Hey, this is like a "Dom Double-Down"!
I can crush Anderson's hopes and dreams while refuting Prowl!
And I'm honestly relieved that Prowl hasn't genuinely become a fascist thug.
Not quite.
Bombshell would have tagged Prowl in issue 4 (admittedly earlier than I remembered). Prowl was ruminating about a deal with Starscream *before* confronting and being subverted by Bombshell. (It is not clear if Arcee saw this happen.) Prowl had already advocated for, and implemented the use of control chips on Decepticons. Any hand that Prowl played in attempting to destroy the Lost Light was before he fell under Bombshell's control.
That idea that separating from the ‘herd’ of Cybertronians in the city drove Transformers to madness and conflict, as if such things were simply the default for such a war-driven race? The concept of whether there were any such thing as ‘bad guys’ in the three-way struggle between Autobots, Decepticons, and Neutrals as they struggled for what they felt was their fair share of representation?
Most of that is still there. Besides the above point about Prowl making a deal with Starscream earlier, there are other characters who tried to move beyond factionalism. Skybite, Blurr, Dirge and Swindle all tried to move on.
That Prowl actually pleads with Bumblebee, asking him why he couldn’t tell it wasn’t really him…because, god dammit Prowl, that pragmatic, do-anything, police-state-enforcing douchebag WAS you,
And, that was kind of the point. Prowl was well on his way to becoming something similar to Megatron.
"Peace through tyranny." That has been the origional Megatron's canonical motto since G2. That has been present in more than one iteration of the character since G2. In "War Within", Starscream describes Megatron's leadership style as the infliction and acceptance of pain. Shades of that are present in IDW's Megatron.
And, as seen in "Megatron: Origin" and recent issues of MTMTE, Megatron was not always the monster he is now shown to be. (Look at his reaction to his first kill in "Origins".) There was a point when Megatron could have been as great a hero as Prime. Similarly, pre-Decepticon Shockwave would not necessarily have been a hero. He was still Jhiaxus' student. Imagine Shockwave's technical skills applied with the zeal that only emotion can foster. (And, pre-war Shockwave was not necessarily stable.)
Prowl being mind-controlled only undoes *some* of what he did. As it stands now, Prowl more than set the ground-work for Megatron to return and rise to power. Prowl had the Decepticons, all of the most likely troublemakers, relagated to a ghetto. Prowl created incentive for fraud and subterfuge among a population that he was willing to use as a make-shift security force. Prowl wanted the war over on his terms, NAILS be damned. And, that was all *before* issue 4.
Right before Bombshell subverted Prowl, Prowl was ruminating about his dealings with Spike Witwicky and how that renewed and valideted his cynical outlook.
And, most importantly, it is a damned safe bet that Roberts will be making use of this over the next few issues at least.
What was Barber even trying to SHOW with these past 13 issues if it was going to end with “Prowl was never evil all along!”? What was the point in establishing his history as an almost-Neutral? Why go through the effort of illustrating his bigoted attempts to block Neutral or Decepticon authority?
Barber has blurred the faction lines with his run on the book.
Metalhawk literally has guys forget about the political climate while talking to him and rush off to cover the big bad guy break-in instead.
It actually would play out like that. The media has ADD like a child in public schools.
Gestalt technology is thrown in as the alleged driving MacGuffin of the plot, despite it having, well, nothing to do with what we’ve read up ‘til this point (What about socio-politics? Race/Faction relations? The idea of alignments as applied to these characters?). And Ironhide, the Dinobots, and Superion, having miraculously survived their brush with Megatron’s plot powers, just stand outside the city, biding their time for no real reason, until they decide it’s time to swoop in and SAAAAAAVE THE DAAAAAAY, because that sort of half-assed resolution is what we’ve been building up to all this time, right?
"Peace through tyranny."
The merge-tech is a literal manifestatio of that idea. Megatron is the state completely consuming the individual. It is the nightmare dark-side of Hobbes' "Leviathan". It is an illustration of every Marxist/Maoist nightmare scenario. Megatron rightly fought against the Functionists at the start of the war, and he has become something far worse.
And, it is strongly implied that Megatron is consistently excerting some degree of subtle control over the other Decepticons, making him a literal and symbolic leader. Think about how the Decepticons collapsed at the end of AHM.
And just for good measure, Arcee just kinda evaporates partway through, he role never explained (though it’s safe to say she was under EEEVIL MIND CONTROL as well), and Starscream off-handedly reveals that he had a 'nefarious plot’ all along involving commandeering the elections, undermining the sincere streak HE HIMSELF told us, the readers about, because apparently we couldn’t handle the idea of a well-meaning Starscream.
Arcee will likely get more explication next issue. Starscream wanted to be in charge. But, he also wanted the war to end and likely would have grown in to leadership. Starscream is cynical. But, he consistently grew as a leader.
Fuck this book, fuck Barber, fuck everything. I won’t be back for it next month.
Wow. Seriously? Reread this issue.
2 random points:
-When did Buzzsaw have a chance to "upgrade" to his "Fall of Cybertron" body? In issue 13, he was still using his old body. (Laserbeak would have needed to be rebuilt. Did something happen to Buzzsaw?)
-I recall many complaints at the AllSpark about Sunstreaker not being under mind-control in AHM. ("Bawwww, an Autobot would not turn!") Now, I am seeing complaints about the fact that Prowl's turn was partially influenced by Bombshell (despite the face that much of it was in fact Prowl).
Dom
-notes that Barber has done something great here...
