Revisitation 9: Secretary Searchlight.

19/2/2021

First things first, youy'll note the website has a new banner. Based around the fact I'm mostly going to be talking about IDW comics for the next few years, it represents the three ages of Megatron in their original continuity and is by the amazing James Marsh. go hire him.

I'll be talking about why the new look in a post during the week when I have chance to sit down and write about what occured in full, but Twitter and Facebook followers will already know.

Back in 2006, it's War Within 1.2 as Simon Furman and Don Figueroa reunite to try and please the fans with an apocalypse in my look at Stormbringer Issue 1!

10 Comments

gary lloyd

19/2/2021 10:05:28 pm

another great review thanks Stuart

At the time i remember really enjoying this but as always your knowledge of the background going on's is enlightening

What had the sales been like for this and infiltration and was the complaint just the usual small vocal minority or more widely felt.

Was there any hints even at this stage that IDW were going to change course the way they did with the curtailing of the Furman era or do you think at this stage they were still on board?

Thanks as always for your ongoing efforts

Stuart

20/2/2021 05:09:48 am

Thanks Gary.

Sales across the Furman basically tanked in a steady straight line from start to finish before AHM steaded things at the level they basically stayed till the Hasbroverse gave it another kicking.

That's not the whole picture of course because Diamond sales don't include things like international sales or subsequent trades, but I think by the time he was writing Devastation, they all knew the writing was on the wall.

gary

20/2/2021 11:53:06 am

Thanks for that Stuart

I do find it interesting how it didn't work out with the arc the Furman era and the sales figures. I really enjoyed the start of this run and without going into the details of what comes next because you will do that when you get there i did enjoy what they were doing at the start of the story and try to move away from focusing on the main character's and try to expand the cast as it were

Reflecting on what you had said about infiltration and how it looks like even then they were altering the focus as they went along responding to feedback it does make me think that its probably best to stick with your vision than try to respond to everyone's needs as you can never make everyone happy and that by trying to alter course you rarely get back those that do not like what you are doing but then start to lose the ones you did compounding the problem

Llama God

20/2/2021 04:25:04 pm

It's a funny one this. As I said at the start of Infiltration, when that series started I was quite unsure of the direction they were going, and wasn't - at the time - a big fan of Su's art, having been so much a fan of Figueroa's work during the Dreamwave era. However, by the time that this series was announced I'd certainly woken up and realised how good Su's art actually was, and bringing Figueroa back and basically doing a War Within-esque story definitely felt like the backwards step you describe. Which just goes to show how much of an impact those first few issues of Infiltration made. (On me, anyway.)

So yeah, whilst I ultimately enjoy this issue, it's very much tinged with disappointment that they didn't stick to their guns and keep doing something different. For a series in its infancy its understandable that they did, I suppose, but even so it's disappointing.

Still, the art at least is great in this book (even if I'd become a Su convert by this point), and I do like Figueroa's designs here. I especially like his subtle redesign of his War Within Optimus Prime design, which I'd loved originally anyway - but here it's got just a bit of extra polish which makes it perfect. And which makes it a great annoyance that over a decade later Hasbro STILL haven't made a toy of the design. (No, that Titanium figure does NOT count.)

And I guess, if nothing else, this is still competently-done big robot action, which is what was (and indeed still am) here for in the first place, so I'll not complain too much. I'll be interested to see how the rest of the series fares, and then see how things feel on the return to -ations later...

Lee

5/3/2021 02:07:05 pm

Speaking of Thunderwing's inner robot we did recently see it in last year's '84 Secrets and Lies #3

Stuart

5/3/2021 02:23:14 pm

Nice to hear it popped up again.

Steve Mollmann link

13/5/2021 02:20:18 am

The only Furman-era minis in the IDW Humble Bundles were Infiltration and Devastation, so I have very little sense of what happened elsewhere; I keep meaning to go back and fill in someday. So this is exciting, as I get to find out! (I mean, I know I could read TFwiki to get the answer, but I haven't.)

Stuart

13/5/2021 04:04:27 am

Glad to be providing a service.

Jeremiah Ecks

24/9/2021 12:22:58 pm

So you've pretty much finally clinched why I wasn't a fan of this arc! I didn't get it, now I do.

