Transformers: More than Meets the Eye season two discussion

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 7:25 pm

Tricky stuff indeed. Definitely not what's expected. More details on Wednesday.

The art has its ups and downs, but I do believe the first three pages are by far the best drawn. It's as if the style changes to evoke the general feel of each scene. The sparkeater is drawn very manga style on the last available panel, for instance.

Post by **zigzagger** » Mon Apr 06, 2015 7:33 pm

Uhhhhh....

Quite the mood shift. A little jarring.

I don't know, a bit late in the game to convince me that the DJD are a lovable bunch.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:14 am

Maybe its going for the muderous family approach so beloved of hillbilly horror movies. Matriarch runs the family as though killing is just boys being boys and all that.

Cant say I'm impressed...

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 6:57 am

Oh. Well that's odd. Was getting into a nice mood with Tarn's regret, and then... Hope this issue works out.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 7:27 am

She's a parking meter, right?

I think I agree with Denyer but let's see how this shakes out.

EDIT: MOMENTS LATER
No, I've thought about it a bit and I like it.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:33 am

I like the idea that there is someone behind the djd other than tarn and the overall concept is sound enough. But I really don't like the design of the bot. Looks poor overall.

Death's Head · Post by **Death's Head** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:39 pm

I'm in.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:48 pm

Before the next issue hits the newsagents in a few hours, I'm going to take a shot in the dark at guessing Tarn's identity and say he's actually Valve; Springarm & Wheelarch's brother who went on to become a former leader of the Wreckers.

Why do I think this? Because I was glossing over issue 7 in preparation for the DJD-centric episode tomorrow and noticed that Tarn had the same tube-like shoulder cannons that the bike brothers had. Perhaps Tarn is an amalgamation of Valve and Roller in a weird Institute experiment, but I think Valve is in there somewhere!

tahukanuva · Post by **tahukanuva** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:07 pm

DEATHSAURUSSSSSSSSS

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 6:43 pm

Read it for the second time.

First time around, I didn't like it, but now it stuck. It serves its purpose. Lots of questions answered, especially around issues 32-33.

The DJD are not overpowered---actually they are, but not by nature. They use those chambers to bathe in super nucleon [caused by Brainstorm's teleportation in those mines] before any attack--Tarn's line that they were all edgy from the nuke on the LL confirms that.

Even more pointers that Tarn is Roller---but subtle ones. Green spark, Skids with the matrix tattoo in the flashback, body reconstruction/augmentation, and the subtlest one----the straw on his energon drink

The internal administration reminds me way too much of annual progress reports in the British work system. The one on one, the checking, the do it yourself appraisal form...

Was there any doubt that Tarn is Roller/Agent 113? Or just opposed to the DJD in reality? Closing his eyes underneath his mask [which is odd, as those appeared to be his actual eyes so far], trying to kill himself from overdosing before changing his mind, and even toying with the thought of actually killing the rest of the team when Deathsaurus suggests it.

His "good" line in regards to the abundance of troops at Deathsaurus' lair can go both ways---good for numbers on their side, or good for impossible odds for the DJD suicide mission? Can go either way in my opinion.

Blip is a different Blip than the terrorcon repaint/rename---little time or resources to change bodies since issue 30 or so, and he'd have to escape autobot security and somehow manage not to tell Tarn about Megatron? Yeah, different guy.

What I find surprising about the issue is how the artist just shadows everybody depending on the scene. First few pages were very Milne-ish, next few were very manga-esque, next few were more normal, then more Milne, then more rounded/guido like for the Deathsaurus scene [which looked like it came from the Drift mini].

A bit disappointed that this is not a 2 parter as I thought, but I guess we'll see them again in issues 50something.

Post by **zigzagger** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:10 pm

Hmmm...

I was entertained, though perhaps for the wrong reasons.

Not sure how I feel about the idea of 'humanizing' the DJD, though that could simply be my, errr... unyielding bias towards the characters.

Ugh... okay, okay! I guess it was kind of neat to see what Tarn and Friends get up to on their off time. Even it was a bit silly and felt like parody at moments.

Though, to be fair, it is suiting because of, well, how silly and ridiculous the DJD actually are. So of course they'd have a nagging, matronly medic on board, and of course Tarn likes to conduct regular one-on-ones with his teammates.

