My MMC Rodimus is accurate again!

 

This goes back to one of my issues with James' writing - you can see stuff being obviously "put into position" almost as to hit a checkpoint. Bear with this wall of text. =)

Rodimus needs to have a "forgiveness moment" where he demonstrates how "different" he is than Getaway. However Getaway still needs to be removed from the narrative at this point because if you do decide to keep Getaway around, there aren't enough issues left to deal with the cast's reaction and distrust of him. We have to keep moving along.

• You can't have Rodimus do his "I'm different than Getaway" thing and have Rodimus responsible for killing Getaway without undermining that moment.
• So, Rodimus and Cyclonus are going to ignore Getaway *and* stand over a control panel with their backs to him because they need to be distracted.
• They are going to be distracted because the reader needs to see that Getaway is rejecting his opportunity for forgiveness.
• Getaway needs to be able to put them in mortal danger to justify his death, so Cyclonus is going to leave his sword on the ground and keep his back turned for no reason.
• (We're also going to conveniently ignore that Getaway *probably* would make some level of noise getting up, which would allow Rodimus/Cyclonus to sense he's moving.)

So checkpoints are all hit:

• Getaway has refused forgiveness
• Cyclonus and/or Rodimus are in mortal danger

So *now* it's okay for Whirl and the Scraplets to show up and kill Getaway.

If you kill Getaway prior to the "fire scene", Rodimus doesn't get his forgiveness moment where the reader can be told overtly through the narrative Rodimus is a better dude (despite not displaying many character traits consistent with this in the previous issues of LL). If someone other than Rodimus kills Getaway at this point, tou also make it look like Rodimus is powerless and ineffectual, that all of these things are happening out of his control and undermines the whole "revenge narrative" we've had since issue 1.

If you kill him after the forgiveness scene but before putting Rod/Cyc in mortal danger, Whirl just looks like a jerk and Rodimus looks like a guy who can't control his crew. Not the greatest look for the central character.

BUT! If you make it so that Rodimus generously forgives Getaway but Getaway still *refuses* that forgiveness, now it's all good. He was a jerk anyway, and he died a jerk! Whew, now we're done with that, onto the next set of checkpoints to hit.

Incidentally, I know some people were really disappointed that Getaway wasn't told about Skids' death. However presenting him with Skids' death is problematic:

a) there aren't many pages available in the comic to deal with the ramifications

b) it's clear from previous issues that Getaway *did* care about Skids so saving panel space and making him look extra evil by suddenly not caring about Skids would not make sense.

c) if you *do* have Getaway in grief over Skids, you can't have Rodimus or someone else kill him in the midst of that without looking unsympathetic and again undermining the "look at how great Rodimus is" message this issue is for. If anyone doubts that this is what the reader is intended to feel, remember that James gives very explicit direction to his artists; the giant panel of Rodimus carrying Getaway heroically in his arms, having forgiven his adversary, is deliberate.

I'm not at all saying that this kind of stuff doesn't work - clearly when you look through Twitter/Tumblr there are people who are entirely completely in the dark about this sort of narrative puppetry or in fact really enjoy it. Heck, look at me! I know the way this game is being played and Roberts+IDW still have my money, so clearly it works on me too =) It doesn't mean that I wish it wasn't quite as less "directing" so to speak.

 

I suppose the question is now, what is “the Beast”? That must be what Prepare. Confront. Repel. Is for.

 

I'm convinced a lot of this just boils down to the third season being so rushed. Even if this aspect of his writing has always been present, it wasn't so obvious when you had lots of issues that weren't solely concerned with driving the plot foward. I feel that Roberts is likely rushing towards the ending he already had roughly planned out from the beginning, but with the impending reboot, he has no time to take things more slowly and build towards each moment.

Of course, I can already hear people screaming "then why did he waste 6 issues on the Functionist Universe and Anode?" Well, I think it's because they weren't planning to reboot at that point. Remember Till All Are One wasn't canceled back then either. And its clear that James Roberts simply isn't as good at working around executive mandates as John Barber is, which is why he is probably condensing at least another seasons worth of plot into the finale. So (and I am going to proceed to make a very bad pun) we get all of the stakes, and none of the potatoes - which is still quality, but unless you're a carnivore, it feels like something less than a full meal.

 

I've decided what I want to be the LL contribution to Unicron.

