And that would be fine if they didn't come off as petulent children. "I'm more faithful than anyone! That's why the Mistres of the Flame kicked me out... because I'm better than her and she knows it! I'm going to make my own religion... with blackjack! And Hookers!"

 

Pyra lost faith in the Mistress because she would never have accepted the notion of the Primes being anything less than perfect, sacred beings, even though Onyx and his followers had killed Pyra's superior, among others. I don't think that's being very villainous; she and the other Torchbearers have got reasons for distrusting leadership figures in religion.

 

I really don't think Pyra is being set up for being a villain. The primes are coming back. Onyx and Leige Maximo can take that job. Besides, why does there have to be a big bad? I'm actually looking forward to their struggles with building their society and dealing with problems. Like what Optimus is going through now is pretty good. The story is told from his perspective, but he really is being a big problem to the people of earth.

 

I don't find Pyra coming off as petulant. Argumentative, yes, confrontational, but she does back up her points and has reasons behind them. And, she's got two angles here- either she becomes a Prime or she pushes Optimus into being a better one (in her view at least). So, yea, she's going to push him on that pretty hard because challenging someone is how you get them to grow.

She's wrong on some matters, of course, but it's better for Optimus than the Mistress of Flame's approach.

 

I guess I understand why Barber had to use Pyra Magna of all people as an antagonist at the very least. Victorion was the winner of the CW poll and for that reason they were mandated to be recurring characters in the comics just like Windblade and what better way to include them than giving their leader a relevant role in the story right?

The thing is that all of that is superficial and came out of nowhere. Pyra Magna never had that much of a personality nor presence to begin with so giving her this kind of importance feels shallow and not convincing at all. To be honest, I don't feel anything about her, I just don't care about her, I'm not invested at all in her as an antagonist and that's one of the biggest problems right now.

The worst thing is that do you know who would have filled Pyra Magna's role in a more successful way? Aileron.

She was introduced by Barber himself as a fan of Optimus Prime and the way how she was being developed seemed to direct her to a point where she was going to start doubting his role and that would have been an interesting and logical character progress. Going from a zealot to a rival makes a lot of sense and shows how extremism can be implemented in both sides.

Unfortunately that didn't happen. Instead Barber had to force Pyra Magna into the story because executives demanded it and now that I think about it, that has always been a recurring problem with his books.

 

To be honest, I hav'nt been a fan of Optimus since before the All hail Optimus arc and this insistence on "Save the earthlings". This whole Optimus Prime comics line has
been grating to say the least. No one wants them on Earth yet they keep adding these stupid story arcs taking them there. Pyra Magna seems fine as someone trying to grasp with the fact that her deity doesnt want to be called one.  

 

If I'm being honest, the annual makes her come across as a sociopath. Her confusion over fostering cooperation being more important than the prospect of her (her specifically) being right really hammered that home for me.

I get that she's supposed to be a foil to Optimus, but the truth is Pyra's kind of an awful person. She might not be a villain, but her morals are pretty damn warped.

 

I get why it's important to Optimus to protect the people of earth even against their will. But his lack of concern for the wellbeing of the citizens of Cybertron outside of making sure they are at peace is staggering.
Cybertron remains a wasteland under Starscreams rule. Being alive is literally the most it's citizens can be thankfull for. This is not a good basis for a lasting peace.

 

Optimus has been stale to me for a long time. I find him boring to read and his motivations hard to follow. Pyra gets on my nerves and honestly I kinda wish Optimus would eventually snap, throw the Matrix at her and say: 'Here. If you think you can do all this better then have at it!' and then he leaves just as a massive threat arrives. Of course, knowing how things go in TF comics these days, Pyra will probably settle things easily and be proven right all along.

 

You're supposed to have your own opinion on her. Optimus Prime is using people for a greater cause, which Pyra finds immensely wrong. She may be right, but this in itself is a more subjective matter. She does have some deepseated egotism that she denies, but nonetheless is apparent frim her beliefs and criticisms of Optimus. She's definitely one of the more interesting characters Barber has written.

