More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

[BWprowl]

Most of us didn't have access to those things, that is the only difference. Oh, and the language/societal barrier.

Oh, I didn't have 'access' to the toys or anything either, and I sure as hell can't speak Japanese or anything. All I know is Ben Yee reviewed a few Star Saber toys and talked about Star Saber, so I knew who Star Saber was. Maybe you guys avoided those reviews (since I know you were on Ben's site at the time, anyway), but it's not like the information was out of reach or on some obscure website that only I was on at the time.

[andersonh1]

Did you get Lio Convoy from Hasbro's brief stint selling exclusives direct? That's how I got him.

No, I found a cheap one on Ebay. I don't actually think a lot of the figure, the torso doesn't stay together as well as it should. But it's novel having a Japanese "Prime" from a series I've never seen.

I've never seen Headmasters or Masterforce, so you are two up on me.

I picked up the Shout Factory DVDs at Best Buy. I keep meaning to get Victory and watch it as well, though I'm probably going to have to resort to Amazon for that one. I'll get around to it one of these days. Masterforce in particular is a lot better than I expected. I'm glad the series were imported.

[Onslaught Six]

That's an interesting question, I've always assumed it's an amalgamation of the Hasbro bio cards, Sunbow cartoon, and Marvel comics since those all contradict each other at times but came out at the same time as each other and were all equally licensed content. If that's the case, it's a shitty baseline as it's wildly unclear and contradictory, so its chief benefit seems to be that it claims the rite to yell "first!".

Well, I mean...All those variations have more in common with each other than they do differences, don't they? Then-current day setting, Optimus Prime, Megatron, Autobots, Decepticons, what-have-you.

Sorry, sometimes I forget that the way I stormed through archives of information on the various Japanese G1 series back when I was a kid because I had already read up on all the other Transformers and I STILL NEEDED MORE wasn't something everyone else went through. There's also that Takara went through a phase where they kept making toys of the guy in the late 90's/early 2000's, with a PVC, an SCF, and the Robot Masters figure, so I saw those toys and reviews of them getting a decent amount of press; Star Saber just seemed kind of unavoidable for a while.

Reminds me of how a couple years back we had people who somehow weren't familiar with the Beast Wars Neo guys. I spent my middle-school computer lab downtime looking at low-res package scans of Japanese BW toys I searched for on Dogpile, what were YOU guys doing?

Fuckin' A, right? Imagine my surprise when guys like Overlord and Skyquake started popping up in comics and stuff, and people were like, "Who even are these guys?" and I'm just like, "Overlord and Skyquake and Clench, the most awesome obscure badasses ever. How aren't you already jizzing your khakis?"

[Shockwave]

Most of us didn't have access to those things, that is the only difference. Oh, and the language/societal barrier.

Oh, I didn't have 'access' to the toys or anything either, and I sure as hell can't speak Japanese or anything. All I know is Ben Yee reviewed a few Star Saber toys and talked about Star Saber, so I knew who Star Saber was. Maybe you guys avoided those reviews (since I know you were on Ben's site at the time, anyway), but it's not like the information was out of reach or on some obscure website that only I was on at the time.

Ok well you kinda got us old timers with that one. But as for what we were doing? When I was in school there were no computers. They existed, but our education with them consisted of each class getting one week of learning on the ONE computer the school had. Oh and the internet didn't exist at the time. By the time the internet was around, say around the late 90's, I was in college (which was my only internet time since we didn't have a computer at home) and I had other life responsibilities at the time (job, school, etc...) that didn't really allow for hours on end browsing for Japanese TF series that I didn't even know existed until... well until Ben's site really. And even then I never really poured through that information very thoroughly.

[andersonh1]

MTMTE 19

Needless to say, spoilers here.




I'm ambivalent about this storyline, which we're halfway through. On the one hand, yes, it's a semi-clever fan joke to take the fact that the toy of Ultra Magnus' robot mode is a bunch of armor snapped onto a white Optimus Prime and to make a story out of that concept. So the genuine original Ultra Magnus died ages ago, and ever since then we've seen a succession of bots in Ultra Magnus armor as part of a grand ruse by Chief Justice Tyrest. All those "deaths" we saw a few issues ago were genuine as the bot wearing the Magnus armor died, and some one new took his place. Dreamwave went for the "kewl" factor when they used the inner robot in their second mini-series, while IDW goes for the big reveal and the long, convoluted, previously unknown history.

Here's why it annoys me. For one thing, it's too cute by half, and for another, it retcons the entire history of Magnus as we've seen him in IDW continuity. He's not Ultra Magnus, and never has been. It's a sham and an assumed identity. Rather than being the type of retcon that adds or explains a little history, it's the "everything you know is a lie" type of retcon, which is definitely a cheat. And I feel cheated by the story. If I were to go back and read Spotlight Ultra Magnus, or Maximum Dinobots, or Costa's ongoing, I'm going to be constantly aware that it's not really Ultra Magnus on the page, when clearly that was not the intention at the time.

