Transformers: More than Meets the Eye season two discussion

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Patapsco
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Post by Patapsco »

Death's Head wrote:Isn't that because he fancied whatshername, but she just wanted to be friends?
notice who holds Skids hand as Chromedome begins the remembering process
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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I liked this... good cliffhanger, even though its likely its Overlord and Tarn what got shot (possibly by Magnus, as I didn't see him running away). I agree with Auntie Slag, needed more shooty fighty bits. Didn't mind the power-up thing, but didn't feel particularly sad when Skids died, which was a bit of a shame :(

I hope Ravage gets well soon.

Next issue spoiler box... four words that started the war..? You Are Being Deceived.

Tra la la la laaa
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Post by Unicron »

Skyquake87 wrote: (possibly by Magnus, as I didn't see him running away).
Alex Milne has stated elsewhere that all the people you didn't see running away/back at the Necrobot's place are all there. Lack of adequate panel space to depict them all and what not.
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Post by Auntie Slag »

This was really sad, too. It was mentioned over at the Allspark. From his first, and last appearance.

Image
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Red Dave Prime
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More than Meets the Eye #55

Post by Red Dave Prime »

Itunes Preview time!

Before I go, on reflection I think MTMTE 54 set up one of the best cliffhangers I've seen in the IDW comics. There was a multitude of outcomes and whether by plan or luck (or likely a mix of both) so many seemed plausible. Would Tarn shoot Overlord instead, after seeing glimpse of Megatrons return? Was it the cannons Whirl had fixed but hadnt used yet? Maybe Deathsauras turned on the two other cons? Or something else? Plenty of options for Roberts to use and so may would have had grounds to be acceptable.

Anyway, here's the link. I like what he did, didn't see it coming and I like where its going.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/transf ... 5559?mt=11
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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

SPOILER! (select to read)
So, from some of what we see it it makes the whole mutiny by Getaway look a lot more reasonable - the plan would have appeared to be that he would give over Megs to the Galactic council and there was no plan to involve the DJD. And this makes more sense that the rest of the crew followed him - they wanted rid of megs (and maybe see him killed) and kinda wanted rid of the Rodimus crew as well for the many other reasons that had many of the crew ready to leave anyway.

It also clears up Overlords repair and why he appeared some what out of nowhere. Good work overall on all this. It ties up some of the issues that were nagging in a perfectly sensible way. Well almost. Why would the Galactic Council feel the need to repair Overlord to get Megatron? They would surely have the tech to take him out on their own. I can only assume they wanted Megatron to die at the hands of another Transformer to carry on the bad rep of the cybertronian race as a bunch of murdering savages
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Patapsco
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Post by Patapsco »

SPOILER! (select to read)
well, another page was added to the preview and...

http://i.imgur.com/FFzr3O1.jpg

Deathsaurus succumbs to the conscience bomb and pulls everyone back, Overlord is all "got mine, f*** you" and leaves, meaning its up to Tarn, Helex, Vos and Tessie to finish the job
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

SPOILER! (select to read)
Given one of the things mentioned in the issue preview was the decepticon call to battle (you are being deceived)... is it possible that Megatron is playing coward to get Tarn alone (or at least just down to the DJD)?

I'm hoping this spells the end of the DJD as a plot point. Not necessarily that they die but it would be good if the others abandoned Tarn for the same reason nikel does.

Or just see the Lost light take these guys down. Still possible the LL shows up after Getaway realises he has been scammed
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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Well, that was unexpected, but damn did I enjoy this issue.

Sure, a few stretching of ideas here and there but overall very satisfying end to season 2 and another good cliffhanger to lead us into the Lost Light series.

Major spoiler below
SPOILER! (select to read)
So... Tarn is ****ing Glitch! Did not see that coming at all. I actually had to go back to check the little we see of glitch (shadowplays bank heist) and even then I still couldnt quite get the link. I suppose there is some pointers in hindsight. Glitch maybe learned to speak to individual parts of a transformer which allows him to switch off an opponents spark.

And even though Skids clearly doesnt know who Tarn is, Tarn did seem overly familiar with him in issues 48/49 (although that would have worked if it was Roller too)

We also know that Tarn was heavily rebuilt from the little glimpse in issue 39. But still. How could anyone have guessed this, especially without so many clues hinting to roller.

Enter Thisisunicron. He guessed it a year ago. Well done that man. Click here for the proof https://www.reddit.com/r/idwtransformer ... _spoilers/

I did love the Roller reveal though. Just when it seemed like We would see Tran revealed as Roller we get the cutback to the real roller - Had to say, I laughed at that. Very well done.

