Terome wrote:I'm a little bit bothered by how the horses would not have fit in those Roboid boxes
Some assembly required?
As I don't think we wound up discussing it in the forum for context the last issue caused a controversy (albeit a very small one) on twitter and social media places I'm too old and uncool to know much about because of the "Should we sell Grimlock?" thing, which they claimed was a deplorable and evil treatment of the mentally ill and caused all sorts of angry blog post and tweets (though I think Roberts mentioned on his return that his brief absence from twitter was mainly a coincidence).
Now, this isn't the sort of thing you want to belittle or make fun of because there is a serious problem with the depiction of mental illness (and disability in general) in fiction, so for the most part if this was a grabbing of the wrong end of the stick it's because it's a subject where people usually get beaten with the stick. Though how regular readers--including those who love MTMTE enough to have MTMTE themed twitter names and avatar--would have expected this two parter to end with "Yeah, mentals, they're literally worthless, am I right?" is beyond me. Some of the arguments were a tad flawed as well ("Yes Crankcase has mental issues as well but...err...he doesn't count").
So the fact the conclusion makes exactly the same point the people who had a go at Roberts were trying to articulate has a certain extra fission to it. Throw in the fact that, by mucking about with SPACE Wikipedia the Scavengers are literally internet trolls and I'd almost think he'd rewritten all the dialogue in the issue at the last second as a two fingered salute if not for the fact it should have been really obvious to everyone that this was how it was going to end.
The only really funny thing is these people would regard Warcry as a complete bastard for being on the "Sell Grimlock" side. Which is what we all suspected.
And I'm veering into smugness so just to reiterate again: This is a serious issue and people being passionate about it is understandable. And this comic handles it perfectly. One of the big issues with mental health issues is people are afraid to talk about it, Krok's best friends have no idea of the real depth of his pain and hopes and them actually sitting down and talking about it--and more importantly listening--is the key moment of the issue. I know Terome thought it somewhat overdone but it worked for me because it's not done nearly enough.
Fortress Maximus was also handled well as a PTSD sufferer, both with the acknowledgement that all the Transformers all equally messed up (something emphasised by Red Alert. Odds on the spelling mistakes in Declassified actually being important?) and in the fact this helps with his healing process as well.
I must admit that the ending did confuse me a bit as I'd completely forgotten the significance of the symbol (I'm just short of that issue in my read of the eighth trade). Go me and my faulty memory.
The main flaw is: Is Rung a bit of a shit psychiatrist? Fortress Maximus is clearly in no position to be left in charge of anything (even if in a nonsense "Give him something to do" job, it's hard to enforce the accord of a dead man who drilled holes in his head. Especially as it's a treaty between Autobots and Decepticons and the later at least aren't in any state to hold up whatever their side of the bargain was. Not that the Tyrest accord ever really made sense anyway...), let alone with lots of guns. How did Rung sign off on that? How many other "Basically decent" Decepticons have met horrible deaths as a result? The Scavengers actually do a better job of counselling him!
In fact, has Rung ever successfully helped anyone?
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