To expand a little on the HU-MAN problem:
IDW has defended its three new characters, Verity Carlo, Hunter O'Nion, and whatever the fuck the third kid's name is, I'm not going to bother looking it up, by explaining that humans are necessary simply to establish the scale, the hugeness, both of the Transformers themselves and of their millions-of-years-old galactic war.
And it shows.
Because that's ALL they do. They're goddamn yardsticks. They haven't grown outside the cardboard cutout cliche personalities they got saddled with in the first two issues. There's Juvenile Delinquent Girl, Conspiracy Theory Guy, and Gearhead Guy. And I can't even tell them apart most of the time. I thought for literally MONTHS that Gearhead Guy was the one who had been abducted by the shady organization, but it was actually Conspiracy Theory Guy. (Er, it WAS Conspiracy Theory Guy, right?)
Transformers Animated has a different problem: Sari is clearly there to try and get prepubescent girls to watch the show. The Teen Titans comparison is inevitable. The difference is that Teen Titans did an amazing damn job of putting really gorgeous, grim stories and zany, over-the-top goofiness
back-
to-
back; Transformers Animated has stumbled at making the silly eps, well, good. (If I want comic relief in my Transformers, I'll take
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots refs in the middle of pitched battles. Or at least
hilariously offensive stereotypes about Arabs.)
Really it's the same problem with the current Doctor Who series -- no, guys, we DON'T need stories to be set on present-day (or not-too-distant future) Earth and feature humans to be relevant. Especially if your giant robots, aliens, etc. are more human than your goddamn humans are.
Ask anyone worth a damn what the best Transformers series of the past two decades was and they'll say Beast Wars. You know, the one without any humans. And ask them what the worst episode of the series was, and...well, they might say it's the one where Rhinox has explosive flatulence, or any number of other less-than-stellar Season 1 eps, but ask them what the worst episode of season *3* was and they'll definitely say the one with the man-ape children.
What KILLS me is that the only Transformers series in recent memory to do humans right was the goddamn Dreamwave series. I CARED that Sparkplug got blown up in a shuttle launch, damn it. I sympathized with Spike for holding a grudge against the Autobots for it. I was digging what they were doing with Marisa near the end, and was really looking forward to seeing Mysterious Shadowy Witwicky, who I reasonably assumed was going to be Buster. It's a cryin' shame that the company was run by a crook. (See also: Mega Man. Man that was a fun comic.)
Which brings me to ANOTHER problem with the IDW series, AND the new cartoon: each one of them is a goddamned relaunch.
How many fucking different Transformers universes ARE there, now? Let's see...G1 toon, Marvel comic, Robots in Disguise, Dreamwave comic (which tried to fit into established continuity at first but then just said "fuck it"), Armada/Energon/Cybertron, IDW comic, '07 movie, Transformers Animated. So that'd be...8 fucking different Transformers universes. Have I missed any? (Beast Wars/Machines omitted because they fit into various versions of G1 continuity; Japanese series which never aired in America omitted because oh dear God make it stop make it stop. Never saw Headmasters, Targetmasters, whatever the late-'80's anime were; did they show in the US, and if so, did they establish a new damn universe too?)
And again, ask anyone worth a damn what the best Transformers series of the past two decades was and they'll say Beast Wars. The one that BUILT on the original series instead of throwing it out.
Anyway. Damn, that's way too many words spent on Transformers. Especially for someone who's not really a resident Transformers fanboy -- well, maybe I am on the new board, if Roger and Cannon don't show up.
I guess what I really mean by all this is, dammit, guys, you got it right the first time, stop fucking with it.