The modern comics universe has had such a different take on G1, one that's significantly represented by the Generations toys, so they share a forum. A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero. Currently starring Generations toys, IDW "The Transformers" comics, MTMTE, TF vs GI Joe, and Windblade. Oh wait, and now Skybound, wheee!
Sparky Prime wrote:I'm sure Perceptor *knows* a wide range of Autobots
Giggity.
Sparky Prime wrote:trying to change the plot halfway for no apparent reason. It just doesn't work.
Ever see from Dusk Till Dawn (the first one)? It totally works. Starts off as a heist movie and then BAM!! Half way through, vampire flick! Out of nowhere! Honestly, I didn't see it coming! Freakin' awesome!
Sparky Prime wrote:The only thing I see is Perceptor wanting to be a sniper simply because he feels like he owes it for Kup's team saving his life, but that doesn't explain the change in personality. While it appears he didn't like that Prowl made him put some programs into Kup, I don't see anything to indicate he was that disheartened by it at all. He certainly wasn't disheartened with it enough to stop keeping track of Kup afterwords still as a scientist, at least until he was hurt in the field. Even so, in AHM 15, that isn't the 'cold scary sniper' Perceptor that we see in the rest of AHM. No, the drastic character changes made to Perceptor's personality are still left unexplained.
The explanation is simple. Perceptor has gone from a rather cheerful bot who explored science and helped others to a sniper. In other words, someone who shoots and kills from long range. The nature of the new profession he's chosen has certainly affected his demeanor in a negative way. How could it not?
Yesterday Perceptor was doing research, today he shot some Decepticon through the head. Yeah, he's going to be a lot grimmer than he used to be.
Seriously, that "wish we had the old Perceptor back" thing was a such a one-off, throw-away line that it didn't even really need to be in there. If they hadn't put it in, then we wouldn't be in the middle of this big, stupid argument.
It was not just a throw-away line. it kind of illustrated the reason Perceptor could not help....he was different at that point.
Real reason Perceptor could not help: A big thing in AHM is that the war changed a bunch of guys, including Perceptor.
In story reason: Perceptor took a round to the chest and go shot up real good. Whatever repairs were done reduced his usefulness in the lab/medical bay. Ratchet's dialogue makes clear that Perceptor has changed. He even says it is a change for the worse, when he says they do not need more "clowns with guns". (Getting back to the real reason, the changes are not always good.)
Why is that so hard to grasp? Do we really need a "secret of Perceptor's changes" story? They show him get shot real good, and are assuming the readers, (thats us), can figure it out.
No, Perceptor is well known for being a scientist character despite becoming a sniper. Even if that line wasn't there, you'd have people wondering why he wasn't helping Ratchet and Wheeljack with Optimus.
To be fair, Sparky is right that not having the line would leave the question unanswered. But, the line itself is explanation enough.
andersonh1 wrote:The explanation is simple. Perceptor has gone from a rather cheerful bot who explored science and helped others to a sniper. In other words, someone who shoots and kills from long range. The nature of the new profession he's chosen has certainly affected his demeanor in a negative way. How could it not?
Yesterday Perceptor was doing research, today he shot some Decepticon through the head. Yeah, he's going to be a lot grimmer than he used to be.
Many Autobots used to do X and now are soldiers. I don't see that all of them have lost their cheerfulness, despite many of them fighting even longer than Perceptor has been a sniper. Really, Perceptor hasn't even been a sniper for a year, and he's changed that much already? I just don't buy it.
Dominic wrote:But, the line itself is explanation enough.
I especially don't buy that. It doesn't explain anything like it should.
andersonh1 wrote:The explanation is simple. Perceptor has gone from a rather cheerful bot who explored science and helped others to a sniper. In other words, someone who shoots and kills from long range. The nature of the new profession he's chosen has certainly affected his demeanor in a negative way. How could it not?
Yesterday Perceptor was doing research, today he shot some Decepticon through the head. Yeah, he's going to be a lot grimmer than he used to be.
Many Autobots used to do X and now are soldiers. I don't see that all of them have lost their cheerfulness, despite many of them fighting even longer than Perceptor has been a sniper. Really, Perceptor hasn't even been a sniper for a year, and he's changed that much already? I just don't buy it.
You're just not going to accept that war and a near-death experience can change someone, are you? I don't have a problem with that as the explanation. Sunstreaker's pretty screwed up after being captured by the Machination, tortured, decapitated, and used as a template to form an army to attack his fellow Autobots... should he still be acting as he did in Infiltration? Should he be the same person he was before? Certainly not. Perceptor nearly got killed. He shouldn't be the same either.
Nor do I have a problem believing that not everyone adjusts to the violence that goes along with war in the same way. So most of the Autobots can function well living the life of a soldier... it doesn't follow that Perceptor as an individual is able to do the same. Not everyone reacts to violence in the same way. We've rarely ever seen what any of the other Autobots were like before the war began, so I don't think we can take it for granted that they've just adjusted and are otherwise exactly who they were before. Many of them may be as screwed up as Perceptor is now.
andersonh1 wrote:Nor do I have a problem believing that not everyone adjusts to the violence that goes along with war in the same way. So most of the Autobots can function well living the life of a soldier... it doesn't follow that Perceptor as an individual is able to do the same. Not everyone reacts to violence in the same way. We've rarely ever seen what any of the other Autobots were like before the war began, so I don't think we can take it for granted that they've just adjusted and are otherwise exactly who they were before. Many of them may be as screwed up as Perceptor is now.
