Hasbro is/was desperate to push her to make sure she was in the same tier as the Big 5, Optimus Bumblebee Megatron Starscream and Soundwave, but she doesn't really have a "core character" because so many different writers were taking her in different directions at the time she premiered so she doesn't really have an established character to draw from.
Shockwave has potential to be on that list as well. His design is super memorable, there's that iconic 80's Marvel comics cover, and they developed him into a fricking badass in the IDW comics.
Shockwave isn't consistent enough in terms of role (hell, even the G1 cartoon and comics are nearly opposite) which does seem to be repairing itself into "logical scientist" through iterations, but does have a distinct look and lots of appearannces. A solid 4th place among usual suspects Decepticons.
Because she was a character astroturfed into popularity solely based on her design before there was any solid base of characterization to draw from.
Windblade was never popular, Hasbro was just trying to shove her into as many things as possible to try and artificially elevate her to Optimus-tier recognizeability. It didn't work.
I like Windblade but trying to push her into everything is stupid. Have her be like Arachnid or Slipstream, now that she exists as a concept sometimes she's just there too now, simple as.
Depending on continuity you can jettison all her Camian baggage and cityspeaker gimmick, too, just have her be a regular Autobot. She could be the Female Autobot's Tigatron, an ally not cohabitating with the main group.
Literally the entire point of Windblade was to have a new core cast character with attributes chosen by the fans as a celebration for the brand's 30th anniversary.
I might be in the minority, but her design doesn't really fit "Transformers". I'm not sure if it's the lack of vehicle parts showing, and I'm also not sure what aircraft her vehicle mode is based on. I do know her design was supposed to be a Japanese female warrior. But I think Bumblebee/Cliffjumper did it better with their headpiece looking like a modified samurai helmet while still looking like they can transform into a car. And her signature weapon looks over the top.
Windblade was never popular, Hasbro was just trying to shove her into as many things as possible to try and artificially elevate her to Optimus-tier recognizeability. It didn't work.
I like Windblade but trying to push her into everything is stupid. Have her be like Arachnid or Slipstream, now that she exists as a concept sometimes she's just there too now, simple as.
Depending on continuity you can jettison all her Camian baggage and cityspeaker gimmick, too, just have her be a regular Autobot. She could be the Female Autobot's Tigatron, an ally not cohabitating with the main group.
Either bury her under her gimmicks or take them away and give her a chance to get some consistent characterization. Personally I find the idea that only one robot can talk to Metroplex completely moronic and I'd be happy if cityspeaking gets abandoned entirely.
RiD15 Windblade already was completely removed from Caminus and City Speaker. Holy warrior from Cybertron (possibly even Kaon since that got axed from the poll results to IDW version because it conflicts with the establed story) who was sent to deal with stuff. Why she wasn't awakened during Unicron is a thing you just need to ignore. Also the Legends version is different since that had a story forked from the cartoon so she was created by the Zamojin.
I actually like her being pushed into things, because flying Autobots are pretty damn rare. Then movie Drift is basically Springer.
Not to diss Powerglide, or anything. The Aerialbots are a different bag because if you use them without their combined form that's disappointing, but if you use their combined form they're kind of op.
Unrelated, but I got a unique Powerglide drawing from Sakamoto when I ordered his doujinshi. He drew a bunch of TFs and randomly sent one of them to the buyers.
My biggest problem with this franchise is how it has 400 characters and keeps producing new ones but every new series will revert back to the same 8 dudes and Arcee or/and Elita or be a whole OC show that produced another 12 characters instead of re-using old ones.
Sometimes (rarely) the first type of series might introduce more characters later to make you less angry, but this always just the point at which they get cancelled so you will get even angrier instead.
Powerglide and Warpath seem to get the short end of the stick. I loved Warpath as a kid. Wish I still had the toy (nostalgia is a helluva drug) though I see it's fairly cheap on eBay thank you ladiesman217
I got a little Warpath a decade or so ago for >$10, even if the price has gone up recently it's still worth owning if you're nostalgic for him.
[...]
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Literally the entire point of Windblade was to have a new core cast character with attributes chosen by the fans as a celebration for the brand's 30th anniversary.
I want him the be sorta like Aberham if they ever make a new Decepticon character with a whale like alt-mode. Give him a great send off when trying to take them out.
I got a little Warpath a decade or so ago for >$10, even if the price has gone up recently it's still worth owning if you're nostalgic for him.
[...]
We all know that already anon.
You guys know you can get a new reissue Warpath for cheap? They reissued him a couple years ago.
reminder that in the episode that first had female Autobots Shockwave says he believed them to be extinct even though the same episode establishes female Autobots have existed since the start of the war
that means Shockwave must've went on a genocidal crusade against all female Autobots and beloved he succeeded
I actually would like to see a 'female' transformer with an inhuman face, like Shockwave, or Whirl.
The only question is should she be a classic ice princess type, or act super cutesy for the comedy factor?
>Doesn't do shit the first time around
If there is one thing that could be called good about IDW2, it is they actually used some of the interesting background characters from the last continuity. Unfortunatly everything else.
>they actually used some of the interesting background characters from the last continuity.
A shame they didn't do anything remotely interesting.
They didn't even bother updating the designs of literal-who obscure characters that only the terminally bored of TFWiki-addicts would even know about when they decided to pull them out.
That depends on what you consider worse, being so bad that it's used as a benchmark as to how horrible things can get, or being so unmemorably bad that nobody will care when it's gone
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Nobody will care when it's gone.
