TF Views

Issue 30 - the art has improved, there are still times where perspective leaves reveals falling flat, but overall there isn't such panel-claustrophobia, even when the panel gets full. The story is clear (well, as clear as a Roberts story ever can be) and is funny and interesting and nuanced. The flashback had a few really enjoyable moments followed by a total cheap-out of a follow-through. I want to believe Megatron isn't full of shit, but there's simply no way to buy that anybody here would buy it to the degree they have - at best, it feels like it's trying to be a smarter version of the way the cartoon would let Megs off the hook.

When did Bluestreak turn red? That confused the hell out of me, even before I knew he wasn't part of the mission he claimed he was.

Is Cyclonus jealous of Getaway? This feels like a foundation for Getaway being a turncoat of some kind, but I hope I'm wrong and it's not that simple; I also don't want to see Three's Company play out between Cyclonus and Tailgate though.

The time twist was good enough, I enjoyed that, but poor The Lost Light, now it's lived up to its name: it's lost. And the damned story has me liking the Rodpod, what the fuuuudge???

Loved Brainstorm's early early warning system, especially the Doctor Who-esque "run for your life!" And Magnus bringing down the hammer while also playing with judicial humor? Yay! Swerve's cutesy-pie opener with a few teases outside the book though, this is already growing a touch stale for me - it's only 1 page though. As for Megatron having to read Optimus' message in exchange for his parole, I'm on the fence - it clearly defeated Megatron to the point where it actively undermines his goals stated in this same book, but Megatron may be capable of that level of compromise - it would be cunning.

All in all, giving this one a B, returning to form overall but asking too much of the audience to buy the major conceit of Megatron's limited freedom and captain role.

Prowl wrote:As I said when all this started, Roberts is writing Megatron as something other than he has been previously, as he does with most of the characters he takes on writing.

Don't pat yourself on the back just yet, this felt like enough wiggle room for it to be him in either avenue, I'd say "wait and see" before damning it so heavily.

They did, and Megatron even calls back to it in this issue: Him giving the holocube to Optimus and requesting to move the trial to Luna 2 goes back to this.

But they hadn't set up that Luna 2 had political autonomy, that's what Anderson was talking about lacking foundation. It wouldn't even make sense for Luna 2 to have that level of autonomy given the age of these laws since that was the reign of the senate and the Primes, but there is room to give them limited autonomy.

There are still some problematic points, such as Roberts's continued aversion to transformation, and his needless insistence on adding 'new' characters, both exemplified incidentally in Riptide, who appears on-panel, tells us he turns into a boat (instead of just, you know, showing him turn into a boat at some point)

Riptide isn't new to this issue. And where in this story was there room to find a place for him to turn into a boat??? When it's appropriate, there are transformations, but the only place in this issue for that would have been during the shuttle bay run.

Sparky wrote:I'd agree the outcome stretches believability given all Megatron has done, but I can't say that I think Megatron wanting to atone for his crimes came out of nowhere. Going back to Megatron Origin, he started the war in responce to corruption of the government, which Roberts since expanded upon explaining why Megatron ultimately took a violent approach in trying to change the problems he saw. And that's something Bumblebee (during the Dark Cybertron storyline) pointed out to Megatron, that he'd long ago lost sight of. I think while Megatron might see his actions with the war as ultimately to be to the benefit of Cybertronian society, he could still regret having gone to some extremes, albeit not on the Autobots terms and charges. The war had nearly cost them all everything, with Cybertron in ruins and so much of the population dead.

You make an interesting counterpoint here. This would have been a great thing to expound upon in Dark Cybertron, but that shit totally dropped the ball. That turn would have felt far more earned if he saw more results of his handiwork in the misdeeds of Shockwave, if something had held a mirror up to Megatron in Shockwave's misdeeds, but they didn't really bother. They also could have played with Megs seeing the results of the war's end, of democracy in action, but instead they played the character in pre-Dark Cybertron as the same ol' Megatron and missed the boat there. So Roberts pays a goodly amount of lip service, but it still rang a touch hollow to my ears because it lacked foundation.

JediTricks wrote:Don't pat yourself on the back just yet, this felt like enough wiggle room for it to be him in either avenue, I'd say "wait and see" before damning it so heavily.

Fair point, but like you, I really *want* to believe Megatron's turn is genuine. Admittedly, I'm still smarting from Barber pulling the horseshit he did with Starscream's similar turn over in RID, but I like to think Roberts is a better writer than that guy.

