#Mairghread Scott | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chaifootsteps · 5 months

Note

Hey I saw someone on Twitter saying you’re transphobic because it said in your Twitter bio “IDW Arcee is still a guy” even though the character is canonically trans. What’s your take on that? I’m not attacking you or anything I just genuinely want to know the context of all that.

Oh boy. Strap yourselves in kids; time for Chai's villain origin story.

So basically, IDW Arcee made his debut under the pen of Simon Furman, the dude who created Arcee in the first place. Simon Furman has a small massive chip on his shoulder over the notion of girl robots, but we're going to be talking in mostly Watsonian terms for now. IDW Arcee as he comes on the scene in Spotlight Arcee is the victim of a nonconsensual forced sex reassignment, we see right off the bat that this destroyed his life.

He's wracked with trauma and dysphoria over this, on a do-or-die quest to take out the mad scientist who did it (he succeeds and tortures said scientist for seven years straight), and is implied to suffer chronic pain.

This got a lot of criticism, but Simon Furman insisted it wasn't meant to be transphobic, just the opposite. When someone pointed out that this was a story about how traumatic it was to be assigned a gender you didn't feel was the one you should have, Furman agreed with this take.

Eventually Furman was shooed out and John Barber was brought in as writer, and nobody seemed to know how to deal with Arcee's backstory. So they just kind of...didn't. They wrote around it for eight whole years, never really acknowledging it, but frequently alluding to how traumatized he was from it. The only person to ever roll up their sleeves and tackle it head on was Mairghread Scott, the only person IMO to ever do justice to IDW Arcee.

By the way, this panel made me weep. This issue also includes a fleeting, but notable moment where someone refers to Arcee with they/them pronouns, and at the time, I was extremely excited for this.

Shortly after this however, the comic came to an end and John Barber decided -- in the very last issue -- to bring in an expert. And by this, I mean he found some trans lady on Twitter and let her write Arcee. The last issue has Arcee concluding that the whole sex change was consensual and the violent murder spree was the result of, I quote, "bad meds."

Yeah, basically Arcee killed all those people because the Spiro was a little off.

I got into a lot of internet fights with people over this back in the day, criticizing it for being worse than what we started with, but also frequently pointing out that it wasn't Twitter lady's fault, as she wasn't the editor-in-chief at IDW and that there's a very good reason professional writers aren't supposed to do this sort of thing. In return, I got accused of hating trans women and still get some real ugly things in the inbox about it to this day. It was the first taste, bitter as wormwood, of what I as a trans man could expect from my own community.

Regardless of all that, Arcee is probably the most important fictional character to ever enter my life. He helped me realize I was trans, got me through some dark days, got me through heartbreak and top surgery. He saved my life a few times, and every so often he continues to. I owe so much to him.

If writing a very gentle fix-it fic where Arcee has a long talk with Anode (one of the trans lesbian bots from the vastly superior sister series James Roberts wrote) makes me a transphobe in these peoples' eyes, so be it. I don't care what they think. They never reached out to baby trans Chai and held his hand and kept him breathing.

Arcee did.

#Anonymous #Arcee #Transformers #IDW Arcee #transandrophobia #actual blog post

161 notes · View notes

felassan · 2 years

Text

youtube

Dragon Age: Absolution | Official Trailer | Netflix

New Dragon Age: Absolution trailer! [source]

"Welcome to Miriam’s story.

Based on BioWare’s video game franchise “Dragon Age”, Dragon Age: Absolution explores mature subjects concerning freedom, power, and corruption set against the backdrop of adult animation.

Only on Netflix, December 9.

ABOUT DRAGON AGE: ABSOLUTION

With great power at stake, a group of mages, fighters, and thieves goes head to head against a sinister force possessing a dangerous artifact. This animated fantasy series is created by Mairghread Scott, writer of “Justice League Dark: Apokolips War”.

Set in the world of BioWare’s award-winning video game franchise, and built in close collaboration with BioWare’s creative team - including head writers, and lead creative directors.

Fear. Guilt. Pain. Can Miriam push aside her feelings to complete her mission - or will the trauma looming over her past finally catch up with her?

Nothing is absolute.

PS: if you’ve read this far, see you on Dragon Age Day. Or maybe sooner.

Cast: Kimberly Brooks, Matt Mercer, Ashly Burch, Sumalee Montano, Phil LaMarr, Keston John, Josh Keaton, Zehra Fazal, and more."

