New IDW mini-series: Windblade

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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

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Terome
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Post by Terome »

I quite like those character designs. Starscream has never looked better, in my opinion.

So it looks as though enough hints have been dropped: Windblade and co. are likely to be newborns or non-Cybertronians. Hopefully this means that they will be able to ask questions in the manner of Tailgate about more interesting things than 'who is in charge' that we can enjoy unpacking.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Considering the IDW Transformers have a serious problem with most (all) of their procreation methods having been lost or destroyed, I wonder if mad old Alpha Trion has come up with a new way to create Transformers and thus keep the race going that just happens to include gender as a side effect?
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Post by Terome »

inflatable dalek wrote:Considering the IDW Transformers have a serious problem with most (all) of their procreation methods having been lost or destroyed, I wonder if mad old Alpha Trion has come up with a new way to create Transformers and thus keep the race going that just happens to include gender as a side effect?
That sounds as plausible as anything. Maybe Windblade and co. are hybrids with some other mechanical race that had gender as standard? That was a plot point for a Transformery race called the Mmrnmhrm in Star Control 2, for anyone who would recognise such a reference.
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Post by Kungfu Dinobot »

I'll be honest, I'm pretty fond of riot-cop Chromia.
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

inflatable dalek wrote:Considering the IDW Transformers have a serious problem with most (all) of their procreation methods having been lost or destroyed, I wonder if mad old Alpha Trion has come up with a new way to create Transformers and thus keep the race going that just happens to include gender as a side effect?
I like this idea and it could lead to some intresting plot lines as the cybertronians adjust to the new status quo.

Of course, it would take away some of the charm of the Dome/rewind and cyclonus/tailgate relationships. I like the idea of robots being asexual but sentient enough to need and desire long term companionship.
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Post by Denyer »

Makes complete sense that Cybertronians will take aspects of organic culture for a spin, whether it's their vehicles, media or body shells and pronouns, etc, etc. -- but mixing in binary gender roles, and particularly reproductive analogues, is likely to lead to crap writing even if one or two writers can be trusted to make something of it other than stereotypes.

By this point I'm following writers rather than IDW continuity, which as a whole hasn't been salvageable for years now. Dark Cybertron is a muddy soup as to who actually came up with what.
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Post by Kungfu Dinobot »

On the topic of Windblade, she doesn't sound like a terrible character, but then the competition is pre-propaganda-officer'd Drift, so there isn't much to brag about. At least Scott isn't telling us she's a three-sworded Buddha (oxymoron, I know) who hangs out with the biggest baddest Autobots because she's SOOOOOOOOO AWESUM LOL!
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Auntie Slag wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2014 1:36 pm I've never been a fan of Arcee. To me, robots are robots and there's no sex issue, so no need for a pink feminine proportioned robot. But I can understand the love issue existing between Transformers no problem (which I think is handled so well by Chromedome/Rewind, Blaster/Scrounge and Blaster/Goldbug, and um... yeah).

... What if Blaster has a natural predilection for yellow Transformers? I'd be fine with that. People have reasons for liking what they like, at least you can make a story out of that. Maybe when he first came on-line he saw a yellow robot being beaten and he's had strong paternal feeling towards yellow robots since?

See that's what I find offensive about Transformers. You spend all this time reading the comics, all these years and you still don't have much idea of who really likes hanging out with who.

Who does Seaspray like to spend his time with? Do they celebrate occasions/rememberances together? Do Hound and Sandstorm have a strong rivalry? Do Autobots and Decepticons chat occasionally? Why don't we see these things? A small contingent of Autobots faced off against Galvatron to get Jazz back in Target: 2006. However, was Bluestreak in the back saying;

"You know what? Stuff Jazz, he's a tosser. I'm going to Disneyland".

Tech specs began to mould personalities of these robots and it more or less stopped there. With occasional standout performances e.g. Blaster in The Smelting Pool saga.

And you know what else I find a far more serious concern than Arcee? Character lobotomies. Blaster went from being a stellar character in those stories, got slightly distilled when he teamed up with Goldbug, and after that his personality was just dropped and he became largely generic. I know the argument for this is the constant release of new toys but this is about logic and consistency. Grimlock going from nails hard Dinobot leader to grunting neanderthal.

Why should someone care if someone lives or dies? Ratchet clearly cared about Prowl in the Mechanic story, which was fine. But I'd like to see Swoop choosing to defend Lightspeed over team member Sludge in a ruck.

I guess this is partly why I like Roberts and the fact he establishes a few legitimate relationships (Cyclonus & Tailgate).

