Transformers: More than Meets the Eye season two discussion

[Knightdramon]

I think that these are the spark compatible bots. Which is weird because certain sub groups are compatible between them [ie cyclonus and tailgate, chromedome and riptide] but not all of them.

Roller is Tarn. Head shape is the same [just imagine a symbol over it], smashes a bot's head the same way he killed ALL Swerve.

[Unicron]

Interesting choice of team members, and that was such a Rodimus entrance.

And Roller with the Kremzeek brand juice box again. Love it

[Terome]

Roller is also, as we see here, a bit of a sadist. In a heroic way, but he is still running down a fleeing enemy.

[Red Dave Prime]

I think that these are the spark compatible bots. Which is weird because certain sub groups are compatible between them [ie cyclonus and tailgate, chromedome and riptide] but not all of them.

Roller is Tarn. Head shape is the same [just imagine a symbol over it], smashes a bot's head the same way he killed ALL Swerve.

Yeah the head shape is near identical. The only difference I can see is that behind the mask tarn has a small circle ornament in the centre of his forehead (could simply be a design choice). But the overall shape is identical, face would work with the face under the tarn mask and the side circle things are a match. Roller, you bastard.

Curious how this will play out. Possible angles to me could be:

1. Megatron returns at some point to the past as well, saves roller or impresses him to the point that this is what makes Tarn such a follower (in the style of Terminator time travel: its already happened and Brainstorm isnt really changing the past, he always went back in time and it created the current timeline regardless)

2. Something happens that changes the course for Roller and he no longer becomes Tarn - leading to the DJD either being defeated without a shot firing or someone even more sadistic in charge of the DJD (Overlord would be funny as a Megatron Patsy in an alternate future)

3. Roller returns to the future with this lost light crew but its the repaired future so future roller is still Tarn and this roller can exsist because of the briefcase effect a-la rewind - which of course leads to a Tarn v Roller show down.

Either way, december promises to be a month full of rol-lol-lol-ering. (sorry, couldn't resist that)

[Auntie Slag]

Did anyone notice on page 3 or so, there's a scene where Minimus and Rewind are chatting at the base of a big set of stairs. Half-way up the stairs are Ratchet and Pharma chatting!

[Unicron]

Did anyone notice on page 3 or so, there's a scene where Minimus and Rewind are chatting at the base of a big set of stairs. Half-way up the stairs are Ratchet and Pharma chatting!

Caught that on the preview, thanks to seeing it mentioned elsewhere. I was all "Where the hell did they show up?" and found them shortly thereafter

[Auntie Slag]

Yes, I guess in the new Brainstorm constructed reality removing Megatron means no DJD and no reason for Pharma to go bad. Although to be more realistic; Pharma possesses a propensity for the psychotic, and it would have to find another trigger.

It was an excellent visual cue to inform the reader there was clearly something screwy going on with what they're reading, if it wasn't to be gotten from all the sticks, reference to the Dark Fall that Chromedome had never heard of in OLL, or Rewind getting startled that his data banks were filling with a history he didn't recognise.

[Knightdramon]

It can go either way---the way it's set up, Roller already dislikes and is fighting the corrupt Autobots.

Plus, out of all these bots in Pax's crew, one of them ratted them out at the end of Shadowplay and we still don't know who it is.

Or Roller could be deep undercover to infiltrate the Decepticons, and maybe gets carried away.

One thing I'm thinking off is that Orion's crew are working with Zeta [at the time still charismatic and not crazy]. It would explain how they go from outlaw miscasts when Sentinel was a Prime to proper police officers again under Zeta Prime.

[Blackjack]

Just read this. Pretty awesome.

Shame I missed the all-important 'present day' caption on my first read-through, but when I thought something was off and went back a couple of pages, it hit me and the issue just got so much better.

This is great.

