SPOILERS obviously
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After being super busy last week, I finally got caught up on the annual and then read issue 12 a couple nights ago and 13-16 last night. I think everything from Syndromica pt 2 on has been a significant downturn for this series, ideas have gotten narrower and resolutions have gotten more traditional, the annual being the breath-holding moment. That said, from issue 12 onto issue 16 was an exciting roller-coaster at least, even if it was dependent on a ton of gimmicks. Issues 12 - 16 were also really quick reads compared to the first issues. I'm glad there are more mysteries and problems to solve in the RID storyline, such as more Syndromica (not that I love that storyline, it's just that it needs closure still) and the timeship and Shockwave, and Cybertron's new state of being, because had this been the closing of the storyline entirely it would have been unsatisfying. But Starscream is the conqueror who will unite Cybertron... he just doesn't realize that it'll be united AGAINST HIM. I almost feel bad for Starscream, he had signs of change, his ideas had changed enough to make a big deal out of going against his faction, but he couldn't break away from his need to own the planet.
I kind of have a problem with Starscream as leader, unlike what his crown says this isn't a dictatorship, he has no friends right now, no allies, he was elected by the NAILS but elected officials can always be impeached, voted out. Can Starscream actually LEAD Iacon/Cybertron without getting swept out of office? Can he pull out of his own selfish needs to realize that leading requires at least looking like he's trying to solve the problems of the people? What does leadership even mean to Starscream? There's nobody loyal to him so he has no enforces, he cannot rule by the fist. He talks a big game, but we've not seen a lot of delivery on his part of what he'd do once he had it. Casting out factions and those who cling to them was a good step though.
andersonh1 wrote:RID #16
MAJOR SPOILERS... so I'll put tags. JT, don't read if you don't want anything revealed ahead of time.
Thanks, I appreciate the thought, though I bowed out because I knew I'd screw it up.
I'm not quite sure where to begin a review. This issue has a lot going on, and it ties up a ton of plotlines going back to the early issues of RID. Several characters are killed, and while a couple of Decepticons show signs of being happy that the war is over, a few others...
Not thrilled with the deaths, did like the 'cons who chose a different path though.
The crown from the animated movie is one fan nod too far, but it does illustrate just who's in charge quite nicely.
The crown appeared previously in issue 11 along with a few other crowns, including one that looked like a Gundam crest (and he had a model of his earth jet mode on the table, MP-3 anyone?), I don't think it was a fan-nod too far, it symbolizes his true goal.
Dom wrote:I do not think that Starscream is in for the killing so much as he is in for the power.
He says as much, he's not killing Metalhawk for killing, it's merely an expedient way for Starscream to gain a significant PR victory over his political foes.
Anderson wrote:I'll remember that the next time I'm competing with a coworker for the latest promotion. I'm sure murdering him will be seen as harsh, but acceptable, right? Good grief.
It's easier when nobody sees and can't tie you to it, and then you are likely to make the rules about who will investigate the action.
Shocky wrote:I'm gonna call it now: The Lost Light will come back to Cybertron.
More likely, the Lost Light will get signal back to Cybertron, but Starscream will hush that up.
BWP wrote:I guess I'll keep extending the same courtesy you guys are for JT, but here's something that doesn't need to be spoilered: This comic blows.
Wow, ouch. I can see how you'd get turned off though, the Dinobots and Ironhide and Superion just magically break out of the Wildland mind control that Megatron put in place using Bombshell's new nano-machinas or whatever, Prowl breaks through the Devastator mind control, Starscream backslides into less nuanced territory, Arcee is a triple-agent, Megatron is in full boring supervillain mode, there's a lot of cheap moves here.
So Ironhide's big game-changer is to just talk Prowl back into being a good guy! Because Prowl's totally a good guy on the inside, right? He's noble, and fair, and selfless, and-yeah, what the hell ever, it works, Prowl pops out of Devastator, exchanges a couple of corny one-liners with Ironhide, and goes on to just arresting dudes in the background and having fuck-all to do with the rest of the issue. Wow, he was really put through the wringer. I can tell all he's been through has had a profound impact on his character and personality. He's clearly been shaken to the core and Barber wants this to be visible as a major element of the story.
I think the narration from the earlier issue suggests that his mind is clearing on the issue of shades of gray vs black and white, that he's LESS shaken to his core than he was between Spike's betrayal and RID issue 4 when he got brainjacked.
Seriously though, then Megatron tries to finish his experiment or whatever by combining with Devastator himself, but gets stopped by a lame deus ex machina that was planted a few issues earlier by Wheeljack. And I know it seems really cute and well-foreshadowed and planned, but then that also makes it just collapse in on itself: If all Wheeljack had to do to stop Megatron was say his own name three times, why the shit didn't he just do that before ShrapnelProwl shot him in the head? Dumbass.
Actually, Wheeljack's move made a lot more sense, had he started to say the code he would have been shot in the head before completing it and nobody would have known what was going on. It was a deus ex machina for sure, but it wasn't as clumsy as you make it seem. Plus he needed to make sure as many Autobots were there as possible to take on the Decepticons before putting humpty dumpty back together YET AGAIN.
Not as much of a dumbass as Metalhawk though, who gets killed because he apparently completely missed Starscream confessing that he was a schemer who was going to backstab everyone two issues ago! If you're going to ignore something that blatant, then you deserve to get shot through the chest. So yeah, we're apparently just supposed to close our eyes and forget that SincereScream from the early issues was ever a thing, he's always been a scheming bad guy, just the way we like him, right? Characters evolving and developing isn't something we want in our Transformers fiction, oh no! Oh sure, a couple guys break factional rank, like the expected Dirge and Swindle who show up to rally against the Decepticon uprising (which continues to boil the question of "If Barber wanted them to be around to do that stuff, why the hell did he make a big thing of getting them out of the scene so they wouldn't be around for the big initial confrontation in issue 14? Why the fuck was that THERE?!), so I dunno, maybe they'll get to stay in the city with Starscream and his new population of robo-hobos. There will be no more actually-interesting talk of elections and socio-politics, Starscream crowns himself king because, I dunno, he wants to, I guess, and everyone else gets kicked out. But that's okay, because thanks to Megatron's stupid plan being behind everything, it's been established that there are really NO negative consequences at all to being out in the wilderness! So who even cares?