At any rate, Megatron's 'personality' definitely comes off different here than in previous series, which is mainly what I'd been referring to. He certainly isn't being written the same as the Megatron from, say, 'Revenge of the Decepticons'.

Riptide isn't new to this issue. And where in this story was there room to find a place for him to turn into a boat??? When it's appropriate, there are transformations, but the only place in this issue for that would have been during the shuttle bay run.

I know, my comments were referring to this three-issue arc so far, specifically Riptide showing up for like a page in the first one, going "My name is Riptide I turn into a boat!" then promptly doing absolutely nothing. Who the fuck is this guy, why does he need to be here, why does this new-character-not-a-G1-toy-boatformer need to be here instead of some *actual* Transformers character that Roberts could easily just overwrite with whatever personality he's giving Riptide? I'm just genuinely confused at the point of going through all the hoo-hah of adding NEW character with NEW name with an UNCOMMON alt-mode, then having that character do absolutely nothing and not even showing off his oh-so-special altmode. Just cut him, that page-space could have been used to more flesh out characters or elements that were actually relevant to the story, and Roberts has plenty of his fan-characters in this thing already.

It's called setup! If Riptide does nothing in the future, then fine, but give it an issue or two.

BWprowl wrote:Fair point, but like you, I really *want* to believe Megatron's turn is genuine. Admittedly, I'm still smarting from Barber pulling the horseshit he did with Starscream's similar turn over in RID, but I like to think Roberts is a better writer than that guy.

I'm still not entirely sure Starscream's "turn" is dishonest, it seems in character for him but with convenient highs and lows depending on the story - sometimes he's excellent at playing politics to the point that he even believes what he's saying, others he's just Sunbow Starscream with power.

At any rate, Megatron's 'personality' definitely comes off different here than in previous series, which is mainly what I'd been referring to. He certainly isn't being written the same as the Megatron from, say, 'Revenge of the Decepticons'.

There will always be specifics that are different from writer to writer, but I'm not familiar with Costa's version of Megatron enough to agree or disagree, so you may have to explain.

Megatron was partly defined on a sliding scale from the cartoon, one week he's honorable, the next he's a buffoon, the next he has bloodlust, and that's a big part of what has resonated in pop culture to define the character, so I tend to look at IDW Megatron as the character from Chaos Theory who got wrapped up in his cause so heavily it caused him to amplify the worst elements of rage, and once you take away that rage, there's a character underneath that feels fairly in line with the guy we have in MTMTE.

I know, my comments were referring to this three-issue arc so far, specifically Riptide showing up for like a page in the first one, going "My name is Riptide I turn into a boat!" then promptly doing absolutely nothing. Who the fuck is this guy, why does he need to be here, why does this new-character-not-a-G1-toy-boatformer need to be here instead of some *actual* Transformers character that Roberts could easily just overwrite with whatever personality he's giving Riptide? I'm just genuinely confused at the point of going through all the hoo-hah of adding NEW character with NEW name with an UNCOMMON alt-mode, then having that character do absolutely nothing and not even showing off his oh-so-special altmode. Just cut him, that page-space could have been used to more flesh out characters or elements that were actually relevant to the story, and Roberts has plenty of his fan-characters in this thing already.

Man, you really think about "what could have been" a lot! Between this and the Generations figures, there's a lot of teeth-gnashing over the infinite possibilities of choices you think they could have done better. I haven't seen Roberts do this for no reason so far, there generally is justification one way or another - a character he can't use a certain way or is already in use in other ways.

And this is also a good way to build up the brand. You're the same guy who is constantly complaining that Hasbro just keeps recycling the same G1 characters over and over again in media and toys, so it seems a little hypocritical to complain about worldbuilding while also complaining about not enough worldbuilding.

O6 wrote:It's called setup! If Riptide does nothing in the future, then fine, but give it an issue or two.

With Roberts, more like "or eight"

JediTricks wrote: I'm still not entirely sure Starscream's "turn" is dishonest, it seems in character for him but with convenient highs and lows depending on the story - sometimes he's excellent at playing politics to the point that he even believes what he's saying, others he's just Sunbow Starscream with power.

That was part of the problem though. At first he was written to be showing signs of a (really interesting) turn to legitimacy, but then he abruptly switched to telling everyone he had a Nefarious Plot to betray everyone. Of course, that whole ending of that arc was just Barber progressively taking a colossal dump on my expectations, so.

