I loved Megatron Origins and still think of it as one of the best TF comic runs.

For me the allegory of this book is closer to Spartacus and the uprising against the Roman Republic. If you apply the morals of the 20th century to the Autobot society it might seem utterly unjust but it fits fairly squarely with how things stood in antiquity.

The most obvious difference between IDW's saga and the original G1 is that here it's more nuanced than goodies vs baddies. Here the war begins as a conventional security force against a rebellious collection of underworld figures. Although generally the conventional security force will have the greater discipline and fewer psychopaths it's certainly not completely that way (Megatron Origin is not the last time we see Autobots acting like monsters or sympathetic Decepticon characters).

I read the original Marvel run religiously as a kid and was deeply skeptical of the re-launch but have to say I think it's overall a much more satisfying series. Hope you enjoy it too Ryan J but (general point here) be prepared because it is inevitable that some beloved character of your youth will be redone in a way you disagree with (or blown away after not much panel time). I think that can be the biggest hurdle to enjoying the series.

 

Megatron Origins is... messy, to say the least. Some of that isn't entirely its fault, considering that it was given a mandatory shortening and that it wasn't even intended to be in IDW continuity, but artwise you'd never guess that Milne will later go on to be IDW's best artist.

I think the problem with MO is that it's a pretty shallow portrayal of pre-war Cybertron and Megatron's character. Luckily, much later down the line other writers went on an expanded on the basic skeleton presented here. Things like the details of thee ruling parties of Cybertron, Megatron's motivations and why other Cybertronians know about him and why they're willing to follow him and the future Autobot's attitudes and beliefs are explored in great detail.... it'll just take some time to get to it.

 

Yeah, that's the stuff that feels like it's skipped over, unfortunately.

I think that part of the problem there is that Megatron:Origin omits the whole period where we would actually see his slide from accidentally murdering someone, to becoming a stoney-faced killer. We can logically fill in the gaps, but it still is jarring for our reading experience and sense of character empathy to see him going from a "normal guy" to a seasoned gladiator/insurgent so abruptly.

Cybertronian society is definitely pretty messed up... their history seems to be mostly feudal warfare, megalomaniacal dictators, oppressive Orwellian theocracies, etc... the Senate period might be one of the bright spots, even.

I think the Senate era is meant to be a (slightly darker) reflection of the world most democratic industrial nations live in now. Corrupt politics and a lot of shady stuff going on in secret, but if you're the "right" class, you can live relatively obliviously. We don't get upset about labour practices in other countries where our goods are made if we never hear the true stories... Megatron's mining colony is similar. You get the impression that everyday bots have a growing paranoia about their government (especially once the Decepticons start making noise) but don't know how bad it gets. And of course, not all the senators are corrupt (Dai Atlas for example, is okay).

You'll definitely see a lot more of this era in future series, starting with the canonically-questionable Primacy series. The stuff from the last couple of years does the best job of fleshing it out though... if you like that kind of world-building, James Roberts is the guy.

zmog

 

Megatron Origin #4

A story lives or dies on its ending. Even the best of tales can be soured by 'it was all a dream', 'reset button' or 'deus ex machina' conclusions. While I've generally liked Megatron Origin thus far, my overall view of the series will largely depend on its conclusion.

And... this issue is Megatron Origin in microcosm: grungy artwork that hinders as much as it helps, missing pieces of the puzzle, unanswered questions and great moments, wrapped up in a package that's simultaneously enjoyable yet hard-going.

As I guessed, Starscream's 'betrayal' is just a ploy. It gets him into the senate chamber, allowing him to assassinate all present using his new retractable null-rays (the first Triggercon?!). It's a great scene, but it makes you wonder why he wasn't thoroughly scanned for weapons before being allowed in front of a parade of dignitaries. Speaking of which, there are a lot of empty seats in the parliament: have the others already been killed? Have they fled, like Ratbat tried to? Again, these are questions as yet unanswered.

There's a fine line to be drawn between a story that talks down to the reader, making everything obvious, and a story that's so obtuse as to be confusing. I tend to enjoy stories that don't spell everything out, that allow the reader to draw their own conclusions on certain aspects - but there are some elements here that I feel needed further elaboration.

Whilst the art is undoubtedly stylish, its main failing is in its action scenes, which are generally confusing and hard to read - it harms the flow of a comic when one is constantly having to do a double-take just to work out what's going on. The Megatron / Sentinel fight suffers from this, as does the Senate scene, in which Soundwave just suddenly appears next to Starscream as if from nowhere.

For all that this story suffers from murky art and a truncated running-time, it does get a lot right. Ratbat's fate (being reduced from a Senator to a mere cassette minion) is deliciously satisfying. I also love that the final battle is between Sentinel Prime and Megatron, who fight not because one of them is good and one evil, but because Megatron is a criminal revolutionary and Sentinel is a soldier under orders from a questionable regime. The main thing I'll take from this story is the lack of absolutes - the only 100% evil character here is Ratbat.

• A Prime wearing Apex armour - where have I seen that before?
• Starscream's list of crimes is extremely impressive.
• I like the explanation as to why Megatron wears his fusion cannon on his right arm.

