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A couple of late night thoughts based on Issue 3, because I was reading it again and spotted a few things I never noticed, or thought of before.

1) Animus would appear to transform into a robotic cat, somewhat like Razorclaw. I think this due to two specific panels. One shows his chest has an almost cat-like face similar to Razorclaws only without the mane, and when he’s knocking on the Hab suite door to get Whirl to let him in, it looks like he’s got folded-back claws behind his robot-mode hands and feet.

Now this may not mean anything, but everything is done for a reason and Animus is the only non-toy robot I’ve seen who is drawn in this way. Most other NTR’s (non-toy robots) either have big treads on their back or are a bit gangly. Also, Animus’ faceplate is slightly decorated by teeth to suggest his alternate mode.

I reckon Animus has a part to play somewhere. In Jungian psychology ‘Animus’ refers to the masculine part of a woman’s personality. There are other dictionary meanings for Animus (Spirit, mind), but with the Rung/Jung link being so close I wonder if Animus may be something of a link to Nautica, Chromia and the others, the fact that Nautica can identify a robotic cat etc. I don’t know, just thinking aloud.

2) The Sparkeater goes after Rung, even though Rodimus is sure he is the one with the brightest spark on the ship. However, the ‘brightest spark’ is Ratchet’s theory. Drift thinks the Sparkeater is attracted to pain & emotional trauma, which may explain why it went after Shock (who was in shock over Ore’s death), and then heads for Rung (a psychiatrist who has dealt with centuries of emotional trauma).

Therefore Rodimus may still be the one with the brightest spark. What this means in terms of when he sets foot on Luna One for the second time in the text story and nothing happens… I don’t have an idea for that yet. It may also leave it open that someone else entirely, or someone else on the Away Team to Luna 1 is the brightest spark, if that’s what the spark field was reacting to.

3) Um… back in issue 1 it would appear that Red Alert is now the most unconvincing security officer ever. Brainstorm is allowed on-board, and he brushes off the fact that he’s forgotten Rung was his psychiatrist for six centuries. So again, either Chromedome did a serious number on Red, or Rung has this incredible power to make people forget him.

4) And back to Issue 3, Rewind mentions to Trailbreaker/cutter that Chromedome can read memories… and other stuff too. We don’t know anything about the ‘other stuff too’ yet, do we? Unless Rewind is referring to the fact that Chromedome can erase minds, or portions of them anyway, and that links to Skids again, who has two specific portions of his memory missing. One of those portions (the most recent) has been solved by Getaways explanation about them being Prowl’s ‘Wreckers done Right’ unit, but there is the other portion missing, as Skids says in Issue 3; “… There’s this bigger gap, from way back, a huge portion of my life is missing”. So plenty more about Skids is to be revealed, who I reckon must be linked to Chromedome, Red, Tarn, Magnus, Rewind, and maybe Valve?

And maybe this has already been posited, but I wonder if the Sparkeater (and maybe the Necrobot) is/are products of the Institute?

1) I never paid close attention to Animus' design, so I hadn't noticed those design elements. Strangely, he also has treads on his back. Kind of a weird mix there.
I think you might be on to something with the Jungian thing. Could very well be a connection there.

2) Not a bad theory there, with the sparkeater. Knowing Roberts that could have been the groundwork for some later plotline.
Pretty sure it was clear that the hot spot lighting up was a result of the Matrix half Rodders was carrying.

3) I think the Rung bit with Red Alert was setting up the wrunning gag of no one remembering him. Could very well be a result of Institutery. Though my random theory on this is that Rung has some sort of Outlier-like ability that causes people to forget him, something like a natural attention deflector. Given his funky alt mode, I'm thinking he's a key portion (perhaps literal key) of Primus' "In case of apocalypse, break glass" plan, and the forgetting thing is intended to keep him around and handy if needed.

4) Yeah, a lot of what Mnemosurgery can do is still in the dark, but I think the 'other stuff too' was referring to shadowplay (like what was done to Shockwave) and things like Trepan's Trigger.
Skids... big question mark. Lots of unanswered stuff there. He's probably the reason Wheelie got stuck on that planet for forever, and probably the one who created the Magnificence, and 18 other random things. Cause he's Skids and has a missing past.

1) Animus shares a very similar chest design with Prowl/Dent from Delphi. Not much else to discuss as he's quite dead from issue 3, and the only other mentions he had were when Rodimus was lamenting the dead and on the alternate Lost Light. He's a 0.1% though, and has a very small part in the bullets story on LSOTW.

2) Brightest spark could very possible mean slight variations of point one percenters. It went after Shock because he was right there when the sparkeater escaped. It went after Animus possibly because he had a very bright 0.1% spark [if there is such a thing]. We don't have an explanation yet on the spark field on Luna 1, but popular theory lends to it being activated by Rung. We still do not know what is so special about Rung or if he is a 0/1%.

3) That's part of the running gag that pretty much nobody remembers Rung or can pronounce his name, even his own patients.

