yeh, that was a pretty epic drift off-topic.

Oh yeah. With "fun", I don't just mean humor. "Adventure" fun is also welcome.

I feel AHM blew the chance for us to have a fun IDW series a bit. On paper, there was a real opportunity to have a straightforward "ROBOT WAR!!!!" series, kinda like a superior war movie, but the execution was really botched. For a fun TF comic you could do worse than have the Decepticons simply invade Earth and have the Autobots defend it - it's all about approach, and there'd be room in something like that for any sort of stories you'd want.

Sadly, the IDW ethos seems to be everything has to work to some sort of epic Moment, everything has to be Important or Far-Reaching, missing the point somewhat - there's no point in giving us some vital revelation for the Transformer race if we don't give a flying one about most of them (and really, nobody would give a toss about most IDW characters if it wasn't for the fact nearly all of them are ~25 years old and have been in all sorts since, or just been toys people had). IDW (and Dreamwave before them) can't just tell a Transformers story.

Furman's minted-fanboy-in-a-dealer-room writing is probably the biggest problem as he wants to do his epic canvas all at once, without stopping to think about whether the comics are actually enjoyable. With all the plot threads, characterisation, warmth and life in general has been squeezed out of the comics. Most comics are like that now what with the emphasis on shifting trades with a snappy, important-sounding title, of course, but that doesn't make Transformers any better... What got me is when it spread to the Spotlights, which started off quite nicely, mainly focusing on an adventure for the subject - sure, there was some setup in there, but the books made sure we got a fully-rounded Transformer out of it. Now they're so weighed down by setup from other books that you've got to wonder what the point is...

I do think that Furman has, if not entirely lost then certainly become not as good at injecting those lighter moments into stories as he goes along. Look at [i}Edge of Extinction[/i], lots of light funny little moments the don't pull you out of the surrounding drama but do add character stuff ("Blasted youth element!" being my favourite). Whilst that's obviously the higher end of the scale we're a long way from anything similar.

As a kid I was a fan of the original cartoon (up to the movie anyway). I was not an avid comic reader, but I did get an issue here and there. I remember one issue where there were dead Autobots hanging from the ceiling and a captive Optimus Prime head, and a later issue with Blaster and Throttlebots on their own with Grimlock as Autobot leader.

The overwhelming impression I got from those brief glimpses into the comic universe was strange. It was a very strange universe. I think the art had a lot to do with it. Also, I did notice they took everything in the universe at face value, seriously, even the strange parts. I really appreciated that as a kid. Maybe kids appreciate that more, or just I did. It was a different, alien reality that was reliably different than my own.

An adventure story might have been enjoyable to me, but it wouldn't have captured my imagination the same way.

Strange isn't the word for any Transformers franchise that manages a Spiderman crossover, has Rumble's (?) optics of such low quality that a human sized individual can just walk right in front of him and not be noticed, and has Optimus' essence (or whatever) fit on a floppy disk not large enough to be suitable for porn.

But the original Marvel comics had some real moments too. Shockwave's cover with the graffiti along with the attached story is still one of my all time faves as is Ratchet's battle against Megatron. I always liked the scraplets idea too.

Cliffjumper wrote:and really, nobody would give a toss about most IDW characters if it wasn't for the fact nearly all of them are ~25 years old and have been in all sorts since, or just been toys people had

I think that's the biggest problem right there. IDW have been running TF comics in one form or another for, what, three or four years now? They've put out sixty or so issues by now, and by all rights they should have built up at least a few characters who are distinctive and recognizable on their own merits within the IDW stuff. But when I look back through the books, I can think of, oh, maybe four or five characters who really stand out to me. Ratchet, Hardhead, Soundwave, Scorponok, Sunstreaker...I really want to say Jetfire, but as much as Furman hinted at a potentially-interesting direction for the guy he's really been nothing but Autobot Scientist #2 and he could almost seamlessly switch roles with (pre-AHM) Perceptor. Most everyone else either alternates between wildly-different personalities depending on who's writing (Kup, Jazz, Starscream...hell, pretty much all of the AHM main cast) or is a less-interesting version of themselves from a previous universe (Nightbeat, Bludgeon, Shockwave).

