DoOP is an interesting one. I've been trying to get my friends to read MtMtE, but using this as a pilot (as every trade does) is a harder sell than if they just used issue one.

 

I've had the exact same issue, dude. I give people the first trade and they can never get past Doop. I think it just fails to capture the interest of new readers the way the first issue of mtmte might.

 

Wow, been a long time since I posted here, but then I don't remember much of the end of Costa's run. It just got so boring at best and rubbish for the rest, that I forgot (as in an active verb) most of it.

Well, a little comparison with the last episode of Enterprise is justified. That, too, was a horrible episode that's best forgotten.

Definitely agreed. When the -ation series ran I honeslty liked it for it's novelty, but nothing more. Slow pacing and the unneeded detours with the Dead Universe, stopped me from loving it at the time. But when it was over and I re-read it, I absolutely loved it. Still had issues with the Dead Universe, but in general Furman gave a very nice reinterpretation of the TF universe and it was great universe building.

The way you read it, in trades, was the way to go. Reading it an issue per month over the duration of a year, made it dreadful to me. Little happened while pretending that big things took place. That McCarthy completely ignored everything Furman had done, and then suddenly used some parts of it (which conflicted with the first half of AHM) didn't help. And the series ended in a cartoon rush.

In a way, I still defend Costa. He had some great ideas and he did some very good character work. He just needed a good editor to keep continuity in check and make sure he used the right characters. Schmidt, was anything but a good editor. A good editor could've made something from it. But then again, a good editor likely would never have hired Costa in the first place.

But from Furman through McCarthy and ending with Costa, it's a step down with every new writer.

I was a bit more positive than you, but that was likely due to having experienced Costa and before that McCarthy for so many years. After that, this felt like a breath of fresh air.

Who says that you should like them?  

Well, in keeping with that analogy, DS9 was a better show than TNG.

Honestly, the first year, I knew everybody loved MTMTE and I liked it, but I thought RiD was much more interesting. Rodimus his travels were well written, but all the social ramification and political intrigue of RiD I liked quite a lot better as a story.

 

MTMTE 1-3, then RID 1-5, MTMTE 4-5, then RID 6 rounds off the first book.

 

That's weird but makes a certain amount of sense. You can't just alternate issues, even if we might have been reading them that way monthly, since both books are generally running arcs outside of the one-off issues.

That, ultimately, they're completely disconnected, makes any "time difference" unimportant to the read. You're not likely to get spoiled on something from RID by reading two issues ahead in MTMTE.

 

I have a friend I desperately need to force-read the first few volumes of MTMTE. He's a very SF, open-minded guy, but he refuses on the grounds of "I don't like Transformers." Which is an argument I *get*, except that whatever this guy thinks is Transformers: MTMTE isn't exactly that. We can argue all day about how many fans NEW to even TFs, or finding new lenses through MTMTE, it really has brought, but that audience exists.

He's ten years older than I, as well, so he was already in his teens when TF hit and has no nostalgic attachment. Whatever Transformers is that he doesn't "like" (Bayverse? G1? Beast Wars? Any or all of it), I mean, I GET it. There's a lot of garbage media in Transformers. I'm trying so hard to sell him on the things MTMTE is, especially how it transcends being both a. "licensed" and b. "Transformers." But he just... murgh.

Except I run into the same problem where I'm like: Goddammit, DOOP is probably the last thing he needs to read first when I hand him MTMTE volume 1. MTMTE issue 1 would make way more sense.

Maybe I just need to gift him them on Comixology or buy him the actually frikkin' floppies.

 

heck, even if Sins of the Wreckers didn't light my soul on fire the way LSotW did, I'd still love to see him write one of the ongoings.

 

I think the delays really hurt sins as a reading experience. I finally got the trade (no thanks to diamond, long story) and found it far more compelling.

Which isn't to say I disliked it in the first place, but I liked it more in trade format.

 

There, all caught up. Ryan, I just blasted through this thread over the last week and I've enjoyed your reviews, especially your ability to tie them in to the old Marvel stories. I'm looking forward to your reviews from RID and MTMTE.

 

More Than Meets the Eye #1 - Liars, A to D
Part 1: How to Say Goodbye and Mean It

Well, here we go: the award-winning MTMTE, the darling of the fandom, the award-winning series that has even merited a column in the prestigious UK newspaper The Guardian. This has got to be good, hasn’t it?