[source]

#dragon age #dragon age: absolution #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin #blood cw #mj best of

1K notes · View notes

thanksjro · 6 months

Text

Transformers Holiday Special (2015) — Wishing You and Yours a Delightfully Secular Wintertime, Containing Absolutely Zero References to the Birth of Christ

Despite what some might like to think, Christmas isn’t for everyone; even with all the commercialization, at its heart, it’s still about the Baby Jesus. You can tell that we haven’t shaken the Christian connection, because the cover for this special issue has the father, the son, and the holy spirit, which is hidden behind the company logo.

And if Rodimus doesn’t stop screwing around, his resurrection’s gonna have to happen a lot sooner than Easter.

Because this is a comic special, things are going to be a little different. Instead of one standard-size issue, we’re getting three mini-stories, each with their own writer (from each of the comic runs that were publishing at the time) and artist. Our stories are listed here:

Don’t worry about what Ultra Magnus is up to behind that text.

Now, you may ask, why on earth am I covering this issue, which is a specifically Christmassy one, now, when it’s not currently Christmas? Well, according to Roberts, the story “Silent Light” takes place after MTMTE #49, and #50 is when the crew manifest for the Lost Light gets shaved down some, so realistically, this is when “Silent Light” happens in continuity. So I want you to keep in mind that Getaway’s Christmas isn’t going so great.

I won’t be going back to catch up on the other runs’ plots, as the Christmas stories are stand-alone.

Getting into it, our first story is:

Penned by Mairghread Scott and drawn by Corin Howell. We open up on a cityscape featuring a happy sun and some eye-searing narration boxes.

I went to Howell’s Twitter to see what her deal was, and was greeted with a banner consisting of a sexy succubus lady with her boobies out, so I’m going to assume she simplified her style for this issue, since mecha are hella difficult to draw.

Also, I hope you like the structure of How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, because that’s what we’re getting for the next little while, complete with chunky, white text on painful-to-view red.

Our story opens with all the transformers from the colonies visiting Cybertron and making friends with each other. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, which pisses off President-King Starscream to no end. Being the drama queen that he is, Starscream feels that everyone should be paying attention to him 24/7 and feed him grapes as he reclines on a sofa, because hasn’t he done enough for all these sorry sacks of shit? He hasn’t even caused a war, unlike the last guy who was in charge. Bumblebee (who is a ghost) tells him to just be fucking nice for once in his miserable life, but Starscream wouldn’t be Starscream if he could settle down like that.

Our god-king of the planet calls for his aide, Rattrap, who is going to be in his alt mode for the entirety of this story, to help him set up for a public broadcast addressing his need for attention and adoration.

He sends Rattrap off to deliver the tape to the news, which seems to consist of two very sleep-deprived individuals. Because they’re apparently the only two robots stupid enough to attempt to cover the nightmare hellscape that is Cybertronian current events, the last bit of Starscream’s tape is cut off when one of them falls asleep on the switchboard. This turns Starscream’s personal worship holiday into “For the Love of God Be Nice to Each Other” Day. Everyone takes to it beautifully, getting BFF tattoos, going on vacation with their husbands, hugging in the straightest gay way possible, holding parades, giving each other bombs, and getting absolutely shitfaced.

Starscream, distraught that nobody is giving him the emperor treatment like he had wanted, sulks in his twin bed, then moves to his dinky little throne as the night wears on, making the most miserable faces he can the whole time. Eventually, Chosen One Day ends, and he’s been completely ignored. Very sad.

Then, there’s a knock on his door, and Starscream creeps over to the peephole just in time to be smashed flat by Wheeljack slamming the door open. Last time we saw Wheeljack he was assumed dead by most, and floating in a tank at Starscream’s behest. He’s gotten better since then, clearly.

Wheeljack came with friends— the entirety of the main cast for Windblade/Til All Are One, to be exact— and they’re here to make sure that Starscream isn’t completely alone on this friendship holiday he accidentally invented. Everyone toasts to his good, totally intentional idea, and Starscream decides against killing all of them for at least the next 24 hours.

Now pay attention to this next story, because it’s actually canon-relevant, because of course Roberts would write a holiday special mini-comic that ties into his overarching plot. Fucking nerd.

Our artist for “Silent Light” is Kotteri (or Kotteri!, as it’s been written on some of their other publications) the pen name for Ikumi Fukuda. Kotteri is primarily a manga artist, having created their own works and well as working on other projects. I admittedly can’t find much on this person, not even their preferred pronouns, TFWiki itself using “they”, which I will default to. All of the info they’ve provided themself is, of course, written in Japanese, but even running things through a translator only proves that information to be purely professional. Their personal Twitter is protected, and my follow request was never answered, as far as I know. There’s a fan Twitter account for their art that claims “she”, but I have no way to verify, and I don’t want to assume anything based on art style, because that’s sort of shitty. Let it never be said that I didn’t do my due diligence here— I fucking hate using Twitter.

