Transformers: More than Meets the Eye season two discussion

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Patapsco
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Post by Patapsco »

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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Happy to wait another few days. My mind is already running through whats going on. The obvious is Tarn is holding them all at gun point before forcing them to transform and take their cogs (well to me, it feels the obvious). Is the distribution of the footage to announce a new Decepticon army under Tarn? Again, that's what feels obvious.

Well prepared to be wrong of course.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

In keeping with the comedic delays this has suffered, the British release has been put back another week (though digital will be on the 9th regardless).
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Is it Wednesday yet?? Wanna read this!
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Post by Patapsco »

I have a confession to make: I read the leaked copy because goddamnit curiosity got the best of me. I have made no comment ANYWHERE about it, except one possibly cryptic one on Twitter. This has been bloody killing me, partly because there's a part of me that wants to read it properly in the format it was intended. Well, the digital version anyway
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Post by Denyer »

Paper sub copy will get here eventually and singles will get replaced with trades eventually, so I don't have any particular qualms about reading digital copies that turn up.
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Post by Patapsco »

Denyer wrote:Paper sub copy will get here eventually and singles will get replaced with trades eventually, so I don't have any particular qualms about reading digital copies that turn up.
I'm doing the same and buying the digital copies, then the hardback compendiums for when I eventually do something dumb to my hard drive
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Post by Patapsco »

It's here! Effort post later
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

So....



Spoiler note






In a quick summing up, Great dramatic issue, reads at a very fast pace with lots of little character points along the way. Art is lovely, back up strip is great as a stand alone piece and then with a nice link to the main story at the end. Dialogue is at the top of its game.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Getaway twist. I mean I really like the twist but I couldn't help but thnk that its a stretch that so much of the crew backs him - and what they effectively do to the Autobots who are trapped along with Megs is incredibly barbaric when you think about it. I'm amazed Hoist and Blaster go along with this. I think I might have bought it more if it had of been a character who was there from the start and had built bonds from the beginning. Certainly I could buy them wanting to sacrifice Megs but the idea that they would sell a fairly sizable party to the DJD is... hmm.

Needs a re-read. Its a thumbs up issue but I'm not sure how I feel about the twist - to be fair though it was done really well. It's hard to imagine things going back to a status quo after this.

Not saying it wont happen.
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Post by Patapsco »

right then, how to make sense of More Than Meets The Eye 50 or as I am going to call it "How To Enrage An Easily Enraged Fandom And Possibly Write Myself Into A Corner" because after the revelation about halfway through the fandom are going to go into a apoplectic rage and, well, it's the DJD innit?

First up, the back-up strip is what Roberts does really well: framing a story as one thing, before pulling the rug out from under you and turning it into something else. It reads like a straight up ghost story, as well as filling in a few timely blanks from previous issues including the other half of the conversation Prowl had with persons unknown all the way back in issue one. Course, with the reveal that the crew aren't ghosts and in fact using the remnants of Brainstorm's experiments to go back into the past it's actually a little bit emotional. Then of course Getaway shows up going back in time himself which brings about more questions than answers. Still, it's fill of plenty of "aww" moments which after the frankly grim ending to the main strip is needed.

So to the main event and even when now there's plenty of character building, red herrings and dense narrative bombshells that it can occasionally become a tad overwhelming as all these snippets of this and that and twists and turns bombard you at every turn.

The message at the start sounds grim and is undoubtably grim but who's sending the message? Knowing what we know at the end it's supposed to be the DJD but why does Red Alert recognise the gun pointed at Nightbeat's head? Is Magnus revealing that he let his guard down regret about the mutiny or a possible switch sides by Megatron? It's definitely deliberate, but it's quite telling who *doesn't* send a message as opposed to who does.

Megatron again gets his moments in the sun, from giving the order for the Autobots to roll out, to lashing out at Minimus to, and this is a tad disturbing, getting a bit irate that the crew have decided to help organics rather than mechanicals. Roberts, again, has done a magnificent job of giving *just* enough doubt as to Megatron's true intentions - does he really still believe organic life is below him, when a while later he says he's never been happier?