Do they go on employee retreats? Do the DJD have fun, workplace exercises to boost morale? Does Tarn bring donuts to the office every Friday?

**ahem**

Joking aside, Tarn desperately needed some characterization, so that was appreciated.

And hey, Deathsaurus went and dashed my expectations and survived! I'm actually pleased Roberts has plans for him beyond fodder. Quite liked him. Not often you see Decepticon COs so concerned about their subordinates.

So Tarn is intent on instigating a war. Does this also mean he's, essentially, taken the reins over the Decepticons? With all this talk of 'housekeeping', it sort of reads that way.

Is Galvatron next on their list of chores, I wonder. And with Megatron now on the list, does that also mean Starscream*?

* Flimsy Hasbro-mandated excuses aside, I can only assume he was marked 'off limits' similar in the way Whirl was.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:53 pm

Interesting how this seems to have been a controversial issue even before publication. I've not been following too closely as I'm a keen spoiler avoider, but it seems there was an actual effort to boycott the issue on the part of some fans because of the artist and his tendency to over-sexualise female Transformers. And I can understand not wanting Transformers to fall back into bad old ways after making great strides forward in its treatment of the women, though it's ironic that Nautica, the character people seemed to be concerned about how she'd wind up looking, isn't in the issue and Nickel avoids the clichés.

Then, as shown in this thread, the preview seemed to put a lot of people off as well. Based on twitter, the final feedback has been mixed as well (again, as we've seen here).

Myself, I liked the dull formality of a day in the life of the DJD, treating this group of psychotic killers as clock punchers with an innapropiately cheerful support tech was a nice funny conceit that also helped to show how the impact of Megatron's betrayal turned Tarn's nice ordered life on its head.

It wasn't grade A MTMTE, but as a light bridging issue setting up The Big Fight to come, it worked fine. The Deathsaurus side of things was the weakest part as that was more perfunctory, but there's no real complaints here.

Thoughts:

I'd take the appearance of Skids in Tarn's mind as proof he's not Roller more than he is. Sure, they were bout Outliers, but what sort of relationship do the two have? Have they ever even spoken directly to each other on panel? Based on Skids having that song on his mind and Tarn finding him so important here, there are two characters who have an important history to one another, and that's not Roller and Skids. At the very least it would be a massive cheat to not have shown that relationship in any of their scenes together.

IIRC Roberts has said on Twitter than Blip is the same Blip from previous issues.

Explanation for why the DJD were so overhwelming on the ALL compared to against the Scavengers, and an explanation for why they won't be as strong against the OLL as Tarn is now the only one nuked up.

Brainstorm did definately betray the ALL after all. He really didn't think through not telling them about Drift in advance did he?

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 10:17 pm

The DJD colours are bugging me now, I think Helex and Tesarus are Springarm and Wheelarch. Again, its partly because of the tube-style shoulder launchers, but the colours make it seem like the Institute somehow got ahold of their bodies and set to work. This makes no sense of course, because Pax would wonder what had happened to them.

This issue has also brought back Skids and his matrix tattoo, which links nicely with Tarn's comment to Blip about religion having no place in Decepticonism. Makes me wonder if the missing part of Skids' memories have somehow been transplanted into Tarn, in the sense that who wouldn't want to gain Skids' super learning ability?

Not blown away by this issue, I didn't take to Nickel and the art, whilst a really good impression of Milne's... simply doesn't pull off his ability to make complex panels clean and clear. Every time its not Milne on duty I crab and grumble, but over time I come to love it, so this is just another unfair reaction.

I still don't think what Brainstorm did was betrayal. He wanted Overlord off the ship, he demanded no-one else be hurt and he was doing it for the benefit of everyone. He had good intentions.

Red Dave Prime · Post by **Red Dave Prime** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 11:59 pm

The preview page had thrown me I must admit - and even now I still find nickle to be a stretch too far to fit comfortably with the DJD but I did like the new direction. Personnally, I think I would have prefered the DJD alone to take on Megatron and the lost light, super nucleon or not and have got a serious 3 parter about that conflict with a definitive conclusion but this is still an interesting take on the MTMTE Big Bads. Its not a great issue but it was enjoyable to read a story told from a single robots perspective (something we've discussed in the Why does the Lost Light... thread) and it gave the issue a fresh feel.

