Transformers Spotlight: Megatron

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zigzagger
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Transformers Spotlight: Megatron

Post by zigzagger »

Transformers Spotlight Megatron preview @ Full Metal Hero.

Story and art by Nick Roche.
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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

ooh...as much as i like Nick as a writer, I does very much like his art, especially here, with all the grime and everyone dinged up.
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Much as I'd have preferred a cleaner break with the bad weirdness of the ongoing, this is off to a good start. I hope it leads to more writing gigs for Nick. Not sure who Megatron is supposed to be addressing ('a way seemingly unique to our race') but that might well be deliberate.
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Post by numbat »

I don't really follow the Transformers comics (even after getting well into comics over the last few years I find TF ones to be very hit or miss, and mostly miss...).

So I'm no doubt missing something but:

Why does Megatron look like he's stepped out of Tron?
(While everyone else looks very G1.)

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Post by Terome »

Megatron was redesigned a few years back when the War For Cybertron game was making the rounds. A design feature of the games was that the characters lit up to make them easier to see and to target. No idea if the design leakage was officially mandated or just an example of the artists involved simply admiring what was going on elsewhere in the franchise.

Have you been checking out the recent comics, numbat? There has been a good stretch in the last year.
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Post by numbat »

Thanks for the explanation.

:)

I've not read a Transformers comic in just over a year I think. Would you recommend picking one up? If so, any particular recommendations?

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Post by Terome »

numbat wrote:Thanks for the explanation.

:)

I've not read a Transformers comic in just over a year I think. Would you recommend picking one up? If so, any particular recommendations?
Explanations are usually fun.

'The Death Of Optimus Prime' came out January 2012 and marked a good jumping-on point. All you really need to know is that a big weird battle happened and it concluded with the Autobots occupying Cybertron and the Decepticons defeated.

After that, I'd recommend the 'More Than Meets The Eye' series. It's a space adventure, very Red Dwarfy in setting and tone, that is straightforward but not afraid to show some very enjoyable depth and humour. It doesn't reference the old comics that you haven't read too much, although 'Last Stand Of The Wreckers' comes up more often than anything else.

Both 'The Death Of Optimus Prime' and the first cluster of 'More Than Meets The Eye' are conveniently located in the first More Than Meets The Eye collection:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformers-Mo ... 754&sr=1-3
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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Once again, Nick Roche shows how a spotlight should be done!

To clarify that statement - I've always questioned whether the spotlights really did what people wanted them to. While most (all?) readers seemed to want a focus on the named bot, too many spotlights slipped into fueling the main plotlines more than anything else. Sure, we would sometimes get one which achieved both (SL:Shockwave for example) but these got less and less rare under Furmans initial run. Going back to the first run of spotlights they all were as much about fleshing out the main plot strands. It wasnt until Spotlight Kup by Nick that we got an issue which had no connection to the main threads.

Eventually, the Spotlights just became a different way to run a series (revelations). During the AHM run, the spotlights seemed to refocus on trying to spotlight characters involved in the main series but they were so slight that they didnt really achieve their goal. Then we had spotlight Prowl which was pretty much an apology for getting a character so wrong it needed immediate ret-conning.

So come the end of 2012 and we started getting some new spotlights. But once again, instead of being just about a bot, we get something which is half about the bot and half about building up a new plot - in this case the hunt for Metroplex. Nothing wrong with that but it means the spotlights arent really spotlights if you get me.

All of this brings us to Spotlight:Megatron. Seeing as this is set in the past and not connected to any of the new threads in an obvious way, it works much better. Of course, it ties to the ongoing but you get the feeling that this is all about Megatron. He's the focus of the story and the driver of it too.

So this is basically How Megatron got his Mojo back and does a great job of not just showing Megatron adapting to his new body and starting to rebuild his decepticon force but also gives an insight into the personality of Megatron that is always there - the manipulative, confident leader who knows what he wants from his force and how to get it. We get all of this, tied around a brief, one-sided conflict with an already defeated Starscream. There's action, character development and insight. And packaged in some very nice art (some like Roches work, some dont. I love it) There's very little not to like here.

