More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

[Onslaught Six]

Not just that, but also, such deaths were a lot different when the entire book's cast was compromised of 84-85 characters. Look hard in the entirety of Dreamwave and find a character from after 1986 who wasn't already famous because Furman used him. (So, no Nightbeat, Bludgeon, Thunderwing, etc.) Red Alert's death isn't the massively scarring thing it might have been five years ago because the cast of Autobots isn't 25 dudes, it's 200+.

When someone like Jazz gets killed off in the movies, for example, it's pointless because it's Michael Bay doing it and because there's only like 5 Autobots to begin with. When it happens to Red Alert in MTMTE, it's because it'll (probably!) contribute to the plot and there's a bunch of other important Autobots around, too.

As an aside: Is anyone 'here' complaining about it? No? Then why are we arguing about it...?

[Dominic]

Issue 10:
And, it turns out that

Spoiler

Red Alert survived.

That is not a major problem, as death has always been flexible in TF. This issue is actually solid, and largely redeems the last issue. The Lost Light is effectively lawless. (It is a ship full of malcontents under the command of an imbecile.) And, pre-war Cybertron was similarly lawless. (There were laws, but they were hardly balanced and largely ignored.) Magnus and Prowl, two characters normally played as fools or calculating thugs are played off as being similar to Prime/Pax. Roberts proves that he can still deliver the goods, even if they are occassionally hidden in fannish pandering.

Grade: B


-late edit:
Some people at the AllSpark have been talking about apparent "shipping" with Chromedome, Prowl and Rewind in the most recent issue of MtMtE. I did not notice it before, thought I have reread the scenes in question. So, my question for all of you: Are they misreading the book and seeing shipping where there is not shipping, or am I misreading the book by missing the shipping, possibly out of denial?

Honestly, if Roberts does start shipping, I am done with this book. There is no reason for official content to real that much like fanfic.


Dom
-dropped "Ultimate Spider-Man" today......

[Mako Crab]

Issue 10:
Some people at the AllSpark have been talking about apparent "shipping" with Chromedome, Prowl and Rewind in the most recent issue of MtMtE. I did not notice it before, thought I have reread the scenes in question. So, my question for all of you: Are they misreading the book and seeing shipping where there is not shipping, or am I misreading the book by missing the shipping, possibly out of denial?

Honestly, if Roberts does start shipping, I am done with this book. There is no reason for official content to real that much like fanfic.

Some fans see shipping or innuendo everywhere they look. Pay it no mind.

[Dominic]

I am hoping it is nothing. But, this book has so much "fan favourite" appeal that I figured that it was at least worth considering.


Dom
-still not sure about actually keeping this book.

[Onslaught Six]

Shipping is a cancer, and playing to it is the End of All Things. None of these characters are gay; why is it even a thing.

Fandoms ruin everything.

[Shockwave]

I'm probably going to regret asking this, but what's "shipping"? Y'know, besides the postal context.

[Dominic]

"shipping" is "writing fanfic about 2 characters being in a relationship". It is also known as "slash-fic", as in "characterx/charactery".

Shipping can cross all lines of logic or properties. The "house elf gang-bang" example that Honey Bear and I came up with a few years ago is nothing compared to some of the things that people actually do write. Some people are saying that there is canonical shipping in MtMtE. That that turns out to be the case, i will drop the book.

[BWprowl]

Also keep in mind that ‘shipping’ tends to refer exclusively to when fans pair characters up, with no regard for what the canon of the series is, or express an affection for one particular coupling of characters over other combinations that have been shown in the series, to the point of prioritizing their ‘ship’ over all other elements of the story.

That said, I feel there’s been kind of a demonizing/witch hunt of ‘shipping’ regarded as ANY romantic/relationship elements in a story, with people dismissing whole series entirely on the basis that they had the gall to ‘pander’ to shippers by having characters enter into a relationship. The Young Justice cartoon in particular seems to catch a lot of flak for having ‘too much shipping’ despite, you know, the characters and their relationships being instrumental to the plots that occur. Ditto Adventure Time, apparently we can’t have Finn interacting with any of the female characters *at all* because that would constitute ‘shipping’ and would automatically be the worst thing in the world. I blame /co/ and their knee-jerk reactions to shipping-goggled-tumblr-girls.

In the case of MTMTE, I can certainly see where those eager beaver fans might jump on something like, say, a Chromedome/Rewind ship (the codependency they express towards one another doesn’t help), but I would hope that for panicky fans like Dom who like to drop a book at the first sniff of trouble (regardless of corroboration), it would be obvious that that’s just wide-eyed fangirls jumping to conclusions for the sake of their own stupid brand of fun. I think it’s obvious that there’s a ‘relationship’ between Chromedome and Rewind, but it’s clearly one of trust, friendship, and codependence, with any romantic implications being something for the fujoshi to ponder.

Also, Six, it’s important to note that shipping =/= gay, and that despite there being nothing to show any of these characters as gay, there really isn’t anything to show them as straight either; they’re all functionally asexual until the story needs them to swing a particular way. Shipping covers basically every fandom in existence, and in something like Transformers, where there’re maybe less than a dozen female characters total (and precisely *one* female in this particular comic continuity), it’s inevitable that most of that shipping would encompass male/male pairs (if you’re one of those people who subscribes to the idea that TFs even *have* gender).

-BW “will freely admit that there were a couple shows he at least partially watched for the shipping” prowl

[Dominic]

Even the co-dependency is arguably a step too far.

So much of this series is "space robots acting like human sitcom characters" and "having the character interactions that people on forums want to see". It just feels so fannish that I almost expect straight up fan-fic elements like shipping to start turning up.


Dom

[BWprowl]

Even the co-dependency is arguably a step too far.

Not really. It says right in the back of every issue that Chromedome 'relies on Rewind to keep him honest'. That's a canon element of the characters, right there.

It just feels so fannish that I almost expect straight up fan-fic elements like shipping to start turning up.

I think the question here is: How would it be fannish/fan-fic if it was the author putting those elements in his own story? At what point does 'Characters having a relationship in the story' become 'shipping'? Would it really affect the story *at all* if Chromedome and Rewind identified each other as lifebond partners instead of reporting buddies? This is what I'm getting at: That romantic relationships between characters in fiction doesn't automatically constitute 'shipping' and it isn't automatically bad.