Transformers: More than Meets the Eye Season One #1-22

Post by **zigzagger** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:17 am

Red Dave Prime wrote:Yeah, that all went a bit over the top with the spoiler tags alright

True. If you read the preview, chances are you now know something bad happened in the previous issue.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:33 am

SPOILER! (select to read)
surviving unscathed

I suspect there may been a bit of a breakdown in comms on the graphics side, but as things stand we don't have a clear picture of how much or how many.

edit: Personally, I'm not seeing much point in the tags for events either in #1 or the #2 preview. It'd be better to just link to the #1 preview so people just noticing MTMTE could start there.

Post by **Warcry** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 3:38 am

Red Dave Prime wrote:@ Warcry - Still don't see the problem, but agree to disagree?

zigzagger wrote:True. If you read the preview, chances are you now know something bad happened in the previous issue.

Eh...I used spoilers to start with because it was the second reply in the thread and I didn't want to accidentally spoil the preview for before they had a chance to click on the link. Not much point continuing that twenty posts on, though.

Denyer wrote:I suspect there may been a bit of a breakdown in comms on the graphics side, but as things stand we don't have a clear picture of how much or how many.

Fair chance of that as well, now that you mention it. Milne in particular does have a nack for 'improving' on what's actually in the script.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:09 pm

Denyer wrote:This.

I'm not sure I like the way Ratchet's being set up as a codger on the brink of spark burn-out, when he's been essentially fine in this continuity (as far as I know) until now. It feels like too much of an import from Animated.

It's definitely a lift from Animated/Prime, but it's a welcome one in my opinion. Ratchet was a very bland character in previous issues. Being conscious of his age at least gives him a second dimension.

I really hope Roberts gets into what makes one Transformer older than another one. According to Spotlight: Kup, it seems to only be a matter of psychology and not keeping a regular upgrade cycle. Optimus seems to be chronologically older than established senescence-reachers like Ironhide and Kup but quite possibly has a team of guys keeping his body parts on the cutting edge. And just how are they born? Does some sort of ancient factory run them off in batches? That constructed cold / forged hint from earlier is too juicy not to qualify.

I'm a biologist, see. This stuff worries me.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:39 pm

Well, I told y'all they weren't dead. I wonder if Roberts was directly inspired by Megatron's planetfall in G2 with that? Though there he was appropriately battered up. Haven' read the preview so I don't know how well it comes across, but hopefully in the full issue it'll work.

As for Ratchet, when was the last time he got any major character focus? Escalation (as of course, there have been no TF comics for the last three years)? Enough time for the slow descent to kick in.

Post by **zigzagger** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 5:31 pm

Good stuff. Real funny, too. It's more set-up, which may put some folks off, but I'd say the series is starting to hit its stride.

The majority of the book is spent delving a little bit deeper into the characters we met in the previous issue, while the segments featuring new-comer Skids serve to action it up a bit.

I came out of this with a better sense of who these guys are, anyway.

So, my overall impression: fun, good balance of comedy and intrigue, the characters are being fleshed out nicely, and we get a few glimpses of what is to come.

There you have it.

---

Notes 'n' Stuff...

Survivors -- Aside from Hyperion, Ore and Polaris, not too many casualties following the Lost Light's quantum generator malfunction. Hmm....

And speaking of those that are functional, the Lost Light's crew is a lot more 'familiar' than I had initially assumed. Gears, Huffer, Brawn, Inferno, Grapple, Hoist, Blaster, Sunstreaker (was wondering where he was, actually), Hound, Trailbreaker, Powerglide, Cosmos, Perceptor, the back of some Bluestreak-ish looking bot that may or may not be Bluestreak. They all show up to listen to Rodimus' little pep talk.

A shame Perceptor, thus far, has been relegated to the background. Not even so much as a proper introduction. Pity, as Roberts writes a lovely Percy.

...Sigh, I suppose I'll just have to live with Brainstorm for the time being, whom I'm quickly growing to appreciate. If anything, he demonstrates Roberts knack for writing comedy.

Skids -- Amnesiac that acts sort of like a Wrecker. Huh, that's interesting.

I think my impression of Skids, as a character, is somewhat skewed. Mind, his only notable characterization, to my recollection, was in issue #20 of the Marvel US run. Just need to adjust is all, and this iteration of Skids isn't all that bad.