There will always be specifics that are different from writer to writer, but I'm not familiar with Costa's version of Megatron enough to agree or disagree, so you may have to explain.

Megatron’s big *thing* in that arc was his inability to change, aside from amassing power for himself and causing progressively more destruction as a way to cover for how ineffectual his efforts on Earth had wound up in spite of everything. Nothing bad that happened was his fault, he laid blame on Starscream, on the Humans, and sought to take ‘revenge’ as a way to cover for that; he was an in-denial failure throwing a global, murderous tantrum to vicariously make up for his failings. This more humbled, amicable Megatron in MTMTE, who doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge that he’s wronged others and let his philosophy get away from him, is rather the opposite of that. As you already mentioned, it is quite in-line with the also-Roberts-written ‘Chaos Theory’, and there’s nothing *wrong* with that, part of what makes western comics work is different writers getting to exercise their different styles and ideas on the available characters and settings, but it’s still worth noting that Megatron in Roberts’s hands will definitively be a ‘different character’ from him in Costa’s, and some leeway should be allowed for that, rather than complaining that Megatron and how others react to him is being mischaracterized or inconsistent from what the previous guys wrote.

Man, you really think about "what could have been" a lot! Between this and the Generations figures, there's a lot of teeth-gnashing over the infinite possibilities of choices you think they could have done better. I haven't seen Roberts do this for no reason so far, there generally is justification one way or another - a character he can't use a certain way or is already in use in other ways.

Isn’t that the point of an opinion? “This sucks, here’s how it could have been done so it doesn’t suck”. I will admit right now that Roberts blew me the fuck away with Fulcrum, introducing him and setting him up and using the fact that we *didn’t* know him or what he turned into to great effect. And while I will admit that he might have a similar plan in mind for Riptide, it still comes off as very frustrating as-is, to just drop this guy in front of us, with an interesting design and enticingly unique altmode, and then do nothing with him. If he plans to use Riptide for something later that only Riptide can be used for, that’s fine, but bring him in in THAT story arc, rather than wasting page-space in a completely different story arc telling me he exists and is cool and then showing none of that.

And this is also a good way to build up the brand. You're the same guy who is constantly complaining that Hasbro just keeps recycling the same G1 characters over and over again in media and toys, so it seems a little hypocritical to complain about worldbuilding while also complaining about not enough worldbuilding.

Part of it is, even though we did disprove this a while back, me being hung up on the concept that these are supposed to be ‘G1 comics’, so Roberts should be pulling from the established pool of Transformers Who Already Exist to fill out his cast. But even with that rendered irrelevant, going in the other direction, it’s INCREDIBLY frustrating for Roberts to go ahead and introduce this guy, who is a new character, who looks different, who has a unique alt-mode, which is indeed, something I really like to see, then do absolutely nothing with him and go back to writing Swerve and Rodimus. I’m not going to be impressed by Roberts simply scribbling down new names and altmodes on a cast list, he’s been doing that since day one with stuff like the Duobots. He has to actually have them DO something new and cool before I can acknowledge that they are, in fact, cool and new. Show, don’t tell.

Also, in terms of the story itself, I am a BIG believer in conservation of detail: If something isn’t relevant to the story at hand, then don’t waste my time telling me about it. I actually abhor most ‘world-building’ for this reason.

O6 wrote:It's called setup! If Riptide does nothing in the future, then fine, but give it an issue or two.

With Roberts, more like "or eight"

Indeed, it actually has been 2-3 issues since Riptide popped up and told us what a boat he turned into. He either needs to get around to bein’ a boat, or get chucked out an airlock.

BWprowl wrote:That was part of the problem though. At first he was written to be showing signs of a (really interesting) turn to legitimacy, but then he abruptly switched to telling everyone he had a Nefarious Plot to betray everyone. Of course, that whole ending of that arc was just Barber progressively taking a colossal dump on my expectations, so.

He has turned to legitimacy though, he isn't sitting on a throne demanding tribute, he's having to do work and learn as he goes how politics really work. So I think it's holding up as a whole, but individual moments are all over the map. It would be unrealistic for him to automatically become a good guy just because he thinks he's doing the right thing, the question now is whether he thinks he's doing the right thing for the people or he's just feeding his ego - Windblade has kept it towards the former for me. Betraying Metalhawk wasn't so far out of character, he's like Frank Underwood on House of Cards in that way, he is an awful person who thinks he's making compromises for the common good, and he's deluded himself into believing that his ego isn't in the way of the common good which allows him to do dastardly things like murders and cover-ups in the name of the people.

