@@rutyqutykandi1361Part of it is certainly due to different writers having different takes when writing some characters (Maighread Scott's Starscream vs. John Barber's Screamer).
@@juanyusee8197 Yeah, it's why, while I like Skybound from what I'm hearing, I'm going to give it time. Because when comics change writers a lot, the vision can become very disjointed.
This is a bit of a weak comparison given how IDW wished to show his new take on their flawed complex optimus and the lineage and history of the primes, while Skybound's Optimus is... just the G1. I love them both!!!!!! But they aren't the same.
@@rutyqutykandi1361 That too. There's probably going to be lots of lore swaps as with every TF comic, so dont expect stuff to remain like this for long.
I think my favorite thing about Skybound's comics is that they feel like their G1 self but with a more "mature" feeling, like, you said Optimus has the perfect balance between a gentle leader and the best warrior of the Autobots because that's what a leader can and must do for its people.
So far, the Skybound series has truly been fantastic, and I truly hope it continues because we need more Transformers media that take inspiration from this wonderful run so far.
IDW was ran by people who hated the comic industry for the last remaining years they had the IP. Glad it’s in better hands, by people who respect the industry and the fans.
The ripping off one's own arm just to beat others with it is a tribute to Mobile Suits Gundam: the 08 MS Team. That single episode was responsible for numerous iconic scenes for urban mecha combats, war dramas, and manly resolves.
I thought killing off Bumblebee was honestly a fresh move (I know, IDW did that in Dark Cybertron, but came back eventually). Helps give more characters like Cliffjumper more attention. (tho I have feeling its likely he comes back, knowing his status in being Hasbro's golden boy)
I love Skybound Optimus, he feels like a good leader while also feeling like a big brother to his allies. The scene where he explores the wilderness in amazement only to crush a deer under his foot by accident, and immediately feels bad about his size and how hes used to *his* world is so good.
I think both IDW and Skybound are very good. They have very different approaches in some ways that are interesting. I don't think its really fair to compare the two when IDWs original run was nearly 15 years long. I will say as long as Furman stays FAR away I think we'll be okay.
To me the standard has always been Furman's run at the end of G1, but this series has been nothing short of epic. Can't wait to see where it goes. (And I'm also a big GI Joe fan - my two favorite toys as a kid.)
Even tho I finished IDW for the first time around 2023 Skybound is straight Peak transformers story telling with one of my favorite Optimus incarnations yet and some new concepts that get me more interested in how this worlds story and building will expand thru each issue. I just hope to see how some characters such as Sentinel Prime or the Wreckers will be portrayed if at all in this story
IDW had the issue that while their highs were very high, the lows were disastrous. Skybound is being consistently good to awesome. It will never replace the Lost Light crew in my heart, but second place is still epic.
The Energon Universe is also very young. IDW had Simon Furman in the beginning, and the writing quality was all over the place until James Roberts and John Barber came in. IDW1 gave us Furman, Roberts, and Barber. It also gave us Mike Costa…
@@brooklynbud1138 Can´t recall which parts Mike Costa did, but hardly can be as terrible as Furman´s Spotlight Arcee... unless he created IDW1´s Pyra Magna, that is.
@@danielmedela8725 Spotlight Arcee was fine. The hysteria around it will calm down. It’s just a bit of a sensitive topic right now because of the current political cringe
@@brooklynbud1138 It is not hysteria. It broke the world building to a point it had to be retconned. Either Jhiaxus was right all along, or you cannot have Elita-1, Chromia, or any other female bot in that world. Made by the same guy that wrote Prime's Rib, a comic of g1 UK in which Optimus built Arcee because he wanted to appease feminists. Pattern is visible. But, what did Mike Costa do? That awful Power of the Primes? Or deconstructing Optimus Prime as a fascist? Late idw1 was a mess outside of Rodimus crew.
While I love IDW and Skybound’s issues, like IDW takes on obscure transformers characters and making them into a interesting character which I like, or even making a new character, or the Lore especially MTME, and has some of the sickest and badass Character designs I seen in any comics, while Skybound I like their actions scenes and gore art, the GI designs, some of the characters like Arcee, Ratchet, Cliffjumper, and Carly, and Optimus with Megatron’s cannon arm despite them killing off fan favorites without any spotlight so far like Kup, I don’t think we should’t at all comparing the two especially when Skybound is still making more issues and is new to the transformers community, and though I have both problems with Skybound and IDW’s comics, but I still have fun with their comics, especially the art as a artist myself that likes drawing transformers.
Picked this up on a whim and have been blown away. The words, the art, the tone, all amazing. I will admit, I'm a little shocked at how many bots, on both sides, have already been junked, but it gives the story stakes that I appreciate.
