Regardless, the point still remains under consideration.

Anybody read the Halo novels? Or know of the games and what a "Spartan II" is? Basically, humanity was seriously outclassed. They were fighting aliens at least their size or larger, with far more sophisticated weapons. So they made the ULTIMATE soldier. Like, mix all the Avengers into a vat and paint is olive drab. They won almost EVERY ground engagement they took part in. Called 'em Spartan II's. That's what Master Chef is.

Yet humanity STILL was pushed to the edge, because they had the ultimate weapon... for a single level of combat. Space combat? Not much they can do when the average Covenant ship is over 200 times the tonnage of a heavy human cruiser, and has energy sheilding and guided plasma weapons beyond what humanity had achieved.

It's the same thing here. Except phase sixers are are MUCH fewer, both sides are far more evenly matched, and the Autobots have shit like Kimia. The research facility with the giant gun.

Plus, remember, the Autobots are the dominant numbers. The Decepticons are the rebel force. At least to start.

 

It's actually stated that the weapons came from Hedonia.

Regardless, you raise an interesting point. Brainstorm alone outclasses any ten Phase Sixers you care to name.

 

It is a good question, why doesn't Overlord ride into battle mounted atop Trypticon to murderalise all the Autobots?

Firstly, the cons have a number of shiny toys, but the Autobots are no slouches. Omega Supreme, Metroplex, Optimus Prime - they have their fare share of big dudes who can screw shit up for the cons.

I like Split Lips explanation. Yes, the Decepticons may have Phase sixers and combiners, but there are other ways in which the Autobots can outclass them in war.

Not to mention that in the war, the Autobots fight the Decepticons. But the Decepticons have to contend with the Autobots, plus whatever native species whose planet they may be trying to take over at the time, as well as other space-faring species.

The Decepticons are a known genocidal army - why wouldn't the rest of the galaxy oppose them? Who would sell resources to them to build their ships and arms their troops? Few I'd wager.

And its not like other alien species in the IDW-verse are powerless before the might of the Decepticons. The Reapers were a match for Six-shot / Megatron & the Earth cell. In his bio Overlord had to run to a nearby Decepticon army to get help fighting an alien empire he'd engaged.

This is probably why Megatron adopted the infiltration protocol - in a stand up fight, the Decepticons may struggle to conquer planets, so they do it through subterfuge.

The Autobots try to protect organics - this has probably afforded them relationships with other species that will supply them with the resources they need to fight the Decepticons.

 

Pretty much this guy has it.

The question now for, with the war being over is what is the future of these as we know Sixshot is still around for example. Can or will he go back to a civialian life?

 

Open a children's hospital?

 

I don't really think there is an answer. I've never been a huge fan of the phase sixer concept. The explanations provided here are very reasonable, but I still feel at the end of the day it's a cheap to trick to make a more threatening villain.

My biggest problem with the phase sixer concept is the whole DJD and Black Shadow incident. They build up Black Shadow, but he is taken out by the DJD and none of them are killed or damaged? If the DJD can do that, how we supposed to believe Black Shadow took out planets and fought Autobot legions by himself. I can suspend disbelief but when the stories internal logic doesn't hold I have a problem.

 

Creating Captain America didn't end World War II. Creating a small number of Cybertronain Captain America's surely wouldn't end a planet wide war that's also raging across the galaxy.

Yes a group of highly trained Decepticon specifically created to to be able to kill rouge Decepticons no matter how powerful they are totally should not be able to take on a P6's.

What are you going to tell me next that Bomb Disposal experts can actually defuse bombs without it exploding in their face and killing them? Insanity!

Seriously do people honestly believe that FUCKING MEGATRON would make a living-weapon that can turn against him WITHOUT having a back-up plan to kill them off? Do people just not remember Sixshot in Devastation or something?

I guess it's much easier to scream "PLOT HOLES! PLOT HOLES EVERYWHERE HUURRR!" than to pay attention when reading something.

 

The bomb don't fight back or think, a living being reacts, poor analogy. I don't care how well trained a unit is at it's job, it's ridiculous to believe they can handle the absolute toughest task of their job without breaking a sweat. Also going back to your bomb analogy I suppose there has never been an expert that has failed? Died? Being an expert or highly trained does not equate to a 100% success rate. I don't think it's ridiculous that the DJD took on a phase sixer, it's ridiculous they did it with such ease.

I wasn't saying plot holes, I'm saying weak writing and inconsistent portrayals. You should take your own and advice and pay attention before you put people down.

 

You mean just how Starscream took down Sixshot without a scratch by saying a line of numbers?

Sure, but it's ridiculous if you think one dies every single time ever. We saw one successful time. Why would they show one where everyone is damaged to shit and dying for the introduction of a new badguy team? It makes no sense it's writing 101.

Starscream. Sixshot. Devastation.

Or hell what about Overlord with "Till all are one"? Just by saying that Overlord broke down and was defenseless for a couple of minutes. More than enough for the DJD to inflict so much damage that's he's unable to do anything else when get comes areound

And it was done by Chromedome alone in a span of a couple of week. Surely he couldn't be the only menemosurgeon that has ever tough about it?

Seriously people need to realize that this isn't the 80's cartoon where there are only like 20 characters in the whole universe and what they know is what everyone knows. It's much bigger and much more complex than that.

 

I never said someone dies every time. I don't like the way the DJD was introduced, I feel it weakens the phase sixer concept. Just because a different writer took an easy out several years ago in a different story doesn't mean that easy outs have to be continually used. I agree you don't want to intorduce them all banged up, so why use a phase sixer to introduce them?