I'd be curious if we will get a flashback to anything more on Tarn/glitch. I'd still be curious on the hows and whys of it. But the overall impact of this to me was that Tarn was exposed as the sham he was. A Pale imitation of Megatron who begged for mercy despite never showing any. As good a death a villain should get.

And RIP Ravage. The little shot of Soundwave was heartfelt and was an odd callback to the similar scene in remain in light
I thought this was all really good. A very good end and as good a spot as any to end the series.
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Post by Patapsco »

As Marge Simpson once said: "It's an ending. That's enough"
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Post by Patapsco »

So how can something so densely plotted, so character rich end up feeling so unsatisfying? That's the main issue I have with this arc, and this issue in particular. It hits the right beats, it gets you right in the feels (read pages 16-18 and try not to feel anything), it's twists and turns in this issue are many and logical within the context of the story but.... that's not enough.

There was precisely no tension at all, and that all boils down to this: in a fight between 500 Decepticons and the 20-ish Lost Lighters, the 20 odd inflict dozens of casualties and fatalities whereas one Lost Lighter bites it at the hand of the enemy. I've said it before but there are multiple instances where one of the more principle characters can die and Roberts has failed to pull the trigger and he's backed away from it. Oh, sure, Skids died but he willingly sacrificed himself for the greater good. And somehow 500 Decepticons could only manage to dismember Ravage? Get. The. F***. Out.

With that said, I'm genuinely glad that pretty much every dangling plot thread got tied up, genuinely didn't like Terminus, Roller et al coming back from the dead, liked Tarn's reveal to be Glitch, didn't like that most of the cast got relegated to background fodder for most of the issue.

However... somehow, some way Roberts should be recognised with some sort of proper award not dished out by a website (sorry Comics Alliance) for the way he's written Megatron in this season. Again, just my view, but he's the best written Transformers character in any fiction by such a large margin, but one of the best characters in comics today and I think that that should be noted and recognised outside of the Big 2 studios
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Last month it was Brexit keeping me distracted from a full write up, now it's honest-Your-Current-SIM-Will-Fit-In-Your-New-Phone-We're-Not-Wrong-Like-Last-Time-Oh-No!-it. Random thoughts, some pulled from conversations with other people:





I think there's no finer example of James' skill as a writer than the Tarn reveal. On paper there's no way it should have worked. If it's Roller it's an anticlimax because we all guessed. If it's just some guy it's an anticlimax because why make it a mystery? But an epic rug pull made it awesome. And moving.

And for an expected bloodbath, we actually wound up with many more minus fatalities as the final score. And a happy ending!

Not sure about the Nightbeat/Rung/Titans lead in yet. Though it did make me wonder if James has read Ringworld (just a few weeks after I thought the same about Budiansky on the blog), I expected Rung to go "You can learn a lot about a world from studying its underside.." (and perhaps more to the point in the second book they briefly fly under the map of Earth on the way to Mars and see home the wrong way up. And the Ringworld was built by what turns out to be the ancestors of humanity...).

I assume the Geo Bomb was the Other Means the GC were looking at at the start?

Oh, and though we all guessed the crew weren't fully aware of Getaway's plan, I don't think any of us thought even he didn't know the DJD were coming.

Ahhhh, we thought it was a bit contrived Overlord just happened to turn up when and where he did, when it was the DJD who were there by coincidence!

And the Necrobot was a nice man all along. I'm not sure why the DJD didn't go for the "Organics" the first time they were there though. Unless they thought they'd wait whilst they went to get Vos dealt with? Presumably they weren't fooled or they wouldn't have come back.

Actually, what woke the sleepers up?

And I never thought for a second that Ravage would really die. The cut to Soundwave was brilliantly done as well. I actually like how Roberts (as with Pipes back in Overlord) decides to focus on a small number of death's and make you feel them rather than the big blood bath battle. Skids never got to find out his pal Roller survived!

And of course, the lovely ambuiguity over what Ravage was actually asking for at the end there.

So, season 3 (or LL season 1. What is the form here?) is indeed going to be Red Dwarf VI. Which is about the only prediction I made I actually got right! Only Team Rodimus is going to be quite a bit larger...

Actually, is this where I point out that James wrote on my copy of issue 50 that season 3 was going to be entirely based around the Pete two parter? EXCLUSIVE.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Sue effing perb!

SPOILER! (select to read)
I loved the pacing of this, the reveals (Tarns identity, what Megatron was doing in his room all this time, the pixel perfect entrance made by Roller). Ravage's dialogue was brilliant and Megatron was willing to go full retard inside the bubble and send himself to kingdom come along with the DJD. Loved the wordless exchange he shared with Rodimus.Brainstorm being put in his place was awesome. Megatron has styled himself on Terminus all this time, they look like brothers. Also, Lieutenant Terminus got new legs!

