#Brian Ruckley

[graphicpolicy]

Preview: Transformers Vol. 6 War's End

Transformers Vol. 6 War's End preview. With the Decepticons gaining ground and the Autobots at the brink, the war for Cybertron careens to its climax #comics #comicbooks #transformers

[yumyumsteak]

IDW2 road rage x nautica / 2019

[elfdragon12]

In researching the Megatronia team/Megaempress and the 4 Guards...

I am impressed at the fact that, even though there's almost nothing about her actual personality, Flowspade comes off as incredibly in lesbians with Megaempress.

I mean, just look at this shared bath scene where she's washing Megaempress's back:

There's nothing straight about that.

Also the fact that Flowspade was sent to infiltrate the group and was swayed by Megaempress's ~charisma~. She also stood to defend her against Unicron and Galvatron's ghost(?).

[decepti-thots]

So I was hoping I would find it and I did: it turns out someone DID take video of the TFN panel where they went through the first ever draft they found for the TF animated movie. It's just not on Youtube, which will teach me to not look harder for this shit, lmao.

Anyway I promised some folks I would post it if I found it so. Here! I'm so glad this got recorded, it was a BLAST. Watching it is the best way to uhhhh. Experience this draft, trust me.

(Sidenote! These are hosted on MEGA, so you may have a daily GB streaming limit that you come up against, but if you download them it should be OK- the limit is harsher for streaming than downloading.)

Almost every TFN 2022 panel was recorded in fact- see here! I know some folks who follow me were interested in Brian Ruckley's panel, for example, they got that one.

…the ONLY ONE they seemingly didn't get of real interest is the IDW retrospective one and let me tell u when I recorded that thing on my phone voice recorder Just In Case, i can only assume i was being given divine inspiration to do so.

ANYWAY. Go watch the first draft presentation, it's fucking Nuts.

[quetzalpapalotl]

Quality wise (ie plot, characterization, narration), could you rank the idw phase 1 comics? Is RID good?

I'm a bit confused by this as because RID by John Barber is not phase 1, so I'm not sure if that question is besides the phase 1 one, if there's a confusion about when RID was published or if there's a confusion between IDW1/IDW2 and phase1/phase 2. So sorry, but I'm going to explain what it what just to make sure we're on the same page.

IDW1 or IDW05 is the continuity that spans the main comics published by IDW from 2005 to 2018. It's also the one called just IDW because when it was publishing there wasn't another IDW continuity and people called it that. It's divided by the editorial in 3 phases, I will try to summarize:

Phase 1, started in 2005 with Furman's -ation series (Infiltration, Escalation, Devastation) and some spotlight issues, after Furman the main writer became Shane Mcarthy with All Hail Megatron, and then Mike Costa took over with the 2009 ongoing called just The Transformers. There were other comics and mini series that took place in this continuity during this time, including Last Stand of the Wreckers, which is considered the best of all the phase 1 stuff

Phase 2, begins in December 2011 with The Death of Optimus Prime one shot, this starts the post war stage with John Barber and James Roberts writing two concurrent sister ongoings called Robots in Disguise and More Than Meets the Eye respectively. This marked a shift in the comics and popular opinion is that this is when they started being actually good (and I'd agree, but more on that later), there were more mini series, one shots, mini series and spotlights published. In 2014 they changed Robots in Disguise's name to just The Transformers so it wouldn't be confused with the 2015 cartoon and that's why the fandom calls this whole ongoing "exRID". Later they brought Mairghread Scott to write the Windblade series.

Phase 3, in 2016 Hasbro went on to make a "Hasbroverse" with all the new licenses they got, so this phase is full of crossovers, this was not a popular move. They also decided to relaunch all their main titles, even though they continued the same story. The Transformers (exRID) became Optimus Prime, More than Meets the Eye became Lost Light, and Windblade became Till All Are One. Till All Are One was the first series to end, it was all wrapped up in an annual and a year later Optimus Prime and Lost Light also ended. The last chapters of Optimus Prime occur concurrently with the Unicron miniseries, that was also set up in that comic, with the whole continuity ending in 2018.

Being done with it, IDW launched a brand new continuity from scratch, led by Brian Ruckley under an ongoing called just Transformers. It wrapped up in 2022 because Hasbro lost the license, but it had a good run, I think. Fans call this IDW2 or IDW2019 for lack of a better name.