On an aside - interesting to hear that Heretech was also a rebel - which means all the phase sixers really do turn on megatron - heretech, sixshot, black shadow and overlord turned while he was the leader of the cons and now Tarn turns on him because he is not. The only one I'm not sure on is Killmaster (both in did Megs allow Whirl to kill him because he was becoming a problem and also was he a phase six level robot.)

Post by **Warcry** » Thu Apr 09, 2015 4:35 am

I hated one thing about this issue -- there were only 20 pages of story instead of the usual 22. If this is going to be a thing going forward (and according to the Wiki, it is), then boo!

Otherwise, pretty good! It was nice to see the DJD given some personality, though only Tarn and Tesarus really came away looking any more like people. Tarn actually looks like an interesting character, though, and humanizing the DJD a bit was long overdue. Now they don't read quite as much like tiresome Mary Sues! Unfortunately, I get the feeling that most fans are going to ignore the personality that we were presented with in favour of cherry-picking bits and pieces that "prove" that Tarn is really Roller/Dominus Ambus/whoever that fan wants him to be, so the exercise might have been in vain.

Nickel was a bit of an odd duck, in that I really can't imagine why she would stay with a group of crazed killing machines, but she had a pretty clear narrative purpose so I can't complain.

Deathsaurus didn't die! And he looks like he'll be an important character going forward!

*high-fives tahukanuva*

With Star Saber basically being the Cybertronian equivalent of ISIL, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Deathy is being characterized as a quasi-heroic Decepticon -- betraying the cause for principles instead of personal gain, rescuing his comrades from being cannon fodder for Megatron, trying to protect them from the DJD, etc. It's a serious role reversal, but in a way I think they could make even better foils to one another here than they did in Victory.

zigzagger wrote:So Tarn is intent on instigating a war. Does this also mean he's, essentially, taken the reins over the Decepticons? With all this talk of 'housekeeping', it sort of reads that way.

Sounds like it to me! Though he'll probably find a lot of others vying for the throne if he tries to recruit any more stragglers. Not everyone will jump on the bandwagon as quickly as Deathsaurus.

zigzagger wrote:Is Galvatron next on their list of chores, I wonder. And with Megatron now on the list, does that also mean Starscream*?

Starscream almost has to be next, I would think. I mean, not only did he toss aside his allegiance as soon as it suited him, he led a bunch of others to do the same while actively trumpeting a factionless society and openly denouncing the entire history of the Decepticon movement in an open courtroom in front of potentially millions of viewers. If Tarn hears about that, he's toast.

Galvatron, I'm not so sure. I haven't actually been paying much attention to the former RiD, admittedly, but it seems like in spite of being a recent convert he's actually been doing a decent job of Decepticoning. They might try and recruit him, but I don't know that they'd have much reason to kill him. Well, until he inevitably refuses to fall in line behind Tarn, but I wouldn't give the guy created in 2012 very good odds in that showdown.

Red Dave Prime wrote:On an aside - interesting to hear that Heretech was also a rebel - which means all the phase sixers really do turn on megatron - heretech, sixshot, black shadow and overlord turned while he was the leader of the cons and now Tarn turns on him because he is not. The only one I'm not sure on is Killmaster (both in did Megs allow Whirl to kill him because he was becoming a problem and also was he a phase six level robot.)

Killmaster was one of the Warriors Elite, I think, so he would have been on the same level as the Phase Sixers.

I don't think it's too much of a surprise that they've all turned on Megatron, though. No matter how loyal a minion may be, if you make them nearly invincible they'll eventually start to get ideas above their station. Add in the fact that...well, Megatron didn't seem to choose the most stable individuals to start with, and the betrayals start to look like more of an inevitability than anything.

tahukanuva · Post by **tahukanuva** » Thu Apr 09, 2015 1:12 pm

Warcry wrote:*high-fives tahukanuva*

*returns* WHOO

I would like to state for the record that I was writing a semi-heroic Deathsaurus who cared about his fellow cons ~a decade ago. With a backstory that also invented Shattered Glass. I'm a real trendsetter.

My biggest hurdle with this issue, story wise, is the mood switch from the scene with Blip to the one with Nickel. It's a fun scene, and it makes sense, the DJD wouldn't really spend all their time 'on' and banter/chat amongst themselves only makes sense. The switch is just a bit much for me.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Thu Apr 09, 2015 2:40 pm

Hey! This was great. Tough work, seeing as it was essentially 100% new characters. As has already been discussed, Tarn so far has been a mask, a job description and a mysterious past.