I'll give him chance, and in all fairness, I think an overhaul was just what the poor guy needed -- various incarnations of Skids have seen him reduced to either (what was essentially) a cameo appearance in which he was made into a chair, was lost in limbo, or was dissected by the government (:(). He's generally written as a non-character/the universe's bitch.

Swerve -- Really funny here. Has some of the best lines in the issue. Too many to choose from, really. Pretty much everything that came out of his mouth was hilarious. A little overbearing, but that seems to be Roberts' intention, judging by the rest of the crew's reaction to him.

That said, what's with Swerve's borderline creepy obsession with Tailgate's alt-mode, anyway?

Mini-Character profiles -- Okay, sure, they're tiny, about two sentences long a piece and aren't particularly informative. But, they're character profiles! And, they're actually quite funny. Just a neat little bonus.

Ratchet -- "Kind, but not as kind as he once was." That about sums it; the Lost Light has yet another snarker (eg. "It just makes me want to punch him", said in regards to Drift). I'm not complaining, Ratchet is handled skillfully here, both in characterization and dialogue, but I won't deny that I'm still adjusting to this slightly newer, hybrid-ish take on the character.

I might be overreacting a touch -- I suppose I'm just a little worried that Roberts will overplay (and exaggerate) the whole "old age" thing.

Cyclonus -- Okay, so, Whirl makes a half-assed attempt to patch things up with him. As they shake hands, Cyclonus pulls Whirl in and whispers in his ear, "I'm going to kill you. Not Today. Maybe not for awhile. But I will kill you. And don't think you'll see it coming."

That whole segment was bloody fantastic!

I'm also wondering when Cyclonus will realize that Tailgate is on the Lost Light with him. Then again, they're both seen in that group shot together (mind you, Cyclonus's back is to everyone). Maybe he's moved on from all that Ark 1/Dead Universe business (meh, it's just as well), and can't be bothered with Tailgate?

Whirl -- Hints of an upcoming back story that'll explain his expulsion from the Wreckers. Something to do with Springer. Looking forward to the eventual revelation.

--

Seriously, as loveable as these characters are - and I do love them - the whole lot of them are a bunch of smartasses and snarkers.

Brimstone · Post by **Brimstone** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:41 pm

Warcry wrote:Again, I have no problem with anyone surviving planetfall. I do have a problem with them surviving unscathed when the previous issue showed them freefalling while on fire and this issue showed a planetscape covered in giant impact craters that illustrate just how much force they would have hit the ground with.

Could be that the planet has a fairly thin atmosphere. It could still create a plasma trail, but it could be that it just wasn't as hot as it looked. And Magnus saying "they're on fire!" or whatever could have just been an over-reaction before getting the facts straight.

Also, the size of the impact craters has absolutely nothing to do with the planet's mass or with how hard the transformers are gonna hit the ground. Unless those were the impact craters of the transformers...which didn't seem to be the case to me.

The impact crater has everything to do with the speed at which the impactor hit. Look at the moon. It's tiny and has no atmosphere, but it's craters are huge! So huge in fact that some of them use to be lakes of molten rock because it was hit so hard (all the mares were formed form impacts so severe they punched a hole in the crust to the moons molten core...when it used to have one).

So, the transformers were traveling much slower than an asteroid or a comet zipping through the solar system. They were just traveling a fraction of that speed. So, they would not have hit the ground nearly hard enough to make craters as large as shown.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:57 pm

Ooh, plenty to talk about. Hoorah.

Could be that the planet has a fairly thin atmosphere. It could still create a plasma trail, but it could be that it just wasn't as hot as it looked. And Magnus saying "they're on fire!" or whatever could have just been an over-reaction before getting the facts straight.

I, for one, think that the scientific rightness or wrongness of the ejected crew's survival is completely overshadowed by Swerve determining Tailgate's age by carbon-dating. Though I suppose it's likely Ratchet was joking.

And speaking of those that are functional, the Lost Light's crew is a lot more 'familiar' than I had initially assumed. Gears, Huffer, Brawn, Inferno, Grapple, Hoist, Blaster, Sunstreaker (was wondering where he was, actually), Hound, Trailbreaker, Powerglide, Cosmos, Perceptor, the back of some Bluestreak-ish looking bot that may or may not be Bluestreak. They all show up to listen to Rodimus' little pep talk.

Yeah, turns out it is full of 1984-1985 guys. Is anyone else a little bit disappointed? I think I am but might be a bit ashamed to be so.

