It's not as much of a deus ex machina as you think. There's actually a good reason Megatron didn't use that power before: _he didn't want to die_. When he actually did use it, he was fully resigned to his own demise.

 

Oh, I know all about that.

And I also realize my complaint about the antimatter in this comic book setting is sort of like complaining about how "that's not how radioactive spiders work."  

I'm just not a fan of the way it was used here... basically a "power cosmic" sort of clean-sweep wrap-up for the DJD (and Tarn in particular). I also didn't like the way Overlord sort of ducked into the plot, and then ducked out again conveniently, while not really bringing much to the story besides one "oh shit!" moment (that quickly defused) and an opportunity for Chromedome to bust his chops.

Though at least he didn't go out like Tarn...

zmog

 

I assumed (maybe too much) that Overlord's purpose there was to mention that Rewind said "Domey! Save me!", so that Chromedome would connect the dots, and realize that
a) Overlord wouldn't have had time to kill Rewind given how the slow cell worked
b) if Overlord knew that Rewind used that word for Domey, it implies that the original Rewind is still alive.

Oh the pathos...at least that's what I'm thinking. Then again I thought this arc would end with everyone joining Deathsaurus' crew and we'd get a DS vs Star Saber fight in Season 3. So I'm probably totally wrong.

 

Oh, you have no idea how much it bugs me, but given that so much of the science in MTMTE (And IDW at large, as well as modern Transformers) is so ludicrous and wrong I find it a tad hypocritical to call that out specifically even though it bothers me more then any of the other problems that it would make the many, many other problems in the issue seem less relevant when they really should be more at the forefront.

Even with the idea of it being Science Fiction and hand-waving some of it away as what makes the story and characters work, there are a number of problems that seem to be wrong just because of a lack of research and reliance on 1950's tropes dealing with science.

While I loathe IDW's Star Saber, that would actually be a bit cool.

 

Rewind 1 being alive is way too good a dramatic tool to pass up. He's GOT to be out there in some capacity still.

 

Yeah, I complain about weird science in Transformers myself, but then I'd have to start questioning from very premise of big transforming robots. :X

So usually I don't look for any more sense of it than I expect from any other comic book. I merely wish from the setting to follow its own internal logic and that's about it...

 

I think it's fine to have wacky science fiction in a space opera tale, so long as you stick to your own rules. I don't think I've seen anyone complaining about Trailbreaker's forcefield power, and I think that's because Roberts took care to establish the ways in which it could be used via non-pivotal character-building scenes. We might have called foul if the 'panic bubble' first appeared in the very issue where it trapped Trailbreaker in with Kaon, but of course, we already knew how it worked and what the implications were.

Also with the quantum engines. Rodimus' plan to kill the sparkeater came *after* it was already established that jumping the ship could trap someone inside the engines.

And while it might be a small thing, I really appreciated how the concept of Overlord's time prison was explained before it was used to tragically stall Chromedome. When we know the sci-fi gobbledegook already, using it in an unexpected way is very satisfying. But when we get something out of left field only to have it subsequently explained with sci-fi gobbledegook, it feels like a cheat.

 

This for sure. It's a fine line between adequate foreshadowing and something that feels like a left-field screwball twist, and it seems to me like Roberts has more recently been falling on the wrong side of that line... but I do appreciate the sort of surreal and conceptual approach he often takes with the sci-fi angles (which seems very much in tune with his Brit comic forebears like Gaiman, Morrisson, Ellis, et al.).

I think that in this environment you can certainly bend the rules and definitions of scientific reality to a degree... but you should also strive for a kind of consistency. I also think it's a mistake to assume that such suspensions of disbelief are an inevitable slippery slope, and that if you pull one string, the whole fabric of Transformer needs to unravel. Questioning the scientific logic of one thing doesn't automatically invalidate the conceit of alien transforming robots.

I find this argument is often used by some to foreclose on the possibility of delving deeper into the logics proposed by the Transformers premise (alien mechanical metaphor biologies, ecologies, civilization, culture, and all that entails), and I think it's a paltry, petty argument.

I find it's quite the opposite... the coherency and immersive credibility of the sci-fi setting strains with every new burden of suspended disbelief you place upon it. Every handwave makes it weaker, while nailing down some of the goofier ideas with some semblance of pseudo-scientific logic tends to firm things up I think, and help sell the conceits. The "it's all fantasy anyway" all-encompassing handwave is to me completely lazy, and ultimately encourages me not to care - since it starts to prioritize the metaphorical over the concrete, and makes everything in the diegetic universe feel more arbitrary than it should.

But I digress. That's more about general world-building and storytelling philosophies...