I get you see it as a continuation of what was done with Starscream and Sixshot, you have a valid point. My perspective is different, I thought what was done in devastation was a cop out.

I don't really want to derail this thread anymore with DJD stuff. For the record I was really entertained by the Scavengers issues, and actually reread them two days ago.

 

They never showed us how the DJD were able to track, engage, and capture Black Shadow. Just because he was shown being tortured by a seemingly powerful team of Decepticons, each with their own specialization--does not render Black Shadow weak, pathetic, or overrated as a Phase-Sixer. If anything, this could prove to us how tactical, and masterful the DJD are at tracking down high priority targets.

 

People seem to forget that when optimus and Sixshot went head to head in devastation, Optimus gave him a run for his money.

I think Optimus is no push over. Even up against a phase sixer. He took down Monstructor single handedly when omega supreme got battered.

So sending then powerful deceptions in all at once would likely fail. Megatron is no moron.

 

And yet Prime loses to Megs a lot. Anyone else think it's weird that the same events mentioned in Russ' post happened in the same continuity where Megatron, by far less powerful than a gestalt, wins against Prime?

 

To be fair, Prime fought Monstructor who had a easily exploitable flaw (even Perceptor took him down by shooting his 'weak spot'), which has since been fixed.

In AHM, Megatron went toe-to-toe with Devastator and while may not have won, I'd say he didn't loose. When Prime went against Devy in the same series he was trounced.

As for Menasor, Prime & Co managed to take him down because he was an imperfect Gesalt as the Stunticons didn't work together well, and they exploited that lack of cohesion.

The Autobots can't take down a Gesalt by brute force alone, but with a little skill and thought, they can face them. Megatron on the other hand used only brute force against Devy and (somewhat) held his ground.

 

It's like real life. Being bigger and more powerful isn't everything. Wars aren't one by being the best physical specimen. Intelligence, technology and logistics all have a big say in it. Man for man the Spartans were the best warriors of the ancient world. How come they never conquered the world? Weren't very many of them.

It seems to be a current in all Transformers fiction that the Decepticons are more powerful. The Autobots are the good guys and everybody loves an underdog. The Decepticons are bigger and more powerful. The Autobots have to use TEAMWORK and the power of friendship to win. Transformers has its routes in 80s toy commercials. IDW is taking things in a more nuanced direction but this is where the current paradigm of Autobots/Decepticons stems from. The Decepticons are more powerful but the Autobots are the good guys so they have plot armour.

I think the way it works is that your average Autobot soldier has superior motivation and training than the average Decepticon grunt. The Decepticon elite are Cybertrons finest warriors but lower down you just have thugs and criminals with no real allegiance or passion for the cause. The Autobots aren't as powerful in a straight up fight but have the advantage in logistics, technology, planning, and morale.

The Autobots have superior scientists and technology. Again, Shockwave is the best scientist on Cybertron but the best of the rest are with the Autobots.

The Autobots have better relations with other races. This gives them an advantage logistically. They have more freedom of movement and are better supplied.

To get to the point of why Megatron doesn't just send the phase sixers to assassinate Optimus Prime? Pride is a huge part of it but mainly it is because it is very hard to kill the enemy leader in war time. No doubt it has been tried many times already. As powerful as a phase sixer is there is no way they could get through all the layers of defence guarding Prime. The best way to kill Prime would be to lure him out onto the open battlefield and take him out. Assassinate him and you make him a martyr and make yourself a coward in the eyes of the enemy. Prime dying would be a huge blow, but not as huge as Megatron dying would be. The Autobots would be better equipped to take the loss of Prime. It is Megatron's will that holds the Decepticons together. The Autobots would rally. The Decepticons would descend into infighting. Prime is a better leader and commander than Megatron but in a straight up fight Megatron wins 9 times out of ten. The best way for Megatron is to take out Prime himself.

Sorry for the wall of text. I'm really into these comics though and I'm glad that there are people who love them and love talking about them as much as I do.

 

The thing is, the Autobots aren't in one place.

If it was just army to army, on one battlefield, eventually the P6s and the DJD and the combiners would fall to sheer numbers. Of course, they would completely destroy the Autobots' forces, and if the rest of the Decepticons went in, they would be goners.

BUT, the Autobots had an entire galaxy to run around and hide in. There would be no way to organize all the Decepticons, and then divide them up into the necessary numbers to send to each outpost and defeat them.

So, no, super soldiers wouldn't be that much of a help in winning the war.

But that's all post Thunderwing. On Cybertron, the Autobots just... Held out until they had to leave. Nothing special.

 

Really, re: Phase Sixers, their main advantage is that they're REALLY hard to kill.

They were ALREADY incredibly powerful warriors before their augmentations - the Super Warrior process struck me as being designed more to allow said powerful warriors to survive more confrontations. After all, you want your best fighters to be as durable as possible so that you don't lose them, and can always repair them if need be.

Eg, take how they took out Overlord in LSOTW - peppering someone full of deterrence chips would without question kill any ordinary 'bot, while Overlord was merely reduced to an endoskeleton. But before the process was even applied for him, he was an incredibly skilled warrior bristling with weaponry - he's not holding his own against the Lost Light crew because he's abnormally strong but because he's just that good of a fighter/that hard to kill. (Plus there's his size.) His size and strength are more from him being a 0.1% Cybertronian rather than his armor.

To use another analogy, the Super Warrior process is basically the equivalent of adding adamantium to Wolverine. He was already dangerous without it; all it did was make him MORE dangerous/harder to kill.