Mako Crab wrote:Really? Magmatron with his rank as emperor in the BW Neo cartoon has no one loyal to him?
Clearly things don't work the same way between the Japanese and North American continuities.
Magmatron in the IDW comics with his seat in the government has no one loyal to him?
I didn't say no one was loyal to Magmatron, as he is clearly is shown to have some followers in the comic. But part of his plan is to overthrow the Tripredacus Council, the leaders of the Predacon government. What do you want to bet they have a few more loyal followers than Magmatron does?
How would he even KNOW about the stasis pods or their condition from the Axalon?? He's going to travel through time and space on the hope that a bunch of stasis pods went unclaimed FROM A MAXIMAL SHIP!!
Why do so many people miss this from the comic? It is covered on page 9 of the first issue. Ravage contacts Magmatron after he survey's the planet and transmits "tactical planetary scans". Presumably that data contained the condition and locations of the stasis pods. Having information provided to him by Ravage pretty much takes take of the next few points you bring up save for...
* No one like Tarantulus around with the skill and equipment to perform the delicate procedure of reprogramming a stasis pod? No problem. Just plug in the microwave and send out those insta-Pred signals. Works every time! This was so completely weak compared to the reprogramming process shown in the toon. I loved the episode where Rhinox had to stay with AirRazor's pod and work on it all ep just to keep her alive. It was really cool and made the whole process personal. The insta-Pred wave lacks all that.
The Maximals were able to activate Tigatron's stasis pod using a laser pulse transmission that they bounced off one of the moons in the cartoon. And the only reason they said they couldn't use just a regular comm channel was because of the energon fields. With those fields pretty much gone by the 3rd season, there was no reason why Magmatron's team with the right equipment and their own programming specialist couldn't activate them and turn them into Predacons all at once.
But surely this is a more cost-effective plan than recruiting already existing Predacons that need no reprogramming to be loyal. The premise alone was broken from the start. The only reason they went to prehistoric Earth was to cash in on the popularity of the toon, when what they should've been doing was telling their own story.
How is the premise broken from the start? Recruiting an army of already existing Predacons would take a great deal of time, especially with how secretive Magmatron would have to be planning a coup with how close he is to the Tripredacus Council. He indicates they already don't really trust him and all it would take is one not loyal to him to ruin the plan (as Razorbeast goes to show). Finding a bunch of abandoned stasis pods is the most cost-effective plan they could have hoped for. Had all gone according to plan, Magmatron would have had a small personal army in just a few hours as apposed to potentially years to slowly recruit as many Predacons in secret on Cybertron.
And while I'd agree part of the reason the story was set up as it was is because they wanted to tie into the popularity of the cartoon, that wasn't the only reason. The comic does tell its own story, following its own characters.
