Reluctant warriors

[Andy Turnbull]

I was just re-reading the IDW series the other day and a thought occurred to me. The Marvel era Autobots were often painted as reluctant warriors (not all of them but a fair few at least) in their conflict with the Decepticons. Here in the IDWverse we have them almost to a bot embracing the warrior's path - there's been very little shown of what pre-war Cybertron was and how many of the characters were.

What do you think of the decision? Do you think it's good or is it a missed opportunity? Have the IDWverse Autobots missing something as a result?

Andy

[Gav]

I have always liked the idea of the Autobots as a large group of reluctant combatants - battling a smaller but far more battle-hardy force in the Decepticons. Look at the Ratchet/Megatron dynamic from the early Marvel books. I'd love to see more of that sort of thing.

The new cartoon goes some way to address this, with the 'bots being relatively unprepared for combat (with a few exceptions, obviously) against the ruthless nature of the 'Cons. So i'm all in favour of it, yes!

[Shockprowl]

Very interesting observation, Andy. In a way, the IDWverse may be more realistic. If the Autobots have been at war for so so long, they'd become used to it. Their deeper feelings would be pushed down, in order to deal with the relentless horrors of never-ending war. Optimus Prime has clearly constructed an effective war machine in the Autobots army. It would be good to see a little more of the 'horror of war' come out in certain characters though. Plus, I think it would be interesting to see some of the Autobots demonstrate a capacity of righteousness in standing against a force of evil that wishes to spread across the stars. This righteousness could breed a kinda of gung-ho, warrior minded attitude. The Autobots must win the war, or the entire Universe pays the price.

Ian

(Yes, I couldn't figure out how to spell righteous, so i just put owt down that looked reasonabily exceptable!)

[The Doctor]

I'm still not terribly clear why the Autobots are fighting anyway.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

We still haven't been given much of a reason for the conflict. I do hope at some point we are going to meet some Transformers who are not active participants in the conflict.

Andy

[legios]

Lagging behind the curve in responding to this, I do apologise.

I for one would say that I do miss the "reluctant warriors" trope that the Marvel series used in portraying the Autobots, and for that matter I miss the sense that the Marvel series had of their being an actual reason for the war. There was a sense that at one point in time there was peace, and then one side started the war and the other fought back in self-defense. In the IDW comics I get the sense of the Autobots as being just as warlike as the Decepticons, just with slightly different methods.

There doesn't seem to be a sense of what the war is about in honesty. It just seems to be "Autobts are warrior robots and fight against the evil Decepticons". I'd go so far as to allow the categorisation of the Decepticons as evil, given that they actively attempt to get other species to wipe themselves out. But what makes the Autobots worthy of being heroes. So far all we know is that they are less ruthless than their foes. We certainly have seen no sign that they are anything other than warriors themselves.

I think it takes away something from the story to remove the idea that the Autobots are fighting because they must. It moves the whole thing more in the direction of two groups of robots randomly fighting each other.

Karl