Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

The modern comics universe has had such a different take on G1, one that's significantly represented by the Generations toys, so they share a forum. A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero. Currently starring Generations toys, IDW "The Transformers" comics, MTMTE, TF vs GI Joe, and Windblade. Oh wait, and now Skybound, wheee!
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Onslaught Six
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by Onslaught Six »

I genuinely think this is just a rebranding in light of things changing direction. They called it Windblade because the first one did so well, and they wanted to emphasize the return of Scott and the creative team to those who may not openly pay attention to non-Windblade books (they exist!) but a few issues in, realized that the name no longer worked due to the book's shifted focus. And that's fine! Shit, issue 7 is probably the earliest they could change it given Diamond and publishing schedules.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by Sparky Prime »

Onslaught Six wrote: Shit, issue 7 is probably the earliest they could change it given Diamond and publishing schedules.
I'd think it'd have more to do with TPB collections. Part of this run will be collected as Combiner Wars, and the rest will probably be released as a second Windblade book. Then they can relaunch the book with the new title.
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by Sparky Prime »

So... Till All Are One is being cancelled after issue 12, with an annual to wrap up any remaining loose ends either late this year or early next year.
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by andersonh1 »

Sparky Prime wrote:So... Till All Are One is being cancelled after issue 12, with an annual to wrap up any remaining loose ends either late this year or early next year.
That was a short series. Did it just not catch on with the readers?
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by Sparky Prime »

andersonh1 wrote:That was a short series. Did it just not catch on with the readers?
According to Mairghread Scott... IDW asked if she wanted to shake things up after the upcoming First Strike event, and she didn't want to. She wanted to tell this story, so rather than tell a story she didn't love as much by shaking things up, she decided to just end it.
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by andersonh1 »

I tried to find sales numbers for this book, but the most recent I could find only went through November.

06/2016: (219) Transformers: Till All Are One #1 — 8,916
07/2016: (234) Transformers: Till All Are One #2 — 7,602 (-14.7%)
08/2016: (248) Transformers: Till All Are One #3 — 7,190 (-6.5%)
09/2016: (222) Transformers: Till All Are One #4 — 7,000 (-1.5%)
10/2016: —
11/2016: (194) Transformers TAAO Revolution #1 — 10,233*
11/2016: (240) Transformers: Till All Are One #5 — 6,935 (-0.9%)

Those don't include digital sales of course. I read somewhere that Scott said it had about hit the break-even point in sales and if it kept losing it would be losing money. Selling only 7000 physical copies a month can't bring a high profit margin, so I wonder what the numbers actually are.
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by Sparky Prime »

andersonh1 wrote:I tried to find sales numbers for this book, but the most recent I could find only went through November.
I found a few more...

12/2016: 233 Transformers Till All Are One #6 - 6,558
2/2017: 242 Transformers Till All Are One #7 - 6,426
3/2017: 257 Transformers Till All Are One #8 - 6,253
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by JediTricks »

Woof! 3 cancellations for this series in as many years. Maybe this line just can't support 3 books at once.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by andersonh1 »

I've found cheap copies of this series, and like Requiem of the Wreckers, I was curious to see how certain storylines turned out. In this case, how did Starscream's tenure as leader of Cybertron go? Turns out that this series delves into that for most of its run, so I thought I'd do some retro-reviews, possibly of all the issues since it's only 12 issues plus an annual. Most of the series is fairly good, with a few risable elements. I dropped MTMTE four issues after Megatron joined the crew, and dropped RID/Transformers about the time Optimus annexed Earth, and I never read Windblade or TAAO or the Optimus Prime series, so this is delving back into that later IDW Transformers continuity that I started but did not finish.

Till All Are One #1
"The story so far: Starscream rules Cybertron - and he and Windblade vie for control of the Council of Worlds, each aligning themselves with as many long-lost colonies as they can."

This is apparently the political book from the previous IDW continuity (so RID remained focused on Earth?), and by that I mean the fictional politics of Cybertron rather than real-world issues, though there may be some Star Trek style allegory here and there. The book opens with an apparent Decepticon murder victim outside Iacon, whose brain is exposed (so over the top robot gore continued in these books), followed by a two page spread that throws a dozen plotlines at the reader all at once, and then goes into a committee hearing where Ironhide is being questioned by Obsidian and the murder is discussed. This murder mystery is the A plot, while the B plot follows the Combaticons, who think Swindle is dead though messages to Blast Off from the mysterious "DC 357" say he is alive. I'm sure both plots are related.

Political power plays mixed with murder mysteries is a decent setup for a series as the IDW writers continued to try and do something meaningful with the post-war setting. Ironhide, now in private security (which makes sense given his past as a bodyguard) runs into conflict with the official police, the "badgeless" who all wear faceplates and body armor so they look and sound the same. When a drunk bot is shot and killed right around the corner from Ironhide, and the whole thing is videoed for all on Cybertron to see, Starscream is not happy that the incident has been made public.

How well all of this works depends on how well you think a wartime action series can be transformed into a peacetime police and galactic politics series. Transformers never worked as well in the post-war setting, in my opinion, but this is not a bad setup and cast of characters. I did enjoy this first issue, which led to me looking for the remainder in the back issue bins and reading the whole thing. I'll save thoughts on future issues for those issues.
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Re: Bye bye Windblade vol 2, hello Till All Are One

Post by andersonh1 »

Till All Are One #2
This comic was before its time in depicting "police shootings" followed by looting and protests. The protesters even shout "No Justice, No Peace!" for pity's sake. Talk about allegory... the Combaticons are split on this, with some feeling it will bring down Starscream while Onslaught thinks it will just make the Decepticons look bad. Starscream is talking to a hallucination of Bumblebee. This is not a new-reader friendly series that anyone can jump into, it's clearly picking up pre-existing plotlines and running with them, which may be a key as to why it did not sell well. Ironhide makes a gesture to calm the crowd and it generally works, to the point that even Blast Off joins his security detail, though that's not all as it seems...

The book is trying to be both vast in scope and still personal, with Starscream vs. Onslaught (indirectly) as the main conflict so far. On that level it works reasonably well, with the mystery of whether Swindle is alive or dead lurking in the background.
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