It's gonna be the Wind Waker of the Transformers franchise, just you see.
It's not a dealbreaker or anything, just always felt it was odd. It makes more sense if the 'bot in question has had a lot of contact with humans, that do have gender, or if the humans refer to some of them as 'he' and others as 'she', and they decide to internalize that.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It is the other way around. The human observers assign male and female to what they already live as.
It's literally in G1 already and every cartoon with the he/she bullshit. Arcee should just have been a genderless "he" like the rest and humans interpret the bot as she.
2 years ago
Anonymous
"He" isn't genderless.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I mean in that case you are agree that genders were always part of the canon. And it's dumb.
Even if it wasn't, they might use "he" or "she" for all because the English language doesn't have a genderless pronoun, you could only use "they" but it sounds stupid, can be confusing since the context might not clarify if it's singular or plural and it wasn't commonly used for genderless beings back in the old days.
If a species is genderless you do it like Steven Universe or Houseki no Kuni and just call all of them "she" or "he". The moment you have both you clarify that there are hes and shes you confirm genders which makes zero fricking sense for a species like TFs unless you are American and believe gender wasn't related to sexual organs.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>unless you are American and believe gender wasn't related to sexual organs.
Bruh that shit has been happening around the world for AGES. Like, ancient history ages.
Transformers has been weird like that since G1. Since they can't reproduce at most it's simply an aesthetic. I understand that since transformers are pretty much human when it comes to their minds and culture I can understand why some would want companionship. But the pairings always being manbots and fembots looks arbitrary if there's no reproductive purpose.
That's why I like the idea of fembots being an "extinct chassis". Only being brought back for experiments or coming from a colony that left when they were still a thing.
Because they keep trying to write around her inspiration instead of leaning into it >Oh that's not geisha paint! She's an ancient cityspeaker and those markings-
Just have her be a young bot forged on earth that digs the geisha aesthetic.
Some years ago a transformers thread brainstormed a movie set in WW2, with Bludgeon having set up shop in Japan (or Japan-occupied China). Windblade and Drift team up to stop him, do the face-paint thing to bond with locals and wind up adopting the markings after defeating Bludgeon.
There was more and I wish I had the screencap, it sounded pretty cool.
There was a transformers thread a few years back where anons brainstormed a Windblade movie with the exact same premise.
I'd have to dig it up in the archives.
If you think about it, the way they handled her is no different to how they wildly reinterpret the G1 autobots personalities in other media. Like how Wheeljack acts in Prime. It sucks she's token girl, but this franchise already plays fast and loose with such a giant cast.
The Torchbearers/Victorion's problem was that conceptually it violated all the rules of what makes a combining team work, which proves it was a mistake to have fan input in such things, especially something as mentally challenged as the collective Transformer fandom.
>I said something trying to sound smart.
No, the problem with Victorion is that the writer (John Barber) completely sucks at writing women and at that point he was also driving the whole continuity off a cliff, he made them insufferable, b***hy and overpowered.
The one time M. Scott wrote Pyra Magna, she was likable!
And then Ruckley also wrote several of Victorion's members and they were also better written and likable!
With Combiners, there are certain rules to follow depending on how they're set up. Firstly, you can either have a unified design based around a theme, like the Constructicons or Arielbots, or have a wildly ununified design theme that results in a memorable design, like Bruticus and most Combiners. The Torchbearers are just a bunch of science-fiction oriented vehicles with no theme to them beyond "vehicles", and their godawful color scheme is really the only memorable thing about their designs to begin with. Compare this to the Constructicons, which while sharing a unified color scheme, have construction vehicle designs that are recognizeable AND influence their written characters, such as Mixmaster's mad-scientist shtick or Long Haul's displeasure over only getting to haul things around. The Torchbearers got none of this, on top of the fact two of them share the exact same design aside from their heads.
Then you have personalities. The Torchbearers, outside of Pyra Magna, have virtually no personalities to them beyond "religious zealots" at best and no personalities at worst. Pyra Magna was the only one to get any characterization, and of course they stuck her in the unenviable position of making her anti-Optimus on all levels up until Slide showed up, who I suspect they introduced to take up Pyra Magna's role because Hasbro had to remind IDW Pyra Magna had a toy to sell and being an anti-Optimus Autobot isn't going to win people over when you've already got a color scheme that can best be described as liquid-sick and is only available in a box set. IDW2 took the shortcut by cutting out all the other Torchbearer's and is only giving Pyra Magna any focus, which is like cutting out all the Combaticons only to focus on Onslaught. Add to it, Victorion is a completely flat gestalt character beyond "perfection", which lacks the interesting hooks such as Superion's single-mindedness or Menasor's mental instability.
How is Bruticus ununified? Those are all military vehicles other than maybe Blast Off.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Colors + Blast Off and Vortex,
2 years ago
Anonymous
Colors, I can understand.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I don't know if he's based on an actual IRL vehicle, but Vortex is clearly meant to be a military helicopter, and Blast Off is clearly a Space Force shuttle, the Combaticons have an obvious military theme, they just don't have a unified color scheme, most combiner teams don't.
>Pyra Magna was the only one to get any characterization, and of course they stuck her in the unenviable position of making her anti-Optimus on all levels up until Slide showed up, who I suspect they introduced to take up Pyra Magna's role because Hasbro had to remind IDW Pyra Magna had a toy to sell and being an anti-Optimus Autobot isn't going to win people over when you've already got a color scheme that can best be described as liquid-sick and is only available in a box set.