I'm sure some sharp people may find some continuity flaws in here but I didn't. It's much like furmans first spotlight - a great one-shot which feeds the overall universe while building up a character. 5 out of 5 Energon Cubes.
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Sooo.........

Post by Kungfu Dinobot »

How does Roche's Magnifitron jive with McCarthy's Retardotron? I'm interested in how Ol' Nick's gonna salvage that mess, but is too poor to buy comics, online or otherwise.:|
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Post by Knightdramon »

Am I the only one that thought this issue mirrored "Patch" from Transformers Prime? Only infinitely better?

Kungfu Dinobot, ah, your obsession with how bad AHM is borders on amusing, but the "mess" you ask for was already rectified in the Ongoing years ago, this is just an "off panel" story. Basically Megatron trying to give the Decepticons something to unite and empower them again. Funny thing is that by the time they get down to Earth [days to a month later, according to the Ongoing], they are all fixed up and on full power, while this issue explicitly mentions their lack of resources.

Which has some inconsistencies, one minor and the other not so much. First off, how does Skywarp get on the asteroid BEFORE the heist that freed the Decepticons if he was captured in the Bumblebee miniseries?

And secondly, if Starscream's so repentant and done away with life in general, WHY does he ask Thundercracker to help him overthrow Megatron once he sets down on Earth?

Never been a fan of Starscream before Barber's RID, but I say this qualifies as a spotlight for both Megatron and Starscream
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Post by inflatable dalek »

A valiant attempt to sort out the Costa Crap, this mainly suffers from the fact no one really cares about the stories it's trying to salvage anymore. Also, being set so far back means it doesn't really have room to manoeuvre and must put all the toys back in the box at the end, meaning we end up with the weird situation that the issue ends with Megatron being pleased that the status quo that completely failed last time around has been restored.

But, whilst not Kup or Wreckers level stuff, as a straightforward chase issue this is still great fun, with a mostly well written Megs and Starscream (and whilst the revelation of why Megatron keeps him around is no great shakes, the reveal that Starscream is as bored of it as the rest of us is interesting).

It's also by far and away the best if the three "New" Spotlights so far. Worryingly it's also the one that has the least to do with the ongoing Spotlight plot, with just a really tokenistic mention of Metroplex that felt like it was an editorial requirement.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Kungfu Dinobot »

Knightdramon wrote:Am I the only one that thought this issue mirrored "Patch" from Transformers Prime? Only infinitely better?

Kungfu Dinobot, ah, your obsession with how bad AHM is borders on amusing, but the "mess" you ask for was already rectified in the Ongoing years ago, this is just an "off panel" story. Basically Megatron trying to give the Decepticons something to unite and empower them again. Funny thing is that by the time they get down to Earth [days to a month later, according to the Ongoing], they are all fixed up and on full power, while this issue explicitly mentions their lack of resources.

Which has some inconsistencies, one minor and the other not so much. First off, how does Skywarp get on the asteroid BEFORE the heist that freed the Decepticons if he was captured in the Bumblebee miniseries?

And secondly, if Starscream's so repentant and done away with life in general, WHY does he ask Thundercracker to help him overthrow Megatron once he sets down on Earth?

Never been a fan of Starscream before Barber's RID, but I say this qualifies as a spotlight for both Megatron and Starscream
Maybe I'm not that much different from Bowspearer:glance:

How was it "rectified" in the ongoing? I must have missed it.

BTW, does it explains how the Decepticon went from "teh winners" to a bunch of smelly hobos? I have my own fanon explanation, but I'd rather IDW do it for me.
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Post by Knightdramon »

The perceived inability of Megatron to do anything decent in AHM as you put it in other words, is in my opinion immediately rectified as in once he's in his new body, his first task is to cut Hot Rod in half. Literally.

Then he goes on a coordinated attack that frees every captive Decepticon on Earth, prevails against a small battalion of Autobots led by Ultra Magnus, defeats Prime twice, surrenders just to have a front seat for the show, breaks down Prime mentally, frees himself up and upgrades his body showing us that it was a play all along, opens up a space bridge that brings all his forces on him and single-handedly defeats a gestalt made of over 1000 decepticons all the while resisting the brainwashing and futile attempts to be merged onto the Decepticon gestalt.