I'm old enough (43) to recall the original UK comic, and the art style reminds me a little of it. I've not bought a transformers comic since the 1991 run ended..I might actually pick one of these up.
This comic gave us Starscream getting bodied by Soundwave before we even hit double digits. It's the kind of shit you'd only see in fanfiction. They literally proved that Soundwave is the 99% of the Decepticons. And I love the Energon Universe's steady build up of GI Joe as a result of the fallout of the transformers' presence on Earth, from the introduction of energon to the aftermath of the reawakening Autobots and Decepticons. It takes its time with it, but not too much time and I like that. My major gripe with IDW's Hasbro-verse was them just cramming so much shit in out of nowhere, even though I liked the premise. Because honestly, aside from GI Joe, Rom and MASK, everything besides Transformers didn't matter to me. I never realized that I needed to see Optimus using Megatron's cannon arm until now.
I have truly mixed feelings about Skybound's run so far. The violence feels gritty and uncomfortable (a positive), and the characters are great (Optimus, Starscream, Soundwave, etc.). My only issue so far is... how dead is dead? It feels kinda wishy-washy at the moment. We've seen a lot of characters die so far, which would be really impactful as a "war is hell" kinda deal, but we've also seen some be brought back to life. That said, its really my only critique so far. Everything else is freaking perfect.
Thems some deep pulls. Seacons referenced, earth wars referenced. Armada starscream and his consequences have been disastrous for starscream adaptations.
Some people like Dream Wave because of the radically different and beautiful art . Some because of the time period, with TF going Anime in the US (Armada) . And some because it was the last time Simon Furman actually gave a fuck ... . (see : IDW not going anywhere for 2 years, and then the Autobots hiding in a cave for a year and then another year wasted thanks to IDW just handing their TF license to their guy who did G.I.Joe (hi Chris Sarracini) who had no idea what to do with TF's) Oh yeah, and let's not forget "Superstar Artist Pat Lee is BAAAADDDDD !!!! So say hello to Superstar Artist Don Figuroaaaa (!!!!!!!) and his suppa duppa details . SSSUUUUUUPPPPPPAAAAA DDDDDDUUUUUPPPPAAAAA DETAILS !! After which, until MTMTE IDW just totally gave up on art direction and could have had artists draw TF's as giants, or as midgets, it didn't matter one bit BECAUSE WE AREN'T DREAM WAVE AROUND HERE BUD ! NO INHOUSE STYLE FOR YOU. !! ALSO, CONSISTENCY "WUT DAT LOL" . IDW was so mid . Like that Barber "writer-editor" guy . The face and talent of mediocrity .
Optimus is an inspiring, powerful, caring and gentle leader who everyone looks up to, not a psycho killer deus ex machina who shows up to Dave the day and rip heads off for "plot"
I'm absolutely loving this inner John universe. This Transformers is the greatest thing they put out in years and I like how you put that this Optimus is strong enough to be gentle just like Peter Cullen described. You're so right on point
Skybound set out to make the two sides distinct. Decepticons are evil. Autobots are good. And they did it. Now they will slowly muddy the lines. Good. Very good.
Sorry for disagreeing, but the first pac rim was ahead of it's time for Kaiju and big robot fight sequences. Pac rim 2 added daylight instead of thunderstorms and sun glares instead of lightning. I think the original always takes cake for being the better movie, and not just in its fight scenes.
I had been hearing so much good things about this run that I waited for the first trade to come out this I'm still new the comics and all my reading is done in trades. But once I read Vol.1 I picked up all the single issues on my kindle of the whole EU and now I'm keeping up with it all. Can't wait to see where it all goes
Idk man, if we’re comparing Skybound’s start to IDW’s start, I say I still prefer IDW. Skybounds been great so far but none of it gave me the same rush of Thundercracker sweeping over the desert in “Infiltration”, chasing after Verity and Hunter. Being honest Skybound so far has felt almost comical with its gore and death, almost to the same degree as MTMTE, except in MTMTE a lot of the time when gore stuff happened, stuff like Ambulon getting bisected, Pipes getting stomped to death or Trailcutter getting murked by Vos and Kaon, the almost over the top gore and death was there to show it was permanent and there was no coming back, that they weren’t just medically going to be revived by Ratchet or First Aid. While reading Skybound, after the fourth or so issue I didn’t really feel there were any stakes for our characters since they can be revived from pretty much anything. It hasn’t yet convinced me Starscream and Bee are actually dead, or that any of the bots on cybertron during issue 7 are dead either. I’m enjoying it for the character interactions which are on par with early IDW/Infiltration (though still not hitting the same highs as MTMTE or Wreckers) but that’s kind of it. It doesn’t even have the interesting hook of seeing new designs for the characters since they’re all just pure unfiltered G1. Again comparing to infiltration, it was fun to see how designs had changed, be it in big or small ways and it made the comic itself more engaging. Idk maybe I’m being too harsh here but i feel like it is a decent issue
Hot take, I actually found early IDW under Furman frankly overrated and just painfully mediocre at best besides his storyline for Grimlock and the Dinobots as well as some of the Spotlight issues. One of my major gripes with Furman's IDW run (and Furman in general) is that he either doesn't know how to properly juggle an ensemble cast and/or is largely averse towards getting intimate with the cast, as a result his stories are much more event-centric with the space opera epics than character-centric, and as such a majority of the dialogue he writes is not only super stilted, dense and over-pretentious (especially Galvatron's, was never a fan of his take of IDW Galvy, he honestly became much more enjoyable as a villain under John Barber's pen IMHO), but also the way the characters talk are interchangeable (Furman's Decepticons are as a whole interchangeably thuggish) with few exceptions (eg. Grimlock). Meanwhile you don't get this problem with how Daniel Warren Johnson and even the later IDW1 writers (Roche, Roberts and Barber), because unlike Furman their stories are very character-driven, their characters actually feel like actual people with more natural-sounding dialogue that's not stilted and overcooked, which makes their work a lot more enjoyable to me than much of Furman's writing for IDW1 (again, Maximum Dinobots arc being one of the main exceptions).
