2005 IDW continuity

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Generation 1 continuity family
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The IDW Generation 1 continuity is the storyline of IDW Publishing's Generation 1 reboot comic-book series, begun in 2005. It is separate from all other Generation 1 fiction, re-imagining the Autobot-Decepticon Great War as a galaxy-spanning conflict, with Cybertron abandoned as a dead husk and teams from both sides covertly operating on various alien worlds to defend or destroy the native populations—including Earth.

Overview

"-ations"

File:Escalation 1 a.jpg
Remember that time when this didn't happen?

Masterminded by classic Transformers author Simon Furman and told across several consecutive mini-series—almost all given titles ending with "-ation" (Infiltration, Escalation, etc), hence this becoming a catch-all term for Furman's time on the books—and interlocking single-character "spotlight" one-shots, the story of IDW's first "era" brings the Transformers into the modern day. The traditional "crashed on Earth 4 million years ago" origin is done away with, replaced with a cloak-and-dagger storyline of aliens hiding in plain sight on Earth, not dissimilar to the approach that would be taken in a few years by the live-action film. With Cybertron an uninhabitable wasteland, Earth is presented as simply one of many battlegrounds in a galaxy-spanning war of subversion and conquest that sees the the Decepticons employ a strict protocol of infiltration as they attempt to take over alien worlds. Alternate modes serve a very real and important purpose of disguise, as discovery by natives is strictly forbidden by both factions. Open conflict is rare, and battles are often fought entirely in vehicle forms. The series is much darker then the original Marvel comics and G1 cartoon, featuring Autobots who make morally ambiguous decisions, Decepticons that regularly kill humans and Autobots, and many themes of horrific modification, racism, and civilian casualties.

The story opens on Earth, as the Decepticons there have discovered a wildly powerful source of energy, and break protocol to secure it. This soon brings both Megatron and Optimus Prime to the planet, escalating the conflict. The humans are deeply involved as well, both innocent bystanders and active covert organizations such as the Machination, led by a rogue Cybertronian in hiding and seeking to create a Transformer-human hybrid, and Skywatch, a secret US military organization who have control of multiple Transformers who visited Earth prior to the current conflict. As protocol collapses and the war grows more devastating, threats begin to arrive from space: first the alien Reapers, and then a cabal of undead ancient Transformers who attempt to destroy the universe by unleashing the power of the Dead Universe they serve.

Cast

Unconstrained by the needs of portraying a current toyline, Furman was offered a much greater choice in the characters he could feature in his stories, opening with an assortment of the more familiar 1984/85 Autobots and Decepticons, but with the added wild cards of the Battlechargers. Major characters from latter portions of the Generation 1 franchise like Hot Rod and Ultra Magnus were soon to join, as were fan favorites from Furman's days on the original Marvel series like Nightbeat and Scorponok. Popular characters who had never had a chance to shine in Western fiction like Sixshot and Doubledealer became prominent antagonists, while some, such as Hardhead, seemed like almost random additions! Perhaps the greatest example of characters being unconstrained by previous depictions was the transformation of Sunstreaker into a Headmaster.

For Infiltration, artist E. J. Su created new designs for many members of the cast, giving them updated, modern alternate modes—central protagonist Ratchet, for instance, became a Dodge Sprinter ambulance, versus his original Generation 1 design of "van with lightbar on top"—with robot modes reworked accordingly. A few characters retained their original alternate modes but gained updated robot modes, such as Bumblebee, while characters like Optimus Prime and Soundwave stuck to their original designs.

Technology

One of the more distinctive elements of Furman's run was the large amount of new technology employed by the characters in waging their cold war. The Autobots disguise their true nature with solid-light "holomatter" projections which serve as decoy drivers for their vehicle modes, and function as avatars for the Autobots, even quite some distance away, allowing them to covertly interact with a planet's natives. The Decepticons also make use of the human form, employing facsimile constructs — synthetic humans used to destabilize the societies of target worlds.

Several long-standing concepts that are commonplace in Transformers stories were wound back to their point of origin so their development could be integrated into the ongoing tale. Combiner technology, for instance, is not in use at the outset of the series, appearing only as a failed experiment that yielded the barbaric Monstructor. Pretender technology likewise appeared only as a failed experiment, and Headmaster tech makes its debut after years of covert and illegal development. Even the faithful standby of space bridge travel is not available to the main characters, who instead employ a short-range teleportation method called "orbital jump". On the flipside, Furman chose to directly incorporate the implicitly-ever-present concept of size changing, a topic generally left to fan discussion and untouched by official fiction, depicting the attendant mass-displacement as highly energy consumptive.

All Hail Megatron

Seeking to provide a jumping-on point for new readers, IDW brought Simon Furman's run to a truncated end with the Revelation storyline. While the writer wrapped up what loose ends he could in a follow-up mini-series, Maximum Dinobots, the new series began—All Hail Megatron, a "soft reboot" taking place one year after the end of Furman's storyline and beginning in medias res, with the Autobots mysteriously absent, and the Decepticons free to rain destruction on Earth. As was the case during Furman's run, "Spotlight" one-shots supplemented the series, but rarely tied into its events.

This twelve-issue series was written by newcomer Shane McCarthy, and courted controversy among fans for its near-complete abandonment of much of the world-building done during Furman's tenure. The story's cast was stripped down to the major players from 1984–1986, with many characters redesigned to either resemble the original Generation 1 cartoon, or to promote their new toys in the current Universe line. Perhaps the most enduring element associated with this year-long era for IDW's Transformers was the introduction of Drift, an original Autobot character created by McCarthy who was eventually turned into a toy a few years later in spite of his polarizing effect on the fandom.

