I have been wanting to re-read the trades since I bought MTMTE Vol. 1, but I never found the time to get around to it  
I think I maybe once re-read the first volume, but I'm not sure if I started the second.

 

I would not have noticed that's Glitch. Until today I didn't evenk now his name anymore. To me that was just a random background character.

 

It's a really bad set up to reveal.

 

There were way more misdirection than just that, like the facial scars Tarn and Roller share (which we SAW happen on panel); the similarity in their body types; their addictive personalities (which was apparently dropped); Tarn and Skids knowing each other; Tarn being a Point One Percenter; Roller's disappearance; or that Megatron mentions to Tarn "I made you to hurt someone" after we are told that Roller was Orion's best friend. The misdirection is fine, but it only works when there is enough to have been more than one outcome that fits in story.

The problem with the Tarn/Glitch thing is that Glitch/Damus had maybe of a tenth of the character development Roller did, and prior to the reveal, we knew that Glitch had been a victim of empurata, was an Outlier that could affect inanimate machines, that he'd gotten his head and hands fixed, and the one panel no one noticed where OP gave Roller a copy of Meg's writing and Glitch is watching. We didn't know what happened to Glitch after his time with Orion, but we also didn't know what happened to Roller. Really, the only indication we have that It would have been a great reveal if Roberts had set it up in a way were it could have logically been either Roller or Damus

Instead, IMO, it comes across as Roberts being a jerk writer and saying "haha, look how smart I am: I fooled all of you! See this ONE clue that fits." ONE legitimate clue doesn't make a good twist, unless your name is R. L. Stine... 

 

Personal theory on the identity of "Tarn" - spoilers abound. • r/idwtransformers

Well, SOMEBODY figured it out before the story confirmed it...

Well Glitch clearly had some damaging things go on this his head too, Glitch's design had some commonalities with Tarn's design too especially in the head, Glitch knew Skids as well, Glitch was an outlier and clearly had some kind of deviation in the spark, Glitch disappeared from the story after Elegant Chaos too, and I imagine Optimus losing one of his first Autobots to the other side probably stung as well.

Face it, half the clues pointing to Roller pointed to Glitch as well. And if you seriously thought that issue 36's overhinting wasn't going to be anything other than a red herring...well nothing I can say about that.

 

Except they didn't match up as conveniently as you make it seem, either then or now.

1. The only face we saw for Glitch prior to him being revealed as Tarn was when he looked like Shockwave and Whirl - a one-eyed polyhedron, thought the ears are similar to Tarn's... but so are Roller's. Conversely, we get to see very clearly how similar Roller's head, ears, chin strap, facial scar, body type, size, etc. are to Tarn's. Your reddit person didn't even bother making body similarities a point because Glitch had to go through a full body restructuring to become Tarn (which we saw on panel, though without any context to help us understand what was going on. If Roberts had bothered to show us some context of that scene, it would have fit far better, but we didn't so it's a moot point) because Glitch was originally about the same size as Windcharger while Tarn is similar in size to Grimlock and Megatron, who is as big or bigger than OP, like Roller.

2. From the start we are told Tarn is a POP, and that Roller was a POP. We don't know that Glitch is a POP until he's revealed to be Tarn, and it's been established that all Outliers are not POPs. So, again, another mark that doesn't go against Glitch, but certainly does go towards Roller. Also not mentioned by your reddit person.

3. Addictive personalities. Never once saw this from Glitch. Not mentioned by your redditter. Roller, however, is addicted to circuit speeders... like Tarn was addicted to Nuke and transforming.

4. We see no development of Glitch's powers on panel, and other reddit users called your poster on that. None. Nada. Zilch. Tarn describes his voice as being a late bloomer, but Glitch always had his powers whereas Roller never had any. Let's chalk that up to really bad word choices by Roberts. He should have said fruition, or full extent, or something else along those lines to even hint that something existed prior to "killer voice."

5. The Megatron-Tarn-OP triangle. Megatron tells Tarn that he created him to hurt OP. That he wanted OP to suffer because of Tarn. Basically that Tarn is a walking psychological weapon against Prime. However, as many other reddit users pointed out to your poster, we have no indication that Glitch's relationship with OP was anything deeper than Windcharger's. We do, however, see that Roller was OP's BEST friend and Roberts dropped several times via Twitter that Roller, Ratchet, and OP were all close friends, but that he could never draw them on the same panel again. If Glitch was always meant to be Tarn, Roberts needed to show us somewhere that Glitch and OP were exceptionally close, but we never see that. We see OP and Roller. We see OP and Ratchet. But we never see Damus/Glitch and OP. And as far as we can tell, OP and Glitch weren't close later either. Far from being "one of his first Autobots," Glitch drops out of OP's entourage. Not only that, we don't know that Glitch ever even was an Autobot because the Autobots as they were formed under OP didn't form until years later in Autocracy.