As a Transfan, I was rapidly into TFs all the way until 2001 (Transmasters all the way bay bay!). But in 2001, a few things happened - one of which was my whole comics collection was gutted, and my Transformers toys lost.

So despite my passion for the brand, I'd been busted to ground zero and I decided, aside from maybe reading Titan trades in the library for nostalgic reasons, I would back out of fandom and the franchise and let sleeping dogs lie. But iT NeVeR eNDS!

So I missed Dreamwave altogether. I saw some previews here and there, didn't like the blocky art, and left Transformers in my past even as I returned to super hero comics.

Then the UK DVDs for Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory (+Zone) came out. I had to have them. I just had to. I'd never seen the Japanese stuff all the way through and I felt it was unfinished business, as it were. And I also doled out on the G1 cartoon DVDs as well. This was 2007.

By then Dreamwave had come and gone and from the sounds of it, good riddance. I saw a little bit of IDW advertised here and there through the years - specifically I saw some reviews for Megatron: Origin on Hero Realm. I thought it was interesting and I was tempted to check it out but I'd lost touch post Beast Machines, and I didn't like the fact that there were now all these universes and Armada was VERY not me when I dipped my toe into it (and still isn't. My least favourite Transformers that isn't called Kiss Players). I also bought the two 'Cybertron' games for the Xbox 360 because they were pretty awesome and I also got and LOVED Devastation. I wish it would come back for Xbox One with more characters (Jazz, please!).

And that was me for years. I had my G1 DVD set, I was happy being a grumpy old Geewun guy and moaning at Bayformers with some of my old Transmaster mates (of course I went to see the first three in the cinema, but was so annoyed, I never got to Age of Extinction or Last Knight. Spoiler though, I did watch Bumblebee, and it's the only Transformers live action I own on physical media! I love it!).

Then The Definitive Collection came about. I bought it. I accidentally bought Issue 2 as well, which was Stormbringer. And of course I didn't like it. Indeed it took an accidental buy of Hachette's All Hail Megatron to get me into IDW and now I have all of the Definitive Collection... I'm even collecting the toys again. Look at what you did Hachette! And after a long absence I'm even posting in the odd place again. How did that happen?

Anyway. That is the longest rambling Prelude to say that I missed Dreamwave altogether so I didn't really get attached to Figouera's art style or The War Within. Indeed when Hachette covered that story I felt it was overrated actually. Furman seems attached to it like it was his second coming glory which is a shame because I think he's an awesome writer which has done much better since... (Devastation - be still my beating heart!)

So when I first read Stormbreaker, it's full of blocky characters. The designs aren't call classic G1, at least, not as in my memory. There are loads of Pretenders running around and I couldn't identify them all without the TF Wiki (at least they're not as bad as half the characters in Drift's series). I was a bit put off by the Technobots not being Technobots and by the Wreckers (yawn) being Furman's 'get out of jail free card'. I just found that a bit predictable to be honest (until Last Stand deconstructed them and made them the single best thing of IDW).

And one thing that annoyed me about stuff like Car Robots and Armada was the reuse of character names for totally different characters (Beast Wars also guilty of it to a degree). Start your character with a classic baseline so we know this is the same thing and THEN change it up - Starscream in IDW is probably the best example of this, but Sunstreaker is also a good example. But stuff like Armada - and I thought IDW from this first impression - seemed to be putting character names on unrelated things and it just caused the Geewun purist in me to dismiss it. Honestly, that's just where I was.

So. As a new lapsed Transformers fan, Infiltration was far more appealing because even though their characters were tweaked, I recognised those who were in that story. And to this day I pretty much love (almost) all the early Furman stuff but Stormbringer still feels like it doesn't really fit with the house style of the rest of early IDW.

That said now I know how it all turns out and I DO see the changes in Stormbringer in context I now don't dislike it. I like it a lot more. But as I say it's my least favourite early arc... I actually dislike Maximum Dinobots though but we're not there yet...

To cap off my Transfandom, IDW has softened my Geewun stance and I'm now catching up on Animated, War for Cybertron and stuff like that most of which I really like! I'm still a Geewun

Jeremiah Ecks

24/9/2021 12:29:24 pm

I was gonna say 'I'm still Geewun at heart' but now I'm enjoying other streams. And I'd never criticise anybody else for liking anything else.

Except maybe Kiss Players. 😒 But to each their own.

Revisitation 9: Secretary Searchlight.

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