Metalhawk was looking for the best in his friend, ignoring the worst, and it cost him. I agree that character growth had a big backslide in the last issues, but some of Metalhawk's death is on intentionally overlooking what makes someone become a high-ranking Decepticon in the first place.
Look, if Barber had wanted to end this story arc with Starscream as leader of Cybertron or whatever, there were a zillion more interesting ways to do it than to waste our time with infuriating fake character development for Prowl for ten issues, followed by a couple issues of Megatron coming back and doing generic evil plan stuff until a deus ex machina stuck him back in the same damn place he was when he first came back.
I surely can't argue with that.
Anderson wrote:I will say this though: Wheeljack was pretty stupid not to tell Bumblebee well ahead of time what he had done, rather than wait until it was a life and death situation. He clearly installed the failsafe when the badly wounded Megatron was imprisoned before the riots, so it's been in place for some time. Wheeljack probably never dreamed he'd be led into a trap by Prowl, and figured if anything happened he could let Bumblebee know what was up if Megatron tried anything, but it just goes to show what happens when you assume there will always be plenty of time.
I disagree, Wheeljack knew that Bumblebee needed plausible deniability at that point, if he had known about the failsafe he surely would have let it pull him into a moral quandary that would have undermined his government and himself. Of course, how none of the Decepticons noticed the generator around the spark chamber when they helped Megs change bodies, that's a horse of a different color, that was dumb shit.
There's something to be said for writing characters IN CHARACTER. Starscream has never been honest or sincere a day in his life, and you expect him to turn on a dime and do the right thing? Really? If he had passed up the chance for power and responded to Metalhawk's sincere gesture, it would have felt totally false. It simply would not have been true to the character. Starscream is an individual who is quite probably beyond redemption at this point.
I see where BWP is coming from, Starscream had to do some growing and adapting to avoid making the same pitfalls as other Decepticons had been making in Bumblebee's new Cybertron at that point, and then it crumbles when somehow he spies an excellent strategic opportunity that was a huge gamble and a hail-mary since Starscream had burned all his bridges at that point. Basically it's asking Starscream to have growth, be a better liar than he normally is, and be smarter and more strategic politically than he normally is. I mean, the guy has been screwing it up for millions of years, if he hadn't learned and adapted from that, why should this have worked any better? That's why I think he had to have grown.
BWP wrote:Characters aren't static, they can grow and change...under writers who aren't Barber.
This is true, there's a lot of status quo'ing taking place in the last couple issues, badguys becoming badguys, goodguys reverting to being pure goodguys, retired coming back to active duty, big battles between factions, giant master plans, the wildlands returning to being a normal place, etc..
Anderson wrote: 7- What's up with fort max,what's he been up 2 for the past 2 years+ in MTMTE & RID? Does he have any solid position or rank that makes him impoortant or is he just a drifter with no rank/crew now?
All detailed in RID.
You mean MTMTE, right?
BWP wrote:Anyway, his new body wasn't destroyed already, Megatron just got trapped in a deus ex machina containment field that Wheeljack invented. Presumably Starscream's taking him back to keep him in captivity/confinement or something so he can't screw up his rule again.
I thought his body was destroyed, ripped apart when his Spark Chamber had a forcefield blast all those parts away from it.
O6 wrote:Metalhawk is, essentially, Tailgate from MTMTE. He doesn't know (or care?) about the differences between the factions, because in his eyes they're all just Transformers, and they all deserve a shot.
I dunno about that, Tailgate is building a real friendship with Cyclonus in MTMTE, I think a strong enough friendship shouldn't keep its eyes closed to that level of treachery. Once Tailgate had his eyes opened to Decepticon evil thanks to a history lesson from professor Magnus (NOBODY GETS AN "A" IN THIS CLASS EVER, NOW START TAKING NOTES BEFORE YOU FLATLINE THE GRADING CURVE) fairly early on, Tailgate is aware of the score. Metalhawk remains focused on Starscream and willfully ignorant of Starscream's nature, it's like Metalhawk's singular outlook - that Nails can coexist on new Cybertron - overwhelms his ability to see individuals for who they are.
Mako wrote:Is anyone else tired of seeing Maccadam's Old Oil House? Don't they have anywhere else to go to relax and do leisurely things? (says the guy who hasn't read a single issue). This is in response to seeing Jazz and SkyByte on-stage doing a poetry reading at Maccadam's.
I'm not bothered by Maccadam's Oil House, I like the characters that existed there and it served to frame Blurr, Jazz, and Sky-Byte effectively as well as distancing daily life from being only what we see from Bumblebee and Starscream; but it wouldn't hurt to give it a counterpoint, to see a place where different folks hang out. The fact that Swerve is so obsessed with Maccadam's in MTMTE suggests it's a pretty big deal on Cybertron, and also Blurr and Swerve's dialog in each comic run suggests there aren't that many gathering places since the war broke out.
. I'm also curious to see what they do with Megatron. I did like how Barber illustrated that two people fighting on the same side can essentially be fighting different wars. Metalhawk was saving Starscream while Bumblebee wanted to kill Megatron. Two totally different goals with the same means to their end. I dunno, I do see some stuff going on in this series but not as much as MTMTE but I'll wait and see if there's a similar level of pay off.