This issue continues the fine and strange tradition of Transformers remembering each other's names from the scantest of information. Skids was familiar with the mangled corpses of Hyperion and Polaris and Chromedome knew him. Although Swerve had no idea who he was. Is that a clue?

Was the idea behind what Tailgate said about a monument on the horizon that the joke about Rewind being a giant memory is that he really is a giant memory stick? I think I would like it if he was a hundred feet tall when he transformed.

Drift was handled brilliantly here, I reckon. It's much more realistic and functional for him to annoy people on the grounds of him being a dippy, hollow ignoramus than for him being an ex-pirate.

I also quite like that there is no attempt to alien up the Cybertronian language or alphabet.

Whirl is about right too - he doesn't do anything overtly mental in this issue but it is very easy to see that there is something very deeply wrong with him. Bouncing him off the very much more self-assured, stable and altogether more dangerous Cyclonus is a good idea.

Speaking of Cyclonus, there's a bit of a jump between what we saw last issue and this one - so he made some kind of deal with Rodimus, then decided to follow him in a sneaky way, which was then cut short by Whirl, but then he ducked out to attach himself to the hull, only to fall off in the accident? That's a bit needlessly complicated.

What's the bet that the Circle of Light will have all been horribly killed when they arrive at Crystal City? I can't see any more cast swelling happening any time soon...

Milne really did pull off that sight gag of Tailgate slowly transforming in the background, didn't he?

So Ultra Magnus is basically the Transformers' entire legal system, yes?

Post by **zigzagger** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:57 pm

Terome wrote:Yeah, turns out it is full of 1984-1985 guys. Is anyone else a little bit disappointed? I think I am but might be a bit ashamed to be so.

Mmm, maybe a little, though I'm not overly bothered by it. Was just surprised, as I assumed Barber got most of those guys.

Still...it might explain why so many folks survived the quantum generator mishap, I suppose

It would've been nice to have seen more of the '86ers through '89ers standing about, though. The one's that weren't sucked out into space, I mean.

Then again, how much exposure have the likes of Gears and Huffer gotten recently?

Was the idea behind what Tailgate said about a monument on the horizon that the joke about Rewind being a giant memory is that he really is a giant memory stick? I think I would like it if he was a hundred feet tall when he transformed.

I was kinda bothered how that was off-paneled. I wanted to see what Tailgate was referring to.

Plus, what's Rewind's alt-mod look like? One of those Device Label USB drives?

Drift was handled brilliantly here, I reckon. It's much more realistic and functional for him to annoy people on the grounds of him being a dippy, hollow ignoramus than for him being an ex-pirate.

It really is hard for me to complain how Drift is being handled in this series. Well, complain about him sincerely, anyway.

That brief, little factoid about him at the end of the issue does manage to shed a little light on Drift's motivations. I agree, he's being handled much more realistically; a guy that's trying too hard to change people's impression of him, and as a result he ends up grating on the nerves of folks like Ratchet, and being the butt of Swerve's jokes.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:17 am

I was kinda bothered how that was off-paneled. I wanted to see what Tailgate was referring to.

I imagine it's a future escape route being set up - having a guy who can turn into a massive rectangle could be useful for getting the rest of the characters out of a scrape later on, and now thanks to this little bit of set-up, that can be a punchline as well.

It really is hard for me to complain how Drift is being handled in this series. Well, complain about him sincerely, anyway.

That brief, little factoid about him at the end of the issue does manage to shed a little light on Drift's motivations. I agree, he's being handled much more realistically; a guy that's trying too hard to change people's impression of him, and as a result he ends up grating on the nerves of folks like Ratchet, and being the butt of Swerve's jokes.

Yeah, it really does ring true. I really dig the recurring theme that the fairly ridiculous 'quest' isn't taken particularly seriously by anyone but Drift, and even he is transparently using it as a means to an end, that end being that everyone will like him. If Roberts does have an endgame idea that involves the Knights then I will be disappointed.

If there was anything glaringly wrong with this issue then I would say is that there might have been a bit too much Swerve. He's a great character but he is, in his own way, as much as a Mary Sue as Drift was under McCarthy.

Oh, and the '1984' bit. That was still stupid.

Post by **Denyer** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:26 am

Terome wrote:Ultra Magnus is basically the Transformers' entire legal system, yes?

Seems like he's pretty much the only one who gives a damn, yeah... you can see why the others wouldn't have much respect for rules and/or rules of conflict, after being in one for so long.