Unicron issue 6, epilogue (1 or 2 pages after the denouement): Landscape shots show the aftermath, the rebuilding after the chaos. the Lost Light lands, remaining Cybertronians run toward the errant shuttle as it touches down and the boarding hatch lowers. The crew emerges including new additions like the scavengers, Grimlock, Anode/Lug and other bots who have been missing for years like Roller. Rodimus breaks from the crowd, and just says "Man, have we got some stories for you guys...". Wide shot of silent bots surrounded by the destructive wake of Unicron's attack. Final panel, confused Rodimus, "....what?".

 

It's more: why do we have a panel of Velocity doing that terrible "Of course!" trope thing with Nickel (which didn't even make sense - you use that trope for when someone has accidentally worked out a complex problem)? Why do we have two separate panels of Skorpy crushing Rodimus' head without any progress between them? Why spend so long on Skorponok knocking Rodders around when the dialogue throughout is just the characters being snarky with one another? Why all that business last issue before they started running?

The pacing is just off. Instead of it being a rip-roaring race to the end, we're getting pages of not much happening alternated with incredibly frantic game-changing developments. I can't say exactly how I would have done it, but I instinctively feel all the events of the last few issues could have been done in the same space with time to spare on some more elaborate and gut-punchy fight scenes, and time to set up the twists so that they don't feel quite so contrived. We just need more of people talking and moving at the same time.

 

One twist that I think would be "neat" but I don't think I really want:

a) The "beast" is Unicron
b) However, LL is taking place well *before* Unicron #1, meaning...
c) This battle has already been fought - and lost. This is just the story of how they lose.

Strikes me as a bit too dark for the conclusion of the series though.

 

I can’t believe it never occurred to me, what if the beast is Tornedron?

 

Well, that's the other half of it. I think it's no coincidence that much of Robert's strongest work was back when Barber was editing him. That's not to say that James Roberts is a George Lucas esque ideas man, with no ability to put things together in a coherent, pleasing package on his own. He's just not quite able to control some of his worst impulses - like the british accents that have slowly seeped in over the course of the last two seasons. Hell, remember when characters used to use "Primus" instead of "oh my god?" I feel that was probably Barbers doing. It's little touches like that that the later issues are lacking.

 

I'm gonna slow you down right there and point out how this is a DIRECT parallel to the IDW narrative around Megatron, a significant portion of which is from Roberts' pen. Megatron had a fuckin' POINT. The Senate was corrupt. Functionalism was abhorrent. It had to be done away with.

And then shit got out of hand.

And then the murders started. And the war crimes. And the genocides. And then, and then, and then, and this guy who started out with a fundamentally correct position has become a monster. Even if, at some point, Getaway was genuine in his concern, he still ended up doing terrible things.

I kind of wish someone had confronted Getaway with that observation at some point. (Maybe they did and wound up in the oil reservoir with the scraplets.)

(I also am personally of the mind that Getaway was basically a sociopath whose ambitions far outweighed his abilities, but it's still an interesting parallel.)

 

Well that was disappointing.

 

You think Alex Summers is the best? Are you serious?

 

Dude, I totally didn’t consider that. Start off with a right minded objective and walk down the slippery slope. Nice!!

 

Couple random thoughts...

- I think this issue - like the last one - would have been more effective if certain things were *shown* while the characters are providing exposition. Getaway explains what happened to the Lost Light when they arrived at Mederi and it’s just boring panels of Getaway sitting there with walls of text...and one panel of the crew turning into sparkeaters. Instead have Getaway narrating while we see a panel of the Lost Light crew on an empty Mederi, then a panel of the Lost Light fighting the Phantom Fleet, a panel of Getaway phoning Tyrest and making a deal...then the sparkeater panel. And there’s more than enough in this issue that could have been cut out to accommodate those few extra panels.
- Star Saber’s death was anticlimactic and disappointing...although at least he didn’t die off-panel.
- Was I the only one taken out of the story by Rodimus’ “son of a bitch” line? Roberts couldn’t have come up with some Cybertronian equivalent that means the same thing?

 

It already exists, “Spawn of a glitch.”

 

That's the one. I kept thinking of 'spawn of Unicron', but that one has other implications that wouldn't mean quite the same thing in-universe

 

1- we could of seen that if we didn't waste time dragging out plotlines that could've been wrapped up in an issue or two.
2- Meh, he deserved it because his character sucked.
3- Like Omegashark said, there was already one. Robert's just doesn't like using alien characters like alien characters it seems.

 

I'm strictly basing my opinion on my love of the Seige Perilous/Outback X-Men and Peter David's X-Factor.

In that context, yeah. Totes serious.

 

Nope, me too. Mentioned it when I first summarized the issue early in the thread.