He made some great things and series, filled some holes to avoid plot holes and streamlined the continuity which made it better, but then he got too full of himself and everything went down the drain and he didn't have the time to be JRo's editor anymore either which was partly the reason for why LL got worse too.
Really I want shorter continuities. I felt like IDW2 was gonna be such a thing. As if Ruckley's series was the only ongoing for IDW G2. Something that would develop and differently, but now I will never know. It was a decent run and I am sad so many people don't give IDW2 any chance (not even the minis or side stories, extras and all that) just because it isn't IDW1 and because Starscream and Megatron aren't buddies you can ship (and I guess the gays the series had weren't memey enough to get any attention).
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Really I want shorter continuities. I felt like IDW2 was gonna be such a thing.
Oh please, glaciers move faster than IDW2's plot.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Sure, but I think it would have only been one main series and something that runs for maybe 6 years instead of 13.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'd argue IDW2 is paced better than IDW1 because Barber was very bad at pacing, his Earth stuff took ages and every single plot development was more stupid than the last.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Can't say I agree, I admit IDW1 had pacing issues at times, but at least stuff happened in it.
Even after Megatron's revolt began in IDW2, it feels like nothing's really changed.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I am even crazier and think that the pre-war stuff of IDW2 was great and better than the war stuff.
The only thing about the war that really intrigues me was Exarchon, so I am sad it was cancelled now of all times. I loved the series from the start till Sentinel's death I think (the chillness, atmosphere and fantasy/sci-fi world, the war part ignored this since it went into another direction and that made IDW2 lose a bit of its identity) and I bet I would love the Exarchon shit as long as it actually focused on him and the Quints and not Megatron doing his bullshit.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah honestly I get why people would think IDW2 was slow, but I wonder if they forgot the horror that was RiD.
It was fine pre-Dark Cybertron imo, but afterwards this Blackrock/Earth part started and I remember how the rest of the comic was just a neverending single arc and it wasn't even anything too big. Half of it was about stealing... I already forgot what it was. It was like a single JRo arc of two issues being stretched to 30.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Problem was that after Dark Cybertron Hasbro began forcing IDW to adapt to the latest themed toylines, like Combiner Wars and Titans Return, neither of which really fit into the plots they already had going and thus ground things to a halt just so they could do their mandated lip service to the toylines regardless of how pointless it was.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Oh yeah, the only thing I will ever remember about Titan's Return is Sentinel's shit talking at the end and the fact that I understood absolutely nothing from that whole mini comic besides Sentinel's shit talking. I don't know if I was stupid, not attentive or forgetting too much lore by then but this series lost me at like five different points.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I fricking lost it when Optimus killed Galvatron and Galvatron was mumbling something about there being someone stronger than him and that Galvatron was just getting everyone prepared to fight him. Motherfricker was just acting like a cartoon villain for like 40 issues, what the frick was that.
Seeing they are just Hot Spot, Groove, Dead End, Breakdown, and two Alpha Bravos with a few swapped out parts, probably wasn't a huge loss.
Also having them all the same colors makes them not feel distinct. Even the Constructicons varied from "mostly green" to "mostly purple".
They were lovers first, combiners second.
The Torchbearers/Victorion's problem was that conceptually it violated all the rules of what makes a combining team work, which proves it was a mistake to have fan input in such things, especially something as mentally challenged as the collective Transformer fandom.
The actual fan input was only at high-level stuff like altmodes (all of which were pre-established ones so nothing interesting like Rook to Swindle), name of the combined form, and general color scheme (which was tweaked anyway). Maybe it would have worked better if you had such a team made many years later when you had more parts to play with, but probably not.
Her context and backstory; I feel Hasbro, trying to push her after her comic introduction, expected of everyone to know her beforehand, instead of writing her as a new character each time, leaving the cartoon Windblades somehow hollow compared to her comic.
But have they actually rebooted the continuity, or will they just continue making sequels set after the original Bayformers movies? Bumblebee was meant to be a prequel even if there were continuity issues.
Because they want to make her too perfect because women power.
She was competent in the comics too, but she also got a lot of shit from Starscream, got betrayed by a friend, despaired a few times, was corrupted near the end and genuinely grew as a character until she was more down to earth, punched into her former leader's face and sat down to talk to low lives to learn about their wishes and issues because she wants to be a genuine good president of Cybertron. And then came the following comic and nuked her planet but let's ignore that.
But you cannot have that in most cartoons that are either just pew pew or easy to understand stuff for kids.
She's a bizarre case in that she has a lot of lore and backstory to draw from but it doesn't really amount to any personality beyond "she's a good girl who tries her best". She has an unusual, ornate design but is not overly spiritual or formal. She uses a sword, but only out of necessity and has no particular affinity for it. She's a telepath, but only in specific, Aquaman-tier situations that make her more of a plot device. She was a foreigner to Cybertron in the comics, but it hardly mattered because she quickly declared it her new home and blended right in. Any potential angle to give her some quirks or flaws was swept aside.
Budianski and Furman looked at Bludgeon, they quickly made him a Cybertronian weeb with delusions of mysticism, because that's what the design screamed. Windblade needed a similar treatment, someone to ask what a character that looks like this and and has so and so powers should act like.