Now to answer your question.

Obviously the #1 best comic in phase 1 is Last Stand of the Wreckers and I say this very confidently because it just doesn't have anything approaching competition. That comic is very good and everythign else is... well, is bad. You asked for my opinion and they're bad.

Characters are flat, execution is boring, plots are mediocre, dumb and usually deeply reactionary and then there's the racism. There are things I enjoy about them, some moments, some ideas, the fact that I'm lore obsessed and I filter my reading of those comics through the lens of what came after so I project aditional depth that originally wasn't there. I won't say is all unsalvageable, there are concepts in them that are pretty good, some are key to my interpretation of the whole continuity. But if you as me if on their own they are comics of quality, no I can't say they are.

I can be fun to see the ways they fail, but I don't think about them enough to confidently rank them from the top of my head, I would need to re-read them all and I... don't want to do that.

I'd say Stormbringer is the best one on the basis is the one I have less issues with and even if it can be a bit dull and the narration tries to hard, it's just 4 issues. Really, the -ations are probably the best of it, but don't quote me on that.

The worst is probably... Mike Costa whose worse crime (besides the racism and all of that) it's that is all so uninspired while also being the longest running. It's just a constant stream of empty dolls going through the motions of doing a comic that's not fun and doesn't make sense. Again it has its moments, but I feel like most of the interesting stuff from it got picked by Barber who actually made something out of it, and on that topic...

exRID is so good. I love exRID. I like it more than Mtmte at times, I certainly like Optimus Prime more than Lost Light and I'm the kind of person that puts a lot of weight on a story's ending. I will use Mtmte as a point of comparison not to throw shade but because I consider both of them of the same overall quality and the "best" IDW1 has to offer (I mean also the Wreckers series, but that one os made of 3 entries thatw ere thought final and not an ongoing, so it's different).

Character-wise, exRID is not as strong as Mtmte, not because it has bad characters, but because it's more plot-focused. A lot of Mtmte's charms comes out of characters interacting and bouncing off each other even in the more plot-heavy parts, and it has kind of a sitcom-y feel. That is not something you will find in exRID, and I think that's why a lot of people who first read Mtmte are dissapointed when they pick up exRID. It has less space to breathe, not that it doesn't have interesting dynamic or funny moments, it's just that moment-to-moment Mtmte is more enjoyable, and Mtmte's dialogue is just so good.

While exRID has a much more utilitarian approach to characters, where everyone serves a specific purpose towards the overall narrative, they have enough characterization and personality to not be flat and give their actions meaning most of the time, althought everyone is kind of a jerk, exRID it's very sympathetic to its characters. Even when people are being unreasonable, they usually have a point or a reason to feel the way they do. For the most part, the narrative really isn't concerned in having someone be "right" and everyone is some manner of flawed, even the Autobots.

This results in a better narrative econony and thematic consistency, which is really where exRID excells at. Barber had something he wanted to tell and focused on achieving that, while Mtmte kind of starts falling apart at the seams due to everything JRo threw at it and some of it's main characters felt like their arcs were dropped. I feel much more satisfaction towards exRID/OP as a complete story, it does feel like, for the most part, ever small part of it contributes to the whole. While Mtmte deals with the war and it's consequences, the setting creates a distance from it, so it's more about how the characters process it on a personal level (and on this sense, it fails when it tries to work through it on a bigger scale it's not designed to handle), in exRID the consequences are very physical, the peace threatens to break at any moment and the plot is carried out by how characters react to these circumstances, for which we get very different perspectives. Really most characters just want to be safe and happy, but given their story, getting along is not so easy.

Now, problem is that to get the most out of most of exRID, you really do need to read the bad comics of phase 1 (and some of phase 2) and Barber is a continuity freak. Which honestly works great for me, but no so much for other. It is genuinely interesting to see how Barber tackles some of the concepts introduced earlier, especially when Optimus Prime re-enters the scene, as he's a fascinating character work that tries to consolidate all the other writer's portrayals. Similarly, the Optimus Prime ongoing took the brunt of all the Hasbroverse crossovers, which range from good, to mediocre, to bad. You can probably follow the plot even if you don't read any of that, but it does make much more sense if you read all the side stuff.