Of course the big reveal was that Getaway is not only free but has managed to turn practically the entire crew over to his way of thinking, and essentially sent Rodimus and chums to their deaths. And this was, I have to say, absolutely ******* brilliant storytelling from the second he appeared on the communicator screen to the second he hung up. Absolutely magnificent because Getaway's right. He's very bloody right.

When he gets going on Megatron, we as readers should be saying "well he does have a bloody good point" because he does. Megatron was a genocidal maniac and his punishment is to swan about having adventures! What does that say to the memories of the billions of Cybertronians he killed? The hundreds of billions of others he massacred? They don't matter? Also, what the hell does it say about Optimus and his wishy washy "everyone can be redeemed" bullshit? Has Getaway just signed his own death warrant and that of the remaining crew by openly defying Optimus' orders as well as sending two dozen Autobots to their deaths (more on that later).

If Getaway had finished there, I would have been sated but then he rounded on Rodimus and I'm not going to lie, I read it and nodded my head as I did. Rodimus is a terrible captain, the entire quest has been about him, and his own stupid ego got a lot of bots killed when Overlord went on his rampage.

Of course, I was right with Getaway and until he partially revealed that he'd set the DJD on them at which point he went from "Autobot airing very real and factual problems with the command of the ship" to "bastard has to die" and it was brilliant. He's now the best bad guy in both books and possibly the best bad guy of the whole series because like all the best villains, because what they think they're doing is right they can justify their actions. In Getaway's case, he doesn't need to justify it because he, and everyone else, knows that Megatron has to die and Rodimus is a shit captain.

So, there are now a massive string of unanswered questions left, but the main one has to be: How is Roberts going to extricate this without the ending feeling cheap? I remember watching something, or maybe reading something, whereby the villains became so much more powerful that there was never ever going to be a satisfactory resolution without it feeling like a cop out. And I don't want a cop out. But the DJD are able to slaughter an entire alternate Lost Light crew by themselves, but now they have Deathsaurus and his crew for back-up AND they're only going up against about 20 or so Autobots. This is Kate Winslet looking at the blonde lady hanging off the stern of Titanic in that movie - there's no way the blonde is going to survive

Other questions/theory/speculation are purely that:

- What do Bluestreak, Riptide and Mainframe feel about Getaway setting the DJD on their friends, seeing as they've seen what they can do close up?
- Does Getaway really believe that the DJD will just execute Megatron and leave the remaining Autobots alive?
- Will we find out if Tarn is roller or my "way out of left field" suggestion of Dominus Ambus?
- Will Megatron switch back to the Decepticons just to save the crew?
- Will someone sacrifice themselves to give Megatron some proper fuel so he can go down fighting?
- Was that Mainframe having second thoughts?
- Are any of the crew still on the Lost Light aware of what Getaway's done?
- Now that the gear symbol is confirmed as a symbol of the Knights, will the Scavengers finally join up with a purged Lost Light?
- Are the rest of the Lost Light-ers performing a very long con on Getaway, including Atomiser?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

So, let's put some thoughts together then:





Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucking hell. The moment Getaway first appeared on screen and it twigged what was going to be over the page. That is probably the best plot twist we've ever had in MTMTE. And it works! I don't know if "Everyone turns against Rodimus" was always part of the long term plan or if it was something that was come up with post the Megatron decision, but it's something that could only really have worked in this situation. Of course everyone aboard would hate Megatron that much. We've been saying it since season 2 started that the general acceptance made no sense, and behold it made no sense.

This basically justifies and nullifies my biggest complaint about the book (and, as Terome pointed out to me on Facebook, the drastically shrunken new crew deals with Cliffy's issue about the size of the cast. By strange coincidence Cliffy went all Biblical on one of my retweets at exactly the same time), Roberts is such a bastard.

Doing Time Wars on my website has been a good reminder that you shouldn't judge big issue number epics until they're done, but as an issue in and of itself this may have been just about perfect in every way, looking for flaws is hard. The scene between Megatron and Velocity felt a bit "Oh shit, these characters need a moment quick!" (though it was nice in the backup to have Roberts remind--possibly even establish as far as IDW are concerned?--Hoist also does medic stuff so as to make sure Getaway doesn't look insane for getting rid of the accident prone crews only doctor) and Milne's Starscream and Scoop looked odd... but that's about it.