Was puzzled when The Village Green Preservation Society was released as the soundtrack to this issue but now I know what was being said. To be honest, with all these defections and splinter factions maybe the Decepticons would be better off with some performance appraisals and paperwork. Who runs their HR department? Is it Tarn? It's Tarn, isn't it.

What I really liked is that despite the Monty Python stylings, this was really quite a sad issue. Tarn's a sad guy before, after, and during his suicide attempt. He wants to be tough, he wants to be sophisticated, he wants to be ruthless, he wants to be a Decepticon but he really doesn't know how to be any of these things well. He can't even murder Overlord right - he flew off the handle and got two members of his team nearly killed by squishies because he doped himself up on cyber PCP.

So Megatron didn't know about their nuke, which is what made them really effective against the big boys (they have conspicuously pulled their socks up, it seems, since they found the nuke) but still considered pulling these clowns in during Dark Cybertron? He must have been really desperate.

Oh and hey, fuel to the Tarn is Roller fire / inferno - does Tarn freak out because he sees Drift or because he sees Ratchet?

Plenty of raised eyebrows at Brainstorm acting like a straightforward mole. There's a story and a half left to tell there...

I really liked Nickel. She's a stock comedy character but I like the little character arc they described for her here. It's funny that the Black Block Consortium have been picking on the Mini-cons.

Also just became aware of the campaign against Hayato. It's fitting that small-minded book burners are picking on this issue in particular.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:14 pm

So if Roberts had known all he needed to do was put Deathsaurus in the comic to get Warcry onside he'd have had him in the book from issue 1.

Auntie Slag wrote: I still don't think what Brainstorm did was betrayal. He wanted Overlord off the ship, he demanded no-one else be hurt and he was doing it for the benefit of everyone. He had good intentions.

It's quite literally a betrayal, he'd accepted orders from a senior officer to study Overlord for the Autobots and instead tried to turn him over for execution to the Decepticons (which as a thing to do to a captured prisoner is a bit of a no-no as well, Brainstorm is actually a massive hypocrite in his inability to kill anyone directly), that's unequivocally a court marshal offence even if you think he was right to do it.

And the fairly predictable consequences suggest it wasn't a very good idea anyway.

Though as Brainstorm was also in the process of betraying the Decepticons he's basically a super betraying dick.

Warcry wrote:I hated one thing about this issue -- there were only 20 pages of story instead of the usual 22. If this is going to be a thing going forward (and according to the Wiki, it is), then boo!

I was pleasantly surprised it didn't feel like we lost anything, but yeah, that's basically an entire issue gone over the course of a year.

Unfortunately, I get the feeling that most fans are going to ignore the personality that we were presented with in favour of cherry-picking bits and pieces that "prove" that Tarn is really Roller/Dominus Ambus/whoever that fan wants him to be, so the exercise might have been in vain.

I'll say now I think this firmly proves he can't be agent 113, with most of the issue being told through his inner monologue it would be a massive, massive cheat for him not to have thought on this whilst considering Megatron's betrayal.

Assuming 113 is alive (and not, say, the recently dead Vos) and not the spark eater I'd say he pretty much has to be Tesarus because, as you say, he's the only other one it could be to have gotten even the slightest bit of development. Any of the others and it wouldn't be as effective.

Nickel was a bit of an odd duck, in that I really can't imagine why she would stay with a group of crazed killing machines, but she had a pretty clear narrative purpose so I can't complain.

Presumably for all her cheerfulness wading through the dead bodies of her entire civilisation has snapped her mind.

I wonder if the book is actually heading towards a "Everyone has to team up to stop the Galactic Council and Friends destroying the entire Transformers race" style conclusion.

Terome wrote:H
Was puzzled when The Village Green Preservation Society was released as the soundtrack to this issue but now I know what was being said. To be honest, with all these defections and splinter factions maybe the Decepticons would be better off with some performance appraisals and paperwork. Who runs their HR department? Is it Tarn? It's Tarn, isn't it.

Without going all Godwin, it's very Nazi isn't it [insert your own ordered genocidal maniac of choice if you'd prefer]? Those stories about how they could do all those terrible things and then go home and play with the kids and the dog, and how all the paperwork was very carefully filed.