I love this. It's smart and funny without that overtaking the plot, and the single-issue format is being leveraged with decent cliffhangers.

Brimstone · Post by **Brimstone** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 4:48 pm

Terome wrote:Milne really did pull off that sight gag of Tailgate slowly transforming in the background, didn't he?

That was freaking hilarious!

Seriously...I love Swerve! This has to be the most fun, most interesting TF comic in years. I am thoroughly enjoying it!

StarscreamX · Post by **StarscreamX** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:11 pm

I found it interesting that Tailgate looked like he might recognise those giant 'bots with swords from the way he was looking at the one Skids smashed up so intently. He said he'd been off world as part of the "Primal Vanguard" on peace keeping missions (Knowing what we know about Nova Prime, who wants to bet that "Off world peace keeping" translates as "Brutal conquest of other nearby worlds in the name of the Cybertronian Empire"?) so maybe he's run into these giant metal blokes with the swords before? I'm going to guess that it's the Quintessons that Skids is on the run from.

I want to marry Swerve

And I loved Cyclonus's scene with Whirl in this issue. It's nice to see that Roberts haven't forgotten that, beneath the civilised exterior Cyclonus is even more effing mental than Whirl is. He's Patrick Bateman made out of metal, calm and collected on the outside but one bad day away from tearing everyone around him apart with his bare hands and him calmly telling Whirl that he's going to murder the hell out of him when he gets the chance was great. I liked that the daft mind control stuff from Chaos has been quietly forgotten and Cyclonus now served Galvatron willingly too. It makes him a lot more interesting to be a guy who did bad things for what he thought were the right reasons than just have him be a pawn who never had a choice. Loved the little dig at all that Cyclonus being a Decepticon bollocks as well

Rewind is still adorkable

The character profiles were a nice touch as well. Ultra Magnus and Brainstorm were my favourite. "Smiled once and regretted it ever since" and "Prolific murderer" had me laughing away and I loved Swerve's description as well. Good friend to all, best friend to none

Ratchet getting pissed at Drift's mystical bollocks was brilliant as well, and Drift as a would be "New Age" type who gets on everyones nerves with his talk of "Positive Energy" and "Evolving into beams of light" is at least more entertaining than Drift as the bad ass ninja with the dark and troubled past so I can live with Drift being a main character in this series now

I found it interesting that Chromedome's occupation is classified according to the profiles. I wonder just what he did for the Autobots that's so important/awful that no one is allowed to know?

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:39 pm

I love this. It's smart and funny without that overtaking the plot, and the single-issue format is being leveraged with decent cliffhangers.

Hell yes, the cliffhanger in this issue was solid - introduce a corpse with literally a missing half to him, let the rest of the issue play out, have that other half turn up after a mention of the pair, quite dead, with the presumed killer at large.

That is some good structure right there.

Seems like he's pretty much the only one who gives a damn, yeah... you can see why the others wouldn't have much respect for rules and/or rules of conflict, after being in one for so long.

I think he might have been bluffing about Tyrest being alive just so he can keep acting on Tyrest's authority.

(Knowing what we know about Nova Prime, who wants to bet that "Off world peace keeping" translates as "Brutal conquest of other nearby worlds in the name of the Cybertronian Empire"?)

I think you're on to something there. 'Bomb disposal' sounds a bit too innocuous, doesn't it? He's far too cuddly for his own good, is little Tailgate...

I found it interesting that Chromedome's occupation is classified according to the profiles. I wonder just what he did for the Autobots that's so important/awful that no one is allowed to know?

Wasn't that just for our benefit? With so many ex-Kimia guys in the cast, someone is bound to know a little bit of what made Chromedome's career such a success.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:49 am

Agree with Warcry that the cliffhanger to the last issue was needlessly melodramatic, especially coming from Ultra Magnus (Red Alert I could more easily see reacting like that). I've no problem with them surviving as such but "Our friends are in trouble and we have to go rescue them" would have been a fine end to issue 1 without the OTT "They're burning up!" stuff. Especially odd as the end of this issue avoids being too silly with the cliffhanger, feeling more like the Lost In Space (not to be confused with Roberts' description of the series as Lost in space) device of sticking next weeks teaser on the end of the previous episode to create a serial feeling. Otherwise this would actually be a fairly contained but with set up for the future two part "Pilot".