Brainstorm just effectively wiped out history and replaced everything on Cybertron with, uh, Brainstorm's Reality or whatever, right? Basically only the dudes abroad the Lost Light are protected by it? What if they never manage to reverse Brainstorm's time-jump? What if the MTMTE universe just effectively broke off from the mainstream IDW universe this way? The Lost Light beat up the DJD, the Council of Twelve and all that, but never find a way back to the original IDW universe, therefore preventing disappointingly horrid crossovers with the RID title? Because I'm down for that.

Love the fact that Chromedome and Rewind aren't just getting back together smoothly.

Trailbreaker is truly dead.

This issue is awesome. Going off to reread it after I read all your comments in this thread.

[Summerhayes]

I can understand Swerve watering down the drinks, but is stealing the engex canister pre-empting the watering down?

He poisoned the Engex, that's how he knocked everyone out. He carries his own drink so the poison won't affect him.
Presumably the missing cannister was either stolen, poisoned and put back or stolen because Brainstorm didn't have enough poison for that one.

[Auntie Slag]

Thanks, I'd forgotten about that, even though I think it was also explained in this issue!

@Blackjack: Love the theory of Brainstorm doing it to prevent crossovers. A truly sublime solution.

Edit I don't know anything about Doctor Who, but on BBC Three tonight was a programme covering all things Whovian, featuring a sequence where The Doctor & The Master were arguing before the Timelords (Boss timelord was Timothy Dalton). The Master was described as the polar opposite to The Doctor and they came across as Megatron & Prime, with The Timelords as the Functionist Council.

[Red Dave Prime]

Like the deep under cover idea. That works nicely.

Just to muddy the waters, Skids has a very similar head build to Tarn. Smaller, but similar. Time travel mix-up? Nah, I'm probably just reaching with that one.

[Blackjack]

Also can I add how happy I am to see Perceptor just be an awesome 'talk a lot of science' guy again? Brainstorm and Nautica basically made him get shafted a lot and his most recent roles involve the sniping instead of the SCIENCE so it's highly appreciated.

[Auntie Slag]

A guy called Xaaron over at The Allspark had this to say about Brainstorm:

"Did Chromedome and Brainstorm pair-bond back in the days of the New Institute? Did Chromedome's attack of conscience in leaving the Institute also bring him to wipe his relationship with Brainstorm, and the memory of horrible things they did there?

Brainstorm seems to mention some great pain he has learned to live with during that conversation, but it's not clear what".

I'm suddenly intrigued about Brainstorms great pain. And following on from that, it was mentioned in Spotlight: Trailcutter that Chromedome, Brainstorm and Highbrow were collectively known as Headmasters. We've seen almost nothing of Highbrow so far, yet he is a Lost Light crew member, and I'm wondering if he'll feature in the upcoming issues?

EDIT Another one of those things that pops into my head from time to time; in the past Skids had a matrix tattoo on his right cheek (I presume that's what it was). Why has it since gone, and why did Pax say that reminded him of someone? Again, picking up from a comment Jalaguy made at the Allspark; 'when did Skids renounce religion'?

Also, I don't hang out at the Allspark, I just clicked on a link to see what other forums were saying about this particular issue!

EDIT 2 The poster Repugnus made a good point about Brainstorm's true allegiance. When he shot an enraged Magnus with the disaggregator gun, the beam was orange/red, not purple. As a link back to Brainstorm and Nautica's talk about colour coded lasers in the heat of battle back at the beginning of Season 2.

EDIT 3 Is there perhaps a reason why the Functionist council all have similar nondescript, almost Whirl-like faces? Are they a committee of criminals?

[Unicron]

EDIT Another one of those things that pops into my head from time to time; in the past Skids had a matrix tattoo on his right cheek (I presume that's what it was). Why has it since gone, and why did Pax say that reminded him of someone? Again, picking up from a comment Jalaguy made at the Allspark; 'when did Skids renounce religion'?

The tattoo reminded him of Springarm(?), one of the guys under Pax's command during Chaos Theory.
I'd think Skids lost the mark when he joined the Diplomatic Corps. Spec Ops probably can't have distinguishing marks like that, and an overt religious symbol like that might not be a good thing to display when interacting with alien species (assuming they actually did try to get aliens to side with the Autobots).