And city-speaking is stupid. City bots never needed anyone special to speak to or for them, now the titans are all a bunch of tards that need to be wrangled.
At least she's good to coom to.
Is there even anything to look forward to now that the comics are done if I don't care about the live action movies?
We don't even know when the new comics will start. AFAIK the new publisher is not even announced (Skybound being it is only a rumor for now).
Unironically G1 and CV for me. Followed by Victory and God Masterforce.
I don't like the designs save for the few Roche made and I fear it will be another mcguffin story with babysitting of young bots on Earth so I am trying to not get my hopes up for much. I am rarely fond of cartoon OCs either.
I hope the relationship is that Earth native ones have personalities that are 10-18 in terms of human development, come from all over the planet, and have their own relationships with other living things on the planet, with some being friendly allies to humans and birds and such, others finding it fun to harass the wildlife or want to get in fights. Then Cybertron native ones would be depicted as terrifying overpowered beings that their war simply grazed the planet and caused massive distruction 50 or so years ago. Even a lowly scout such as the contractually required Bumblebee can effortlessly defeat them and seem to no be affected by their attacks. It would have an important scene where the one who ends up saying that they will stand to protect their home even if they have no chance, unaware that Optimus Prime is the "good guy".
Too many design elements + canonized Fan-made characters can never have anything beyond the blandest, most inoffensive personality because anything else would cause fans to riot.
Yes, when they finalized her details but had not yet announced the character to the fanbase in SDCC.
But I get what you mean. The point I'm trying to get across is that it's hard to do a design-by-fan-voting character without them coming as either bland or very cliche. I mean windblade is just everything that was cool at the time,
>muh vaguely japanese fembot who dual-wields swords and has psychic powers and doesnt afraid of anything. She also turns into a jet
I like windblade but I couldn't shake that feeling of "OC do not steel" the character had until they started toning down the amount of detail on her head.
How much of her popularity is organic? It seems Hasbro is trying to push her as the de facto female Autobot/Transformer. Now there's a very likely chance I'm probably just ill informed and jumping to conclusions but Arcee is very feminine and pink. Isn't possible they're trying to push her to the side while also trying to retain her iconic design elements?
Things Windblade has been in:
IDW1: Had Arcee in a prominent role
IDW2: Less action than Arcee
RID2015: Strongarm in a main cast member Windblade was recurring
Several IDW crossover comics: Shares pagetime with Arcee
A shitton of other IDW miniseries: not even present, while Arcee is
Machinima: main cast member without other females, but who cares, Machinima was terrible
Netflix: not even in it, Arcee is. (also terrible)
Cyberverse: main cast member and main Autobot girl character, but Arcee and others (including a genderswap!) are there too
Well when you lay it out like that, anon I can see that there was not much to my theory. Btw was Netflix transformers really that bad? I don't see it talked about often.
People in here are really arguing about transformer gender. Guys I just don't think that much thought went into it and it's been and probably always will be strange and stupid
Some time ago I managed to talk to Malkova online for a second. She told me she was thinking of me and imagined my reactions when I would read the new issues with my favorite character she was drawing at that time, she is really nice. I bet she was thinking the same about others that are fixated on certain IDW2 characters. I want things to get better for her already.
Hasbro is/was desperate to push her to make sure she was in the same tier as the Big 5, Optimus Bumblebee Megatron Starscream and Soundwave, but she doesn't really have a "core character" because so many different writers were taking her in different directions at the time she premiered so she doesn't really have an established character to draw from.
It feels like they've given up on her though.
Grimlock should also be in that list. Even was in series Bumblebee sat out.
Shockwave has potential to be on that list as well. His design is super memorable, there's that iconic 80's Marvel comics cover, and they developed him into a fricking badass in the IDW comics.
Shockwave isn't consistent enough in terms of role (hell, even the G1 cartoon and comics are nearly opposite) which does seem to be repairing itself into "logical scientist" through iterations, but does have a distinct look and lots of appearannces. A solid 4th place among usual suspects Decepticons.
Which series was that?
Literally the entire point of Windblade was to have a new core cast character with attributes chosen by the fans as a celebration for the brand's 30th anniversary.
I might be in the minority, but her design doesn't really fit "Transformers". I'm not sure if it's the lack of vehicle parts showing, and I'm also not sure what aircraft her vehicle mode is based on. I do know her design was supposed to be a Japanese female warrior. But I think Bumblebee/Cliffjumper did it better with their headpiece looking like a modified samurai helmet while still looking like they can transform into a car. And her signature weapon looks over the top.
That's not really a new problem. If anything IDW tried its best to fix that.
I'd argue Nautica is the only character that really pulled it off, and maybe Velocity.
I liked her character of being the idealist thrust into a morally grey world.Her relationship with Starscream had a nice payoff as well, I think.
She was designed to be waifu bait from the beginning, which explains her geisha hair and makeup.
Because she was a character astroturfed into popularity solely based on her design before there was any solid base of characterization to draw from.
Windblade was never popular, Hasbro was just trying to shove her into as many things as possible to try and artificially elevate her to Optimus-tier recognizeability. It didn't work.
I like Windblade but trying to push her into everything is stupid. Have her be like Arachnid or Slipstream, now that she exists as a concept sometimes she's just there too now, simple as.
Depending on continuity you can jettison all her Camian baggage and cityspeaker gimmick, too, just have her be a regular Autobot. She could be the Female Autobot's Tigatron, an ally not cohabitating with the main group.