The problem in this case is that antimatter, even dating back to 1950s tropes, has a pretty stable definition and history in sci-fi... as well as a fairly specific function in relation to Megatron. I guess it's a callback to Furman, but for me it just sort of felt like too much of a generic god-power (that now Megatron can hypothetically summon up whenever the chips are down). I mean, sure, it also is 'unstable and can explode'... but even that feels arbitrary and whimsical. Why didn't it explode the moment it poured out of Megatron's eyes? Why didn't it explode after he killed Vos? It seems blatantly obvious that it only explodes when it's useful for the plot, so why worry? :/

It reminds me in some sense of the holomatter issue. Sure, in a specific context, it confers some narrative utility... but if unchecked, it only takes a slight stretch to turn into something unbalancing and awkward.

zmog

 

I get the fact that this would be a weapon of last resort, since it's a bit of a suiviee bomb (barring Rodimus' intervention). And I read the series until the stop on the Necrobot's planet, long enough to have seen various allusions to the original bio concept. That doesn't change it being a miraculous power up. Like usual, I agree with Zmog's *perception of how it cheapens the climax.

Great thoughts, Focksbot and Zmog. Since this is the type of conceptual discussion I love, I'll indulge myself a bit here. I have a nostalgic fondness for some superhero comics in spite of their completely ludicrous pseudoscience and inconsistency. I appreciate some soft science fiction, like the original and Next Gen Star Trek, or Dr Who, and some space opera, like the Lensmen or Star Wars. But I also like hard SF, and I like variety. Just because the superhero genre has been the primary staple of comics for decades does not mean that all comics should be superhero genre. I was initially interested in GI Joe as a kid—toys and comics—because it seemed to be relatively standard military action, with relatively low-key sci-fi conceits (a few rare lasers, a few unusual but still not absurdly unrealistic vehicles like the HISS or the Rattler). I quickly lost interest as the characters, tech, and plots became more outlandish and akin to the superhero genre. Why couldn't Snake-Eyes have stayed an ace black ops agent rather than turning to a ninja?

Transformers seemed like a good candidate for a relatively hard sci-fi series. It didn't seem too big a stretch to see this as a series of things not incredibly inconceivable: what we would consider to be advanced AIs with the ability to rearrange their parts in predetermined forms. Seems like you can have plenty of very compelling stories sticking to a more real world milieu, with just a few carefully considered and consistent sci-fi elements. *It loses its appeal to me when it leans more toward soft sci-fi—and especially the "anything goes" superhero—genre models, such as mass shifting, time travel, alternate dimensions, outlier powers, God planets, mystic artifacts, and turbo power ups. Let alone the Douglas Adamsian absurdism of "fourth wall" weapons and charisma eaters.

 

Naturally we all have different thresholds. I don't even mind some of the stranger fantastical concepts... but not if they're tossed out in such cavalier, slipshod fashion. I think it helps when you anchor some of the wackier stuff with some rigorous attention-to-detail. As I've noted before, the meta-bomb/Swearth story and the personality ticks pushed it too far for me... but I might have been able to dig into even those ideas if they'd been achieved with a bit more care and elan.

Obviously this gets hard to set rules for... it does often fall into a "I know it when I see it" sort of assessment territory.

zmog

 

Absolutely true, this is a bit of an ambiguous, abstract issue where it's difficult to set rules. And I understand that this is strictly a personal taste issue. The fact that I don't care for it doesn't make it bad, per se

"Cavalier" seems a very appropriate term. Roberts seems very cavalier about all this, just tossing in any and all wackiness without much concern for grounding it all in something. I'd rather see someone see how little wackiness they could get away with. I would love someone start with the premise "how few superhero genre conventions can we get in there and still tell a great story? How epic or powerful can I make it without relying on tropes like alternate dimensions, prophecies, time travel paradoxes, and other assorted weirdness?"

 

I would absolutely adore a hard sci-fi Transformers book, but I wonder how "Transformers" it would be with so much wacky, borderline fantasy elements being so ingrained in the existing mythos.

I loved that early on that it seemed like Roberts was doing his best to make the soft sci-fi of the TF universe more logical, more reasonable... but personally, I felt that went by the wayside this year, and concepts veered back toward the unreasonably unrealistic.

If you were a kid when G1 came out, I suggest checking out a comic called Westward. It takes another property of that generation and gives it a more "realistic" spin.

 

Let me point out that since the first run there was a 'Dead Universe' that seems to spread death energy.

There's ores with powers over time, life, and death.

And, well, sparks.

It's always been rather soft, and the 'black energy' anti-matter isn't particularly on the soft side of things we've seen.

 

Nah, I agree that the antimatter is a headscratcher along with the Overlord's departure. I can see a need for it and appreciate a nod to the Marvel UK, but unlike Tarn where hints can be backtracked after you know, with antimatter you really require this Ravage's explanation because hints mentioned by him without this explanation could lead to anything.
There's nothing comparable to "oh sh**!" moment of hidden in the plain sight like when you compare Glitch's and Tarn's designs.

 

Having finally read the issue, this is actually my main gripe with it.
I hate Megatron being some super sayan Transfromers god, but that didn't start with this issue, and the DJD getting killed was almost certainly a given alltough i had hoped it would have been the gear symbol guys who would swoop in and take them out for whatever reason and i had hoped they would have taken out Megatron and a few other characters that i felt had a lot less potential for future stories than Skids.