There are so many more pressing issues with Transformers than the need to throw in female robots.
I never understood why some people have a problem with fembots existing. Cybertronians aren't just robots, but are living beings. I mean having a robot that is suppose to be coded male is okay, but not female? Also we just can't depend on artifical means of reproduction. Those can get destroyed.
Last edited by Hot Rod Here on Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Skyquake87 wrote: Sun Dec 29, 2013 1:55 pm Windblade? Thats an awful name. Up there with Windbreaker and Windrazor. Its just too ...windy.

As for female Transformers, I'm all for it. I have absolutely no problems with it. The problem is, we're engrained to think that Transformers are purely robots and should be beyond gender. Yet they all have bodies and characteristics perhaps more closely associated with males, which - whether we like it or not - means there is already an issue of gender implied in Transformers.

Since Beast Wars, (and possibly Generation 2, if you squint) we've been sold the concept of Transformers being a kind of highly evolved technorganic species in which its perfectly sensible to have gender. I think there's only MTMTE thats actually tackled the sorts of relationships Transformers might have on any deep and meaningful level. And thats just resulted in morons mooing about 'Gay Robots'.


Its the way females are portrayed in Transformers that's the clincher. they are pretty much the worst excesses of fiction aimed at boys. Blackarachnia was a femme-fetale, with Arcee and Airazor being forgetable 'good girl' tropes. The Japanese, of course had Arcee cast as little more than a secretary. Prime Arcee has been a triumph, but she's a rare exception. And its probably best not to delve into the awful mess Furman made with Spotlight Arcee. If there was a point where I thought he'd gone totally off the boil, it was with this one issue. Instead of some intelligent writing about gender amongst a bunch of robots, we get 'she's a mad scientist's experiment'. Boo to that.

More widely in comics, females have had something of a rough ride. There might be strong role models out there, but for the longest time, they've been parading around nearly naked. This sort of thing reached its nadir in the 1990s with Image Comics and their jutting boobs and bums. Its been a long road back from that and there are signs that Comicbook writers are getting better at handling women (er,so to speak) with the likes of Kelly Sue DeCommick and Becky Cloonan and Brian Wood writing women convincingly.


I really want John Barber to step the f**k away from Arcee. There's no way on God's Earth he'll make this better.
Thank you. Idk why people have a problem with us having gender or a robot looking like a man or a woman. We are living organism after all and not just robots.
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Hot Rod Here wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:44 pmwe just can't depend on artifical means of reproduction. Those can get destroyed.
They can and do get destroyed -- which isn't a reason why something "can't" be the case; in fact, it's one of the defining traits of Cybertronians in many continuities: a dwindling number on the edge of extinction that's more likely to number in the hundreds than hundreds of thousands. Prime even agonises about creating new troops that could alter the course of the war.

The fact that things have gone on for millions of years (a span of time humans really have difficulty wrapping their heads around) can be put down to various factors -- lack of energy and other resources, most of the war being "cold" and skirmish-based rather than all out, and a limited number of combatants ties into that.

Humans being weak, squishy and not functionally immortal would have gone extinct very quickly in similar circumstances, but part of the core premise of Transformers is that despite narrative analogues the characters aren't human, and aren't just robots but alien, "not-we" or whatever term is used.

That's not to say there hasn't been a lot of shit writing that decides to emphasise that Ravage acts like a cat because he turns into one, etc.
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Denyer wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:19 pm
Hot Rod Here wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:44 pmwe just can't depend on artifical means of reproduction. Those can get destroyed.
They can and do get destroyed -- which isn't a reason why something "can't" be the case; in fact, it's one of the defining traits of Cybertronians in many continuities: a dwindling number on the edge of extinction that's more likely to number in the hundreds than hundreds of thousands. Prime even agonises about creating new troops that could alter the course of the war.

The fact that things have gone on for millions of years (a span of time humans really have difficulty wrapping their heads around) can be put down to various factors -- lack of energy and other resources, most of the war being "cold" and skirmish-based rather than all out, and a limited number of combatants ties into that.

Humans being weak, squishy and not functionally immortal would have gone extinct very quickly in similar circumstances, but part of the core premise of Transformers is that despite narrative analogues the characters aren't human, and aren't just robots but alien, "not-we" or whatever term is used.

That's not to say there hasn't been a lot of shit writing that decides to emphasise that Ravage acts like a cat because he turns into one, etc.
Funny, I get into a lot of trouble for answering old threads.

Anyway, I forgot how long they're life span is.

