CBR: The Future of "Transformers" & the Death of Optimus Prime

[CBR News]

During a press conference call Wednesday, IDW's John Barber and Hasbro's Michael Kelly discussed plans for "Transformers" post-"Chaos," including December's "The Death of Optimus Prime" and two new ongoing series.


Full article here.

[K'un L'un Kid]

Optimus Prime is dead? Must be Thursday.

[Bathawk1]

Yes this is the perfect idea....

...because history shows up that fans always react well to the death of Optimus

[Matt]

I'm sure Optimus' last words will be: "Not again."

Optimus dying really has become a huge cliché in terms of Transformers stories. IDW has even done it a few times, effectively, already.

[ayof]

I don't think its necessarily a bad idea while overused in the various Transformers mythos. The original US G1 TV series and movie was probably the worst example of fans reacting to Optimus' death.

Obviously writers have learned to use Prime's death or brief displacement as a plot device for the various replacement leaders from Jazz, Bumblebee, and Rodimus in IDW to the infamous human Powermaster God Ginrai in Japan's Masterforce TV series.

A new twist with a different character serving as leader would be nice and I'm interested to see where Barber takes this direction. The events he handled at Marvel were all great from the original Marvel Zombies to Old Man Logan. Surprisingly a lot of the stuff he edited, I was a big fan of. The company truly misses this guy.

[Mark_S]

I've only started watching the Prime series on the Hub cable channel and it hasn't been so bad. I was never into the Transformer's of old. But killing off a main character? That's not really going to get me into the series.

Mark_S

[Rollo Tomassi]

Killing him off is one dramatic story beat. Later on they can bring him back for another dramatic beat. It's a two-for-one. Personally, I've been rather impressed lately with IDWs TF series. AHM and the beginning of the ongoing were a bit weaksauce, but the last year or so has been fantastic. Issues 22 and 23 might be the best TF comics ever.

[The One and Only]

Isn't in the post-Chaos/Death of Optimus Prime cards plans for another , online book entitled, Transformers:Autocracy, written by Flint Dille(whose writing credits include numerous video games, animation, more specifically a lot of the Hasbro shows from the mid-eighties). Has that been cancelled , or will that be addressed in a future article ? Likewise the creative team of Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman picking up where they left off with the Marvel book the first time around ?

[stk]

The Death of Optimus Prime...again?!

I really thought IDW had turned the Transformers franchise around over the past couple years. I especially enjoyed the recent 2 issues of the ongoing that James Roberts wrote featuring the Optimus/Megatron history.

But now... The Death of Optimus Prime again? Ugh. I thought it was lame when Budiansky did it the first time. I liked it in the animated movie, but let's face it; this is not going to be the animated movie. Are they killing Prime to make room for more Drift?

[Shaun_Manning]

Isn't in the post-Chaos/Death of Optimus Prime cards plans for another , online book entitled, Transformers:Autocracy, written by Flint Dille(whose writing credits include numerous video games, animation, more specifically a lot of the Hasbro shows from the mid-eighties). Has that been cancelled , or will that be addressed in a future article ? Likewise the creative team of Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman picking up where they left off with the Marvel book the first time around ?

Transformers: Autocracy is still in the cards, though last I heard the schedule hasn't been nailed down yet. And the Furman series, as far as I know, is still on--the call focused on the current ongoing series and what comes after it in the same continuity.

[ultra_slagmus]

Yes this is all well and good, IDW, but for goodness sake please make sure to keep it robot-centric and remove all human elements from all stories for good! I've had enough of reading TFs comics with page after page, panel after panel of boring human interaction featuring news reporters and dull, uncreative human characters that interfere with the robot action. Just please make it about the robots only...and that means no bloody Spike Witwickey as well. The artists draw robots better anyway.

[The One and Only]

I don't want the Transformers to be totally off-Earth. I think you can do a nice 50/50 balance of tales set both in space, and good old Terra Firma. And with on ebook coming out entitled Robots In Disguise, I'm thinking that there's still a job on here for the remaining Autobots to perform. But Bumblebee ,and his remaining chums will have to try and keep it on the down low. Besides, with the rumor that IDW is looking to including another Hasbro franchise to the Transformers mythos, maybe the threat that the Autobots will have to deal with is not from without. But the evil that lies within....

[President Kang]

One thing I actually dug about "Revenge of the Fallen" is that over the course of a single movie they shoehorned death & resurrection of Optimus Prime into a single (admittedly kinda long) movie. Might as well be honest about it, eh?