Things I liked:

Drift. Was always more bothered with how he was promoted than the actual character (or rather, lack of) in any of the issues I read anyway, so it's nice to see he has a personality now.

Cyclonus and Whirl: So much future potential there. RE Ziggy's comment on Tailgate, it's entirely possible he and Cyclonus don't even know each other even if the later was down for the Ark crew.

Skids, nice mystery and well done action character.

Lots of nice lines for Swerve, Brainstorm, Rodimus and Ratcher even if they didn't get a huge amount to do.

What I didn't like:

The Rung gags basically combined the "Megaton" one from Chaos Theory and the "Optimus Prime didn't remember who Ironfist was" one from LSOTW. A bit weak, and if that's going to be his whole schit it'll get old real fast.

The whole way Cyclonus came on board seemed at odds with issue 1 and needlessly complicated. Why not just have had him brought on board with Whirl and then blown out into space with the others? Why no mention of his prior mysterious conversation with Rodimus?

Milne's art was decent enough, but paradoxically for the normally over detailed artist his attempts to follow on smoothly from Roche resulted in some panels feeling under-detailed.

Things I'll give a chance to" "1984". It'd better have a good, non-injokey non-annoying rational though.

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:55 pm

Yeah, Milne did a cracking job following the style.

Is Magnus being melodramatic? British author, and the phrase "burning up" is used in reference to having a temperature over here. Not sure if it's deadpan humour or simply a metaphor, but it doesn't have to literally mean that they're being exposed to high enough temperatures to kill them outright.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question308.htm -- suggests about 1650 degrees C.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melti ... d_860.html -- carbon steel has a melting point of about 1500 degrees.

Assuming that TFs are a little bit more durable than Earth metal, which isn't a stretch, the re-entry temperatures are likely to be enough to do some serious damage (probably mainly to internal components) but give a good chance of survival with medical attention.

Particularly if most of them landed in water.

Post by **zigzagger** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 5:37 pm

Re: Magnus being a prick, etc...

I didn't so much interpret Magnus's comment last issue as melodramatic, but rather as a refusal to sugarcoat the situation. And, as Denyer said, the delivery of that line - "That's not a meteor shower..." - reads as a deadpanned response to Rodimus. The situation called for brutal honesty. Besides, it's Drift's role to be the yes man and see the brighter side of things.

Regardless, it was still an asshole thing to say.

Also, while I'm not entirely fussed that there were survivors (I'd expected as much), I still felt the weight of the first issue's cliffhanger lost a lot of impact when it turned out that, out of the forty who free-fell through the planet's atmosphere, there were only two casualties.

...One of which whose corpse was chucked at one of those "nineteen-eighty-four" robots. Speaking of which...

inflatable dalek wrote:Things I'll give a chance to, "1984". It'd better have a good, non-injokey non-annoying rational though.

Terome wrote:Oh, and the '1984' bit. That was still stupid.

I know, right? Surely Roberts must be familiar with the online fandom? ]too[/I] distracting. It took me out of the moment.

Post by **Denyer** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:03 pm

Mmm.

I'd taken the 1984 bit to be a non-too-subtle dig at fandom for not shutting up about it.

As a designation, is there anything it can be apart from a year?

Summerhayes · Post by **Summerhayes** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:42 am

For the 1984 thing to work, it has to be something none of us see coming. My conpletely random and off the top off my head theory; they'll be counting down to something. The next time we see them, they'll be saying some other significant number (knowing Roberts, 334) and after that it'll be 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and it'll be a big deal.

The characters are all lovable and brilliant. I feel so sorry for Swerve and Tailgate. Ultra Mags is brilliant and my idol. Drift is a dick but so real. Cyclonus and Whirl I can't wait to see pan out.

i I can't remember a comic where I was this psyched before ...

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:11 pm

Very enjoyable read again. And that's "read" not "glance". Nice to have plenty of dialogue that's interesting.

Feels like it's still in a settling period. Not to be critical because its too easy to focus on small things but there does seem to be too much going on. Skids appears from nowhere, takes out 3 killer robots and no-one seems to have informed Rodimus or Magnus. Seems like something the 2 heads should know.
We now have a spark eater as well. Not to mention all the in-house issues between the cast.

Was a little disappointed that there didn't seem to be any decepticons on the ship but obviously it wasn't the full crew in that shot so this may not be the case.

But its a good read and interesting and that's enough for the moment.