My only criticism is that the DJD didn't get to fight Megatron. Action scenes were minimised, and even though what happened to each team member was brutal, it felt like a case of 'skip to the end' rather than any full-on ruck (I couldn't even make out what was happening to Tesarus).Is this the first time we've seen Megatron use his anti-matter ability since issue 103 of the Marvel UK series? And the Megatron hug was so cool.

I've a few questions:
  • How did Glitch/Demus come to leave Pax?
  • Is the last briefcase now fried?
  • How did the Necrobot work out that a seemingly empty briefcase was in a fact a time-travel device?
  • General Neech on Page 1 has facial scarring similar to Tarn, there must be a Transformer-related reason for that!
  • What's Overlord's motivation now he doesn't need Megatron any more? Will he go on a reading holiday?
  • In the Roller reveal, standing to the left of him is a Decepticon. I wonder how that guy is going to react and why he went missing in the first place?
  • Loved the table-flip, referencing Issue 1 and Prowl's tendency to do that. I wonder if that's a link to the fact that Prowl is a knockoff (the penultimate issue of Remain in Light), could Prowl be a knockoff derived from Megatron?
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Post by Terome »

Loved it. Very satisfying. Lots to talk about. Can't now as am working to a deadline.
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Yeah, in terms of all the TF comics going back over the years where the finale proclaims 'This one... has it all', 'Nothing will ever be the same' etc. This was very satisfying. Lots of content, lovely colouring, no speech bubbles attributed to the wrong character...
SPOILER! (select to read)
Although I'd have thought a DJD member would go down defiantly yelling "**** you, Megatron", rather than a slightly effeminate "Aaaiieee".
A proper classic issue of MTMTE.
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Post by Patapsco »

Wow, it turns out that I'm reading a different book to everyone else! Who'd a thought it?
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Post by Selkadoom »

I'm normally not the biggest voice in the comics sphere here (My usual abscence and long sporadic gaps between posts attest to this) But after reading this issue, and with the utterly delightful lead up into it. I would say that falling flat is a bit of an understatement. It had so much potential to be great but relied far too heavily on assumptions and coincidences regarding Megatrons master plan not to mention the utter flop of his confrontation with the DJD. All I ask is that we have an actual fight between Megatron and Tarn, but instead, it was just wave my hands and make you begone, and any sense of dramatic tension the arc still had for me.

In regards to the necrobots little secret. There's a term out there that can describe it but I'll be damned if I can find it.

All in all, while this comic had some superb art and dialogue, the rest of this issue felt subpar at best.
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Everyone’s opinion is valid, though. Despite loving this issue I do agree with some of the things you’ve said; the deaths have left me rather non-plussed, I still think somehow Skids will return.

I feel like the action is usually compromised and epic battles scuppered by a long brewing plot device or three. How I wish they could ditch the wanky advertising in the back of the book. Seven pages are lost to it, imagine how much extra could have been shown in this issue i.e. space for fighting/scrapping!

Or failing that (or perhaps preferring it) I’d have loved a text story at the end.

Even with such gripes I still think this is a top job.
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Post by Patapsco »

The high water mark for me are The One Where They Go To Earth and The Not Knowing, and this doesn't come close to either of those. I think most of my main complaints are that all of the tension was drained in order to tie up the loose ends. I mean, did anyone really think that Brainstorm or Rodimus or Cyclonus or Chromedome or Rewind or Megatron were really going to get offed? We were promised a shift in the status quo, and what we got was an influx of new characters to throw into the background, a removal of five boogeymen and replaced them with one bogeyman and one bogeyorganisation (it's a word). It felt... lazy I suppose.

But as I said in my main post, pages 16-18 are absolute superb, and the arc's had high points, but the flaws in the writing are there for all to see, and they've been there through the whole season
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Post by Auntie Slag »

The one where they go to Earth; is that the one about Swerve that has the Cheers introduction?

The Not Knowing one I'm a bit lost as to which issue that is.

But if we're going for high watermarks I'd definitely say the Hostage story from issue 6 (Fort Max, Whirl and Rung), and Shadowplay remains up there too. Then the Scavengers two-parter, which also introduced the DJD.

Part of me wonders if its because the early issues are so brilliant, or whether its because I've done far less re-reading post Dark Cybertron that I'm quite hazy on the Second Season.

I'd dig some more Pax right about now!
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