I'll stop now. But yeah, that's my opinion, I hope you found it useful.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #563

Top Ten Moments in The Transformers’ Lost Light Saga

I’ve written about Transformers a lot on here. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t the single thing I’d written blogs about the most (followed by the MCU and then, I dunno, probably Hey Duggee). It’s the biggest “thing” in my life – the media franchise I enjoy and engage with the most. And I’ve definitely ranked favourite moments before. But I wanted to return to it – yet again – for a couple of reasons.

2012 marks the ten-year anniversary of my favourite run of Transformers, across its entire nearly-forty-year history: the comics More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light. These comics, written by James Roberts in collaboration with several artists (but predominantly Alex Milne and Jack Lawrence), tell one epic tale of friendship, tragedy, comedy, political discourse, allegory, and references to obscure British pop culture. As it happens, I’ve re-read the entire series whilst on tour with the BBC, so it’s all fresh in my mind; also another reason to revisit it in a list.

There’s another, kinda serendipitous reason to look back over IDW’s time with Transformers. This week just gone, the last ever Transformers book published by IDW was released. It is, I think, sixteen years since they first had the licence, and the breadth of great comics they’ve produced – from the first Infiltration series by Simon Furman and EJ Su to the most recent continuity written by Brian Ruckley, by way of MTMTE, Robots in Disguise, Furman and Andrew Wildman continuing their nineties G1 run in Regeneration One, and the recent sort-of-not-in-continuity Last Bot Standing by Nick Roche and – him again – EJ Su – is remarkable. It’s a hell of a run, the best the franchise has ever been handled by one company. No film, no animated series, no other published comics come close for me. How the merry hell do they follow this?

For the first time, though, I’m singling out one specific arc – the Lost Light Saga, for want of a better title (I would also consider “Sad Gay Robots in Space”) – and just picking the best bits. I’m also doing deep on why they’re the best. And I’m going to try to say where you can find this great bit of a great comic!

This is a celebration. I want that to come through. I hope that when all is said and done – and this might end up being my last word on the Lost Light – that the myriad reasons why I adore this series is evident. The nuance of the writing, the fidelity of the artwork, the breadth of the allusion, the comedy, pathos, empathy, sadness, love. It’s a masterful piece of work that had me tearing up multiple times, sometimes over bits that I didn’t remember or that just didn’t hit me first time round.

Also, y’know, spoilers. I’ll put a break in. But if you do want to enjoy the saga in its entirety, maybe don’t read this list. Buy the paperbacks, get it on Kindle, scour your local comic shop for back issues. And then maybe you’ll join me in wishing happy birthday to the greatest iteration of my favourite franchise.

And I really want to emphasise that. Transformers really is my thing. it was the first cartoon and comic I fell in love with. It’s remained more important to me than, say, Star Wars or the MCU, or other childhood loves like Ghostbusters, Turtles, and even my beloved orange meatball with stripes, Garfield. Transformers is really the only thing I can see myself going to conventions for on the reg, a thing that just speaks to me, that I get unequivocally nerdy about. I wouldn’t say it’s like a religion but it probably occupies the same irreducible part of my soul that, like all the cultural bits of Catholicism, will never leave me, no matter what. And all of that – the length and breadth of it, the joys and sorrows, the heart and soul – my favourite bit of Transformers are these comics. I think I’ve said it before, but they achieved something.

“Don’t change back”: the arc of Megatron becoming an Autobot was one of those it’ll-never-work things that did work, and it worked so damn well. It became an examination of corruption and ideology and self-determinism and, well, the nature of tyranny, but also guilt and acceptance. Megatron, now a determined pacifist, is compelled back to violence to defend his new friends, but in doing so slaps a Decepticon badge over his Autobot one. When the dying Ravage – always sceptical and disapproving of his former boss’s change to the red team – notices, he reaches his hand out to touch the badge and says “don’t change back”. Back to what? Back to being an Autobot? Or back to being a Decepticon? These were his last words, and we’ll never know what they mean. And I really need to underline, Ravage is one of my favourite characters, and this is how he died. It just helps to underline the massive schism in Megatron’s psyche, his own continued self-doubt, the betrayal his former friends now feel, and – yes – his continued guilt. Quite how this ridiculous plot thread, imposed upon the writer by the publisher, turned into the cornerstone and most compelling element of the entire run is just exceptional writing and character work.

