The Allspark.com Interviews Simon Furman, IDW's "Transformers: ReGeneration 1"; Transformers Career Options

[Starfield]

I love the sound of Regeneration and Simon's enthusiasm!

Randy

Can't wait to add a third MUST BUY, TF comic to my purchase list. If they stagger them right we'll only have one week a month when there's not an awesome TF book to buy. Expensive but awesome.

I hope Blaster and Fort Max can play a decent role in Regeneration. They were Budainsky's "stars" much more than Furman's but they feel so much a part of what the G1 comic was to me.

Despite Optimus Prime existing I always felt he was only a really big focus in the US comic toward the end. The leading men of the US comic to me were:
Buster Witwicky
Ratchet
Blaster
Goldbug
Fort Max/Galen/Spike
Optimus Prime
And then Grimlock

In roughly that order. I'd love to see them all get a curtain call.


-ZacWilliam, TF comics havn't been this cool in sooo long...

Walter Barnett was a heavy hitter for a pretty big chunk of the series. Blackrock said RAAT was disbanded, but what about Barnett and III? Did they commission Blackrock and the Neo-Knights behind the scenes?

[G.B.Blackrock]

I love the sound of Regeneration and Simon's enthusiasm!

Randy

Can't wait to add a third MUST BUY, TF comic to my purchase list. If they stagger them right we'll only have one week a month when there's not an awesome TF book to buy. Expensive but awesome.

I hope Blaster and Fort Max can play a decent role in Regeneration. They were Budainsky's "stars" much more than Furman's but they feel so much a part of what the G1 comic was to me.

Despite Optimus Prime existing I always felt he was only a really big focus in the US comic toward the end. The leading men of the US comic to me were:
Buster Witwicky
Ratchet
Blaster
Goldbug
Fort Max/Galen/Spike
Optimus Prime
And then Grimlock

In roughly that order. I'd love to see them all get a curtain call.


-ZacWilliam, TF comics havn't been this cool in sooo long...

Walter Barnett was a heavy hitter for a pretty big chunk of the series. Blackrock said RAAT was disbanded, but what about Barnett and III? Did they commission Blackrock and the Neo-Knights behind the scenes?

The "they" of who commissioned Blackrock and the Neo-Knights is a bit mysterious. Blackrock references the "Security Council," which would seem to imply the UN, although they hadn't been involved before. All we can say is that, yes, it's clear that the not-yet-named Neo-Knight were explicitly commissioned (by someone) to replace RAAT. Was Barnett and/or III (which, being fictional, might well have a "security council") involved? That's the question.

(I was actually writing a bit about this just a couple of weeks ago....)

[Primer Prime]

Well someone is certainly sure to do something about the crashed Ark. He mentioned Headmasters... it makes me wonder if the machination was an unused idea from his run on Marvel US, but replacing Spike and Fort Max with Hunter and Streaker. Even if it were, I doubt he would re-use something like that so soon. It makes me all the more frustrated that he had to squish all of his leftover IDW plans into Maximum Dinobots.

[DeadCal]

The bit at the end was the most diplomatic and succinct summation of the movie franchise I'm likely to ever read (IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon-hotrod.gif)

[BB Shockwave]

The whole Prime-Megatron dynamic really comes under the spotlight in the first arc. I asked myself fundamental questions about both characters and how almost inter-dependent they are. You almost can’t imagine Prime without Megatron and vice versa.

And yet most of the Marvel G1 comic did so just fine...


Actually, I'm pretty excited to see how Furman deals with this particular aspect, but I just had to comment on his assertion that you can't have one without the other, given exactly which continuity we're talking about here....

Well, most of the time they were BOTH dead, actually. And Megatron takes pretty hard when he cannot kill Prime (see 'Gone but not forgotten' or if someone offers to off Prime instead of him ('Prey')). Optimus reminiscences about his relationship to Megatron and how they always die and come back in G2, I loved that montage.

[G.B.Blackrock]

The whole Prime-Megatron dynamic really comes under the spotlight in the first arc. I asked myself fundamental questions about both characters and how almost inter-dependent they are. You almost can’t imagine Prime without Megatron and vice versa.