There will always be specifics that are different from writer to writer, but I'm not familiar with Costa's version of Megatron enough to agree or disagree, so you may have to explain.

Megatron’s big *thing* in that arc was his inability to change, aside from amassing power for himself and causing progressively more destruction as a way to cover for how ineffectual his efforts on Earth had wound up in spite of everything. Nothing bad that happened was his fault, he laid blame on Starscream, on the Humans, and sought to take ‘revenge’ as a way to cover for that; he was an in-denial failure throwing a global, murderous tantrum to vicariously make up for his failings. This more humbled, amicable Megatron in MTMTE, who doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge that he’s wronged others and let his philosophy get away from him, is rather the opposite of that. As you already mentioned, it is quite in-line with the also-Roberts-written ‘Chaos Theory’, and there’s nothing *wrong* with that, part of what makes western comics work is different writers getting to exercise their different styles and ideas on the available characters and settings, but it’s still worth noting that Megatron in Roberts’s hands will definitively be a ‘different character’ from him in Costa’s, and some leeway should be allowed for that, rather than complaining that Megatron and how others react to him is being mischaracterized or inconsistent from what the previous guys wrote.

Thanks for explaining. I'm a little surprised though, Megatron's thing under Costa was just that he can't change, he can't recognize bad choices and has no insight? That's not a very good character, it's believable for a character and even one that's essentially the head of a terrorist organization like the Decepticons, but it seems very Sunbow-appropriate but in a deeper medium very downward-spiral into significant failure. I just don't see someone who succeeded in this role for 4 million years be so myopic.

Man, you really think about "what could have been" a lot! Between this and the Generations figures, there's a lot of teeth-gnashing over the infinite possibilities of choices you think they could have done better. I haven't seen Roberts do this for no reason so far, there generally is justification one way or another - a character he can't use a certain way or is already in use in other ways.

Isn’t that the point of an opinion? “This sucks, here’s how it could have been done so it doesn’t suck”. I will admit right now that Roberts blew me the fuck away with Fulcrum, introducing him and setting him up and using the fact that we *didn’t* know him or what he turned into to great effect. And while I will admit that he might have a similar plan in mind for Riptide, it still comes off as very frustrating as-is, to just drop this guy in front of us, with an interesting design and enticingly unique altmode, and then do nothing with him. If he plans to use Riptide for something later that only Riptide can be used for, that’s fine, but bring him in in THAT story arc, rather than wasting page-space in a completely different story arc telling me he exists and is cool and then showing none of that.

I dunno, not every opinion is automatically equal. I didn't like TF:Animated at all when I watched the first few episodes, but when I gave the series another chance down the road it became one of my favorite animated shows. "I think this sucks, here's how I would have done it" is a limited-use and even more limited-appeal tool in the drawer, when you get angry because that shapes your opinion simply because it seems like they're going a different way, it only is getting in the way of using it for constructive criticism. There are hundreds of characters on this ship we haven't met yet, Roberts is a professional writer, he has shown competence even in your own eyes with similar situation, considering that you aren't offering to create your own competing material, why get so obsessed with every little thing to the point where it actively causes you to get upset with it later? It seems like you are fighting the reality of what you get against the fantasy of anything and everything you could want, rather than tempering one with the other.

BTW, Roberts had Riptide in the first issue of this season, he wasn't dropped in here, he was part of Swerve's prank on the new Cybertronians joining the crew, Groove recognized him as part of the Hydrobots which were mentioned when the Lost Light fought the Ammonites underwater in Dark Cybertron, and in this issue here he is taking part of Swerve's circle again. This is the definition of worldbuilding, they built him up as being part of Swerve's universe slowly, he's a tertiary character there to support Swerve's story at this point, and there's no reason they shouldn't have used him.

Part of it is, even though we did disprove this a while back, me being hung up on the concept that these are supposed to be ‘G1 comics’, so Roberts should be pulling from the established pool of Transformers Who Already Exist to fill out his cast. But even with that rendered irrelevant, going in the other direction, it’s INCREDIBLY frustrating for Roberts to go ahead and introduce this guy, who is a new character, who looks different, who has a unique alt-mode, which is indeed, something I really like to see, then do absolutely nothing with him and go back to writing Swerve and Rodimus. I’m not going to be impressed by Roberts simply scribbling down new names and altmodes on a cast list, he’s been doing that since day one with stuff like the Duobots. He has to actually have them DO something new and cool before I can acknowledge that they are, in fact, cool and new. Show, don’t tell.