“Even Team Whirl”: this is two-fold because it’s a great moment and a call-back. The first time we see Whirl he’s about to kill himself. He’s filled with self-loathing because he’s been abused and mistreated, he’s a violent loner who’s alienated all his friends, and because he might have started the war in the first place. He’s a horrible person who we don’t really like but very slowly we grow to love him as he opens up. And then when Rodimus gives to inspire everyone he includes Whirl – “even Team Whirl” he says – and Whirl does seem to notice. Then, at the very end, Whirl has enough self-belief in his own latent goodness that he can open the Matrix, saying to himself “Even… Team… Whirl…”. So it’s partly the story of Whirl’s redemption and how he learns to believe in himself, and also a story about how Rodimus is just a cool guy and super-inspiring.

“Goodnight, little one”: after Getaway grooms and gaslights Tailgate, he outlines the four steps a Transformer takes to codify their relationship (basically, wedding vows). Tailgate is rescued by Cyclonus, but as they’re pinned down by security forces, we see the four steps play out again: actions that Cyclonus has taken over the years – instinctively, selflessly, without thinking – that prove how much he’s always loved Tailgate. It’s a heartbreaking encapsulation of their relationship when Tailgate realises all of this, realises Cyclonus is the right one after all. Then Cyclonus is shot to pieces.

“Megatron was able to open it when you couldn’t…”: might need a bit of explaining this, but the whole saga ends with the team opening multiple Matrixes (Matrices?) at the same time. Except they only open if you feel like you deserve to open them, that you’re good enough. Throughout, Rodimus has been an egocentric do-gooder who wants everyone to think he’s ace; that he’s a true Prime, essentially. He opens his Matrix effortlessly. But later he tells a court that he couldn’t open it, but Megatron could; he lies to the universe to try to get them to pardon the guy who started the war and once tried to kill him. This evolution of their relationship and his own personality is so beautifully sad and, ultimately, heroic. Like a true Prime.

“I love you”: why are so many of these sad? Despite what I said about Tailgate and Cyclonus, the defining relationship of the series is Chromedome and Rewind. One can read people’s minds by injecting their skulls; the other is constantly recording everything and saving the footage to a vast database. When Rewind dies, Chromedome wants to remove the memories of his dead love from his own mind; but a recording by Rewind, spliced together from dozens of different videos, leaves him a beautiful but tragic message from beyond the grave, culminating in three very simple words. Chromedome decides not to wipe his own mind.

“Remember me as I was”: one of the best long-running arcs in the series was the frequent flashbacks to old Cybertron (we’ll see more of this later). The mysterious, unnamed senator who befriended Orion Pax – with his vibrant, ever-changing colour scheme and propensity for emotional outbursts – is a mysterious and slightly sinister character. What’s his game? Is he grooming Orion? And then as the real sinister villains take over, the scale of the senator’s punishment is horrific and severe and we discover that his face, hands, and entire personality has been irrevocably altered, and he was in fact the cold, emotionless, logical Shockwave, one of the most notorious Decepticons. It’s a terrific origin for a popular character, suitably shocking and unexpected; a great twist.

“We’re going to steal the Matrix”: still back in the past for this, another classic cliffhanger ending. After establishing Orion Pax as the supercop who can’t be stopped, we have a number of plot threads converge as the scale of the evil Cybertronian Senate and the sinister, fascistic Functionists becomes apparent. Knowing what must be done, Orion hatches a simple but impossible plan: steal the Matrix. It turns a flashback mystery-cum-character piece into, all of a sudden, a Cybertronian heist movie; Orion’s Eleven. And it is, of course, excellent.

“It happened off-panel”: it’s a funny book, this, and sometimes you just need a good gag. I was tempted to include the Holiday Special and its “Contrivance Engine”, but really my favourite of the Red Dwarf-style silly sci-fi gags is the Meta-Bomb – “it blows a hole in the fourth wall”. Swerve – comic relief with a tragic backstory – presses it and instantly becomes a sort of metafictional narrator, semi-outside of the narrative, not quite Deadpool but a step removed. The fact that this gag, making use of and fun of the comics medium, is great in and of itself is one thing; but it also sets up further developments down the road. And that’s the funny thing about comedy; the banter and the gags makes you fall in love with the characters, so when a writer twists the knife it hurts that much more.

