Auto Assembly 2008 news

[Manchester Devil]

Thanks to zhgiingaah from the IDW forums and Inflatable Dalek from TFArchive

· 'The Thirteen' is his next big thing, after Maximum Dinobots. Shane will be driving the 'here and now' ongoing story forward, while Simon lays the TF historical foundations.

· 'The Thirteen' will feature 4 or 5 characters we've encountered in TF lore already, including Vector Prime, while some others will take elements of character or names from other Transformers. Some new characters also.

· As it is being heavily backed by Hasbro, The Thirteen has to pay due respect to the 'movieverse'. We may be G1 fans first and foremost for the large part round here, but the movie has brought in a lot of brand recognition for Hasbro and they are obviously keen to push this incarnation. Thankfully IDW's output here has been pretty good so far, Reign oF Starscream the highlight for me and the TF:RotF prequel announced at SDCC should be fun.

· What the previous point means is that 'The Thirteen' is indeed going to attempt to make sense of / reference / utilise the Transformers Multiverse. Simon confirmed Vector Prime will be present, who if he is anything like his TF:Cybertron incarnation should help make sense of all those Primes and Matrix's and All Sparks and stuff.

· The Fallen will feature in some way - Whether he is exactly like his DW WWII:TDA incarnation remains to be seen. It is unlikely he will be exactly like Simon's original creation because...

· Though 'not directly confirmed' while Simon was signing a TF Fallen figure, TF: Revenge of The Fallen does indeed feature a character known as 'The Fallen' - it's not just a reference to a reborn Megatron, thus linking the movieverse in to the greater mythology.

· After Maximum: Dinobots, Shane will be driving the story on for the forseeable future - Simon will be enriching the universe with spin-offs perhaps and Spotlights, but post 'The Thirteen' he currently has no plans for the IDWG1verse.

· There isn't much likelihood of any Takara characters being utilised in the current universe - Starsabre, Overlord etc.

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The 13 is "Definitive until something else comes along", which seems fair to me. It will include about four or five pre-existing characters, with The Fallen and Vector Prime being mentioned, and some new characters, some of whom will reuse old names (later in the panel when asked about Japanese characters he mentioned some takara names might be reused, not sure if this is related).
It will tie together various continuities, including the film, mostly though the use of the Fallen.

So it seems McCarthy is now the main TF writer and Furman may be turning up for Spotlights and smaller arcs every now and then. And the recent Bay film would now be part of the TF multiverse thanks to the Fallen. Pity that Furman is no longer the driving force behind the IDWverse mind.

[Predabot]

Vector Prime lives! Yaay! ( well, in a way..)

But BOOO for the Furman no longer controlling the direction.

[Best First]

hmm.

i feel like Simon's been cut off at a point where he was about to give us the best stuff of his career.

I guess we will see how AHM plays out but i was very unimpressed with the vacuous first issue - i am not one for just buying comics because they have TF on the front.

Ok, i am, but its a habit i am keen to get out of.

I'm a bit apprehensive about The Thirteen - sounds too interfered with.

[Manchester Devil]

Yeah, Shane hasn't really impressed me with the first iss and his admitted non-use of Ore-13 and facsimiles. Plus the whoring out of the new Autobot; Drift. "He's like awesome and stuff, you'll love him to bits!" Not even Axl got this much hype when Capcom were developing Megaman X7 - and he turned out to be a hateful little s**t with a crap gimmick, and X7 was crap.

[Ozz]

I haven't read AHM yet, but from what you all're saying (cartoon fan handling main story, Furman on past stuff/other continuities) it's very Dreamwave. Yay.

[Manchester Devil]

I haven't read AHM yet, but from what you all're saying (cartoon fan handling main story, Furman on past stuff/other continuities) it's very Dreamwave. Yay.

Only this time; Shane McCarthy is one man, not two!

[Legion]

So it seems McCarthy is now the main TF writer and Furman may be turning up for Spotlights and smaller arcs every now and then. And the recent Bay film would now be part of the TF multiverse thanks to the Fallen. Pity that Furman is no longer the driving force behind the IDWverse mind.

And so another TF comic franchise dies...

[stranger]

Mixed emotions over the Furman stuff... As pointed out - he's on fire at the moment - seems a funny time to take a back seat.

But then, he's been writing transformers for the best part of 25 years, a new person steering the rudder should be a good thing. It's amazing that we've seen so little to back this theory up so far from anyone, barring Roache with spotlight Kup. McCarthy will need to up his game if he's going to take over full time... considerably.