Movie II tie-in comics and novels

[Sparky Prime]

That's nothing new. The Decepticons have a tendency to fight each other even when they have stuff left to conquer. Take away the conquering part, of coarse all they have left is to fight each other. And we've seen the Autobot's in some pretty desperate situations before. Arguably even worst than this one is. Even humans banding together, or banding with the Autobots if that be the case, in times of need has been done to death...

[onslaught86]

Having just read the latest issue of Defiance, I have to say I'm considerably more impressed than I was by the last issue. Here we learn how the Movie handles Primes, and that's a better counter to Megatron's Ancient Evil In A can than it looked like we were getting. Plus, since this was the Peaceful Utopia Cybertron we..never ever see. Seriously, everything set prior to the start of the Great War in every other continuity still shows great unrest - until this, when we simply had tension. Now we have tension and EXPLOSIONS. And a really cool panel of Protoform Prime punching Protoform Starscream in the face.

Question, though. Am I the only one who's a little confused by how impractical Cybertronian gatherings are? They just gather everyone in one area and have the speaker stand a nearby rock or building as opposed to having an actual auditorium or any kind of amplification systems. For an alien culture this advanced, that's kinda silly. I'd expect them to at least have some kind of built-in megaphone. Heh, Megatron Megaphone.

[Onslaught Six]

Even my fanfiction has all the scattered Autobots huddle up in a spire in Iacon. Hrmm.

[Dominic]

That the Decepticons are crumbling from the inside out. Now that there's nothing left to conquer, what is a race of warriors going to do? 'Civil' war. It's brewing and you can almost taste it. I just hope they follow up on it.

Or maybe what the phrase Peace Through Tyranny really 'means' to Megatron, and Starscream?

Maybe seeing what the Autobots do when they are finally, truly broken? They do the same--they blame each other and tear themselves apart from the inside instead of focusing on the outer threat that they truly 'should.'

Or what about the whole underplayed subplot about how humanity bands together in the face of Armageddon? One could even argue an almost Ozymandias-esque 'Kill a million to save a billion' thread being played by the politicians, although it's obvious that they're going to get stopped--likely because Spike is going to show up and saaaave the daaaaay.

Better him than Drift.

Wow, if you posted this a year ago, AHM would have made much more sense.


As far as the Ozymandias reference goes, (and putting aside my inclination to say "no Alan Moore discussion"), the Europeans/Eurasians shown in issue 4(?) seemed to be a bit more honest than Veidt was in "Watchmen". They were pretty much saying "kill a billion or so Americans to save a billion or so of our guys". I get the feeling they would happily kill 10B of ours to save 1B of theirs.

That's nothing new. The Decepticons have a tendency to fight each other even when they have stuff left to conquer. Take away the conquering part, of coarse all they have left is to fight each other. And we've seen the Autobot's in some pretty desperate situations before. Arguably even worst than this one is. Even humans banding together, or banding with the Autobots if that be the case, in times of need has been done to death...

The "desperate" situations the Autobots have been shown in have tended to be in the vein of "OMFG this is huge epic cosmic jibber-wanktastic", with the 1986 movie being the most recognizable example. In AHM, some of the Autobots are acting more like Decepticons. Even the "good" ones are still making a poor showing. Jazz and Prowl are tying to keep things together, but they effectively make the other Autobots their adversaries by keeping secrets from them. There is plenty of sniping between Autobots, and even some battery. This makes for a more interesting read, (and requires more intellect from the writer and readers), than Unicron showing up for his weekly tantrum.

The Decepticons internal difficulties are also being presented more maturely than in previous stories, without being over-the-top gritty.

Am I the only one who's a little confused by how impractical Cybertronian gatherings are? They just gather everyone in one area and have the speaker stand a nearby rock or building as opposed to having an actual auditorium or any kind of amplification systems.

I put it down to the weired anachronism that tends to show up in soft-scifi like "Transformers", where historic elements tend to show up in otherwise advanced cultures. If you want to take it to the Nth degree, the TFs should be communicating through radio waves, sans moving parts. And, they should be much, much, much smaller.

Dom
-now to review Hotshot.

Dom
-is not seeing much of anything in "Alliance" beyond a child's play session.