>you can jettison all her Camian baggage and cityspeaker gimmick, too, just have her be a regular Autobot.
That would make her "has no established character" problem even worse.
Either bury her under her gimmicks or take them away and give her a chance to get some consistent characterization. Personally I find the idea that only one robot can talk to Metroplex completely moronic and I'd be happy if cityspeaking gets abandoned entirely.
Given how infrequently citybots are featured to begin with, it makes Windblade either very situational or strangely out of place.
It felt like Cyberverse was trying to make her an Optimus stand-in.
I'm also surprised she didn't make it into the Bayformers stuff.
>I'm also surprised she didn't make it into the Bayformers stuff.
Drift already filled the asian quota
RiD15 Windblade already was completely removed from Caminus and City Speaker. Holy warrior from Cybertron (possibly even Kaon since that got axed from the poll results to IDW version because it conflicts with the establed story) who was sent to deal with stuff. Why she wasn't awakened during Unicron is a thing you just need to ignore. Also the Legends version is different since that had a story forked from the cartoon so she was created by the Zamojin.
I actually like her being pushed into things, because flying Autobots are pretty damn rare. Then movie Drift is basically Springer.
Not to diss Powerglide, or anything. The Aerialbots are a different bag because if you use them without their combined form that's disappointing, but if you use their combined form they're kind of op.
Powerglide was great in the G1 cartoon, but he's oddly underused in everything else.
Unrelated, but I got a unique Powerglide drawing from Sakamoto when I ordered his doujinshi. He drew a bunch of TFs and randomly sent one of them to the buyers.
Nice.
Just an issue of finite cast slots outside of G1.
My biggest problem with this franchise is how it has 400 characters and keeps producing new ones but every new series will revert back to the same 8 dudes and Arcee or/and Elita or be a whole OC show that produced another 12 characters instead of re-using old ones.
Sometimes (rarely) the first type of series might introduce more characters later to make you less angry, but this always just the point at which they get cancelled so you will get even angrier instead.
Powerglide and Warpath seem to get the short end of the stick. I loved Warpath as a kid. Wish I still had the toy (nostalgia is a helluva drug) though I see it's fairly cheap on eBay thank you ladiesman217
The second year minibots are probably the single best chunk of Autobots in the G1 cartoon for distinct feeling and characterization.
I got a little Warpath a decade or so ago for >$10, even if the price has gone up recently it's still worth owning if you're nostalgic for him.
We all know that already anon.
The way some people talk about her, it sounds like they don't.
Warpath's design needs a real gun, not that little needledick of a cannon
That isn't an Earth-mode tank. Even Cosmos turns into the kind of UFOs that hang around Earth.
Cybertron modes > Earth modes
As a lifeform native to Earth, I must disagree.
This looks terrible and furthermore I wholly disagree.
Do not besmirch the good name of the M551 Sheridan.
I want him the be sorta like Aberham if they ever make a new Decepticon character with a whale like alt-mode. Give him a great send off when trying to take them out.
You guys know you can get a new reissue Warpath for cheap? They reissued him a couple years ago.
Her head is over designed.
Her animated appearances are fine.
Except Prime Trilogy but everyone save Megatron sucks in there so eh, might as well don't count.
>female
Had to be done.
Fantastic
reminder that in the episode that first had female Autobots Shockwave says he believed them to be extinct even though the same episode establishes female Autobots have existed since the start of the war
that means Shockwave must've went on a genocidal crusade against all female Autobots and beloved he succeeded
Well seeing the Female Autobots, it makes sense as the guardian of Cybertron to fight against them.
Or he just hadn't seen any in a while.
I actually would like to see a 'female' transformer with an inhuman face, like Shockwave, or Whirl.
The only question is should she be a classic ice princess type, or act super cutesy for the comedy factor?
I
>Doesn't do shit the first time around
If there is one thing that could be called good about IDW2, it is they actually used some of the interesting background characters from the last continuity. Unfortunatly everything else.
>they actually used some of the interesting background characters from the last continuity.
A shame they didn't do anything remotely interesting.
They didn't even bother updating the designs of literal-who obscure characters that only the terminally bored of TFWiki-addicts would even know about when they decided to pull them out.
Do misinterpretations based on photos count for updated designs?
>Unfortunatly everything else.
It didn't go down in flames as a burning trashpile like IDW1, though.
That depends on what you consider worse, being so bad that it's used as a benchmark as to how horrible things can get, or being so unmemorably bad that nobody will care when it's gone
>Nobody will care when it's gone.
It's gonna be the Wind Waker of the Transformers franchise, just you see.
Yeah, something like that.
Of course, I always found the idea of robots that don't sexually reproduce having a concept of gender to be strange.
It is just a personality thing.
It's not a dealbreaker or anything, just always felt it was odd. It makes more sense if the 'bot in question has had a lot of contact with humans, that do have gender, or if the humans refer to some of them as 'he' and others as 'she', and they decide to internalize that.
It is the other way around. The human observers assign male and female to what they already live as.
Something something valveplug
This is why i could never get into the comics
It's literally in G1 already and every cartoon with the he/she bullshit. Arcee should just have been a genderless "he" like the rest and humans interpret the bot as she.
"He" isn't genderless.
I mean in that case you are agree that genders were always part of the canon. And it's dumb.