“Tell Whirl he can have my hands”: Ratchet is a grumpy doc with a heart of gold, but it’s the grumpiness that comes to the fore more often. His Spock/McCoy banter with Drift is a solid part of the story’s early years, and one would be forgiven for thinking Ratchet was a hard, flinty sort. But when the chips are down – faced with a rampaging Overlord and certain death – he doesn’t flinch for a second, defending the needy and immediately barking orders, bestowing favours and generosity. Whirl’s loss of hands and the abuse that loss signifies is a great weight on his soul, and instantly Ratchet offers to alleviate that. It’s so fast, so instant a thought, that its generosity takes me by surprise.

“It’s not funny at all. It’s tragic”: we end where we began, with Megatron’s redemption, and once again with a fashback narrative – here Megatron talking via a sort of time travel phone with not-Optimus-yet Orion Pax. Pax, assuming he’s talking to the Megatron of his own time, is a big fan of his future foe, wants to get him to join the fight; Megatron, speaking from the future, drops a couple of cryptic references to their eventual animosity. There are shades of Macbeth or Milton’s Satan when he says he couldn’t turn back now even if he wanted to, but he acknowledges he will join Pax “eventually”. Tragic doesn’t cover it.

There we are then. I don’t know what else to say. I’m sad it’s over but I’m happy it happened. We achieved something. Oh boy.

[templephoenix]

A thread of stuff I remember from Brian Ruckley's IDW2 retrospective panel from TFNation this weekend, in no particular order:

• Brian scoured the TFwiki for all the female TFs that he could use; he was very clear on presenting them as a normal part of TF society from the start, no weird 'explanations' needed

• He planned out the main story beats he wanted to hit in his head, but didn't make extensive notes or anything

• If it hadn't been truncated, the Exarchon plotline would have - pending Hasbro approval - dealt with the Quintessons and their region of space, cut off from the rest of the universe. They wouldn't have been involved with Cybertron's origins

• He praised the work of all the artists but in particular Anna Malkova, who he considered the best thing to come out of IDW2 and particularly impressive for moving from artwork to comic storytelling

• Flamewar was an obvious favourite, one of many characters without much existing fiction which allowed for more freedom

• One of the main themes of the series was trauma, embodied in characters like Cyclonus and his ghosts

• Geomotus and others showed that neurodivergence exists in Cybertronians; he wanted to show that there was a variety of ways in which characters could see the world

• The Technobots annual was condensed down from a full story arc which would have featured the Terrorcons; the Technos were chosen as Brian's favourite combiner team

• He didn't want loads of combiners running around too soon, hence the Enigma being thrown into the sea; it would have resurfaced eventually

• He considered one of his biggest weaknesses to be that he didn't make individual issues read as well on their own rather than 'in the trade'; he hoped that he had gotten better at it as the series went on

• Favourite TF character types included female transformers and teleporters; he wanted Skywarp to be a trickster-type figure

• As the series went on Starscream would have remained neither a true Decepticon nor in any way an Autobot, trusted by no one and yet charming/threatening/maneuvering them into keeping him around

• A continuing theme would be the gap between how Cybertronians see themselves and how other species view them; organic planets would consider these giant robots terrifying

• He doesn't consider himself good at big shock reveals and doesn't like bait-and-switches, so tried not to do either during the series

• Despite the long-form storytelling aspect of the book, his personal favourite issues were the one-shots that divided each story arc, like Wheeljack on the moon

• The senate attack that kicked off the war in earnest was originally meant to come earlier in the series

• He didn't originally know that the continuity was being rebooted when he was asked to pitch for a TF comic; there was a lot of back-and-forth at the start as Hasbro kept adding requests

• The series would have gotten to humans eventually, although Brian wanted the TFs to encounter them already in space rather than on Earth

• He enjoys writing comics more than novels, and would happily do only the former if given the chance

• He needed a science-related TF to be the initial murder victim; he sent a shortlist of names to be approved and they chose Brainstorm