The series was initially intended to be followed by a four-issue mini-series entitled All Hail Megatron: Coda, which would contain a variety of short stories that were supposed to address some of the continuity issues between Furman and McCarthy's run. Instead, these four issues were released as issues #14-16 of All Hail Megatron, and contained stories that bridged the gap between the series and the upcoming ongoing comic book.

Ongoing series

The Transformers ongoing series featured a new writer, Mike Costa, and takes place 2 years after All Hail Megatron. Artist Don Figueroa returned and debuted a new take on Transformer designs that seemed to reformat the entire cast yet again, giving them a very different, mechanically complex design-style more along the lines of the live-action movie series, while still maintaining basic Generation 1 character likenesses. However, IDW stated[citation needed] that they allow their artists great freedom in drawing the characters as they see fit and thus Don's designs are a stark contrast to the style used by Chee in the Bumblebee miniseries (more G1 but with some nods to the previously established designs) and Roche's designs in The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers (which continue the styles from the -ations and All Hail Megatron) even though all three series are concurrent. In fact, these drastic changes have led to some embarrassing inconsistencies such as Blurr having an Earth car mode in the third issue of the ongoing and his Cybertronian mode in the second issue of Bumblebee, which takes place directly afterward. After Alex Milne took over as main artist, he provided some consistency, drawing the characters in their Don Figueroa designs, but with traditional faces and streamlined a bit.

According to Prowl the Transformer population is numbered 10,000, Ride-Along and they have spread to twelve planets. Ironing Out the Details However, it was discovered that Prowl's estimates were off, and there was a much greater amount than previously thought. The Transformers: The Death of Optimus Prime

After a somewhat lackluster start to the series, is started to pick up mid-way through its run (around Volume 3 of the TPBs) and really hit its stride when James Roberts was brought in to co-author the final story arc, Chaos. Interestingly, this is when the series began to take a more "space-based" approach. The series wrapped up after only 2 years, culminating in "The Transformers: The Death of Optimus Prime," which was written by James Roberts and John Barber, who would each author the two successors to this series.

Robots in Disguise and More Than Meets the Eye

2012 ushered in not one, but two new ongoing series as successors to the previous series. Establishing that the remaining Transformers had been picked up from Earth, both series are exclusively space-based. Most characters had been redesigned again, but the in-story explanation is that they were courtesy of Wheeljack (at least for the Autobots). Despite the two series going in different directions, they are connected to each other in various ways — sharing cover images that connect with the other series, and themes (like the Dinobots) featured in both series in August 2012. Both series also start a new tradition since IDW's takeover of the license: special Annual issues.

Robots in Disguise

More Than Meets the Eye

Media

The continuity includes the following mini-series, listed in approximate chronological order:

Timeline

See main article: IDW timeline.

Production

Initially, the IDWverse was penned almost entirely by veteran Transformers scribe Simon Furman, with the primary exceptions being:

Pencils on the main -ation series were done by E. J. Su (with Nick Roche and Robby Musso filling in while Su was on paternity leave) and a variety of artists have penciled the other series in the continuity.

However...

IDW decided to shake things up in an attempt to gain new fans. Furman's planned 6-issue Revelation was shortened to four Spotlight issues and its follow-up, Expansion was canceled in favor of a new series, The Transformers: All Hail Megatron — written by new writer, Shane McCarthy and illustrated mainly by Guido Guidi. All Hail Megatron was expanded from 12 to 16 issues to mainly fix continuity issues between McCarthy's and Furman's work, and was written and illustrated by various individuals (see issues for credits).

Following All Hail Megatron, three new interconnected series debuted with new creative teams. An ongoing monthly series started in November 2009, written by Mike Costa and illustrated by Don Figueroa. A month later, a Bumblebee miniseries (written by Zander Cannon with art by Chee Yang Ong) began and yet another miniseries, The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers, written by Nick Roche and James Roberts and also illustrated by Roche, debuted in January, 2010. After Don's 6-issue arc, artists E.J. Su and Javier Saltares each illustrated an issue before Guido Guidi jumped back on board for the remainder of the arc.

Costa penned another miniseries, The Transformers: Ironhide which started in May, 2010, and was illustrated by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente.

In September 2010, McCarthy returned for a miniseries about his Drift character. Art was provided by Alex Milne and Josh Perez.

Notes

  • The IDW continuity is equivalent to the Earth-616 from Marvel Comics in some way.
  • As of, roughly, issue #6 of the 2009 ongoing series, there have been more issues of the IDW continuity published than there were in the original Marvel Comics US continuity. (However, due to modern trends in comics decompression, there's been less plot.)
  • When IDW first picked up the Transformers license, Simon Furman pitched a story that would have tied in to his idea for a Cybertron ongoing comic, and would possibly have been in continuity with the Dreamwave comics. The G1 story would have begun with the destruction of Cybertron and the discovery that the destruction of Unicron in the Aurex cluster had destabilized the entire omniverse. To save all of existence, the Autobots travel across the galaxy attempting to reassemble an artifact called the 'Decepticon Matrix', which would have resurrected Unicron - a plot which parallels that of Cybertron, in which the Autobots seek out the Cyber Planet Keys to revive Primus. Vector Prime would have appeared in both series, travelling between universes to guide both groups of Autobots in their quest. It seems that series would then have come together with the concurrent Cybertron comic as Transformers from across the multiverse were brought together for a final, epic clash.[1]

References

  1. ↑ Pitch printed in The Transformers: The Best of Simon Furman
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