Premature MTMTE Season 2 discussion

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 8:45 pm

I remember digging through the trades when we were going over the arm thing a little bit back. As I recall, aside from the one cover, Chromedome was shown injecting with both hands when Overlord broke out of the chair. I'd have to go back and look again though. Maybe also check on the sparkeater bit too.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 8:49 pm

Damn, you're right again. Ok, Rewind is completely screwed!

Overlord is brilliantly annoying. we know why Megatron is evil. Overlord just does it for shits and giggles!

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 8:55 pm

I'm also really intrigued about Krok, the device in his left hand, and whether Red Alert will ever come back to the Lost Light, simply because he's tied so closely with shadowplay and Rung.

And Rung is 90% compartments... what else has he got stashed away? And how Skids knew the trick to bring him back to consciousness. That was really a nice touch.

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 9:10 pm

I just went back and looked. I was right about a both hand injecting but wrong about precisely when. It was in issue 14, but not at the chair escape. It was earlier in the issue, when Chromedome is explaining to Overlord what's going on. We get a pair of panels showing Chromedome and Overlord in the slow cell, one of which is a nice close-up of Overlord's head with both of Chromedome's hands injecting.
The one during the sparkeater incident was right hand only though. Same for the Metrotitan brain in the Annual. I forgot to check on the Skids and Prowl ones, but I'm pretty sure you're right about those not being left handed. So either we have an error on the Overlord scene, or the 'deep reading on a live subject' calls for both hands.

I'm not so sure Overlord does it just for shits and giggles at this point. He clearly enjoys the evil and brutality, but I'm thinking there is motive behind it. Garrus-9 was to draw out Megatron. The Fort Max torture apparently was to get at whatever was under Aequitas, assuming Overlord wasn't just dicking with Max. The Lost Light mess was him on a hostile ship, limbering up after being jailed for a while and realizing his life had meaning again.

Death's Head · Post by **Death's Head** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 9:47 pm

That's another one - what's under Aequitas?

I also find myself curious about that symbol ship the Scavengers found - the wooden robot, in particular, and the ceiling full of brain modules. Presumably it belonged to Shockwave at some point but what was he up to? I guarantee it was probably more interesting than Dark Cybertron.

Actually, it could have been Scorponok - he's got a fondness for merging organics and machinery, the pervert.

This is a cross-post from Transfans; some speculation on those 'forged' or 'constructed cold':

And yeah, you're right that in G2 everyone's forgotten about 'budding' - especially as it was probably still occurring within the lifetimes of most of the characters. James Roberts addresses this in Eugenesis, actually, which is where he first developed the distinction between 'forged' (born from 'budding') and 'constructed cold' (built and then infused with life from the Matrix) - at some point in TMUK history the memory gap regarding budding is lifted too.

This has interesting implications for his IDW work. We already know what 'constructed cold' means in the IDW-verse: a body is built then infused with life from the Matrix. So far, all we know about those 'forged' is that their sparks emerge from the surface of Cybertron itself and are surrounded by 'sentio metallico'. This has parallels with Generation 2, where it's revealed that the first Cybertronians were born from the planet's surface in much the same way. Also, the term 'sentio metallico' was given by James to describe the sort of fluid metal that emerges from a Transformer's chest during budding, forming the newborn.

This, coupled with the knowledge that those with forged limbs (Ratchet, Whirl, Shockwave) consider their original appendages to be irreplaceable indicates that, in the IDW-verse, to be forged means to be fully born, spark-and-body-whole, from the surface of the planet (presumably after the spark and sentio-metallico is harvested, it continues to grow?). This has political implications for those constructed cold, as regards Ratioism; after all, someone must have built their bodies, and thus their alternate modes, so what does that say for the constructed-cold menial worker?

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:19 am

Yeah, Krok's mystery device and what exactly happened to his old crew has been bugging me too. So many dangling plot threads.

I assumed the 90% compartments line was a joke on Rung's part.

The symbol ship... I always assumed Shockwave, given the mad science and Grimlock being on board. It just kind of made sense. Though for some reason lately I was thinking Bludgeon, probably due to the aborted protoforms on board and Rewind's history lesson for Tailgate mentioning Bludgeon's army of halfforms and deviants.
I really hadn't considered it being Scorponok's ship. It makes complete sense though. The wacky mad science, the organic and machinery blend, he and Grimlock have a history, and he was probably locked up on G-9 just like Shockwave.

