Once again I think I'm pretty much out of tune with everyone else here (this site seems to be... well I was going to say the last bastion of huge love for the series but in a lot of ways it feels more like it's the last place left talking about the book in-depth at all, the others forums I browse seem to have mostly given in the ghost on the book), but that's cool. Different opinions are the backbone of discussion forums and it's nice some people have gotten some real joy out of the title.
That said, my, entirely subjective of course, view on the final:
[Much of this comes from a conversation with TFArchive poster Terome on Facebook and I am unashamed in stealing neat things he said which I pretty much could only respond to with "I wish I'd said that". And now I have, bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha]
After a distinct improvement for the first three issues of the Jhiaxus arc, things fell apart a bit at the end. Jhiaxus' defeat seemed a bit pat in the penultimate issue (and basically boiled down to the Wreckers being more capable than all the other Autobots put together, which seemed a bit egocentric on their creator's part), and issue 100 itself...
Well, good stuff first, this looked great. Special props to Wildman, this was his best art in years and he actually seemed to be invested for the first time in any of his modern TF comic work (as shown by the slightly odd introduction where he seemed to think the comic was about something profound. Fair enough if it helped him raise his game, but it does make you wonder how closely he actually read the scripts) resulting in some genuinely neat panels.
Senior was as awesome as ever, but he art seemed off in some way to me, slightly too cartooney maybe? Mind, not perfect Senior is still damned good so no real complaints.
And Guido, ah Guido. The only person involved in the whole series who unnervingly brought their A game to everything they did. Every one of his panels since he joined up has sung, and full props to the man for successfully coming up with work that fitted in with the established Wildman style but still felt very much its own beast.
The OK: I liked Grimlock going down in a non-fussy way, and him quoting the Touch is the sort of self referential joke that actually works, these things are best done as part of a silly big action scene rather than, say, when you're killing the lead character.
More on that in a second.
The bad:
OK, maybe I'm, just very thick, certainly that's the way IDW have been making me feel lately. Just after Shockwave's plan in Dark Cybertron has left me confused, the similar reality threatening shenanagans from the EVIL Matrix here has left me equally baffled. In particular, though the end goal is marginally more understandable than Shockwave's (in that, the EVIL Matrix was always basically evil for the sake of it so unlike the one eyed scientist you don't have to wonder what it's getting out of things) how it's being achieved was just odd. For example I genuinely have no idea what it actually needed Spike for.
What's really bad though is a large part of the issue is given over to exposition to try and make it seem like the plot makes sense. At least Dark Cybertron had enough sense to get that out the way before the final, presumably one hopes with the intent of that being just straight up fun action (well, let's hope anyway, Part 11 seemed to move in the right direction).
The recycling of old failed Furman ideas didn't help either. On the one hand we had the "Threat on Infinite Cybertrons" idea that was the first (rejected) pitch he made to IDW, on the other, the EVIL Matrix threatening to destroy reality that was his original intent for his take on the Dark Universe stuff (before AHM changed things so Optimus did have the Matrix all along so the Darkness, which otherwise acts exactly like an EVIL Matrix, was shoehorned in its place) thrown together with gay abandon so as to show you exactly why IDW decided to go in different (though not necessarily better sadly) directions the first time round.
What's especially poor though is the recycling of ideas from earlier Reg issues, Cybertron consumed by something that turns to population evil and has them fighting the unaffected remaining few? That was the basis of the whole Scorponok arc! It's handled in a marginally more interesting way here (at least visually), but it's rather piss poor all the same that Furman can't go two years into a planned out from the start maxi-series before repeating himself.
The worst bit though, and a strong contender for the worst thing Furman had ever written, was the death of Optimus. A scene intended to be the "Final" death for the main lead of the original series and the most iconic and well known Transformer of them all, is reduced to quoting Transformers the Movie because the writer can't think of anything original to give him to do?
I mean, that's the sort of crap Brad Mick used to do. Same for Andy Schmidt and, most recently, Flint Dille (who at least has the semi, though still flimsey, excuse he's trying to evoke his cartoon work). Why not throw an "I still function"? In there as well? having characters quote bits of the '86 film is the Universal sign for "The writer is a burnt out hack", and it's a shame Furman has fallen to that level.
it doesn't help it feels like the death was a bit of an afterthought as well, it wasn't initially completely clear the "Regular" Prime was one of the three and it just felt at the last second someone thought Prime should get some sort of last words, else he'd have just left killed by Fort Max in an equally off-hand way last issue.
Oh, and the attempted resolution the Magnus/Galvatron plot carried on all the problems of their previous encounter: They keep talking and acting as if they have this epic history when they in fact do not have an epic history, having never met each other before the events of this series. Trying to piggey back the UK versions' rivalry onto these different characters was just lazy and ineffectual.
It's as if
Sherlock, instead of bothering to build up an antagonistic relationship between Holmes and Moriarty that culminated in their final battle, just jumped straight to the rooftop confrontation and relied on viewers memories of the Jeremy Brett TV series so as to fill in the blanks as to why they (and we) should care.
What was interesting about the end was how it tied in with a quote the aforementioned Terome found a few weeks ago (and which can be read in this thread
http://tfarchive.com/community/showthread.php?t=52335) that Hasbro want to homogenise the brand and make everything the same. So suddenly the Marvel continuity is the black cancer at the heart of "Proper" Transformers fiction and must die so those "better" (in the eyes of Hasbro execs), more recently approved Universes can carry on in their carefully coordinated way.
It didn't feel like a celebration of the Marvel continuity, it felt like burying it at the crossroads with a stake through the heart. Now, if that was one of the edicts Hasbro laid down so the series could happen then fair enough, that's something beyond Furman's control (and very little in the writing of Reg has felt hugely enthused, more a contractual obligation), but it doesn't make the final result a better read.
The shame of it is, there was probably a pretty decent ten (at most) issue series in here. Cut down a bit of Megatron on Earth, then bring Galvatron in as the main villain for the rest of the series (I think even the book's biggest fans would agree that Scorponok was something that just didn't need revisiting. If a revived Fort Max had to be part of the climax you could just have the EVIL Matrix do what it did with all the Prime's and grab one from another dimension), working for the EM all along in exchange for a promise of return to his own dimension. He does something under its guidance that starts turning the population of Cybertron evil, resulting in a pitched battle that is ultimately lost resulting in the planet being dark and covered in corpses out to get the few survivors as issue 100 starts with.
you could have had subplots on post-Megatron Earth (though with Spike as just a "Normal" post-op Headmaster rather than the mess we wound up with. His silly super powers barely contributed anything really, especially as whatever it was he was supposed to be doing at the end seemed to be more about strength of will than anything else) and with Hot Rod digging about underground and finding his True Destiny tm, but it would have been a far more focused series.
I'd also have still either firmly embraced it being part of the UK and G2 series as well (which really wouldn't have been that hard and would have dealt with some of the Magnus/Galvatron issues), or stuck firmly to the US series and the US series alone and not filled it with references, jokes and even attempted payoffs to those stories that just wound up being confusing to the hypothetical "Main audience" the book was supposedly aiming for.
I'd have either killed Prime off with Megatron or had him actually contribute something, anything really, other than making the villain's job easier by championing the Nebulos space bridge link, to the plot.
All in all though, whilst there were still nice moments, especially in the final arc, the climax can also work as well as a metaphor for Furman as much as anything else. Tired and worn out and of needing to be swept aside so the rest of the franchise can move on. It might move on in better directions, it might move on in worse (we've had a little of both from IDW's other books recently), but succeed or fail the newer writers will at least be trying.
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