While Optimus's Coworkers Joke--yeah That Guy - Tumblr Posts
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It really annoys me that a whole segment of fandom treats Roberts' take on OP as 'the real one' compared to everything else in IDW1. I don't inherently dislike that he would choose to look at the inconsistent and bad writing OP got in phase one and go. Hm. Well. Let's quietly ignore that. I do in fact think choosing to ignore whatever the fuck Costa thought he was doing when Costa himself did not give a shit about his own work, for example, is what any reasonable writer would find themselves inclined to do, lmao.
But at the end of the day, in phases two and three, Barber wrote the bulk of Optimus' story, and took the reins on the character basically 100% outside some prequel flashback stuff. And he did not do what Roberts did. He chose to try and work the prior stuff into a characterization that re-contextualised it into something more coherent and self-aware of what a dick OP came across as a lot of the time. People will look at the super conventionally Heroic And Corrrect take Roberts did in a couple of (pre-canon!) stories, assume Barber must ALSO be doing this, see Barber do something different, and insist this proves Barber is an idiot with no understanding that his Optimus is frequently in the wrong. It's incredibly annoying, lol.
ALSO, why do so few people seem to grasp that the cop backstory was introduced in Chaos by Roberts..?? That was not Furman, Costa or Barber, all of whom I see it attributed to for some reason. Whenever people are like 'UGH I hate coptimus' but then are like 'I guess he was OK when JRo wrote him though' I'm just. Throws my hands up! THAT WAS FROM CHAOS. HE DID THAT. I suspect admitting this would complicate people's 'MTMTE is universally the most socially progressive IDW1 thing, everything else sucks and never does even One Thing as well or better' dichotomy some people are stuck in, or something. (And frankly, MTMTE is very happy in Shadowplay to run with the Good Cops Fighting Corruption stock storyline, which Barber would later on complicate a lot in the OP ongoing.)
tl;dr Roberts wrote an Optimus that was more in line with people's concept of G1 Optimus, but that doesn't mean his is the sole real 'correct' one in IDW1, next to all the takes that... draw on prior IDW1 stuff. Stop getting mad Barber didn't run with the way Roberts wrote him in a couple flashbacks, it's disingenuous.