Red Dave Prime wrote:It could be argued back that the Skids in IDW was the daydreamer version but the war in that universe has changed him.
It could be argued. But it'd likely be wrong, because we've seen him before the war and he's not that guy -- he's the same quippy bundle of superpowers, just with fewer things he's awesome at because he's younger.
In fact, I mentioned before that that's what they
should have done. It would have made me a lot more interested in his missing backstory if we could see such a drastic personality shift had happened because of it. As-is, it can't have been all that traumatic for him because it seems like he's basically the same guy.
Red Dave Prime wrote:And if we play the tech specs game, Cartoon Optimus is far closer to the tech specs than the comic. (and nothing wrong with that, the comic was able to explore that aspect of a leader, the cartoon would have struggled)
But this is exactly what I said in my last post and you disagreed with it? That probably means I didn't get across what I was actually trying to say.
Cartoon and comic Optimus don't mesh perfectly because the medium gives you a different window on the character. But to me it's a difference of depth, not of kind. Cartoon Optimus is a surface-level sketch of the character and Comic Optimus is more fleshed-out, but there's nothing to say to me that they're distinct characters. Obviously you're free to disagree, but I think there's a very big difference between Optimus and Megatron, your other example, where his personality and behaviour was
drastically different between the various portrayals over the years even within the same medium (I'd struggle to name any parallels at all between the cool, dangerous Megatron in the G2 books and Megatron the guy who went nuts and crushed Brawl's head when Prime died).
Red Dave Prime wrote:The problem I have with your argument is that it requires everything to remain static. Shockwave was this before, he must be this again. I know that's not an exact of your argument but it comes across that way.
Actually, that's not that far off of what I'm saying. G1 Shockwave is G1 Shockwave, and G1 fiction should at least try to portray the character in a consistent way. And yes, that does restrict creative freedom some, but I'm okay with that.
The reason why I'm okay with that is because G1 isn't the only Transformers universe by a long shot. I think it's fine to say that G1 Shockwave should be written similar to the way he was in the 80s, because there's been plenty of room for alternative interpretations of the character in Energon, Animated, Prime and the movies, and there's going to be just as much room in future productions. And I think that's the best of both worlds, because we can have new takes while still keeping the old stuff!
Even though they've put their own spin on it, IDW is still G1 fiction starring G1 characters. I wouldn't be reading it if I wanted to see those characters completely reinvented, because frankly there are plenty of other, often-better options out there if I did. But when I want new G1 fiction IDW is the only game in town, and the farther they drift way from that foundation, the less-interested I am.
Red Dave Prime wrote:Also, I don't understand why you have a problem with a character being defined as something else after so many years. If we take skids, he had a handful of minor cartoon appearances, a paragraph on the back of the toy box and 7 issues in the comic. He's now been portrayed for 50 + issues of the current run in a different way - by sheer volume of course that's going to become the way he is viewed - and should be viewed in my opinion.
I get what you mean, but I think your argument eats it's own tail. Because up until 2012 "a handful of minor cartoon appearances, a paragraph on the back of the toy box and 7 issues in the comic" was the bulk of Skids' portrayals, and if we follow your logic that's how he should have been viewed and he shouldn't have been reinvented.
Red Dave Prime wrote:If we take other comics, it would be like saying Batman can only be portrayed as the way he was in the first detective comics - which would miss out on some amazing comics.
Batman, like Transformers, is blessed with being reinvented from the ground up in a new format every few years, between all the movies and cartoons and TV shows. And like Transformers I don't see much issue with the different takes having different versions of characters and stories.
But if a new series came out using character designs and backstory heavily drawn from the 60s show but with all of the characters acting like they do in the Arkham games...people would complain.
Knightdramon wrote:I don't view this as a pure G1---it's as much G1 as Prime and Animated are.
But the IDW comics were designed from Day 1 to be as G1 as possible to appeal to the nostalgia crowd. They started with hiring the most G1 writer possible in Simon Furman, who proceeded to write exactly the same characters as he always did, and most of them in exactly the same ways as he had when he was with Dreamwave writing G1 comics for them. And when they axed him, they replaced him with someone who wrote the book as an "EXTREEEM KEWL" version of the 80s TV show with added blood.
Yes, they've gone off in unexpected directions since then and yes, they've attracted a much different audience now than they had in the early days. But does that fundamentally change what the book is? Can it be G1 originally but stop being G1 because of where it's gone over the last decade? I'm not being rhetorical here, it's a serious question. Did the book start as something G1 but "break out" somewhere along the way to become it's own thing? Or are you saying it was never G1 to start with?