Transformers: More than Meets the Eye season two discussion

[zigzagger]

Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #38 three-page preview is up by way of iTunes.

Provided there isn't any further delays, the full issue is scheduled for a March 4th release.

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Full previews for both titles are up @ Comics Continuum.

[Denyer]

It's becoming redundant to make the observation, but there's more content in three pages there than in many full issues of other comics.

[zigzagger]

...Or four issues (now that is a redundant observation)

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Not much to add regarding the preview; there's just enough here to satiate me until next week. Will say I'm enjoying this recurring theme of people calling Megatron out on his hypocrisies.

Judging by the preview pages though, Elegant Chaos is looking like it'll wrap things up nicely. Look forward to all the revelations and such.

[Terome]

Ultra Magnus and Perceptor put Megatron in his motherloving place. That is sweeter than any big robot smackdown.

[zigzagger]

Yeah, and the look Magnus gave to him. Like, "bitch, no you just didn't".

[Terome]

Yeah. It also puts a new twist on why Ultra Magnus and Megatron get on so well - Ultra Magnus has the situation under control. It's a better reason as to why his OCD is in check than 'the joke got old.'

[zigzagger]

Some quick thoughts while on the go...

A lot happened here, and in rapid succession. 'Rapid' being the operative word here. Brainstorm is thwarted, Rewind shoots Past-Megatron, Whirl saves Past-Megs with Stormy's one-percenter spark, and so and so on.... Hugely enjoyable, mind you, but gave little time for events to really sink in before jumping to the next crises.

And as is the case with many time traveling tales, it turns out our heroes created a their own little 'closed time loop' and were responsible for, well, a whole lotta things, if not the IDW-verse as a whole. Think the Lost Lighters have got Shockwave beat at this point

Very much a plot-thread clearing house, this issue.

That's it for now. Think I need to stew on this one for a while longer.

[Unicron]

And as is the case with many time traveling tales, it turns out our heroes created a their own little 'closed time loop' and were responsible for, well, a whole lotta things, if not the IDW-verse as a whole. Think the Lost Lighters have got Shockwave beat at this point

By virtue of them being the reason that Megatron is Megatron, they finally out-do Shockwave in the 'responsible for everything in IDW' department.

I'm glad Brainstorm survived and turned out to be not truly evil/functionist lackey.

So in the Functionist reality, they finally know what Rung's alt mode is, and what's more, that Rung seems to have some clue himself. Interesting... I'm still thinking he's the literal key to activating/accessing some important device (possibly left by Primus, to deal with the eventual threat of Unicron or a returned Mortilus).

[MikeB]

Absolutely loved this. I haven't got too much to say just yet, but I do love that it's the origin story of both the Lost Light and the Sparkeater discovered in the first arc. So much more to enjoy and ponder over as well. Yes there are lots of plot threads closed, but it's also opened up others and provided a launch point for a whole new section of the comic.

So much more to say that I'm sure will get said by others, but my word I enjoyed that.

[inflatable dalek]

Well, there was very little here I don't think we guessed beforehand (did I say outloud Whirl would be the one to save Megatron? I hope I did because I totally called that), though the bits I don't think any of us spotted like the secret origin of The Lost Light were lovely little moments.

However, as a big fan of this sort of time travel story, I still loved how everything clicked together so smoothly and having pieced it together in advance just made it feel a satisfying paradox rather than anti-climactic.

The real surprise is Brainstorm being a straight up, if dissatisfied, Decepticon after all. All our great theories blown out of the water there. His attempts to set Megatron down a happier life being down to him never having killed anyone directly and not being able to bring himself to do it was a lovely touch.

He was also doing it all for love! His love being a scientist who turns into a microscope (actually based on another continuities Perceptor no less). Paging Doctor Froid.

On the other hand, Rewind's logic seemed a bit off (ironically after we thought he was ready to do anything for Dominus he still shot Megatron even though he must know what happened to him in the other timeline), but he's still suffereing from PTSD so that worked, and how it bought him and Domey back together was lovely.

Megatron's freak out at the start was brilliant as well, as was Perceptor not taking any shit off him, lovely character moments for both of them. And yes, silly as it might be, the Rodimus Star comparison was hilarious.

Was anyone expecting Whirl to have a Wrath of Khan moment when he went behind that door with Megatron? I thought it might go that putting the SUPER spark into Megs would have lethal consequences for whoever did it.