Even if it wasn't, they might use "he" or "she" for all because the English language doesn't have a genderless pronoun, you could only use "they" but it sounds stupid, can be confusing since the context might not clarify if it's singular or plural and it wasn't commonly used for genderless beings back in the old days.
If a species is genderless you do it like Steven Universe or Houseki no Kuni and just call all of them "she" or "he". The moment you have both you clarify that there are hes and shes you confirm genders which makes zero fricking sense for a species like TFs unless you are American and believe gender wasn't related to sexual organs.
>unless you are American and believe gender wasn't related to sexual organs.
Bruh that shit has been happening around the world for AGES. Like, ancient history ages.
Literally every Transformers media has gendered robots. What are you consuming that doesn't?
Transformers has been weird like that since G1. Since they can't reproduce at most it's simply an aesthetic. I understand that since transformers are pretty much human when it comes to their minds and culture I can understand why some would want companionship. But the pairings always being manbots and fembots looks arbitrary if there's no reproductive purpose.
That's why I like the idea of fembots being an "extinct chassis". Only being brought back for experiments or coming from a colony that left when they were still a thing.
Like Shatter? I like her.
Too humanoid. You could justify it by claiming it is a result of being a reboot, but doesn't have the movie Decepticon feeling.
Cutesy would be funny
Because they keep trying to write around her inspiration instead of leaning into it
>Oh that's not geisha paint! She's an ancient cityspeaker and those markings-
Just have her be a young bot forged on earth that digs the geisha aesthetic.
Some years ago a transformers thread brainstormed a movie set in WW2, with Bludgeon having set up shop in Japan (or Japan-occupied China). Windblade and Drift team up to stop him, do the face-paint thing to bond with locals and wind up adopting the markings after defeating Bludgeon.
There was more and I wish I had the screencap, it sounded pretty cool.
If it was up to me to introduce her in the movies, I'd have her arrive in Japan during the mid/late 80s and get her inspiration from there.
Ha ha
That might be a little too on the nose.
Why not? Transformers has been ripping off Gundam since the 80s.
I wish
There was a transformers thread a few years back where anons brainstormed a Windblade movie with the exact same premise.
I'd have to dig it up in the archives.
If you think about it, the way they handled her is no different to how they wildly reinterpret the G1 autobots personalities in other media. Like how Wheeljack acts in Prime. It sucks she's token girl, but this franchise already plays fast and loose with such a giant cast.
Meanwhile, other things that completely failed
Combiner components being in love with each other feels like incest
They were lovers first, combiners second.
The Torchbearers/Victorion's problem was that conceptually it violated all the rules of what makes a combining team work, which proves it was a mistake to have fan input in such things, especially something as mentally challenged as the collective Transformer fandom.
Still feels wrong
I don't disagree, just what COULD happen after they become combiners after already having been lovers?
You can't break up lesbians in any way other than death, that's the law.
Don't write them as lovers in the first place
You could play with the sense of disconnect other members of the team have.
>I said something trying to sound smart.
No, the problem with Victorion is that the writer (John Barber) completely sucks at writing women and at that point he was also driving the whole continuity off a cliff, he made them insufferable, b***hy and overpowered.
The one time M. Scott wrote Pyra Magna, she was likable!
And then Ruckley also wrote several of Victorion's members and they were also better written and likable!
Since you want me to expand on it.
With Combiners, there are certain rules to follow depending on how they're set up. Firstly, you can either have a unified design based around a theme, like the Constructicons or Arielbots, or have a wildly ununified design theme that results in a memorable design, like Bruticus and most Combiners. The Torchbearers are just a bunch of science-fiction oriented vehicles with no theme to them beyond "vehicles", and their godawful color scheme is really the only memorable thing about their designs to begin with. Compare this to the Constructicons, which while sharing a unified color scheme, have construction vehicle designs that are recognizeable AND influence their written characters, such as Mixmaster's mad-scientist shtick or Long Haul's displeasure over only getting to haul things around. The Torchbearers got none of this, on top of the fact two of them share the exact same design aside from their heads.
Then you have personalities. The Torchbearers, outside of Pyra Magna, have virtually no personalities to them beyond "religious zealots" at best and no personalities at worst. Pyra Magna was the only one to get any characterization, and of course they stuck her in the unenviable position of making her anti-Optimus on all levels up until Slide showed up, who I suspect they introduced to take up Pyra Magna's role because Hasbro had to remind IDW Pyra Magna had a toy to sell and being an anti-Optimus Autobot isn't going to win people over when you've already got a color scheme that can best be described as liquid-sick and is only available in a box set. IDW2 took the shortcut by cutting out all the other Torchbearer's and is only giving Pyra Magna any focus, which is like cutting out all the Combaticons only to focus on Onslaught. Add to it, Victorion is a completely flat gestalt character beyond "perfection", which lacks the interesting hooks such as Superion's single-mindedness or Menasor's mental instability.
You don't read IDW2, do you? Jumpstream also showed up and had a sizeable role for a few issues. I believe some showed up also but didn't do much.
How is Bruticus ununified? Those are all military vehicles other than maybe Blast Off.
Colors + Blast Off and Vortex,
Colors, I can understand.
I don't know if he's based on an actual IRL vehicle, but Vortex is clearly meant to be a military helicopter, and Blast Off is clearly a Space Force shuttle, the Combaticons have an obvious military theme, they just don't have a unified color scheme, most combiner teams don't.