[Onslaught Six]

Wow, if you posted this a year ago, AHM would have made much more sense.

A year ago, AHM wasn't out, plus, I wasn't reading it then, I was just skimming bits off what you guys were generally mumbling. "Hey, this doesn't suck horribly!"

As far as the Ozymandias reference goes, (and putting aside my inclination to say "no Alan Moore discussion"), the Europeans/Eurasians shown in issue 4(?) seemed to be a bit more honest than Veidt was in "Watchmen". They were pretty much saying "kill a billion or so Americans to save a billion or so of our guys". I get the feeling they would happily kill 10B of ours to save 1B of theirs.

Eh, the point is, it's there and it's happening. Really, what we're seeing is actually almost a parallel to Sunstreaker's ideals in that these guys are pretty much betraying their fellow humans for the Greater Good, which we're not supposed to, ideally, sympathize with. (Let's face it, even if they actually do go through with it and nuke New York, which I doubt, that isn't likely to stop the Decepticons.)

Also, the fact that the possible nuking of New York in general is considered a big deal says a lot about how different the tone of this story is as opposed to the usual THE UNIVERSE IS CRUMBLING gig.

The "desperate" situations the Autobots have been shown in have tended to be in the vein of "OMFG this is huge epic cosmic jibber-wanktastic", with the 1986 movie being the most recognizable example. In AHM, some of the Autobots are acting more like Decepticons. Even the "good" ones are still making a poor showing. Jazz and Prowl are tying to keep things together, but they effectively make the other Autobots their adversaries by keeping secrets from them. There is plenty of sniping between Autobots, and even some battery. This makes for a more interesting read, (and requires more intellect from the writer and readers), than Unicron showing up for his weekly tantrum.

Yes. Innerestingly enough, Kup is the most capable Autobot there. (I'm still kind of unhappy that Kup's insanity is just kind of 'poofed' away, but I'm willing to wait for AHM Coda to see if they come up with a good explanation--and mostly, the reason I'm unhappy with it in the first place was because Spotlight: Kup was so damn *good.*)

The Decepticons internal difficulties are also being presented more maturely than in previous stories, without being over-the-top gritty.

Reflector's bit was awesome. Purely awesome. It's bits like 'that' that make me read the book.

[BWprowl]

Reflector's bit was awesome. Purely awesome. It's bits like 'that' that make me read the book.

Indeed, I feel pretty much the same. It's like Cliffjumper's bit in Issue 4. Or Perceptor's bit in Issue 6. Christ I want a new Perceptor toy now.

Anyway, On-Topic, I just finished Defiance 3, and am becoming decidedly remorseful of the thrashing I gave the first issue. This series is turning out genuinely good, in multiple ways. For one thing, it might actually do it's job as a prequel and help me appreciate stuff in the actual movie (I'm the type that'll enjoy explaining the finer details of this version of The Fallen to my friends as we walk out of the theater). Mostly though, I'm impressed with the honest-to-god character development they're putting into Megatron on this one. His evolution from a blunt Security Commander to a brutal conquerer actually manages to feel natural, mysterious cosmic catalyst aside. Megs still seems to consider himself one of the 'good guys' here (check out his reference to the defeated Starscream and co in his speech) and they make it work so well. It helps that neither side is entirely idiotic (Optimus, Prowl, and Smokescreen all have good showings in this regard here). I'm now eagerly anticipating the final issue.

Y'know, between the awesomeness of Megatron in this series, and the awesomeness of All Hail Megatron in general, I'm ready to declare 2009 Year of the Megatron.

-BW "I had 'Arrival to Earth' playing as I typed this" prowl

[onslaught86]

I'm not too fussed with the Sealed Evil In A Can approach to Megs, really doesn't do it for me as an origin story. Felt too forced here, as he's still only acting that way due to the Fallen's influence on him. Had he just made a deal, bargained for power, it would've been more traditionally Megatron. But Prime's being chosen as a Prime balances it out.

Also note how there's no reference to them being brothers here. Weird.

[BWprowl]

I'm not too fussed with the Sealed Evil In A Can approach to Megs, really doesn't do it for me as an origin story. Felt too forced here, as he's still only acting that way due to the Fallen's influence on him. Had he just made a deal, bargained for power, it would've been more traditionally Megatron. But Prime's being chosen as a Prime balances it out.