We open with Rodimus having just returned from Meteorfest, a festival where you surf on meteors and avoid your co-captain and SIC’s calls like the putz you are. He’s greeted by said co-captain and SIC decorating assembling a Christmas tree cloaking machine and finishing each other’s sentences like an old married couple. Rodimus tries to deny the existence of Minimegs, then we get our heavy-handed and lampshaded explanation for the crux of the issue. Megatron handles Minimus like a baby doll as the two of them explain that the Lost Light is about to hit Mauler territory.

Maulers are notorious for wanting the Cybertronians dead, but Megatron is too much of a macho man to pussy out and go around them. So instead, the crew will be hiding in special sleeping pods that will mask their spark signatures, and pray to their pantheon of gods that no one notices the ship the size of Manhattan. Brainstorm has like fifteen new inventions, despite being on house arrest from his lab. Megatron’s autobot badge is wearing a hat. Merry fucking Christmas.

Over at Swerve’s, it would appear that everyone’s favorite television junkie is closed for business, as it’s just him, Nautica, and Whirl, sitting on the floor getting absolutely shit-faced on subspace-filtered engex. This might’ve been an issue, as folks are supposed to be bedding down in their B.E.D.s for the next leg of the trip, but Swerve slipped Magnus some Bing Crosby earlier so they’re cool right now.

There’s a banging at the door, and Whirl decides to answer, even though it’s not his bar, because if it’s trouble come a-knocking, it was probably looking for Whirl anyhow.

When Whirl answers, however, it’s not Magnus having caught wind of Nautica disrespecting the Autobot code, but an entirely different flavor of problem.

Now, I know that thing Whirl’s holding looks like a fucked up Hitachi Wand, but it is, in fact, an entire-ass baby robot. It seems that when Cerebros (Fortress Maximus’s friend, if you’ll recall) sent the engex through the subspace, this infant Cybertronian (Luna One-ian?) got mixed in with the other supplies.

We learn a bit about how baby Cybertronians work before we remember, oh right, this kid is gonna get everyone killed if they catch wind of her spark, since there isn’t a B.E.D. for her. Yes, it’s a girl! Congrats to our three idiots on their Cybertronian gender non-conforming little princess.

They gang decides to shunt her back through the subspace hatch, so they head over to where it’s currently being housed— the office of Ultra Magnus. Nautica, using her wits and all the tools in her arsenal, smashes the window to the office and they break in. The empty Magnus Armor sits in the dark like a grim monument to being married to your job. Whirl informs Nautica how to comfort the baby that he super for-sure doesn’t care about, handing her off while he uses his titty glass to replace the window in the door. Swerve tries to bite through iron chains holding the subspace hatch hostage, only to be stopped by the sound of justice coming down the hall.

The gang, of course, looks suspicious as hell standing stock straight immediately in front of Magnus’s office, but Minimus rather likes the change of pace out of these goofy morons, and is maybe also trying to deflect his embarrassment at being caught performing his own personal karaoke. He sends them off to their B.E.D.s, and it looks like all’s well that ends well until Whirl asks where Sparky is.

Yes, he named the baby.

Don’t worry though, he’s totally not attached or whatever.

Nautica, in her panic to not be caught stealing/vandalizing/using equipment she doesn’t have the clearance for, stuffed Sparky in the Magnus Armor. And also put the helmet portion back on the body, for some reason. Anyway, it looks like our little princess is gonna be a load-bearer when she grows up, because Magnus is up and looking for hugs. Nautica, a paragon of level-headed thinking in times of crisis, handles this in the best way she can.

And that’s a wrap on Minimus Ambus! Let’s give him a hand, folks! And let’s also give a hand to the new Ultra Magnus, Miss Sparky Whirldòttir! Where did that little scamp get to, anyhow?

Swerve nominates himself to be the one to drag Minimus to a B.E.D. to sleep off his concussion, leaving Whirl and Nautica to track down the baby.

The scene changes to Megatron announcing a last call for beddy-bye time on the intercom, just as Ultra Sparky enters the room. She looms over Megatron, putting him in a very compromising position as he hits the intercom button with his arm. Rodimus, climbing into his own B.E.D., wishes that his co-captain and SIC would stop being gay for, like, five minutes, or at least wouldn’t do it where it can be broadcasted throughout the whole ship in audio format.