• Hasbro did not want too many original characters created for the series; the ones he invented were all done so because they were integral to the narrative

• Once they were told about the license being lost, Brian made a conscious decision not to kill a bunch of characters off before the end; he thinks that it would be too cynical, and that deaths have to serve a contextual and narrative purpose to be meaningful. He also recognises that every character is someone's favourite, and now they can imagine the adventures they might have in the future

All in all, a really interesting and honest panel! Thanks to Brian and all the artists for my favourite TF continuity ever; RIP IDW2

[arcadebroke]

[smashpages]

Brian Ruckley, the architect of IDW’s monthly Transformers continuity, and artist Jack Lawrence will team up for a spinoff miniseries featuring the return of an ancient evil to the Transformers’ home world of Cybertron: Exarchon, who not even Megatron likes. Transformers: War’s End will run for four issues starting in February.

Read more

[geekcavepodcast]

IDW Announces “Transformers: War’s End”

IDW Publishing has announced a companion miniseries to the current ongoing Transformers comic series. Transformers: War’s End hails from writer Brian Ruckley and artist Jack Lawrence.

“In War’s End, the infamous warlord Exarchon, who single-handedly plunged Cybertron into darkness long ago, has returned and reunited with his former generals, Shockwave and Skywarp. Cyclonus, a warrior haunted by the horrors of that ancient conflict, seeks a glimmer of hope by testing the allegiance of Decepticon leader Megatron, whose own evil machinations have so recently fractured civilization into warring factions!” (IDW Publishing)

Transformers: War’s End #1 (of 4), featuring Cover A by Angel Hernandez, Cover B by Lawrence, and a Retailer Incentive edition by E.J. Su, goes on sale in February 2022.

(Image via IDW Publishing - Hernandez’s Cover of Transformers: War’s End #1)

[graphicpolicy]

Review: Transformers: Best of Arcee

Transformers: Best of Arcee is a fun set of stories which gives this character her proper spotlight #comics #comicbooks #transformers

When it comes to 80s cartoons, I can’t say that there were really any strong female protagonists. The exception being She-Ra, and even that franchise was marred with problematic representations. Then there were overtly sexualized female characters like Smurfette in The Smurfs. As it was very rare to find any real character development in any of those characters mentioned. It was not until the…

[elfdragon12]

... My brain went into a little bit of overdrive and how I'd love to see an actually good adaptation of the Megatronia group (a lot of what I'm seeing about them is... Grimace-inducing, to say the least)...

And I'd love to see them with body-diversity like we see with the Rust Renegades in IDW2...

... Now I want muscle mommy Megaempress.

[comicbookfx]

BOOM ZZARP

Transformers #28 A: Anna Malkova L: Jake M. Wood C: David Garcia Cruz W: Brian Ruckley

[quetzalpapalotl]

Just for clarification: IDW1 refers to the Transformers IDW 2005 continuity. That is, the comic continuity from tons of different writers that went on from 2005 to 2018. This continuity is divided before and after the Death of Optimus Prime comic (December 2011) as phase 1 and phase 2. Sometimes phase 3 is also used for when they relaunched the ongoings under the tittles Optimus Prime, Lost Light and Till All Are One. This continuity includes Mtmte but there were also many other titles in it. This continuity started with Infiltration by Simon Furman, and ended with Unicron by John Barber + Optimus Prime #25 also by Barber and Lost Light #25 by James Roberts.

IDW2 refers to the rebooted continuity that was published by IDW from 2019 to 2022. Mainly written by Brian Ruckley, with some side stories.

[thecomicon]

'Transformers' And 'Beast Wars' Both Kick Off New Arcs In August

‘Transformers’ And ‘Beast Wars’ Both Kick Off New Arcs In August

If you’re a Transformers fan, IDW’s got you in August. With two new Transformers books, Transformers: King Grimlock and Transformers: Shattered Glass, and new arcs popping off in both ongoing series Transformers and Transformers: Beast Wars, it’s a full month of continuity crossing Cybertronian conflict. Transformers #34, by writer Brian Ruckley and artist Anna Malkova, kicks off the new “Sea of…

[burninggravity]

Loss alone is but the wounding of a heart; it is memory that makes it our ruin.

Brian Ruckley, Fall of Thanes