I definitely agree that pure and simple fun has been lacking from most of IDW's work. There's been patches of it here and there in the spotlight books, but the main story has been nothing but and escalating series of world-threatening crises that just leave no room to breathe.

It's not just a problem with professionally-written TF stories, either. Most of the fan-fiction you see written about TFs falls into the same trap -- something I've become keenly aware of in the last few days as I've read through some of my favourite TMUK stories (Globequake -- despite being all kinds of awesome -- is at its heart RiD reimagined with all the silly taken out, Eugenesis is full of darkness and angst, and with stories like Killshot, Sprial into Darkness and Fell on Black Days you can guess from the title just how much lighthearted fun is to be found).

I think the heart of the problem is that Transformers is, and always will be, a story that's centred around war. In a lot of ways, I think it's easier to take it to dark places than it is to come up with something that's just plain fun, without trying too hard to be epic or hard-hitting.

Personally I thought Maximum Dinobots was tons of fun, whilst All Hail Megatron and the related Spotlights clearly weren't meant to be taken seriously.

As such, I have no clue what this thread's even about.

I think some of the problem is that it is a story about war combined with the fact that Transformers have become more and more human over the years. They have human motivations and human failings so the writers have to come up with humanish reasons for the two factions to want to fight each other, which gets dark and depressing. So you get Megatron Origin which is some lousy tale of political oppression and rebellion.

They are alien machines. They can have different motivations and failings than a human would have. Decepticons are warrior robots. You can have them try to settle down, but their failing would be that they always have a plan running thorough their head on how they would go about taking over the city, or the planet, or whatever in a hypothetical way. This continues until they get so restless and can't help themselves and find their minds are just more at peace when conquering something.

Autobots are the domestic servants, so naturally feel extremely uncomfortable with the Decepticons on the loose so they habitually try to stop them.

This obviously works better with the cartoon origin of the TFs being specifically created as domestic robots and warrior robots.

One of the things I like about TFs is that they are alien robots. I can hear stories about people anywhere. Recent TF comics feature humans in robot bodies.

I don't really read the comics, but the ones that I have read do come off as serious. Serious stories are good, but a little humor in the story could help relieve tension, if only for a bit. When there's war and terror in the real world, people can still find a laugh, so why not also in fiction?

Plus, if you emphasize their alien nature, you can pull a lot of humor from their interactions with humans and their observations of Earth, like the humor they had in Animated.

I no longer read TF comics, because IDW is garbage.

IDW has done some comedy moments, like the entire Ramjet issue (Though as it ends in him being violently dismembered I guess you'd call that dark comedy:D) or the Sixshot spotlight where the living weapon gets off a nice one liner when the Reapers, who've destroyed an entire planet, explain they want to end war and violence (I think your technique needs some work:lol:)

I think the main reason there's not a huge amount of comedy in the comics at the moment is because they remember some of those ridiculous Budiansky stories (Like the one where Skullgrin becomes a movie star) and want to avoid the camp, ridiculous label that some may attach to Transformers. Like how in the Batman comics things got all dark and serious to begin with was because the writers were sick of everyone associating Bats with the 60's show

I meant to reply to this a while ago, just to say that given a choice between the IDW 'serious' storylines and Michael Bay's 'humour', I'd take IDW any day. If the price of humour is cartoonish caricatures (The Twins, Simmons in the first Movie) and testicle jokes (Devastator), I think the price is too high! I thoroughly enjoy the IDW stuff, even though it seems to be getting to a stage where each mini has a micro-continuity of it's own.

Lonewyrm wrote:given a choice between the IDW 'serious' storylines and Michael Bay's 'humour'

Which is obviously the choice on offer...

What are you talking about? There was no Transformers before Michael Bay. Jesus.

Sades wrote:What are you talking about? There was no Transformers before Michael Bay. Jesus.

But of course. He must be in his forties at least whilst Transformers is only 25. Clearly it wasn't there before him.

Cliffjumper wrote:Which is obviously the choice on offer...

Since Animated finished anyway

They should have combination of funny and dark. More protoforms. I like to see young protoforms especially decepticon ones,they seem to be lacking or nonexistent.