 

pyra magna is the most qualified potential matrix bearer of all time

it's deplorable that optimus would dare stand in her way

 

She's annoying. And meant to be. Like so many of them now. Metal hawk was annoying for many of the same reasons and I've never liked the constant need since AHM for ALL Cybertronians to have to be written deeply cynical about everything except a blindness to their own weak spots. It's the soap opera nature of an interminable series that doesn't recognise that the perspective of beings that have lived and endured through millions of years should be a bit different to those of whiney Earthlings.

Optimus lead an army, had overall say on strategy and had to keep military discipline throughout an eons long war, are we really expected to believe He went through a constant series of mid-life crisis every five years and can't explain himself with the necessary conviction to angry jerks like Pyra as to what time it is? Really?

When a writer is finally allowed to address that some of the supporting cast can then grow beyond pale analogues of the G1 Cartoon stereotypes. And I agree that Hasbro dictats on who has to be front and centre doesn't help at all.

 

That could also be seen as a result of living through a million year civil war though.

 

If they had minds like humans yeah. I'd be interested in a different perspective because quite clearly they aren't and wouldn't be anything like us.

 

It would be nice if the writers would move away a bit from the concept of writing these characters as analogues for human beings and try to explore how such creatures would plausibly think, feel, behave, what their needs, wishes and fears would be.
i can appreciate some things are probably universal and it's hard to imagine as a human being how a creature that isn't human would think, but when i read the latest Transformers annual and i see a Cybertronian walking on the sideway reading what seemed like a paper journal and another one walking a dog they are just not trying at all.

 

They are an analogy to human society. I think that much is clear. It is the point. That's why they are doing this: Social commentary in comic form, things that might last longer than a few minutes of mindless entertainment. Of course they could have went down strictly science fiction avenue, but it is not the path of TF comics, from the BEGINNING.

There are some great science fiction regarding robots, say, the Robots Series by Asimov and the Space Odyssey series by Clarke, etc. Go read some hard science fictions about aliens and robots if you want some thing like that. I always wonder what the fuss is about people criticize TFcomics being too human-like. Why don't they think and act less like humans... well that would defeat the purpose wouldn't it?

 

Variation ?
We continue to get several different itterations of the franchise year after year, i'd like hasbro to try something different once in a while.
I haven't really ever read any hard science fiction but you are right, i should.
But i'm into transformers and i think there
is room to try a more explorative fiction in the franchise, maybe some exclusive fiction ?

 

Hey, here's a thought- there's more than one classic Prime. Pyra is aiming for Optimus's spot because, hey, it's a one-prime era and the Matrix Prime is the one most traditionally passed on.

I wonder if she'll ever consider trying to become a second prime...

 

If they do, they'll prolly have to make a new continuity for that, instead of messing up the current comics one. Maybe a animation series would fun.

Than they'll have to explain awkward questions like why does a vegetative propagation species have genders? (it could easily become offensive... and even more offensive if they makes big sausage party, unless they venture into the new genderless pronouns territory) Why do they look so much like humans in their root modes (why do they even have a face)? Some of the mechs should find new origins because their occupations doesn't make sense to an advanced robotic culture. Their whole social, ideological, philosophical... any structures should be redesigned. And it would take a genius to do all these. (Some best presentings of intelligent alien species that are vastly different from us focused on only one or two aspect, and keeps everything else vague. One of the example is Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. Alter all, we never met any real aliens. It's all speculation.)

 

True, the whole concept of Transformers would have to be reimagined and that would be fun i think.
But perhaps it would be more fun and interesting if it was done via some kind of
semi-open fan-project where interested fans would brainstorm and build a new TF universe through agreement.
It would be quite the undertaking though.
And filtering what we would think of through plausibility and scientific fact would be just the half of it.