So, no, I don't see how half the clues pointed to Glitch over Roller. I will say that numerous people thought Roller was a red herring, but also that Tarn was either going to be an entirely new character, or that he was going to end up being Dominus Ambus. As far as I can tell, the only person who thought Tarn was Glitch was the random reddit user you found. Kudos to him, because he obviously though way outside the box, but please don't act like I am some kind of fool for not picking up on Tarn being Glitch most people on this forum, and elsewhere, didn't see that one coming, and TBH, I still don't think it fits well.

 

6. Slaughterhouse. We see Tarn crush Swerve's head while shooting his arm cannon in the exact pose Roller used. And again, size. Glitch was not big enough to pull that off, while Roller was.

 

The argument ends up being, "You wanted Tarn to have an interesting backstory? Well, too bad, he doesn't deserve one!". So, like, okay, but then, why does Megatron deserve one? It comes down to the real basic question of, are people bad because of what they do, or because of what motivates them. And if the answer is what they do, then the same people who celebrate Tarn being a "nobody" should also be demanding that all of Megatron's character development be edited out of the book.

 

All of this. The "created Tarn to hurt Prime" one really sticks in my craw. Glitch was just a fucking dude on the Outlier team with no indication that he had any special relationship with Optimus. ROLLER hurts Prime. Prime and company FORGETTING about Roller adds to that.

It's fine if Roller isn't Tarn. It's not fine that Roberts failed to actually show us or develop Tarn's "real" identity in any fashion that resonated. It was almost universally confusion, annoyance, or "who?".

 

Can we get back to discussing THIS issue now?
The whole Tarn reveal was done to death a long time ago, and it has zero relevance to current events - whilst I personally didnt see it being Glitch ahead of the reveal, i honestly didnt think it would be Roller... they are so so different personality wise, the red herrings practically said its not roller.

Any further thoughts on what Cyberutopia might present? i dont think the citizens will be evil, or particularly good... they will likely be a far cry from their initial 'knights' status, but what that is... um stumped, ordinary maybe? It has been millions and millions of years after all.

 

Cybertopia is full of undead robot squid men, and Pharma, who is also an undead robot squid man but with chainsaws for hands.

IDK why anybody wanted to go there.

 

Honestly not sure. But I bet they all protective eye-wear because their planet seems to be a rainbow lit hellscape.

 

If they're not Quintessons I will be unimpressed.

 

i think we can all agree that at this point, we deserve Quints

 

Are the Knights of Cyberutopia related somehow to the original 13 Primes? I'm just wondering if what's going on in the Optimus or Windblade series - Liege Maximos breaking free - is gonna factor into this somehow.

 

There hasn't been any connection established. The Thirteen just took over leadership of Cybertron after the Knights left the planet.

 

Wait, so the Knights are older - older than Primus???

 

As far as we can tell:
- Cybertron may or may not be created by the Guiding Hand, who populate it with the Knights of Cybertron. The Knights depart in their Titans.
-Cybertronian society falls into barbarism, with tribal alliances being formed. Several of them have self-proclaimed Primes at their heads, who eventually form an alliance of Thirteen.
-With Titans that remained on the planet after the Knights left, the Thirteen create colony worlds populated with their followers. The colonies, however, become isolated and are eventually forgotten by Cybertron.
-The Thirteen go to war with each other after Solus is murdered. Eventually, they depart the planet, leaving Nova Major to take over as Prime.
-Expansion, Functionism, and the Cybertronian War ensue.

 

I don't know how to feel about Star Saber Ex Machina and how this guy one-manned a combine like that. Were the F*$k was this guy when Combiner Wars was happen, he could have save the damn day.
Defensor is dead. Rock is dead, and he didn't get any kind of devolpment or scene time. But hi it is ok, we are going to get more issues dedicated to everyone 's favorite new character, Anode.
I had this funny feeling about this LL when Nautica's attachment towards Skids was erased in the span of an issue, but damn.