And yet most of the Marvel G1 comic did so just fine...


Actually, I'm pretty excited to see how Furman deals with this particular aspect, but I just had to comment on his assertion that you can't have one without the other, given exactly which continuity we're talking about here....

Well, most of the time they were BOTH dead, actually. And Megatron takes pretty hard when he cannot kill Prime (see 'Gone but not forgotten' or if someone offers to off Prime instead of him ('Prey')). Optimus reminiscences about his relationship to Megatron and how they always die and come back in G2, I loved that montage.

Granting that both are out of action between issues #25 (Megatron's "death" as noted in GbnF) and #42 (Prime's return as a Powermaster), and that both are gone again from Issues #75 - 80 (but not including #79, where Megatron is around again), You still have the majority of the series (indeed, I'm only counting about a quarter of the series where both are indeed offline) where one is around without the other. (Most of this being Prime without Megatron, admittedly)

I don't count Prey (again, US bias), and G2 shouldn't count for the sake of this discussion, although I will certainly grant that Furman does some wonderful stuff there re: Prime and Megatron's relationship, as you suggest.

But I think my point stands on pretty solid ground. With only a couple of exceptions in the Marvel US series (the last of these being issue #24, unless you want to count Megatron's behind-the-scenes machinations in the Pretender Classics origin story as indirectly including Prime), we don't see Prime and Megatron interact all that much at all.

*I haven't forgotten Prime-as-head from #5-#12, nor Megatron's absence between #8 and #13. But because Prime is actually functional in that whole bit, and Prime's actual interactions with Shockwave are kind of important, I don't think this period counts as both being dead.

This post has been edited by G.B.Blackrock: Feb 23 2012, 12:06 PM

[Database]

If RG1 does really well, anyone think they'd continue it further than #100?

Oddly enough, no. I think this is actually pretty definitive, and sales won't make that much of a difference.

Unless it tanks, then its going to be hugging hilarious.

[Jackpot]

Another interview with Simon Furman? I think after the first 3, I've learned all I needed to know to figure out what makes the man tick.

I'm still interested in whatever new details he feels like dropping. Like now we know the Cosmic Carnival will be making an appearance! That tickles me to no end.

Also, I liked the question about how much of the plotline will be new ideas versus old ones he never got the chance to explore, since seeing the latter is my own primary source of interest in the series. So for that reason, it was actually a little disappointing to hear him say it'll be mostly the former, but his list of old plot points he will address sounds pretty satisfying.

Sorry, but... G1 Prime is a few dozen evolutionary steps above movie Prime.
In fact, every version of Optimus is way above movie Prime who's like a caveman compared to them.

Nonono, it fits. Remember: Evolution is not about getting smarter and better. It's only about adapting to the environment to survive. And if a more aggressive, murderous bastard is fit to survive in the movie market, that's textbook evolution at work.





Okay, not really, but let's not strain the metaphor even further.

Don't be too hard on yourself - I don't think that strains the metaphor at all. It's startlingly apropos, actually.

If RG1 does really well, anyone think they'd continue it further than #100?

Oddly enough, no. I think this is actually pretty definitive, and sales won't make that much of a difference.

I agree that Furman's tone sounds pretty final, but I have a hard time imagining him ending #100 in a place that couldn't be continued if IDW thought there was enough money in it. Ultimately it's their decision, not his.

Well, most of the time they were BOTH dead, actually. And Megatron takes pretty hard when he cannot kill Prime (see 'Gone but not forgotten' or if someone offers to off Prime instead of him ('Prey')). Optimus reminiscences about his relationship to Megatron and how they always die and come back in G2, I loved that montage.

It was a good montage, true, but Prime's perspective seemed to be that it was just this curious quirk of history; Megatron was the one who always took it personally. Honestly, when I think of Marvel-G1 Prime's definitive opposite number, Scorponok is the one who jumps to mind.

This post has been edited by Jackpot: Feb 23 2012, 04:35 PM