But i always felt the Black Box consortium sounded like an awesome space version of the VOC and the Galactic Council as a space UN and felt that they were both great concepts that would give the IDW verse more grounding and be serious alien states or organisations that Cybertron, earth and the Transformers would have to have serious political and economical relations with and that dynamic would be able to fuel a lot of stories.
So i very much hope this is just one corrupt captain, because it would be yet another terrible waste to see this great concept be wiped from the IDW verse by having the Council be defeated as the big bad of some future seasons finale, probably the next one from the looks of things.

 

I'll check it out, thanks for the idea.

I agree, Roberts kept it much more in check the first season, even if it was still much softer than I'd prefer. He really just seemed to let go of the reigns in the second season.

I think a harder Transformers would work. See below.

A fair point. When the IDW Transgormers series started, the -Tion books, I didn't bother with any of the Spotlights. I didn't realize at first they were all connected. That run, the -Tion books in isolation, were very hopeful to me, as they seemed relatively grounded. It wasn't until the -Tion series ended and I realized I had to check out the Spotlights for the whole story that I found the Dead Universe and undead transformers wanting to conquer this universe. I was very disappointed.

AHM, for all its faults, reverted back to a relatively grounded military action adventure, without much intrusive superhero genre stuff.

The first ongoing was again flawed, but until Hot Rod was united with the matrix, and then they reintroduced Galvatron and the dead universe, avoided superhero stuff and stayed fairly grounded.

[EDIT: LSOTW, arguably the most popular of the IDW series, was also very grounded and avoided wacky stuff.]
Since then, it's been all knights and quests and prophecies and resurrection ores and other space opera or science fantasy stuff.

But the previous works, I think, showed that Transformers can work just fine in a less fantastical vein.

 

Oh, this isn't a before/good vs now/bad equation. Roberts brought me hope for a better, smarter, TF fiction. And he delivered... to an extent. And then he got sort of jiggly and inconsistent.

But the Dead Universe and the magical assortment of coloured Kryptonite - er, Energon Ores - were always things that bothered me.

I think that Sparks are semi-necessary (though it depends on how they are handled); they are sort of one of the key conceits that support the premise of the Cybertronian race.

One thing that bothered me was the 'one fell swoop' elimination of the DJD... I would have much preferred a more individualized 'dwindling party' approach that gave both the DJD and their opponents from the Lost Light more character beats... so you could really feel each victory or defeat as a distinct part of the story. Obviously that wasn't going to happen inside of one issue... but still... that's a pacing issue.

I'm not sure if I want to call it "superhero" stuff, but it's definitely comic-book/pulp/space-opera style writing.

And I don't mind keeping a bit of that. I can embrace it to a degree. But not a dumb or careless or cliche-ridden degree.

I agree that the early Infiltration Furman stuff started off taking a fairly measured and lower-key realistic approach. When he was writing on that level, I found things a bit more interesting. Meanwhile, when Furman lurches into pure cosmic space-opera material like with Stormbringer or his Dead Universe crisis near the end of the run, I just started to lose interest. However, I do suspect that some of that is due to Furman's lapsing into comic-book writing cliches more than simply the presence of fantastical sci-fi tropes.

Yeah, there has been a lot of cosmic McGuffins and such. I don't mind the knights and prophecies so much, at least in terms of it being an investigation of myth-making, religion, and Cybertronian culture. Early on, it had a bit more of that edge. By the time we got to the bleeding-heart fantastical agnosticism of the Necrobot, it was starting to feel that it was a bit too obvious though.

Agreed. In fact, I think that the fantasy elements will ALWAYS sneak in there... so it's a good modus operandi to hold as tightly as possible to the restrained sci-fi aesthetic, and be very judicious about how the fantastical stuff is added. Now it feels like IDW writers have a very free hand with that stuff... too much so.

Although the slightly cluttered storyline of Sins of the Wreckers relied on certain McGuffins, I think that it charted a pretty good course between smart sci-fi, and flamboyant science-fantasy. I liked the built-in logic for Beast-type Transformers (always a hard sell for me)... but unfortunately by the end of the series, it really fell into a soup of surrealist-scifi technobabble, such that I mostly had no idea what was really happening (and started not to care so much).

zmog

 

Ah, yes. I remember describing the -tion series as "Ultimate" Transformers when it was running.

I liked what Simon was doing early on. I just can't get behind his character work, or plot pacing. He's a very spotty writer, falling prey to so many eye-rollable cliches, but there are some real interesting story nuggets hidden in there too.

I think the volume of work he was producing eventually took its toll. Shame somebody couldn't have written with him to sure it all up.

And, I agree also, I've always hated the dead universe stuff. Obviously Simon was trying to build some kind of Unicron setup, but then IDW dropped him and turned it into some generic big bad instead. Glad that should be over now (or at least until they rescue Bumblebee from the Dead Universe singularity(?).

 

Dead-on appraisal there.  

I know, right? Unicron, Liege Maximo, Mortilus, D-Void... I gotta say, that's really just too many Ultimate Evil Dark God villains to be running around in one fiction.  

zmog