Whirl and Nautica come save Megatron from the onslaught of physical affection, stating that “Magnus” has had a bit too much to drink. Megatron orders them to bed from his fetal position on the countertop.

It’s bedtime, but we still haven’t figured out how to get the kid back to Luna 1 so the Maulers don’t super-murder the whole crew. Nautica leaves Whirl to figure it out, getting into B.E.D. and wondering who the fuck knocked on the door in the first place. Whirl tells her not to worry about it and to go to sleep, so he can be the one to deal with this mess.

Whirl, notorious for doing all the nastiest jobs— former Wrecker, intended bullet sponge for the time travel situation, attempting suicide via Megatron— is going to add another tally to the list labeled “Reasons My Peers Don’t Really Like Me All That Much”, by throwing an entire baby out the air lock.

However, Whirl is being written by Roberts, who would never allow the number of robot babies to go down, so Sparky’s adorable assimilation of Whirl’s signature physical features gets him right in the soft underbelly he swears doesn’t exist.

Wow, Roberts put a baby in that robot. Surely this is as overt as we’re going to get with this imagery, since we’re in a major publication and not some fan-fiction!

ANYWAY

Whirl wakes up in the Medibay, emptied of infant and freaked the hell out about it. Velocity— who I will remind you is basically the only medical doctor on the Lost Light, since everyone else is too busy getting railed by weeaboos and joining unethical polycules to do their actual jobs—informs him that his daughter is, in actuality, a massive colony of scraplets that combined to look like a newborn.

It turns out that Nautica is a bit of a snitch, having spilled the beans after she woke up. Whether or not she thought Whirl had thrown the baby out the air lock isn’t really addressed, but thank god he didn’t, because then we would have had to send everyone’s favorite gun-addled dipshit to jail for the rest of forever. Checking security footage revealed who the mystery knocker was— it was the scraplets, forming the shape of an arm.

When Nautica asks how the hell they all survived this, seeing as Whirl kept the murder baby, Whirl informs her that he cut off power to his own spark to allow everyone else to live, including his sweet baby princess, winning him a #1 Dad mug, and also several emails from Rung to please make an appointment with him.

Whirl’s miracle Christmas baby lied and stole with the intent to murder everyone on board, and that makes her the ultimate daddy’s girl.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this canon-important holiday special story about Whirl becoming a father.

In our third and final story, it appears we’ve been transported to Whoville, by the talent of our MTMTE Season 1 colorist, Josh Burcham. Within Whoville resides Anna Log, a human woman who owns two turbofoxes and sleeps in full military body armor on her couch. The wall in her living room suddenly explodes, revealing a late-night visitor.

Motherfucker, you are supposed to be on the ship right now.

Mega-Claus fusion-cannons Anna Log, and we cut to a film noir office where none other than Thundercracker has his feet up on the desk. The art grayscales for this section, as he narrates that he’s a detective. He’s wearing a fedora. It’s January 7th. He has a mysterious past and probably thinks that makes him very sexy.

The phone rings, cueing Buster, Thundercracker’s puggle, to put on her own fedora, and the two go to see the crime scene, where Thundercracker is the same size as a normal human man and wears a trench coat.

It turns out that Anna Log is the director of security for the entirety of planet Earth, which is sort of a big deal. When Thundercracker and the cops look at the security footage, they see who did it— Santa Claus, played by Megatron himself. Fucked up.

Sure, pal.

Thundercracker must now fly to the North Pole and kill Santa, because that’s how the law works. He transforms, flies by Club Penguin and a Coke commercial, reflects on his job, and then gets ready for a fight with Santa’s security measures, as Busters glowing nose warns him of incoming danger. She’s very talented, Buster.

Thundercracker makes quick work of the cybernetic security reindeer with his twin energy katanas and Buster’s jetpack. He kicks down Santa’s door to find the jolly elf himself standing in the dark, potentially rabid. The two start kung-fu beating the shit out of each other. It should be noted that this Santa isn’t the Megatron Santa, who shows up behind the two as they brawl, but rather original-flavor fat man Santa. How Thundercracker didn’t notice this isn’t addressed.

Thundercracker demands to know why Megatron dressed up as Santa Claus to commit a murder— the murder part made sense, Director Log and Megatron would be diametrically opposed— and Megatron reveals the greatest slight against himself he’s ever known.