Also, in terms of the story itself, I am a BIG believer in conservation of detail: If something isn’t relevant to the story at hand, then don’t waste my time telling me about it. I actually abhor most ‘world-building’ for this reason.

You are all over the map. Don't do the same G1 stuff, make sure to use G1 stuff. I want new stories, don't worldbuild. I want good comics, I want to make sure the new character gets a big spotlight event like every dumbass comics character intro.

Riptide is shown doing exactly what he should be doing right now, bolstering Swerve's story and being part of the crew. NOTHING ELSE IS HAPPENING THAT WARRANTS HIS USE. Either the character can totally disappear from the book until he is needed, which will feel like a ripoff, or he can inhabit the world in little ways and slowly build without interfering.

O6 wrote:It's called setup! If Riptide does nothing in the future, then fine, but give it an issue or two.

With Roberts, more like "or eight"

Indeed, it actually has been 2-3 issues since Riptide popped up and told us what a boat he turned into. He either needs to get around to bein’ a boat, or get chucked out an airlock.

I'm pretty sure he never said he was a boat, I just went through all 3 of the issues where the Hydrobots and/or Riptide are mentioned and found nothing of the sort - he is a submarine/boat thing, since Milne released a sketch of what his alt mode would be via Twitter, but I couldn't find anywhere where he said anything about himself at all. The closest was that Ultra Magnus and Groove each mentioned that the Hydrobots are underwater bots, but that's all that was said. So you are fighting your expectations, you are excited and filling in the gaps, then mad that the book isn't meeting those expectations.

BWprowl wrote:Megatron’s big *thing* in that arc was his inability to change, aside from amassing power for himself and causing progressively more destruction as a way to cover for how ineffectual his efforts on Earth had wound up in spite of everything.

The way I remember that storyline playing out was commenting on how slow the Transformers as a race are to change, not so much an inability for any particular character to change. Like how in one of those issues Optimus makes a point about the weapons they use, that he's been using the same ion blaster for a millennium while he's impressed with the new rail-gun Megatron is using in his new form. Then he compares that to how much the humans have advanced their technology and tactics in just 3 years.

Sparky Prime wrote:

BWprowl wrote:Megatron’s big *thing* in that arc was his inability to change, aside from amassing power for himself and causing progressively more destruction as a way to cover for how ineffectual his efforts on Earth had wound up in spite of everything.

The way I remember that storyline playing out was commenting on how slow the Transformers as a race are to change, not so much an inability for any particular character to change. Like how in one of those issues Optimus makes a point about the weapons they use, that he's been using the same ion blaster for a millennium while he's impressed with the new rail-gun Megatron is using in his new form. Then he compares that to how much the humans have advanced their technology and tactics in just 3 years.

That would come with a nigh-unlimited lifespan, I suppose. Living only a short, vulnerable time definitely seems to drive innovation and change.

Sparky Prime wrote:The way I remember that storyline playing out was commenting on how slow the Transformers as a race are to change, not so much an inability for any particular character to change. Like how in one of those issues Optimus makes a point about the weapons they use, that he's been using the same ion blaster for a millennium while he's impressed with the new rail-gun Megatron is using in his new form. Then he compares that to how much the humans have advanced their technology and tactics in just 3 years.

That's what I remember as well, the contrast between the Transformers as a whole versus humanity when it comes to change and adaptation. I wondered if it wasn't an attempt to explain just why their war had gone on for so long.

MTMTE #31
This was a dull issue. Literally 90% of the issue is Lost Light crew members standing around talking while some of them disappear one by one. I was expecting more to happen after the ship disappeared last issue, but nothing remotely interesting or exciting occurs. You'd think the crew would be a little more frantic or worked up as they vanish, but no.... they let Nightbeat hold class and get caught in a Mexican standoff that's easily defused. Nothing that needed an entire issue to depict anyway. And the story of how the Lost Light was acquired, which I'm sure will tie into the disappearances (ship disappears, original crew disappear), was a poor attempt at humor, like so much of what passes for humor in this book. The schtick has gotten old.

Oh, Ravage gets found out. So that's one potentially significant event at least.

So, yeah, didn't care for this issue at all. I'm really curious to see what the rest of you thought of it.