Slag is going to go ****ing nuts at the "Ha, Rung is important after all!" ending.

Two bits I wasn't so keen on:

The message from issue 1. I will take a good guess that this wasn't the original plan for it, hence the lampshading moment where Cyclonus points out the message not only makes no sense but is actually deeply unhelpful. It wound up making one of the series central mysteries a punchline, which is always a bit annoying (See also: The Circle of Light).

Perceptor almost destroying all of reality by accident.

[Knightdramon]

Yeah, the message did seem like a HUGE cop-out. Especially after JR has said that the group might go to Delphi at another time, and the message could be linked at their second visit.

Some parts of the message, in retrospect, make no sense because nothing changed from them---

"Don't open the coffin"---the ship and bots had already started disappearing by that point, opening the coffin meant they actually got one step closer to solving that and bringing back a Rewind, plus the suitcase.

"Don't let them take Skids"---that actually had zero bearing at all. Having Skids in Tyrest's prison amounted to NOTHING. The only thing of notice that Skids did in RIL [besides us finding out his story] was interfacing with the alien/heaven race, but it has no repercussions at all at the point the message was made

"Don't go to Delphi"---again, less bad than good. Going to Delphi meant stopping Pharma, curing the red rust plague, "curing" Ratchet's faltering hands, getting Fort Max back to the autobot ranks as well as saving everybody on Delphi and taking a huge group of Autobots away from the DJD's grounds.

Overall good issue, even if it mean that it had to tie up everything. Liked Brainstorm's reveal [could tell he was not bad], although it still does not explain how a group of Autobots with 3 distinct different spark types traveled back, if the case was "locked" onto Brainstorm's spark type.

I am starting to really feel bad about Megatron though. More or less nobody showed to care about his death even though he's trying his hardest to fit in and change his ways. It would be funny if he ends up just going with the DJD next issue and calling it a day.

[inflatable dalek]

Ah, and if Brainstorm's gun is the only way to create a real (as opposed to the mythical) Spark Eater, that means the guy shot with it last issue is someone we've met before and is associated with the DJD after all.

He wound up as their pet.

Oh Christ, the Spark Eater is going to wind up being Agent 113 isn't he?

[Unicron]

Overall good issue, even if it mean that it had to tie up everything. Liked Brainstorm's reveal [could tell he was not bad], although it still does not explain how a group of Autobots with 3 distinct different spark types traveled back, if the case was "locked" onto Brainstorm's spark type.

It wasn't that it would only work for people WITH Brainstorm's spark type, it was it would work for people with COMPATIBLE spark types. Which, given their mostly unexplained nature, JimBob could have had the entire ship travel back if he wanted.

Ah, and if Brainstorm's gun is the only way to create a real (as opposed to the mythical) Spark Eater, that means the guy shot with it last issue is someone we've met before and is associated with the DJD after all.

He wound up as their pet.

Oh Christ, the Spark Eater is going to wind up being Agent 113 isn't he?

I think it's more like that the guy shot last issue isn't connected to the DJD, it's more likely that he turned out to be the original Sparkeater and genesis of the myth.

And the 'pet' isn't a true sparkeater, it's a mostly feral vicious turbofox.

[Denyer]

Think I need to read this a few more times. Doesn't feel rushed to me, the style of Big Ideas but with pay-off after not stringing things out for too long has already been established. It's got a Liege Maximo moment at the end, and doubtless we haven't seen the last of the Functionist reality.

Just loved it being principally about characters.

[Red Dave Prime]

On agent 113, I think we have discussed that possability haven't we? Pretty sure we did...

Apart from the message not working out I thought this was very well thought out tine travelling and to be fair with the message, that was written four/ five actual years ago and was meant more to tease the reader than anything else.

Great stuff. .

[Terome]

Pretty much brilliant from beginning to end. All the resolutions felt very satisfying and appropriate. My one complaint about the earlier issues, those extra pages from Shadowplay, was very deftly accounted for by Brainstorm's thing for Quark. I loved it how Rung talked him down with his Psychology Superpower too.

Then there are the cheeky bits and bobs like the old U-1 / Lost Light and the Sparkeater. Thought those were nice surprises and handled very well.