Framing Santa for murder ain’t exactly gonna turn that coal into a diamond, Meggy baby.

Thundercracker clocks Megatron, he becomes besties with Santa Claus, and they ride a flying tank into the sunset. Thus ends Thundercracker’s most brilliant writing project yet, which he was reading to Marissa Faireborn this entire time.

Marissa isn’t terribly impressed, poking holes in all the little nonsense bits, while also not feeling thrilled about having been killed off in the first two pages of Thundercracker’s book. While the two argue, Buster and Ayana Jones make a Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! reference together, and the issue closes out with a big ol’ Autobot symbol, even though Thundercracker was a Decepticon, Ayana and Marissa are humans, and Buster is a goddamned dog.

Thus ends the Holiday Special. Up next, more direct story progression!

#transformers #MTMTE #holiday special #jro punches me in the face #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

131 notes · View notes

smillingcartoonist · 6 months

Text

Sea Serpent's Heir Vol.2 Black Wave

#sea serpent's heir #mairghread scott #pablo tunica

2 notes · View notes

bringbackwendellvaughn · 2 years

Photo

#Barbara Gordon #Mairghread Scott #Joshua Middleton

27 notes · View notes

geekcavepodcast · 2 years

Video

youtube

Dragon Age: Absolution Teaser

Dragon Age: Absolution is set in the empire of Tevinter and will features an “ensemble of new characters inspired by, and authentic to, Dragon Age lore.” (Netflix)

Dragon Age: Absolution is created collaboration with Bioware. The series is created by Mairghread Scott and produced by Red Dog Culture House.

Dragon Age: Absolution hits Netflix in December 2022.

#dragon age #dragon age absolution #bioware #netflix #mairghread scott #red dog culture house #TGCLiz

4 notes · View notes

graphicpolicy · 3 months

Text

Mairghread Scott and Pablo Tunica’s High Seas Saga continues this June in Sea Serpent’s Heir Book Three

Mairghread Scott and Pablo Tunica’s High Seas Saga continues this June in Sea Serpent’s Heir Book Three #comics #comicbooks #graphicnovel

View On WordPress

#graphic novel #graphic novels #image comics #mairghread scott #pablo tunica #sea serpents heir #sea serpents heir: queen of mercy #skybound

0 notes

thegorgonist · 1 month

Note

this is maybe a silly question. how do you go about getting represented by an agency as an illustrator? i dont expect you to have the one true definite answer of course. but i was curious of your artist career journey!

Not a silly question! And you're right, I don't have the one true definitive answer, but I do have some insight! The honest answer is--you look up agencies, read their submissions policies, and contact them! Find someone looking to rep what you're looking to have repped, send some nice emails, and wait. There are a lot of rejections in publishing/illustration, and you'll probably face some here. It's terrible but not personal, it's just a lot of people trying to find the right match! Some people participate in portfolio days, submissions events, and hashtags like #kidlitpostcard day on twitter and get "discovered" that way. My own personal answer is weirder. I was supposed to be doing that, but I was also building a career making art prints/merch and selling directly at comic/anime conventions--and that put me in front of some agents. I also went to SCBWI (society for children's book writers and illustrators) conferences and paid for seminars/participated in portfolio shows that got my work directly in front of editors and agents. The conventions were actually where things happened for me. In the same year (I think? Around 2015-2016) I was tapped for a panel at ECCC called Hire That Woman! And I was the only illustrator, so I met some awesome comics writers. I hit it of great with one of them and we ended up developing a book together and pitching it--and my dream publisher picked it up! I also met an agent at ECCC who was interested in repping for picture books AND graphic novels at a time few kidlit agents were comfy with comics. I signed with her, and we've been working together ever since! I owe so much to Mairghread Scott (who wrote The City on the Other Side, my debut gn) for dragging me out of obscurity and getting my work in front of a publisher--who did have my on their radar but that was the clincher. My story is a combo of luck and making my own luck--I was making comics, indie picture books, tons of illustration, and children's book portfolios constantly, so I was prepared with manuscripts and ideas when someone did tap me. But the truth is, I am not a confident person and have crushing insecurities that I try not to let escape onto the internet, so I was too scared to send emails to agencies for years. When my current agent approached me, it was pretty much the exact month I'd promised myself to start doing it. I'm terrible at asking for advice and approaching people who have more experience than me (eldest sibling syndrome) so I try to make up for that by being helpful when someone reaches out to me!

38 notes · View notes

quetzalpapalotl · 7 months

Note

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.

#cracked-mist #quetzal rambles tf

9 notes · View notes