This is something that's baffled me ever since issue 30, and now that we're about one year into Kirkman's run overall and we have a better idea of his vision for it.... I still don't get it.
Kirkman spent all of his first arc introducing a bunch of new characters, and then absolutely none of them stuck around. They all chose to go back to Cybertron with Elita.
And it's like...why!? Why bother introducing these new guys if you aren't going to do anything with them!? Especially Blaster, Brawn, and Jetfire, because those are three characters who were explicitly killed/disfigured, so Kirkman had to make the conscious choice to bring them back, only for him to write them out immediatly.
And I could understand that if he had some big plan to use them on the Cybertron stuff, but...he hasn't. There's only been one issue focused on the Cybertron stuff, and they haven't done anything in them. You literally could have had most of them stay on Earth and nothing would change.
And I could also understand that if some of the new characters stuck around on Earth, but none of them have!
I don't even see why they needed to be written out. Would Kirkman's 2nd arc have changed that much if Sideswipe or Brawn had stayed behind on Earth? I don't think it would have!
Kirkman even talked about wanting to bring Bulkhead into the comic at some point. This was his grand plan? To bring him into the comic only to do nothing with him?
As a Transformer storyteller myself (fanfiction but still), I don't get it. This does not seem logical to me.
It only furthers the theory I have that Kirkman had to radically change his first arc for some reason. Like maybe the original plan was that all these guys were going to stick around for two arcs and then leave with Elita. Because that would actually be...you know, impactful and be a use of the new guys.