I want to see Magnus and Tarn get into a Filing-Off.

Oh and hey, fuel to the Tarn is Roller fire / inferno - does Tarn freak out because he sees Drift or because he sees Ratchet?

Wait... Tarn is into bureaucracy like Magnus... like they're related... Tarn is Dominus!

Plenty of raised eyebrows at Brainstorm acting like a straightforward mole. There's a story and a half left to tell there...

With all my "They'll be a twist as to who really betrayed them" theories shot out the water, I'm now wondering why OLL Brainstorm didn't do the same. Because of the broken comms? But presumably the ALL comms were in the same state as they never contacted Cybertron either...

Also just became aware of the campaign against Hayato. It's fitting that small-minded book burners are picking on this issue in particular.

Yeah... those people hey...

*Sheepishly puts flaming torch and copy of Empire of Stone to one side*.

Post by **Warcry** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 6:37 pm

Just had a thought...from what we've seen of him, Tarn really hasn't shown any signs so far of the "transformation addiction" that Pharma said he has. I wonder if it was just a cover to explain away a need to frequently replace transformation cogs because they keep getting turned into Action Masters by the Nucleon?

tahukanuva wrote:I would like to state for the record that I was writing a semi-heroic Deathsaurus who cared about his fellow cons ~a decade ago. With a backstory that also invented Shattered Glass. I'm a real trendsetter.

Your Deathsaurus was awesome.

Was that really a decade ago? Shit, you're a grown-up now!

Terome wrote:Was puzzled when The Village Green Preservation Society was released as the soundtrack to this issue but now I know what was being said. To be honest, with all these defections and splinter factions maybe the Decepticons would be better off with some performance appraisals and paperwork. Who runs their HR department? Is it Tarn? It's Tarn, isn't it.

The impression I get is that, yes, Tarn and co. are the be-all and end-all of Decepticon human resources management. If they actually had a proper bureaucracy for that, they probably wouldn't have 80% of their high-ranking officers going rogue at the first possible opportunity (and thus wouldn't need an invincible death squad to hunt them down).

But then they wouldn't be Decepticons.

inflatable dalek wrote:So if Roberts had known all he needed to do was put Deathsaurus in the comic to get Warcry onside he'd have had him in the book from issue 1.

Deathsaurus only cancels out mentally-challenged Spinister, though.

inflatable dalek wrote:It's quite literally a betrayal, he'd accepted orders from a senior officer to study Overlord for the Autobots and instead tried to turn him over for execution to the Decepticons (which as a thing to do to a captured prisoner is a bit of a no-no as well, Brainstorm is actually a massive hypocrite in his inability to kill anyone directly), that's unequivocally a court marshal offence even if you think he was right to do it.

I'm not sure Prowl is actually anyone's superior officer anymore, though, what with the whole "the war is over!" thing. If Brainstorm can just up and bugger off with Rodimus in the first place then I don't think he's technically beholden to a military chain of command anymore. I would still count it as a betrayal on several other levels though, ranging from "not keeping his word" to "inviting a death squad aboard the ship" to "being a freaking Decepticon".

And aside from any of that, you're right that handing a prisoner over to be killed (after a presumed gruesome torture session, though Overlord seems to have mostly avoided that on account of being catatonic) is a ghastly thing to do.

inflatable dalek wrote:With all my "They'll be a twist as to who really betrayed them" theories shot out the water, I'm now wondering why OLL Brainstorm didn't do the same. Because of the broken comms? But presumably the ALL comms were in the same state as they never contacted Cybertron either...

Wasn't the Lost Light's comm system down for the longest time? It could be that he always planned to call in the DJD, but in our version of the timeline Overlord had escaped and run amok before he had the chance.

tahukanuva · Post by **tahukanuva** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 7:34 pm

Warcry wrote:Your Deathsaurus was awesome.

Was that really a decade ago? Shit, you're a grown-up now!

Yeah, he was! If I could trust myself to be a more reliable poster I'd like to come back to the RPG someday. And yeah, it's weird now that growing up with Beast Wars probably puts me in the senior half of the fandom.

--

As for Brainstorm, my personal theory (unless I've missed something that contradicts it) is that Brainstorm called the DJD during preparations for the trip when the whole Overlord plan was being put together but after the quantum split only Alt Brainstorm got the chance to send the signal.