I liked how the 'message from the future' was played out, personally. As a narrative trick, it served a purpose to tease some future developments so that we, as an audience, would gasp whenever a coffin was mentioned, etc. but we're 38 issues in now and we don't need it any more. I liked that we expected it to be an accurate and precisely-delivered prophecy but instead was a poorly considered, off-the-cuff scheme from the members of the crew least inclined to think things through. We've got Tailgate's embellishments and flair for the dramatic, Rodimus' guilt, Chromedome's remorse and Riptide's blinkered jingoism. I'd wager that Roberts only had a vague idea of where that message was going to be resolved back in issue #1 but I think this was the best possible way to tie it up with a bow.

It's possible that the big Rung Thing might end up the same way - the Functionists are upset because he's a component of a machine they destroyed rather than being a world-ending horror. It's neat though that whatever the outcome it's serving as the lead in to What Comes Next.

Oh, and how great was Megatron's Rodimus Star throughout this issue? First it's a joke on Rodimus then it's something Ultra Magnus seems geniunely proud of then it's something that Megatron pensively reflects upon after he sees Rewind cheerfully murder him and everyone accept the morality of his argument.

Whirl is certainly very dextrous with those claws, isn't he?

[Dead Man Wade]

Whirl is certainly very dextrous with those claws, isn't he?

"Harder than fixing a watch? I think not."

Yeah, but that was before you...you don't have...whatever.

Overall, it was about as good an ending to the storyline as one could ask for. Time Travel Stories are a hard thing to pull off properly, and this one did it reasonably well, while wrapping up a lot of plot threads. My one real complaint would be Brainstorm's whole Decepticon thing. Yes, it's really nice that there wasn't a nice pat answer for it, like had been theorized by some. However, it wasn't really addressed to any great degree. It was just kind of:

"You've been a Decepticon the whole time?"
"Indeed."
"Well, that was dashed cunning of you. We'll be having a chat about that, I can tell you."
"I understand completely."

It was for love, great. But what does it mean? Has he been secretly working against Autobot interests the entire time, because so far all we've got is him working for centuries to make Megatron sunnier. It just seemed a bit underwhelming, is all; I figured the bulk of the time spent after returning to the present would be spent at least asking some difficult questions, rather than just a shot of him in the brig.

[Death's Head]

Well, it's not over yet, is it? More issues to come!

I dropped the comic and burst out laughing at "And for the sake of the Cybertronian race..."

[Phase Sixer]

Wow, mtmte is like the best tf comic run of all time

Great time travel story, I may not see it like others, but to me this story played out perfectly, it's true time travel in the sense that yes you can go back in time, but you can't fundamentally change things, what has happened has already happened and all you can do is change how it may have happened, but never actually change the outcome itself

Also the message from issue 1, it makes perfect sense, tailgate, rodimus, and company, are just expressing the things that they know happened on their trip that from their point of view didn't go well and it's something that they purely think that from their perspective would possibly make things better, to which Cyclonus quickly rebutes them and shows them that if those events wouldn't have happened you wouldn't be where you are now

So now we know that Megatron is constructed cold (I figured that from chaos when spring arm is questioning him about being forged or cc, and he didn't want to say, because from these books ALL bots who are forged are not in anyway shy of it being known they are forged) but the story I want now is how did Meg's originally get the POP spark in his body the 1st time

Now I want to know what's up with Rung, what does he turn into? The key for vector sigma? Does he have something to do with primus or unicron? I wonder why he scares the functionalists to the point where they took out his t-cog, second thing is this, Roberts has been hinting at the fact that rung is special, the spark eater went straight after him, and brainstorm not knowing who's spark is who's, obviously when he tried to get Megatrons spark signature he got rungs instead he must have just went for the better/brighter spark, assumed it was Megatrons, but indeed it's actually rung and since that's happened on those occasions and we are talking about James Roberts here, it can't be a coincidence, can it?

[Unicron]

So now we know that Megatron is constructed cold (I figured that from chaos when spring arm is questioning him about being forged or cc, and he didn't want to say, because from these books ALL bots who are forged are not in anyway shy of it being known they are forged) but the story I want now is how did Meg's originally get the POP spark in his body the 1st time

There was no first time. Megatron having a POP spark was always because Whirl jammed it into him after Rewind murdered Joe Convoy (the CC spark that was originally intended for Megatron's body). It's a predestination paradox/causality loop. These events were always part of history, the LL crew (and us the readers) are just finally learning it.