Some other developments are not so objectionable. Ratchet's attempts to deal with Pharma are darkly amusing, until Ambulon gets cut in half. Tailgate gets a glimmer of hope that he might be cured, and we're close to learning the mystery of Skids. And the long-standing conflict between Cyclonus and Whirl may or may not be resolved. At the very least, they get some good action and character scenes together.

And the history of Transformers life and how it came into existence and how some aspects of it were corrupted is certainly intriguing. Not to mention essential in understanding Tyrest and his motivations and intentions.

So a mixed bag of an issue, as far as I'm concerned. Not happy about the whole Ultra Magnus storyline, but the remainder of the plot continues to intrigue. There is an excessive amount of exposition this issue, but since it's pretty interesting, it's not too bad.

[BWprowl]

Here's why it annoys me. For one thing, it's too cute by half, and for another, it retcons the entire history of Magnus as we've seen him in IDW continuity. He's not Ultra Magnus, and never has been. It's a sham and an assumed identity. Rather than being the type of retcon that adds or explains a little history, it's the "everything you know is a lie" type of retcon, which is definitely a cheat. And I feel cheated by the story. If I were to go back and read Spotlight Ultra Magnus, or Maximum Dinobots, or Costa's ongoing, I'm going to be constantly aware that it's not really Ultra Magnus on the page, when clearly that was not the intention at the time.

I'm not sure I get your issue with this. Indeed, Ambus isn't the first or original Magnus or what-have-you, but in the context of the stories we read, he's been 'the' Ultra Magnus for all of the IDW TF comics we've read up until this point. It's still the same character you've been following all along, the most that's changed when you go back and read the older stories with him is that now you know his real name is 'Minimus Ambus' and that there were other Ultra Magnuses (Magnii?) before him. He's still 'Ultra Magnus' in the sense of the story and how this particular universe uses that character, you just know more backstory on how he became 'Ultra Magnus' than you did before.

I mean, Optimus Prime doesn't stop being Optimus Prime once we find out that he wasn't always Optimus Prime and had to be rebuilt into Optimus Prime from Orion Pax, does he?

[andersonh1]

Optimus Prime/Orion Pax are the same person, whatever his superstructure looks like at any given moment. "Ultra Magnus" has been a series of different people over time, as we now know, who aren't Ultra Magnus at all.

Let's put it this way, when I'm reading Regeneration One and see Ultra Magnus on the page, it's the genuine article. When I'm reading IDW now and see Ultra Magnus on the page, it's someone in disguise, playing a role. It isn't Ultra Magnus at all. We've never seen the genuine Ultra Magnus in all the time we've been reading IDW, thanks to this retcon. It's the equivalent of watching a movie and following a character and watching him change and grow, only to see him rip a rubber mask off halfway through the film and reveal that he's really someone else entirely. It changes everything.

[Sparky Prime]

I wouldn't really say Minimus Ambus is a retcon. He may not be the 'original' Ultra Magnus, but as far as the story goes, we'd never seen who was under the armor before. As far as we're concerned over the coarse of the story in this universe, he might as well have been the only Ultra Magnus as he was the only one we've actually seen.

[BWprowl]

"Ultra Magnus" has been a series of different people over time, as we now know, who aren't Ultra Magnus at all.

Let's put it this way, when I'm reading Regeneration One and see Ultra Magnus on the page, it's the genuine article. When I'm reading IDW now and see Ultra Magnus on the page, it's someone in disguise, playing a role. It isn't Ultra Magnus at all.

Well that's hardly fair. MTMTE's in a completely different continuity with completely different rules than ReG1. 'Ultra Magnus' as a role, a dude in armor acting as Tyrest's enforcer, that IS Ultra Magnus in this continuity. It's a retcon that that's what he was all this time, but there's nothing saying they can't do it that way. I mean this is the same continuity where we have stuff like Galvatron and Goldbug being separate from Megatron and Bumblebee, or Micromasters being a completely different species of robots. They're allowed to do things differently from 'stock' G1.

We've never seen the genuine Ultra Magnus in all the time we've been reading IDW, thanks to this retcon. It's the equivalent of watching a movie and following a character and watching him change and grow, only to see him rip a rubber mask off halfway through the film and reveal that he's really someone else entirely. It changes everything.

Well of course it changes everything, that's the entire point of a plot twist. Tons of entertainment has a 'reveal' about a character's 'true identity' partway through. Just off the top of my head, Star Wars Episode I did it with Padme/Queen Amidala. What's getting me here is that you're acting like the revelation that the guy is smaller and has a mustache completely invalidates his entire character somehow. Okay, we know his name is really Ambus, not Magnus, but his whole character, everything we've seen him go through and grow and do and develop and all that, it still totally 'counts'. He's still the same guy we've been following all along, we've just learned that he had a secret that wasn't revealed until now.

Again, the reveal of a 'secret identity' is not uncommon at all in fiction, especially not in comic books.

[Shockwave]

Well of course it changes everything, that's the entire point of a plot twist. Tons of entertainment has a 'reveal' about a character's 'true identity' partway through. Just off the top of my head, Star Wars Episode I did it with Padme/Queen Amidala. What's getting me here is that you're acting like the revelation that the guy is smaller and has a mustache completely invalidates his entire character somehow.

Or like when Prowl was actually Bombshell for a short time?