Well, yes. Part one basically consists of little character vignettes, as the various members of the Lost Light crew are set up and make their way aboard the ship. One slight issue we have already is that, given the page-count he had to work with, there was simply no way for writer James Roberts to give us ‘proper’ introductions for everybody. Some characters are well-defined (Rodimus, Cyclonus), whereas others get only a couple of lines to make their mark (Chromedome, Rung). I’m sure we’ll get to know all these bots very well over the course of upcoming issues, but – in this introductory issue at least – some fare far better than others.

What’s really interesting, though, is that the crew are a flawed, rag-tag bunch. We have Tailgate, a Rip van Winkle-type character who was originally supposed to be a part of the Ark-1 crew (alongside Cyclonus and Galvatron), but fell down a hole and became unconscious for millions of years. Ironically, one of his first lines is “If Nova Prime and the others leave without me, their mission is doomed to failure”, indicating that, had Tailgate not fell down that hole, we wouldn’t have gotten any of the Dead Universe arc. Which makes me hate him already, because that arc was awful.

Then we have Whirl who, as with his depiction in Chaos Theory, is portrayed as an eccentric thug, desecrating the corpses of the Sweeps and getting involved in a fight with Cyclonus. We have Rung (the geek), Swerve (ebullient and over-enthusiastic to the point of being mildly annoying), Red Alert (a humorous sergeant-major type), Ratchet (the old idealist) and so forth. It makes for a good mix of characters, almost reminiscent of the UK sitcom Red Dwarf, which also featured a bunch of mismatched scamps cooped up in a spaceship together.

As well as the character set-up, there is also a lot of foreshadowing. Finally, it appears as though we have a writer who actually has a plan going forward, instead of just making stuff up as they go along. Assuming all these Chekov’s Guns eventually get fired, I’m very much looking forward to see where all this takes us. We have Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase, Chromedome’s mysterious ability (“you can do things no-one else can”), we have a mysterious cargo loaded aboard the ship, Rewind’s illicit purchase of golden discs from Swindle, and of course that final message from the future. Assuming the pay-off is as good as the set-up, I love the way this is heading.

Another similarity with Red Dwarf is the fact that much of the issue is played for laughs. This is a very self-aware, post-modern script, with a lot of wit. Already the Lost Light’s journey is being ironically described as “one big non-event”, and in a very knowing line, apparently “it’s not about the destination so much as the journey.” Tailgate, alone in his hole, muses that “all I can do is sit here and self-narrate”, and then we have Rung boasting about how he has a knack of keeping out of harm’s way, just before his arm gets unwittingly sliced off by Cyclonus.

Whilst I chuckled and LOLed to a few of these, I’m slightly wary that there’s a danger of this becoming just a bit too flippant for my taste. Whilst I’m all for a good laugh, I would hate to see this turn into an out-and-out sitcom. Case in point, immediately after the Lost Light takes off, there’s a hull breach (ooh – is there a saboteur on board? Is this something to do with Prowl’s mysterious cargo?), resulting in forty Transformers (including Guzzle and Sureshot) being ejected into space and burning up in a planet’s atmosphere. Ideally I’d like a scene like this to be milked for drama – Rodimus’ guilt at having invited these robots aboard only to lead them to their deaths, and the crew’s sheer horror and sadness that many of their friends have been killed. Instead, we get a flip one-liner (“Not a good start”), which slightly bugs me a little. Last Stand of the Wreckers succeeded because it deftly switched from comedy to outright horror, almost catching me off-guard in places. I much prefer that mix of emotions, rather than have everything papered over with a joke or a bon mot. If the characters can’t take this seriously, how can I as a reader be expected to do the same?

Nick Roche’s art is, once again, imperious. His designs feel very cartoony, and his exaggerated body language and facial expressions suit the witty script superbly. Tailgate and Rewind are especially adorable, but again, these are robots who have just come through a civil war lasting millions of years, so I’m not sure that presenting some of them as ‘cute’ particulary works in that context. I’m finding it hard to rationalise in my head that the doe-eyed ickle Rewind is a war veteran. Whirl yes, Red Alert yes, but some of these others… I’m not so sure. I get that most of these robots were posted in a research lab away from the main conflict, but it still seems a little incongruous, nevertheless.