>Pyra Magna was the only one to get any characterization, and of course they stuck her in the unenviable position of making her anti-Optimus on all levels up until Slide showed up, who I suspect they introduced to take up Pyra Magna's role because Hasbro had to remind IDW Pyra Magna had a toy to sell and being an anti-Optimus Autobot isn't going to win people over when you've already got a color scheme that can best be described as liquid-sick and is only available in a box set.
That... actually kinda makes sense? Maybe?
Slide is a homosexual and I hate this page.
Barber really can’t write likeable women
He made some great things and series, filled some holes to avoid plot holes and streamlined the continuity which made it better, but then he got too full of himself and everything went down the drain and he didn't have the time to be JRo's editor anymore either which was partly the reason for why LL got worse too.
Really I want shorter continuities. I felt like IDW2 was gonna be such a thing. As if Ruckley's series was the only ongoing for IDW G2. Something that would develop and differently, but now I will never know. It was a decent run and I am sad so many people don't give IDW2 any chance (not even the minis or side stories, extras and all that) just because it isn't IDW1 and because Starscream and Megatron aren't buddies you can ship (and I guess the gays the series had weren't memey enough to get any attention).
>Really I want shorter continuities. I felt like IDW2 was gonna be such a thing.
Oh please, glaciers move faster than IDW2's plot.
Sure, but I think it would have only been one main series and something that runs for maybe 6 years instead of 13.
I'd argue IDW2 is paced better than IDW1 because Barber was very bad at pacing, his Earth stuff took ages and every single plot development was more stupid than the last.
Can't say I agree, I admit IDW1 had pacing issues at times, but at least stuff happened in it.
Even after Megatron's revolt began in IDW2, it feels like nothing's really changed.
I am even crazier and think that the pre-war stuff of IDW2 was great and better than the war stuff.
The only thing about the war that really intrigues me was Exarchon, so I am sad it was cancelled now of all times. I loved the series from the start till Sentinel's death I think (the chillness, atmosphere and fantasy/sci-fi world, the war part ignored this since it went into another direction and that made IDW2 lose a bit of its identity) and I bet I would love the Exarchon shit as long as it actually focused on him and the Quints and not Megatron doing his bullshit.
Yeah honestly I get why people would think IDW2 was slow, but I wonder if they forgot the horror that was RiD.
It was fine pre-Dark Cybertron imo, but afterwards this Blackrock/Earth part started and I remember how the rest of the comic was just a neverending single arc and it wasn't even anything too big. Half of it was about stealing... I already forgot what it was. It was like a single JRo arc of two issues being stretched to 30.
Problem was that after Dark Cybertron Hasbro began forcing IDW to adapt to the latest themed toylines, like Combiner Wars and Titans Return, neither of which really fit into the plots they already had going and thus ground things to a halt just so they could do their mandated lip service to the toylines regardless of how pointless it was.
Oh yeah, the only thing I will ever remember about Titan's Return is Sentinel's shit talking at the end and the fact that I understood absolutely nothing from that whole mini comic besides Sentinel's shit talking. I don't know if I was stupid, not attentive or forgetting too much lore by then but this series lost me at like five different points.
I fricking lost it when Optimus killed Galvatron and Galvatron was mumbling something about there being someone stronger than him and that Galvatron was just getting everyone prepared to fight him. Motherfricker was just acting like a cartoon villain for like 40 issues, what the frick was that.
What if it was one Chadbot and his four babes?
Megatronia is basically that. Leftover parts of Megatron that attracts a squadron by being powerful.
Seeing they are just Hot Spot, Groove, Dead End, Breakdown, and two Alpha Bravos with a few swapped out parts, probably wasn't a huge loss.
Also having them all the same colors makes them not feel distinct. Even the Constructicons varied from "mostly green" to "mostly purple".
The actual fan input was only at high-level stuff like altmodes (all of which were pre-established ones so nothing interesting like Rook to Swindle), name of the combined form, and general color scheme (which was tweaked anyway). Maybe it would have worked better if you had such a team made many years later when you had more parts to play with, but probably not.
Female combiners I don't mind, that's like finding a robot unicorn that isn't just misspelled unicron.
Imagine the jokes with a male/female combiner team.
It works fine for Mini-Cons having both male and female members. They should probably follow their example.
I do wish we'd have more mini-con teams combining into full sized bots, but I assume you mean powerlinking stuff.
Should Armada-style Mini-Con teams who combine into game-changing super-weapons become a thing in other iterations of Transformers?
>Star Saber wielding Star Saber
Weren't they kind of in that one newish cartoon? Robots In Disguise, not Cyberverse?
Furman's autism about femmes makes more sense by the day
>
No real rapport or rivalry with others as good as comic Starscream
She had one with Slipstream in Cyberverse.
Her context and backstory; I feel Hasbro, trying to push her after her comic introduction, expected of everyone to know her beforehand, instead of writing her as a new character each time, leaving the cartoon Windblades somehow hollow compared to her comic.
Every single cartoon appearance treats her as a "new" character and they explain her backstory, wtf you are talking about.
Windblade is for Tigatron's otaku wiener
is that male Airazor or female Airazor?
It's an Airazor with a hole.
Male.
male
I wonder if she'll ever appear in any of the live-action movies. I hope they don't screw it up like they did with Arcee.
Jokes on you, they already have live-Action Arcee again in the Bumblebee movie's coninuity.
But have they actually rebooted the continuity, or will they just continue making sequels set after the original Bayformers movies? Bumblebee was meant to be a prequel even if there were continuity issues.