4) I think the "other stuff" has to do with memory erasing and manipulation, like keeping tabs on certain high-risk bots etc. While Skids has a bigger part of his memories missing [which -I- believe even document his life as an undercover agent 113 with DJD], I don't think it's linked to Chromedome. There are other mnemosurgeons out there, or an off-switch or something for Skids. My theory is that Skids was definitely involved with the DJD at one point, there's many hints so far.

Unicron wrote:3) I think the Rung bit with Red Alert was setting up the wrunning gag of no one remembering him. Could very well be a result of Institutery. Though my random theory on this is that Rung has some sort of Outlier-like ability that causes people to forget him, something like a natural attention deflector. Given his funky alt mode, I'm thinking he's a key portion (perhaps literal key) of Primus' "In case of apocalypse, break glass" plan, and the forgetting thing is intended to keep him around and handy if needed.

I've been thinking something very similar ever since we saw Rung's alt mode (and it was classified as an "ornament" by the Functionists, suggesting they had no clue what it was), but couldn't put it together as well as you did there. I look forward to finding out what Rung's deal is. I expect it to he epic.

3) Rung also has the little scene in Tyrest's prison when Brainstorm is explaining the attention deflectors, he dismisses it as something Rung wouldn't understand and gets the retort "you'd be surprised". At the time I thought it was just an "I'm not stupid", but Rung has been present (according to rewind) at many if not most of the major incidents in Transformers history, so maybe he is one big attention deflector and either knows more than he lets on or is just very familiar with the results...

Interesting though that it didn't work on Megatron, who knew exactly when he first encountered him...


4) absolutely convinced that Skids was with the DJD, his record with, for example, the legislators , marks him out as being able to maybe hold his own with them. Question is, would they recognise him? Chromedome has a lot of guilty secrets still to come out, I dread to think how bad they are... (Responsible for Tarn/Roller maybe?)

There's a lot we still don't know about sparkeaters - they're clearly of Cybertronian origin, but what makes one? Did Kaon make his pet, or just find it and domesticate it?

Rung's clearly got more to him, as well. Notice how, on the alternate Lost Light, he apparently 'disappeared' in the explosion. What if there can only ever be one Rung in the universe at a time, even after a unique quantum event like that - "It's Rung. Forever."

Oh, and Dent/Prowl was apparently a "Predabot" - perhaps our friend Animus was as well?

(Rather than Razorclaw, Animus' design reminds me more of the second wave of original Pretenders, with animal motifs set into their entire chest armour.)

Death's Head wrote:There's a lot we still don't know about sparkeaters - they're clearly of Cybertronian origin, but what makes one? Did Kaon make his pet, or just find it and domesticate it?

I assumed a Sparkeater was a result of some sort of illness, sort of like the semi-recent trend of movies having vampirism be a result of some kind of virus.
The Pet I don't think is a true sparkeater, like the one that was on the Lost Light. I think it's more a mostly feral turbofox, that Kaon keeps all vicious and riled up.

Like Aunty Slag says, there seems to be bit of commonality in design between sparkeaters, the necrobot and the robots that populate the Institute. Very curious to see where it goes.

Ok, on a completely different tack, but since we're on the topic of unresolved plots and details, here's something that's amused me for a while...

I'm reasonably convinced that Tailgate doesn't know Whirl's name. In issue one he was introduced as "Nut-Job" to Tailgate, and ever since then (even up to the Remain in Light arc) that's what Tailgate has called him. There's never been any indication that he knows otherwise, and although it's a minor detail I'd love for there to be some payoff to it down the line.

I think Brainstorm's "Friendly" chat with Chromedome that stops him erasing his memories after OLL Rewind's death has to take on some sort of sinister subtext now doesn't it?

I now have the feeling Roberts has played a fun/terrible joke on all of us.

He has to know we fans have a tendency to both overanalyze things as they happen and go back to reread previous stuff to find hints and new meanings. I'm betting this "Brainstorm is a Con" reveal is a red herring, both to create an interesting plotline and to dick with the fans.

Conspiracy Corner: Chromedome is actually the traitor and Brianstorm only thinks he is because his mind has been messed with.

inflatable dalek wrote:Conspiracy Corner: Chromedome is actually the traitor and Brianstorm only thinks he is because his mind has been messed with.

I'd go for that. Poor Brian.

James Roberts made a comment on Twitter that the (unspecified) issue he was working on now was doing something that only a three year plus old book could do.

I joked "A clip show" (yeah, I know that's not the right terminology for a comic and many TV series do clip episodes even when they've not been running long enough to have a decent variety of clips to choose from but SHUT UP).

He cryptically replied "Remember this tweet", so I'm calling it now: Issue 40 will have everyone get stuck in a lift and going "Hey, remember than time Rung got shot in the head?" *WIBBLE WIBBLE WIBBLE*.


Mind, a flashback issue with Rewind recounting some of the adventures of the ALL (with the listening Rodimus getting more and more annoyed at how much better Magnus ran things) could be interesting, Red Alert at least would have had a very different adventure and who knows what new and interesting ways Pipes could be tortured?