One little thing has been bugging me lately. Given Barber's bent for fixing continuity and tying things up, and being the editor on MTMTE, how on earth have we not gotten some quick explanation on where the bloody Magnificence is? I mean a couple of quick questions to that magic 8-ball and this whole Knight Quest is over. That's kind of a big thing to just leave hanging out there.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:44 pm

I'd prefer it if they just pretended the Magnificence didn't happen, to be honest. But that Barber is a scab-picker so no doubt we'll find out soon...

I'm tempted to think that, much as we like to think of Roberts as a fiendish master planner, that the symbol ship, the object under Aequitas and the thing in Krok's hand are all placeholders for things he intends to think of later. If those loose ends are tied up then we'll celebrate them being threaded early on but if they are not then we can always chalk it up to characters lying / generic mystery / editorial interference. It's a storytelling win-win.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:03 pm

Oh yeah, I'm ok with Aequitas not being explained for another year, but I'd imagine as a writer Roberts must be concerned about the lateness of reveals. If he leaves it till 2016, how many readers will care? How many readers will be annoyed that it relates to something from issue 6 and they didn't start reading until issue 42?

LSotW is three years old already. I don't like the idea of making excuses for readers. I'd rather James Roberts be as complex with his stories as he likes. I'm just bothered that someone will look over his shoulder and say "Come on, man... time to tie this one up".

Is Barber the only one to do that? The plots are so labyrinthine who else would be bothered to understand all the seeding apart from the readers, and me when I steal his ideas book next month?

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:09 pm

I'd imagine, since Barber seems to be good at his job, that he rereads the back catalogue fairly regularly and makes notes on mysteries and loose ends and then shoots an e-mail to the relevant writer with his thoughts and suggestions. It might be that a specific case like Aequitas has come up already and was planned to be expanded on but was pushed aside for something more interesting / pressing.

But you're right in that reader pressure to address every loophole and dangling thread could be to our detriment - remember all the talk not so long ago about how Ore-13 was abandoned as a concept?

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:17 pm

Excellent point. Is Barber actually Roberts' Bernie Taupin?

The keyboard bloke of the Pet Shop Boys to James' Chris Tennant?

The Marr to his Morrissey? Ooooooh!

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:25 pm

The Wise to his Morecambe?

The Corbett to his Barker?

The Jason to his Kylie?

The C-3PO to his R2-D2?

The bloke-without-a-tache-from-Sparks to his bloke-with-a-tache-from-Sparks?

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:34 pm

The Oldman to his Numan.

The supermarket brand version to his Jacobs.

The Tetley to his PG.

The Macleans to his Colgate.

The Fender to his Les Paul (that's right, bitches!).

The American Dad to his Family Guy.

The Jurassic Park to his Maximo Park.

The bloke that played Robocop after Peter Weller... to his Peter Weller.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:40 pm

Maybe it will take Gary Numan and Gary Oldman working together to discover what's under Aequitas. Before Overlord returns from overturning Simon Le Bon's boat.

Death's Head · Post by **Death's Head** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 12:34 am

Maybe the Magnificence is under Aequitas? And it's learned to move around, like the machine in the Mind of Evil?

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 1:06 am

I'm inclined to think no, as the Aequitas trials should have been a fair bit in the past, probably well before Hot Rod first acquired the thing. Even if Aequitas was built after it was found, it still had to be before his use of it during Revelation.

Unless what's under Aequitas is Fort Max's storage room and he keeps all sorts of random junk down there.

Death's Head · Post by **Death's Head** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 2:20 pm

The Transformers equivalent of Josef Fritzl? Frightening!

Osku · Post by **Osku** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:37 am

Not sure where to ask this, but... I gave up waiting for TPB and read Dark Cybertron on comixology,

SPOILER! (select to read)
IMHO not worth it by the way. :-(

Stupid question I quess, but how much is a just released MTMTE issue on comixology? Does the price drop at certain time?

Prices for IDW back catalogue seem to differ a lot. I am almost tempted to purchase Ironhide mini as it was under 5 euros.

Post by **Denyer** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:58 pm

The Ironhide mini isn't really worth reading if someone pays you, unless it's a lot.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:35 pm

It really is a hot mess under that very nice Casey Collier artwork.