Paramount doesn't care, Hasbro doesn't care, and neither should you.
My point is, just because they used Arcee for a few seconds in Bumblebee doesn't mean they'll use her again.
She's already confirmed for Rise of the Beasts.
Because they want to make her too perfect because women power.
She was competent in the comics too, but she also got a lot of shit from Starscream, got betrayed by a friend, despaired a few times, was corrupted near the end and genuinely grew as a character until she was more down to earth, punched into her former leader's face and sat down to talk to low lives to learn about their wishes and issues because she wants to be a genuine good president of Cybertron. And then came the following comic and nuked her planet but let's ignore that.
But you cannot have that in most cartoons that are either just pew pew or easy to understand stuff for kids.
>spoiler
And there are people out there defending Barber's bullshit.
>she also got a lot of shit from Starscream
She's a bizarre case in that she has a lot of lore and backstory to draw from but it doesn't really amount to any personality beyond "she's a good girl who tries her best". She has an unusual, ornate design but is not overly spiritual or formal. She uses a sword, but only out of necessity and has no particular affinity for it. She's a telepath, but only in specific, Aquaman-tier situations that make her more of a plot device. She was a foreigner to Cybertron in the comics, but it hardly mattered because she quickly declared it her new home and blended right in. Any potential angle to give her some quirks or flaws was swept aside.
Budianski and Furman looked at Bludgeon, they quickly made him a Cybertronian weeb with delusions of mysticism, because that's what the design screamed. Windblade needed a similar treatment, someone to ask what a character that looks like this and and has so and so powers should act like.
And city-speaking is stupid. City bots never needed anyone special to speak to or for them, now the titans are all a bunch of tards that need to be wrangled.
At least she's good to coom to.
I loved her in Cyberverse
What is the best Transformers cartoon?
Probably Beast Wars or Animated.
Is there even anything to look forward to now that the comics are done if I don't care about the live action movies?
We don't even know when the new comics will start. AFAIK the new publisher is not even announced (Skybound being it is only a rumor for now).
Unironically G1 and CV for me. Followed by Victory and God Masterforce.
EarthSpark will start airing in November. I feel like the version in my head isn't like what the actual show will be like and I'll be upset about it.
I don't like the designs save for the few Roche made and I fear it will be another mcguffin story with babysitting of young bots on Earth so I am trying to not get my hopes up for much. I am rarely fond of cartoon OCs either.
I hope the relationship is that Earth native ones have personalities that are 10-18 in terms of human development, come from all over the planet, and have their own relationships with other living things on the planet, with some being friendly allies to humans and birds and such, others finding it fun to harass the wildlife or want to get in fights. Then Cybertron native ones would be depicted as terrifying overpowered beings that their war simply grazed the planet and caused massive distruction 50 or so years ago. Even a lowly scout such as the contractually required Bumblebee can effortlessly defeat them and seem to no be affected by their attacks. It would have an important scene where the one who ends up saying that they will stand to protect their home even if they have no chance, unaware that Optimus Prime is the "good guy".
She’s not Strongarm
Nobody else is and that's fine.
Too many design elements + canonized Fan-made characters can never have anything beyond the blandest, most inoffensive personality because anything else would cause fans to riot.
do you think she existed before she was canon
Yes, when they finalized her details but had not yet announced the character to the fanbase in SDCC.
But I get what you mean. The point I'm trying to get across is that it's hard to do a design-by-fan-voting character without them coming as either bland or very cliche. I mean windblade is just everything that was cool at the time,
>muh vaguely japanese fembot who dual-wields swords and has psychic powers and doesnt afraid of anything. She also turns into a jet
I like windblade but I couldn't shake that feeling of "OC do not steel" the character had until they started toning down the amount of detail on her head.
How much of her popularity is organic? It seems Hasbro is trying to push her as the de facto female Autobot/Transformer. Now there's a very likely chance I'm probably just ill informed and jumping to conclusions but Arcee is very feminine and pink. Isn't possible they're trying to push her to the side while also trying to retain her iconic design elements?
Things Windblade has been in:
IDW1: Had Arcee in a prominent role
IDW2: Less action than Arcee
RID2015: Strongarm in a main cast member Windblade was recurring
Several IDW crossover comics: Shares pagetime with Arcee
A shitton of other IDW miniseries: not even present, while Arcee is
Machinima: main cast member without other females, but who cares, Machinima was terrible
Netflix: not even in it, Arcee is. (also terrible)
Cyberverse: main cast member and main Autobot girl character, but Arcee and others (including a genderswap!) are there too
Well when you lay it out like that, anon I can see that there was not much to my theory. Btw was Netflix transformers really that bad? I don't see it talked about often.
This doesn't mean she's popular, and her toys sold like shit, especially her RiD and Cyberverse toys.
I... didn't say she was?
Tbf those toys were or looked awful. Bordering or being actual self-sabotage.
People in here are really arguing about transformer gender. Guys I just don't think that much thought went into it and it's been and probably always will be strange and stupid
Some time ago I managed to talk to Malkova online for a second. She told me she was thinking of me and imagined my reactions when I would read the new issues with my favorite character she was drawing at that time, she is really nice. I bet she was thinking the same about others that are fixated on certain IDW2 characters. I want things to get better for her already.
That's nice anon
I hope so too
I actually pray for her when I go to church, that’s how grateful I feel about her IDW2 work. I do hope things get better for her as well.