Wasn't that pretty much the original bio for Bluestreak? He owned a shop or something before the war, saw his whole city destroyed and made it his mission to destroy every Decepticon possible (I'm paraphrasing. A lot.) So even back in G1 there was precedent for characters not being what they were before.
There were a good number of TFs whose bios and back-stories involved a 'before the war, this guy was...." type line. Sometimes, the changes were actually for the better of the character.
But, in all of those cases, the characters were introduced post-change. in this case, the character is being changed after being introduced, which apparently means the explanation for the change has to be more tediously detailed.
Most of you read these issues months ago, but here's my two cents.
All Hail Megatron
Volume 1 trade paperback, originally issues 1-6
“All Hail Megatron” begins with a simple premise, as detailed in the forward by author Shane McCarthy. The Decepticons have finally won the war. There’s no one to stop them from running rampant throughout the galaxy and doing whatever they want. It’s like the old cartoon episode “Megatron’s Master Plan” part 2, only without the sanitized nature of the old cartoon that made sure that no one died and nothing was permanently destroyed. AHM contains plenty of destruction and death, though a lot of it still happens off panel or is implied rather than shown, so it’s no R-rated bloodbath.
The story remains in continuity with Simon Furman’s earlier storylines, and yet it consciously goes back to long-standing character groupings and reverts many characters to their original G1 designs. It’s a “back to basics” appeal to nostalgia, apparently in an attempt to halt the downward slope of comic sales throughout the “-ation” series of stories. The Transformers alter appearance and alternate mode often enough that the change is not implausible, but it is certainly jarring to have read three years of comics that were trying to bring Transformers into the present day, only to go all the way back to the 80s with many of the designs. A few characters retain their IDW designs, and a few adopt the Classics/Universe designs, so it’s not all retro. But it’s clear that the overall approach came from a mindset that believed that IDW’s problems stemmed from straying too far from what the nostalgia crowd wanted. I don’t agree with that, but that’s obviously what dictated the approach.
So the story presents the reader with more familiar and traditional character designs and character groupings. Starscream, Soundwave and the rest of the usual cast of characters surround Megatron. Many of the Autobots are who we would expect to find together from the 84-85 cast, such as Ironhide, Prowl and Jazz. The Constructicons and Insecticons are thrown into the mix for the first time as well. That’s fine, and I can accept that the characters have gathered together as they have and altered their forms as well, given that a year has passed since “Devastation”. The Decepticons have set a wide ranging attack in motion both on Earth and elsewhere in the galaxy, and according to Megatron have broken the back of the Autobot “resistance” as he terms it. They openly reveal themselves and attack New York, killing thousands and trashing the city. They cut it off from the outside and establish it as a base of operations from which they attack other areas around the Earth. But in an interesting turn of events, they find victory less than satisfactory. The forces of Earth are not a challenge to the Decepticons, who slaughter them en masse without much of an effort. Cracks begin to show in the unity of the Decepticons, and Starscream openly asks Megatron “What’s next?”
The Autobots are trapped on Cybertron, and Optimus Prime is near-death with Ratchet trying to keep him alive and repair him. Many of the Autobots are in an obviously damaged state, with missing limbs and holes in their armor. Morale is terrible, and there is a traitor in the mix who sold them out to the Decepticons. Jazz and Prowl keep the secret of the loss of the Matrix from the rest of the Autobots. Like the Decepticons, the Autobots are slowly going stir-crazy, though in their case apart from low morale it’s simply because there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Cybertron is not a hospitable environment, though in keeping with the end of Stormbringer the environment is recovering from the damage that the planet had taken. The Autobots are able to survive unprotected on the surface when a year ago the Technobots had all sorts of problems.
The plot unfolds very deliberately and naturally. We don’t see all the destruction and attempts to fight back in a single issue. Rather, it is ongoing throughout three or four chapters. The characters gradually go downhill rather than take sudden left turns, which feels much more natural. Ironhide takes a swing at Prowl, setting up his eventual beatdown of Mirage as his frustrations grow. Starscream abandons the battle and banters with Megatron about what’s next now that they’ve won. I’ve read numerous complaints about the slow pace of the story from those who read it month to month, but in compiled form everything feels just about right.
Characterization is the key to this story’s success. I doubt we’ve ever seen the Decepticons interacting in quite the same way that they interact here, and the same is true of the Autobots. They react to the situations they’re placed in according to their individual temperaments and beliefs, meaning that the characters drive the plot as much as they’re carried along by it. Some characters are changed beyond recognition, like Perceptor. The story takes a few risks with the characters and they pay off. The characters that get lines and express opinions become more three-dimensional as a result. We get characters just standing around “chewing the fat” as well as discussing the overall situation.
The human side of the story works better than I expected it to. I held off for a long time on buying the trade paperback because it seemed like there was a lot of human-centered story there that I just wasn’t interested in. But those portions of the plot are quite gripping at times as the military are rapidly outmaneuvered and beaten by the Decepticons, and General Witwicky takes hit after hit to his plans and morale. Yes, the Witwickys are introduced as a military family, with Spike apparently a commando or black ops type of soldier. There’s no sign of Hunter, Jimmy or Verity, though I know Hunter turns up later on and plays a key role in the story.
The art is strong, as is to be expected from Guido Guidi, who’s been drawing these characters for some time now. Many of the characters are very reminiscent of the old cartoon, but that’s probably deliberate as well.
It’s only the first half of the story, but I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit, and that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? It may not mesh perfectly with all of Furman’s stories, but it does work with them and build on them in most areas, while at the same time going off in its own direction and trying to appeal to nostalgia. “All Hail Megatron” is a solid effort at a direction change for IDW and a good story that uses the characters well.