Some random EXCLAMATION MARKS:


Megatron's class (as Thunderclash seemed to be getting along with Megatron and seems like the last person who'd mutiny, what happened to him? Actually, was Perceptor amongst the traitors? That would be hard as well)!

The Holly Hop teleport drive!

In an issue that generally asks us to have sympathy for Megatron it's still careful to show us his remaining darkside with his reluctance to help organics.

When shit gets real, Ravage knuckles down and acts as part of the team with no snark.

Swearing! Perfectly judged as well (also removes the last barrier between the content of Eugenesis and the current comics. If not for Death's Head you could do a hypothetical "Official" reprint of that book with no qualms now).

One thing I suspect everyone is going to overlook because of what comes afterwards is the empty hollow interior of the planet. What can it mean?

Getaway. What a bastard. This also means the page of this issue I created myself at the signing last week in crayon had at least one totally accurate prediction on it (Getaway actually quite enjoying himself). Come to that, it also had swearing and the backup strip's confirmation that it's really all been about the pub. I may sue.

Whilst I can understand why the crew did what they did, there's some heartlessness here. Ten is basically doomed for liking everyone equally (and Magnus a bit more), he couldn't even have answered Getaway's questions. Unless it was phrased as "On a scale of one to ten, how much would you disagree with a coup?". I also read it as Mainframe's "Suggestion" was Ten, but everyone else seems to have assumed it was Whirl (who I'd have thought would have gone anyway as muscle), so I must have misread that.

Also, Velocity and Rung are punished for following their SPACE Hippocratic oaths and treating all patients equally. Which seems harsh (though if you want proof Rung is an appalling psychiatrist he totally misread the mood of the crew there).

My main worry going forward is the possibility of the reset. There's some big names amongst the Lost Light crew, having them turn out to be treacherous bastards (even with good reason it's a massive betrayal of not just Rodimus but the reader. No one should recover from this) is as bold a change as ending the war was. If it sticks, that would be amazing. But Megatron has his time case and the backup establishes a nice weak area in Swerve's that it could be used in. Is some historical rewriting about to occur?

Or, is Getaway lying out his arse and the betrayal is the result of selective memory re-editing on his part? Will the memory triggering device on the Necrobots planet be used to put things right?

Let's hope not.

On the flashforward, I'll make my guess that Megatron is the one threatening the crew as part of an elaborate bluff to throw the DJD off by making them think he was faking his Autobot switch for EVIL reasons all along (we've established Tarn is a slave to bureaucracy, if there was some formal reason for allowing the six hours thing, he'd be obliged to go along with it).

On the second story... Just lovely in every way. And it got everyone in there! Considering Pipe's luck I suspect we'll at least briefly meet a short aquatic triple changer early in season 3.

Yeah, good stuff.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Patapsco »

I can imagine most of the crew wanting to off Megatron because he's robo-Hitler, and the Allies weren't exactly clamouring to put Hitler in charge of the World Jewish Council post WW2. I can imagine some, not all, of the crew wanting to get rid of Rodimus because, well, everything Getaway said - they've not really progressed, it is all about Rodimus - is actually true. But what I can't imagine any of them actually going through with letting them get slaughtered by the DJD, because then they're not Autobots any more, they're Decepticons
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Post by Unicron »

Patapsco wrote: But what I can't imagine any of them actually going through with letting them get slaughtered by the DJD, because then they're not Autobots any more, they're Decepticons
That's assuming any of the crew actually knows about the DJD involvement. Tis possible Getaway made that call on his own
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Post by Patapsco »

Unicron wrote:That's assuming any of the crew actually knows about the DJD involvement. Tis possible Getaway made that call on his own
which is my own train of thinking: a counter-mutiny to the coup Getaway staged when everyone clocks on to just how big a Pandora's box he's opened. My very long term betting on this is that I'd say two from Getaway, Megatron and Rodimus don't survive until the story but in order for the MtMtE to have somewhere to go post this, Megatron and Rodimus have to survive
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Post by Death's Head »

I've seen it suggested elsewhere that Getaway and the rest genuinely believe the DJD will only take Megatron and leave everyone else. Either that, or Getaway is under the impression he's called in the Galactic Council but the DJD have intercepted the transmission.