Really? That's not how I'm seeing it all. To me, it's more like he was already "Geez, these aliens are really annoying and defending ourselves from their attacks is getting us NOWHERE!" and The Fallen is all "Well why don't you just go out and kick their asses?" and Megs is all "Oh hey, good idea!". The thing is, I can actually see his reasoning on that one, as brutal as his approach was. And from there it's a natural leap for the Fallen to tell him "That Allspark you have is SO AWESOME and everyone's gonna want it, so you need to go out and kick the asses of EVERONE who could ever be perceived as a threat to you!" and again Megatron goes "Not a bad idea.". See, it's interesting because he still sees himself as doing all this in order to protect the Allspark and Cybertron. Yeah, he's pushing it, and that's what we have Optimus and co. around to show us, but his decisions are still logical, even if they're an extreme. Only Sith deal in absolutes and so forth. Megatron definitely sees himself as the hero here, and if his influence from The Fallen wasn't preventing him from being reasoned with (that coupled with the fact that he was kind of a prick to begin with), there might actually be hope for Cybertron. As it stands, well, we already know how this turns out...

Also note how there's no reference to them being brothers here. Weird.

I caught that too, and also thought it was weird. But there's nothing so far that really contradicts the idea of them being brothers, so I can live with it if it stays that way.

[onslaught86]

Really? That's not how I'm seeing it all. To me, it's more like he was already "Geez, these aliens are really annoying and defending ourselves from their attacks is getting us NOWHERE!" and The Fallen is all "Well why don't you just go out and kick their asses?" and Megs is all "Oh hey, good idea!".

If it were actually presented like that, sure. As-is, we got a badly wounded Megatron slumping in front of the artifact, glowing red, and calling Fallen "Master". That doesn't really scream sit-down debate to me, more like stock standard corruption from an evil influence, making it less Megatron's fault and making him less of the big-bad, both of which I dislike on principle as it goes against traditional Megatron values. There wasn't any Unicron-esque bargaining here, and there 'really' should've been.

[Dominic]

To address the, (completely off topic), discussion of AHM: If McCarthy is going for some kind of thematic parallel with the Europeans and Sunstreaker (the most European of Autobots?), then the selfish motive (protection of the self) would be more likely than the humanitarian motive (sad but necessary sacrifice of others to protect still more). Selfish betrayal of one's own ideals and kind seems to be a theme, with the Autobots, the Decepticons and possibly the humans.

Still, you are right about it being refreshing to see the "mere" destruction of a city being treated as a "big deal".


Now, back to our regularly scheduled topic:

Do not look at the Fallen, (or the artifact), as being "corruption in a can". Megatron was hardly a kind and gentle soul *before* finding the "sheet-rock of doom". Unless we assume Megatron is being written as a bad parody of a Saturday morning action-hour baddie, he certainly does not believe himself to be "evil". (Even a sociopath would likely find some kind of moral grounding in a kind of extreme utilitarian philosophy of self-interest.)

The artifact is exploiting flaws and weaknesses that Megatron has/had to begin with, such as his ego and (apparent) disdain for the Autobots and their more subdued function as workers/scientists. (There are shades of the GW novel "False Gods" here, and this is hardly the first time IDW has riffed on/ripped off GW. Not sure how I feel about *this*, but that is fodder for another discussion.) Megatron's flaws are moral problems with him, and make his "fall" completely his fault.

And, as BWProwl points out, there is a progression. Megatron's initial action are a bit imperious, but not objectively "bad". (He could have been a bit more even handed with Prime and the other Autobots, but his job was security not manners.) Killing the hostile aliens was completely justified, if not morally incumbent. Even Megatron's more expansionist views are justified in context. In the first movie, Prime specifically refers to Cybertron as an empire. Assuming Transformers use the term as we would, (a reasonable assumption in soft-scifi), that means that a certain measure of expansion and seizure of other's resources was perfectly normal. (I took the line about the Cybertronian Empire being "peaceful and just" to mean that Cybertron started off as "not that bad", not unlike early Persia.)

Dom
-damn the 300 to hell.