Overall, this is a wacky, funny set-up issue, and it’s a lot cleverer and more subversive than its cartoony sheen would suggest. The mix of characters is superb, the art is excellent and the set-up feels as if there is actually a plan in place. But sometimes the script is a little too arch for its own good, especially in the sequence where the robots are ejected into space.

“It’s [KSSK!] of the Lost Light… I’m calling from the future… Don’t open the coffin. Don’t let them take Skids. Don’t go to Delphi, and do not – I repeat do not – look in the basement.”

4/5

 

In the case of this series, it's not about the destination, but the Journey. And your in for one hell of a journey.  

Weather you feel that the series falls into the pitfalls you described will be entirely up to you down the line.

Sadly, Nick Roche only does art for two issues in this series, art is primarily done by Alex Milne, who is just as great.

The series title is quite fitting, as nothing, and I mean nothing in this series in as it seems at first glance. There's always more to everything. As you can see, many mysteries are set up in this first issue alone, especially that final page, and there's much more to come.

When it comes to the cast, Whirl is my absolute favorite. Love his craziness, I think it makes him funny as hell.

As for the tone, this series can go from light to dark on a dime.

Well, I look forward to your thoughts on future issues.  

EDIT: And I fear you are mistaken, Guzzle is not on the Lost Light, he's elsewhere.

 

Bah! I meant Fizzle, of course. Always get those guys mixed up.

 

Well, it is often a sitcom. Sometimes horror. Sometimes will make you cry. Sometimes brutal. Sometimes hilarious.  

 

Without going into spoiler territory, many of those plot hooks you mentioned do end up getting resolved (sometime not until many years later) while constantly introducing new ones. As others have said there can be some serious tone shifts so be prepared for that.

 

God, no, spoilers. Please delete this post before Ryan sees it.

 

This issue definitely hooked me in when I first read it, and while this is primarily a comedy focused comic there are plenty of imaginative and horrific ways Roberts killed characters, like in this issue with Ratchet examining the corpse of one bot who 'Transformed himself to death', that was quite good. Nearly every story idea Roberts wanted to tell is planted here, some turn out to be a bit minor, others will make you reflect on the journey from here to there. I'm not too fond of Roberts making Prowl into a prick again and you would definitely suspect him of blowing up the ship with the way he's acting, but things eventually come together. I love all of the characters, although when I look back at this it does hurt my eyes when I notice most of the cast and red and blue, they almost blend together too much, especially Ratchet and Red Alert.

I'm nitpicking but overall I still enjoy this issue a lot. Although for a new reader it might feel a bit slow reading this issue which is pretty much a set up issue, right after The Death of Optimus Prime which was already another set up issue. The pace picks up remarkably well though. And yeah I guess in a way Tailgate is responsible for everything that has come before. XD

 

I know people have said it before, but I really feel like people need to stop saying 'ooh, the next issue's a good 'un', 'bad stuff happens soon', 'that becomes important later' and things like that. Part of what makes Ryan's thoughts on the comics so good is because he's largely ignored them up until now. He doesn't have much more than vague ideas of what people think of various storylines and writers, so we're getting to hear something of a new opinion. Y'all keep colouring his expectations for the next issue instead of focusing on the issue he's just reviewed.

In that vein, Ryan, you seem to be pretty much spot on with what you think of the pilot. It's certainly a major shift from Costa's run, eh? Normally that kind of inconsistency would concern me more, but in this case it's a relief.

 

Ironic, as Marvel UK always mixed Sizzle and Fizzle up!

 

Spoiler

I don't think any of those are really spoilers. 1 - 3 is nothing shocking, and 4 is figured out within 5 pages. It's WHERE the plague comes from that's the spoiler.

 

I remember being disappointed by the first issue of MTMTE. Because it was James Roberts and I'd loved Eugenesis so much and the OP/Megs pre-Chaos issues seemed to offer more of that stuff I was really hyped (possibly part of the problem). But I found the tonal shift a bit too much at the time. I don't mind humour in a story, but making situational humour the main focus- which is kind of how I recall feeling- just turned me off the whole thing. I took a break from MTMTE shortly after this. When I came back and binge read the series later on down the line it changed my view somewhat. Maybe that's more to do with how I enjoy stories, I dunno. But the humour aspect of Roberts' writing is still sometimes love/hate for me.