It's early days yet, though. We haven't actually heard any of the other crew speak yet so I'm happy to wait and see on this point. I agree that Getaway's become a great villain. In contrast to the rest of the fandom, who are all like 'he's so creepy', it just makes me like him more!

Regarding the backup strip, the whole 'viewing the past as a ghost' thing is very similar to something that crops up as a throw-away idea in the comic series Transmetropolitan. It's probably just coincidence but it's rather nice.
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Post by Patapsco »

Death's Head wrote:I've seen it suggested elsewhere that Getaway and the rest genuinely believe the DJD will only take Megatron and leave everyone else. Either that, or Getaway is under the impression he's called in the Galactic Council but the DJD have intercepted the transmission.

It's early days yet, though. We haven't actually heard any of the other crew speak yet so I'm happy to wait and see on this point. I agree that Getaway's become a great villain. In contrast to the rest of the fandom, who are all like 'he's so creepy', it just makes me like him more!

Regarding the backup strip, the whole 'viewing the past as a ghost' thing is very similar to something that crops up as a throw-away idea in the comic series Transmetropolitan. It's probably just coincidence but it's rather nice.
On the one hand, Getaway saw first hand what the DJD are capable of on the alternate Lost Light, but an intercepted transmission to the Galactic Council sounds almost like plausible deniability
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Post by Death's Head »

There's always the other explanation that Getaway knows exactly what's happening but is just that much of a bastard.

Which only makes me like him more, to be honest.

But that would require some convincing lies for the rest for the crew - plausible, perhaps, for a known charmer.
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Post by Patapsco »

I keep coming back that I can't buy any of the crew, even Atomiser, willingly sending Megatron's fan club into the hands of the DJD. I just can't. And it wouldn't surprise me if Getaway did in fact keep that detail a secret OR massaged the truth a little bit when disclosing it

When's the next issue out?
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Post by Death's Head »

I want a Titan Wars Getaway! :D
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Patapsco wrote:I keep coming back that I can't buy any of the crew, even Atomiser, willingly sending Megatron's fan club into the hands of the DJD. I just can't. And it wouldn't surprise me if Getaway did in fact keep that detail a secret OR massaged the truth a little bit when disclosing it

When's the next issue out?
Yeah, this is the thing I'm having a problem with. Its possible the crew don't know whats coming but... they would want megs dead. That's a key point to this. They cant just maroon him.

Also, the crew go after the warped signal which (I think) is sent because the DJD attack the necrobot - which means Getaway is ok with that.

Just don't seem quite right. Need more info...

But that aside, as issues go, its bloody good stuff. The sense of dread with ravage searching was excellent and Getaway is just brilliant. The best villains are justified and bar his overall decision to involve the DJD (and he must be aware that they destroyed the alt lost light so cant be trusted) Getaway fully explains his anger. Who knew "bop" had it in him. Also, for all the criticism of how Roberts wrote Rodimus as a fool - the pay-off was worth it!

As for these bots standing against the DJD, don't forget they don't have to win in a straight fire-fight. That's rarely how these things go. They have a lot of the necrobots tools to help them. I know this is a cheesy example but they could set a huge detonation off and escape through the necrobots portals that he used to move about. Heroic stories always involve a small bunch of goodies taking on seemingly unbeatable odds.

Must agree with those worrying about a reset. Roberts does seem to be pushing that this is going to cause a major shake up in the MTMTE story and maybe dying of the light refers to the lost light no longer being a part of the story (for now) and the next few arcs will involve Team rodimus chasing the lost light. And maybe they will link up with the scavengers. There's lost of possibilitys and if he avoids the reset Roberts will have set him self up with a fresh scenario to plot for the next 50 issues.

Next issue is going to be a long wait.
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