@@juanyusee8197 yeah, that beggining was so, sooooo clunky. YK who furman reminds me of? George Lucas. Bloody excellent ideas and worldbuilding concepts, but they fumble the fucking bag so hard because they just cannot write for shit. Thats how we get garbage like Spotlight: Arcee.
I just ready Vol 1 (chapters 1-6) yesterday. I agree with you... that part where "Sparky" entered into the matrix is really bad. There would be more better ways to sacrifice Sparkplug, if it was necessary for the story. Or at least if it was explained how the matrix drain lifeforce or something from living beings (organic or not), so that it made some kind of sense.
I love this video but I'm going to point out Bayverse-Optimus is the same Optimus that both forgave and protected a man that made billions off of melting down the corpses of dead autobots and transforming their desecrated remains into military slave drones. He would absolutely turn into a truck for a kid with cancer.
While I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s better than IDW, both are great and really have set the standard for what a transformers story can be. And even though I have issues with skybound that I feel IDW has over it (such as the way it handled killing characters) I really love both, and can’t wait to see where skybound goes in the future and earn its place alongside IDW and even surpass it.
This is the first Transformers (and G.I. Joe) comic that I've been reading as it releases. My biggest problem with the IDW comics was how much romance they crammed in. And if you ever SAY you didn't like that, people assume you're being homophobic, since so many of the relationships were homosexual (but that's just because of the massive gender imbalance). I just don't understand a species that doesn't reproduce sexually having romantic desires. Close friendships, sure but romance just seems silly.
I freakin' hate how they added romance too. Latter IDW failed to understand the appeal of platonic bonds. Transformers is one of the only series that you don't have to even consider touching romance at all, yet they went there and made it all weird. The idea of a species that doesn't have these sexual concepts makes Cybertronians far more interesting IMO. Camaraderie and friendship are far deeper ties than romance, and it just feels like they were projecting fleshling human organic feelings onto something that was far better off without it. Simon Furman was right about this.
@@spriggylotus4476 Exactly. A lot of the relationships in the comics would have been better without them getting all touchy-feely and romantic. This franchise has always had human and organic alien characters, have THEM get in the romantic relationships. Any piece of media that portrays Optimus and Megatron as close friends prior to the war is a good idea. But if they made them make out before that it'd just feel absurd.
I had to look it up and you're right, with Indy I was thinking of the Raiders of the Lost Ark adaptation and the cover I used for the video just happened to pop up not realizing it was from a different series entirely, and with Star Wars I was just flat out wrong. This is why you don't research late at night with little sleep.
Idw is still better for giving characters who are barely even talked about or given spotlight some interesting character like Whirl, Thundercracker, Tarn, The combaticons, Sky-byte, and Cyclonus. Then they take great risk with characters like shockwave
Skybound’s Transformers comic is fantastic. Void Rivals is intriguing, but I hope it doesn’t rely too too much on the Transformers. I would prefer it to stand on its own legs as much as possible. Duke and Cobra Commander are okay, but Joshua Williamson had a great Flash run in the DC Rebirth era. He’s great at taking characters I couldn’t care less about and at least making me intrigued at bit. But it’s obvious Transformers is the flagship comic here. It’s just different than IDW. Both are excellent. IDW just had a very WTF ending as Hasbro tried integrating some of its other (horrible) properties. Who the hell wanted ROM and Action Man and Micronauts?
