Transformers: More than Meets the Eye season two discussion

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:47 am

I posted this in the AA thread, but just in case any MTMTE fans aren't glancing that way, a James Roberts podcast interview where he talks about MTMTE, fake out deaths and that he wouldn't want to share a hab suite with Chromedome...

http://s39.podbean.com/pb/76a71709e41e0 ... kAgain.mp3

Post by **Blackjack** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:26 pm

Ah, good, he realizes the fake-out deaths are crap! Awesomeness.

EDIT: ooh, more Chromedome intrigue. Yeah, Barber can have Prowl (to his credit he's trying to fix the mistakes he did with him from the early RID issues) -- Chromedome is my new favourite edgy gray-morality Autobot.

Post by **Blackjack** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:21 pm

Ah, I got it.

It's the damned briefcase, isn't it? I bet someone opened it and created some ridiculous quantum space time hijinks.

ALSO WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISSUE IS COMING OUT IN EARLY SEPTEMBER

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:50 pm

Yeah, after all my defence of Chromedome's intentions towards Rewind, Roberts really makes it sound as if there's no one, even his own creator!- he wouldn't **** with...

EDIT: And he realises a lot of people think the fake outs are crap, which isn't quite the same as thinking so himself...

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 2:46 pm

Schedule on the Wiki (which is usually correct, eventually) has it listed for the 27th currently

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:23 pm

Its great to be able to listen to the authors comments and reactions as his series is running. And its good to know that he is aware of fan reaction and speculation, even if it may be just a vocal few per fansite.

On the other side, I wonder how that makes Barber feel about RID? I'm sure there are plenty of people more than happy with it.

Some great nuggets of information given away too, things that I would have been pleased as punch to read on the day; but am happy to know about through this podcast. I mean, its not like its ruined anything plot-wise by mentioning them.

He's careful not to give anything away that could even be read into! And excellent that he can recite The Young One's at will

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:00 pm

I have only just read MTMTE # 31 (special subscription with Blockbusters style honeycomb art) and read this thread... and feel really very dim.

I must have missed the cunning stuff about Chromdome and his special needle hand and that he might have done VERY BAD THINGS to Rewind with it. Sigh.

I am more concerned that we've seen him be use his abilities again after all that stuff with Rewind and the promise he made to himself not to do needly mind things again. People though, can't help falling into bad habits, right?

I will listen to the pod cast soon...its not really long is it? Anything over 30 minutes and I get bored...! If its some 2 hour waffle-a-thon I will freely admit I probably end up walking out of the room and doing something else. Tickle a cat. Do some ironing. Eat a biscuit. That sort of thing.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:30 pm

All the Chromedome needle stuff on Rewind is conjecture going back many issues. But yeah, it all boils down to the fact that Chromedome just can’t keep from doing freaky things.

This and the fact that there’s something extremely dodgy about him, he likes being dodgy, he’s skilled to the point where he’s outlived others who partake in the extremely dangerous sport of mnemosurgery, and he's formed multiple close relationships in his life so far when the majority of the cybertron populace barely even get one.

Chromedome’s a freaky cat, man. Overlord is a fluffy kitten compared to that guy.

The podcast is just over an hour long. James' responses are good though; interesting and layered. Although in the nicest possible sense you're not missing anything if you don't listen.

Me; I'd listen, have a tea, eat a biscuit and tickle a cat.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:33 pm

I should probably do the terribly modern thing of downloading this to some convenient portable device...

but I just can't be arsed.

If its just an hour, I should manage that. I like James Roberts. Especially as he doesn't half look like Ryan Stiles whom I remember most fondly from Whose Line Is It Anyway? He's doing some rubbish sitcom thing I keep seeing on Comedy Central.

I am a terrible MTMTE reader. Here's you guys getting all deep and meaningful with it, and I just think its bloody great comics and slots in nicely with my other current choices of Lazarus, Fatale and Velvet

I still love Joanna's colours bestest. Joanna, (if you're out there) come do the colours for my life. It would be ace.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:39 pm

Ha! I never made that connection. Yes, Ryan Style's British cousin!

James is very good in the podcast, its the Interviewers who annoy me a bit, and it sounds like its recorded in a shoe box.

He could really do with someone a bit more like Parkinson or the woman from Desert Island Discs interviewing him.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 9:03 pm

Or Inflatable Dalek...

Although I have horrible feeling that would end up like this:

http://youtu.be/eNPZXtJ48Qo

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 1:34 am

Skyquake87 wrote:I have only just read MTMTE # 31 (special subscription with Blockbusters style honeycomb art) and read this thread... and feel really very dim.

I must have missed the cunning stuff about Chromdome and his special needle hand and that he might have done VERY BAD THINGS to Rewind with it. Sigh.

Yeah, as Auntie Slag said, the Chromedome/Rewind needling theories goes back a ways. The UV light allergy I referenced is mentioned in issue 12 (and issue 8 is where Chromedome explains Mnemosurgery marks only show up under UV light), I want to say it was 13 where Rewind couldn't remember what Domey was up to.