Ps. My bad, sometimes I pretend be Hot Rod just for fun.
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Re: New IDW mini-series: Windblade

Post by Skyquake87 »

I don't have a problem with old threads being picked up on, if you've something new to add to things. I mentioned this in the Hachette Partwork thread, but it's interesting to read my previous thoughts having enjoyed the Windblade series and the character. I like how IDW have handled gendered robots since Arcee - the colony on Caminus and the smart few lines from James Roberts in Lost Light, which went something along the lines of 'there's a universe out there ... of course 'she' made sense.'
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Denyer wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:51 pm Makes complete sense that Cybertronians will take aspects of organic culture for a spin, whether it's their vehicles, media or body shells and pronouns, etc, etc. -- but mixing in binary gender roles, and particularly reproductive analogues, is likely to lead to crap writing even if one or two writers can be trusted to make something of it other than stereotypes.

By this point I'm following writers rather than IDW continuity, which as a whole hasn't been salvageable for years now. Dark Cybertron is a muddy soup as to who actually came up with what.
Transformers are living organism/life forms (Data is a life form, but only in a legal sense) and not just robots and have sexes. It would make sense that they could reproudce sexually. Robots can't reproduce sexually, but Transformers are more then just robots and they aren't Earth bots. Also Transformers have genders and sexes way before meeting organics. Only in the Marvel they are sexless. If done right and the mating is different from ours and is not their only way, then won't or shouldn't be a problem. If put into the right hands then it won't led to crappy writing.
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Denyer wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:19 pm
Hot Rod Here wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:44 pmwe just can't depend on artifical means of reproduction. Those can get destroyed.
They can and do get destroyed -- which isn't a reason why something "can't" be the case; in fact, it's one of the defining traits of Cybertronians in many continuities: a dwindling number on the edge of extinction that's more likely to number in the hundreds than hundreds of thousands. Prime even agonises about creating new troops that could alter the course of the war.

The fact that things have gone on for millions of years (a span of time humans really have difficulty wrapping their heads around) can be put down to various factors -- lack of energy and other resources, most of the war being "cold" and skirmish-based rather than all out, and a limited number of combatants ties into that.

Humans being weak, squishy and not functionally immortal would have gone extinct very quickly in similar circumstances, but part of the core premise of Transformers is that despite narrative analogues the characters aren't human, and aren't just robots but alien, "not-we" or whatever term is used.

That's not to say there hasn't been a lot of shit writing that decides to emphasise that Ravage acts like a cat because he turns into one, etc.
Actually Transfomers are not immortal, but long lived, so they still need to reproudce ( from themsleves and not from outside sources and them being robots is a stupid reason because they aren't just robots). Maybe in a few continuties they're immortal, but not all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1SXhr ... ex=50&t=0s. It's probably most continuites they aren't immortal. Why else would Nova Prime be worry about the hotspot dying. If they were immortal then there's no need to worry about that and come up with other ways to reproduce. Also Ravage doesn't turn into a cat, but into a casset tape. Even in contintues ( if any exist) where they are immortal, they still need to reproduce because they can still died, so partially immortal. Probably not that much because only sickness, lack of resources and killing them can end their life. Having long lifespans means that they're reproductive rates and death rates are low, but being partially immortal means that it would be even lower.
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Skyquake87 wrote: Sun Dec 29, 2013 1:55 pm
Since Beast Wars, (and possibly Generation 2, if you squint) we've been sold the concept of Transformers being a kind of highly evolved technorganic species in which its perfectly sensible to have gender.
Actually they don't need to be part organic for gender to make sense. After all these aren't just robots, but living organism. Also techorganic can also means tech that has organic properties. They have genes and are up made of celluar structures ( metallic like).
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Denyer wrote: Wed Jan 01, 2014 1:24 pm Might as well read entrails as read into IDW's ability to keep layout decisions clear...
inflatable dalek wrote:Furman clearly didn't intend for Sunstreaker and Bumblebee's avatars to mean anything at all else he wouldn't have been so firm subsequently about the no girls thing,
It's a "no girls" and "no boys" thing -- and the avatars do emphasise something specific... that robots don't have much use for sex or gender, except insofar as looking or sounding a particular way can help to interact with (mostly squishy) aliens that do have them.

Cybertronians translating whatever pronoun(s) they use amongst themselves into the "he" of other languages doesn't stretch to them regarding themselves as being analogous to organics in specific other ways.

Although there's room for some extrapolation there -- it tends not to be male organics that play a significant role in the creation of new squishies (if only because in species with dual sexes the ones that carry/lay young get referenced by term A rather than term B) and Cybertronians have the matrix / spark field background, so most might view female organics as more or differently alien to male organics.
All expect for the Marvel they have sexes and thus genders. They have them way before meeting organics.
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