I think that this pretty much sums up how he was "rectified" of any perceived wrongs regarding his power level in AHM.

As for why the decepticons are stranded like that, no excuses on that one. I'm just as baffled, since it seems that the Decepticons generally won on every corner of the universe. So it's either a major gaff or they became stranded of Energon [remember that they had to retreat after infighting followed by an all out battle with the autobots] and it's specified here that Starscream didn't even fix their communications system.

So with Earth bound by robot-powered humans and a bot alliance, the other Decepticons either presumed them all captured or killed, or could not locate any SOS beacon anywhere.
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Post by Kungfu Dinobot »

Knightdramon wrote:The perceived inability of Megatron to do anything decent in AHM as you put it in other words, is in my opinion immediately rectified as in once he's in his new body, his first task is to cut Hot Rod in half. Literally.

Then he goes on a coordinated attack that frees every captive Decepticon on Earth, prevails against a small battalion of Autobots led by Ultra Magnus, defeats Prime twice, surrenders just to have a front seat for the show, breaks down Prime mentally, frees himself up and upgrades his body showing us that it was a play all along, opens up a space bridge that brings all his forces on him and single-handedly defeats a gestalt made of over 1000 decepticons all the while resisting the brainwashing and futile attempts to be merged onto the Decepticon gestalt.

I think that this pretty much sums up how he was "rectified" of any perceived wrongs regarding his power level in AHM.

As for why the decepticons are stranded like that, no excuses on that one. I'm just as baffled, since it seems that the Decepticons generally won on every corner of the universe. So it's either a major gaff or they became stranded of Energon [remember that they had to retreat after infighting followed by an all out battle with the autobots] and it's specified here that Starscream didn't even fix their communications system.

So with Earth bound by robot-powered humans and a bot alliance, the other Decepticons either presumed them all captured or killed, or could not locate any SOS beacon anywhere.
It may be rectified for you, but it still doesn't explain why Megatron behaved like a Glorified thug in McCarthy and (to a lesser extent) Furman's run.

BTW, want to hear my fanon explanation? No? I telling anyways.

After Megatron "Intergalactic Lynch Party" order, Decepticons everywhere were boozing so damn hard on energon that supplies went short and it became too late to scavenge for more. Then the indigenous lifeforms everywhere bitch-slapped them out of their planets, turning the "glorious" Decepticon empire into a collection of giant metal vagrants.
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Post by Denyer »

It's easier to basically ignore everything between Escalation and LSOTW/MTMTE.

Asides from the alt-mode and the matrix reference, this spotlight could've fit into various continuities... and was great stuff, the Decepticons feeling more like characters and less like plot-convenient archetypes.

Needed more explanation as to why Shockwave and Soundwave don't already have the situation ably in hand, though, and lampshading that everything's fallen apart in the space of a few years perhaps wasn't the best move.
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Denyer wrote: Needed more explanation as to why Shockwave and Soundwave don't already have the situation ably in hand, though, and lampshading that everything's fallen apart in the space of a few years perhaps wasn't the best move.
It's not great serial storytelling but I do like that weird gap because I can put my own half-musings in there. There's a lovely hint in MTMTE that the Seacons and some shades of Terrorcon just packed up and left when it looked like no one was looking.

Really liked this issue myself. Looks like it was under some constraints as a pack-in comic but its function as an actual, y'know, spotlight was very well executed.

Quite violent and oddly sexual for a pack-in comic, mind. But the kids have got to learn about domestic abuse sooner or later.
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Post by Juggy »

Denyer wrote:It's easier to basically ignore everything between Escalation and LSOTW/MTMTE.

Asides from the alt-mode and the matrix reference, this dbal spotlight post could've fit into various continuities... and was great stuff, the Decepticons feeling more like characters and less like plot-convenient archetypes..

Anyone know what happened to Full Metal Hero they're website has been gone for a couple of months now.
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