I read every issue of IDW until the first continuity ended in 2017. I've not read a single issue of skybound simply because IDW just broke me down how awful it got especially in the last few years. But I can already tell Skybound is way better. I hope to get TPB when they become available. Also, just for the record. I know it's not popular, but DW had my favorite stories, too bad it just never got to finish.
I didn't even read many of the comics and it still kinda broke down for me as an outsider. I'll be interested in reading through Skybound after its had a lot more issues and still seems to be running strong. I'm only doing this because I am afraid it could wind up losing steam or its vision.
Marvel also started G.I. Joe's comic in the 80's, which never stopped running no matter who had the license and is still running under Skybound. Every Energon book is like Energon in my veins, heheheheheheh! The TF and Joe books pair so well with the soundtracks of their 80s shows (DWJ knew I was gonna play "The Touch" in Issue 6 and me reading the TF scene in the Free Comic Book Day special timed perfectly with "Instruments of Destruction"). I also ADORE the series giving these characters such profound respect for life; Optimus mourning the deer and The Matrix showing humans are no better or worse than Transformers by being powered by Sparkplug REALLY hit me...Which the contrasts DWJ killing Reflector just for not liking him and Frenzy because of RIBFIR commets, heheheheh! I get the feeling that all Energon books will run around 100 issues each (given GI Joe's slow build-up) and I would be very happy if that turns out to be true.
spoilers 12:09 i've got i crack pot theory that sparky is gonna come back later on with him becoming a transtector of sorts and OP is gonna become powermaster optimus prime
I know I'm probs alone but IDW post All Hail Megatron was just not my thing, I honestly hated most of what they did and how disrespectfully they treated Optimus Prime. All the conjux stuff was weird and felt like a bad fan-fiction, hated it. Again that's just me.
@@Spootprime Well Bub, it's just bad horny writing focused on sexuality. Cyclonus and Tailgate....like give me a break. What little Dreamwave had before cancelation was far superior to IDW as a whole and I stand by that.
@@SpootprimeNo, it got bad, but then it had one good run that was arguably better than the entirety of the pre All Hail Megatron comics, so you win some, you lose some
I just wished skybound tried to stray away a bit from the blocky G1 designs, I think idw had a good middleground between recognisability and more complex designs. Definitely a me thing though considering I didnt grow up with the 80s cartoon
Transformers/Gi-Joe. Man I know it like always happens but I can’t stand it, i never was a fan of gi-Jo but whenever they crossover into transformers I can’t stand it more. I want the robots, I know it’s close minded but I know what I like you know? When they inevitably crossover again in the movies thats when I’ll try it again but I’m not necessarily looking forward to it you know?
IDW became unreadable to me with it's focus on romance and silly billy banter. I don't need comedy injected in. I think there is a generation of Transformers fans now though who love the focus on sexuality and silly humor who won't like a more dry, serious take.
Between this and IDW's recent run with Sonic, I'm glad so many of my childhood favourites are enjoying such a golden age in their comic formats these days 😊
IDW may have lasted the longest as transformers goes but it set the bar pretty low IMO. This does look like typical Kirkman, toon style with adult violence and adolescent themes. Sounds better but still not my personal preferrence.
I've been dancing around purchasing the new comics for Transformers, and your video has given that last push to give the series a proper chance. I've been hearing good things about it so far, but haven't really purchased the single issues. I do wonder if I will have to seek out the other series in GI Joe and Void Rivals, as I don't know if I can afford the headache and empty wallet for all the other series' issues.
Unlike most of the commenters here, I found it less well written and illustrated than the best of the IDW stuff. It's not bad, but not blowing me away either.
I've heard good things about the book and I've flipped through it but still hesitant about the art, back in the 90's it took me awhile to warm up to Geoff Senior when he worked on Marvel's TF comic but enough of this abstract experimental artsy fartsy POS, I want to see nice clean sharp art in the likes of Don Figueroa and Guido Guidi, hell I'll even accept Pat Lee if he ever comes out from hiding. If Skybound wants my money they have to cut this BS right now!!
Like it's not bad, but honestly so far I prefer IDW, so the first two phases of IDW, they were great and several different series, for example I liked that the Decepticons weren't just evil. I really enjoyed the Megatron story in IDW, of course not everything in IDW was great.
IDW 1 start (-ations stage) was really good. Updates to modern sensibilities, serious enough and believable. It was Batman begins treatment for transformers.
IDK, besides Megatron Origin I think it's only in later phase 1 or phase 2 where IDW1 handled the Decepticons being more nuanced than being interchangeably thuggish like in Furman's writing in the start of Phase 1.
I mean, being better than IDW isn't hard. All you have to do is make the characters accurate, not start shipping everyone, and keep the author's cringe politics the hell out.
Hawen't seen this mutch gi joe disrespect since a rise of the beasts review called them"Reagan era propaganda". Never mind the More blunt identity politics now, and"the october guard"and"cobra"!