[Auntie Slag]

Megatron is the only one who remembers Rung, from his one altercation with him over 4 million years ago whilst having a drink with Impactor at Maccadam's. Why is Megatron impervious to Rung's seeming attention deflector?

When Rung gets his head blown up, everyone remembers him. Is this because he's incapacitated i.e. because his powers are offline? Or simply because Mr. Nobody is holed up on a ship with 200 other robots, rather than a planet of millions?

I was wondering if anyone acted noticeably different whilst Rung was headless as a result of not being influenced by him?

Also whether Rung's ability could be considered a different form of Shadowplay, developed in Rung's own style and in a way to largely serve him, rather than screw people's minds over.

Or has Rung been done over by the Council/Senate? In the Role Call pages of the early issues I'm sure his little panel bore the tag line 'Wants to be remembered'. He knows about Shadowplay, yet seemingly no-one ever went after him? Despite serving as a willing signatory to Senator Shockwaves amendment to effectively halt its unfettered use. If you were on the Council or Senate, you'd want to remove Rung sharpish.

Does Megatron remember him because Rung lets him remember? And if so, for what purpose? Is there a unique aspect to Megatron's psyche that Rung's ability cannot overcome?

[Auntie Slag]

This blew my tiny mind for a bit. Philip Ayres over at Transmasters UK made the following comment about ALL Rewind;

"Having Rewind back opens up an opportunity for further heartbreak at a later stage when OUR Rewind turns out to have survived..."

With everything else going on I'd forgotten about that possibility. Can you imagine what an absolute mind**** that's going to be for Chromedome and ALL Rewind?

Its got to happen, its just too good... because OLL Rewind may know Chromedome's dirtiest secrets thanks to Overlord!

One other thing that I didn’t pay attention to because it was a sick scene (but was raised by the bods at Transmasters and made me think), in Issue 32, page 13, panel 3 we see Ratchet, Drift and Hound all dead in the closet. Hound appears to have both of Drift’s shorter knives embedded in his torso, and has been scalped (not something I noticed happened to any other character, so I’m wondering if there’s any significance to that).

Drift’s long sword has been impaled in his own head and his left arm is placed around Hound, in a mockingly friendly way, with the hand resting on the hilt of the short sword. I guess my point is that they’re all seated in what would otherwise be a relaxed, pally way. So what were the DJD trying to say with this diorama?

I also didn’t notice that drift has two fist imprints on his chest beneath the Aubobot insignia, and Ratchet has his hands out like he’s waiting to receive something.

Will this all be revealed in a really gross playback from ALL Rewind? All three do look like they were positioned specifically.

[Skyquake87]

I have read this today...

...time travel and everything going a bit wibbly! awesome.

love reading this thread, but have nothing clever or fanciful to say

[Auntie Slag]

If the two Rewind's should meet, then the ALL version will have to disappear as the Universe reasserts itself. However, what secrets and stories with he and Chromedome exclusively share by that point? He would lose new super-close Rewind, to be replaced with OLL super-pissed Rewind!

Imagine returning to find your other half had effectively carried on with a clone of yourself!

Edit Just found Warcry's explanation of Rewind & Overlord in the slow cell (taken from the Season 1 roundup thread):

"A lot of people have said that, but they're reading things backwards. Time ran slower inside the cell than outside. If the slow-down was active, it would have seemed like less than a second for Rewind and Overlord between the door closing and them getting blown up.

Otherwise what good would a slow cell be? Your prisoners would escape and kill you before you even realized they were thinking about it".

I need to remember this. There wouldn't have been enough time for Rewind to learn anything, and Overlord would have only had enough time to flatten him in a Pipes-style.

[Death's Head]

EDIT 3 Is there perhaps a reason why the Functionist council all have similar nondescript, almost Whirl-like faces? Are they a committee of criminals?

I reckon remote-controlled bodies of some sort. Why? I have no idea...