That's part of the fun of this series. Roberts does such a great job with world building and foreshadowing that new information has us trying to figure out what it means and thus going back to look over past issues for connections and things to fit or disprove theories.
It's because of things like Brainstorm being revealed to be dead this whole time late in Dark Cybertron. It makes us go back and look at things in a new light. It explains why the sparkeater totally ignored him all the way back in issue 2.

So MTMTE threads seem to turn into a mass of speculation and past issue references. Fun times.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 8:40 am

I think I'll have to keep MTMTE out of the Long Boxes going forward...

Listened to the podcast. I'd agree with Slag, the interviewers are a little excitable and there's a fair few moments where things dive into private jokes and Roberts has to bring things back under control, but some good stuff in there, all the same.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 5:23 pm

Skyquake87 wrote:Or Inflatable Dalek...

By amazing coincidence, I have happened to put a list of questions together for a James Roberts interview. Here's a quick preview of them:

Hi James, can I call you Jim?

Why are you so awesome?

Have you thought about bringing that Decepticon who turned into a Dalek from the Marvel comics back? Maybe with a slightly inflatable look this time?

Will you be my friend?

That'd be the jist of it.

I thought the podcast interviewers did a fair enough job, there's no shortage of "Professional" chat show hosts who do the paly paly injoke thing so that didn't bother me.

EDIT: What I really like is that Roberts takes the hab suite question completely seriously and thinks through which of them would be the most bearable to live with rather than going for the gag answer the question obviously invites.

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Sun Aug 17, 2014 5:51 pm

I think this issue is massively over hyped. Too much for its own good.

Only other issues I can think of, with similar hype, were 12 and 15. And both were very misleading as to what was "promised" and was was on page, content wise.

Still, looks like proper Alien meets Dead Space meets transformers. Re-read 28-31 today in anticipation of it.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:22 am

Those are all fine questions, and I bet you'd get considered responses to each of them too

Post by **zigzagger** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 3:51 am

The full preview is now up @ Issuu.

Unicron · Post by **Unicron** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 6:11 pm

Interesting, Nautica refers to Ravage as a 'she' while everyone else uses 'he'. I wonder if that's going to get called out or if it's just a quickly corrected assumption on Nautica's part.

And Roberts continues the trend with these previews: Interesting, raises further questions while not actually answering any previous ones.

Last panel on page 5, is that Nightbeat being surprised at Nautica's alt mode?

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 11:03 am

I am on it like vomit.

SPOILERS AHOY

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Goodness me! A really good ghost ship story, plenty of horrible things to see and consider, a cracking sequence where Megatron talks to Ravage and is actually unguarded and honest for the first time and a genuine mystery which is looking to resemble quite closely the TFW2005 theory we've been talking about.

Things I'm thinking about:
We didn't see Chromedome's corpse although every other main character seems to be accounted for (except possibly Rung... Whirl's on the cover, which took on a very different tone after the reveal. We're seeing their desperate last stand.)

There is no way Rewind is getting out of this alive. My bet is that he'll be reverted with everybody else.

We didn't see whether Tailgate had 'Bomb' or 'Waste' written on him but I'd bet it's 'Bomb.'

How then did the DJD know about Magnus? And how did the Autobots keep the whole thing a secret from Megatron when it took Ravage about a second to rumble it?

Brainstorm's briefcase! It's an Undo button, isn't it? It shunts you a few seconds backwards in time like in the finale of Futurama. That's a good source of comedic shennanigans. I wonder how many times he's used it already.

Who are we seeing in alt-mode in that scene? It's hard to do when we haven't seen a lot of these guys transform before and they have faded colours. Huffer? Landmine? Is that Brainstorm? Wait... Pipes?

That panel with Ratchet, Drift and Hound gets worse and worse the more I look at it - they made Drift stab Hound, impaled him with his own Great Sword, presumably while Ratchet watched. Then presumably Helex had him eat his own brain. Definitely Rob Grant territory.

Fodder for the Tumblr crowd - Nightbeat and Nautica, 'Stormy,' etc.

Soundwave sent Ravage to assassinate Megatron. Soundwave is very upset. But I am glad that we're told outright that Galvatron is being used. That seems to be his lot in life.

An interesting titbit about Megatron's body not having any 'bite' with his spark.

'Morphing addiction' - yuck.

All in all, great issue. Firing on all cylinders. I'm very warmed up to the new colours - this was a great showcase for Lafuente.

I'm also quite fond of Riptide now.

tahukanuva · Post by **tahukanuva** » Wed Aug 27, 2014 1:26 pm

I didn't even realise how tense this issue had me until I finished and let out the breath I'd been involuntarily holding. This was my first 'horror' issue since I'd started reading (I jumped on with the last issue of Remain in Light) so I finally get to join the rest of you in being impressed with how easily this comic shifts into entirely different genres.