This issue (and story) is easy to admire but hard to love; it has high points and bum notes in equal share. But whilst the execution could be better, the overall premise - that the difference between 'heroic' and 'evil' Transformers isn't so clear-cut - does hold a lot of appeal for me. 3/5

 

Yeah issue 4 feels a bit of a mess, I love how Ratbat reveals he was the one who commisioned for the miners to be relocated in order to cause a riot, and the fight against Megatron and Sentinel Prime is pretty fun, but damn this issue is distracting when you notice it was drawn by two different people with one artist going for grey tones and the next artist slapping a burst of color all over the place. XD

Overall, an okay series, pretty fun, just underwhelming.

 

What do you plan on reading next?

 

He's reding the hardback coll3ctions in order... so i would imagine its gonna be issue #0 of Infiltration...

 

According to the contents page it's a bunch of spotlights next: Blurr, Cliffjumper, Shockwave, Nightbeat, Hot Rod and Soundwave, and then Infiltration. To be honest, after the wild cacophony that was Megatron Origins, I'm quite looking forward to some palette-cleansing one-shots before the big storylines kick in again.

 

Negative. Next issue in the hardback collection is Spotlight Blurr. ... Odd choice, but like the following issue Spotlight Cliffjumper, it's just a very minor tale. It's then followed by Spotlight Shockwave, Nightbeat, Hot Rod, Soundwave, and then finally Infiltration.

EDIT: ^ DOH! Just posted this one minute before Ryan replied instead. XD

 

ah haven't read the Blurr, Cliffjumper or Soundwave one-shots yet, maybe I should see if I can track them down so i can also read them with semi-fresh eyes

infiltration though....thats going to be a tough road

 

I won't bother yay with you not reading Autocracy, Monstrosity, and Primacy, Ryan F.

Even though they are chronologically what happens after Megatron Origins, they're not held in the highest regard.

 

I think they would cost you 6 bucks total on comixology.

 

Well Autocracy and Monstrosity are available as free animation books on DeviantART, but Autocracy is in the hardback collection anyway when we get to Phase 2 Volume 2 I think.

 

D'oh! Yeah... having a young son, a dew months old will do that to the brain - i should know that.. ive read the collections several times.. and aside from the spotlights being grouped together in the earlier hardbacks.. its hard to fault em... phase 2 has this sorted out far better.. really enjoying your thoughts on thecseries so far!

 

Autocracy is one of my favorite IDW stories, in some ways it feels like a superior version of All Hail Megatron.

 

Spotlight: Blurr

Transformers has a cast of hundreds - thousands maybe, I dunno. Most Transformers writers seem to have struggled with such an unwieldy cast. In G1, Simon Furman got round it by concentrating on a few 'core' characters (Prime, Grimlock, Bludgeon, Ultra Magnus, the Wreckers), albeit to the detriment of many others, who hardly got a look-in. Bob Budiansky went in the opposite direction and used more of the full cast, though it did mean that we couldn't grow attached to 'hi-then-bye' characters such as Warpath and Hoist, as most characters only got a small share of the page-count.

This is where the cartoon was more successful - in giving us a number of 'spotlight' episodes focusing on a single character at a time, it gave us a chance to get to know the Autobots, despite the large cast. Episodes such as 'The Golden Lagoon' (Beachcomber), 'Sea Change' (Seaspray) and 'Changing Gears' (Gears) cast new light on background characters who were otherwise mostly ignored.

Wisely, IDW chose to take a leaf out of Sunbow's book, which resulted in the Spotlight series. The first of these (or at least, the first one in the collected hardbacks) focuses on Blurr.

The plot is certainly nothing to write home about - Blurr is a self-obsessed, arrogant racer who comes good and joins the Autobots (after a little pep talk from Orion Pax). His personal journey is one we've seen many times in fiction (rogue becomes hero) - for Blurr read Han Solo in Star Wars, Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, Captain Kirk in the Abrams Star Trek films and so on.

As well as the rather hackneyed throughline, there seems to be a few jabs at celebrity culture here too - Blurr may be popular and beloved by the masses, but he's a jerk who can't even remember the name of his buddies, loves partying, and generally acts like a brat. He's basically the Transformer equivalent of Kanye West. Whilst I enjoy a good allegory as much as the next guy, this is about as unsubtle as it gets - A-listers are such easy targets; spoofing them hardly seems worth the effort.

So that's the negatives all out of the way - what is there to praise here? Well, for a start, the art is like a breath of fresh air, after the messy and cluttered Megatron Origin. This was so easy to read by comparison. I have personal reasons for liking Casey Coller anyway (more on this later) so maybe I'm biased, but I really like his art here. Then again, most art would look refreshingly crisp, clear and dynamic when compared with Megatron Origin, so that's not saying much!

Another plus-point is that it actually ties in with Megatron Origin, by being set in and around the same time: war is just beginning to break out, people are choosing sides, and Blurr has a particularly great encounter with Starscream (who comes across as a nasty door-to-door salesman here), as the Decepticon seeker attempts to convince Blurr to join the dark side.

We also get to see Orion Pax again, though he looks nothing like what he did in Megatron Origin (Ironhide looks a lot different, too). But Pax looks exactly like the toy! That's amazing! I already own Pax but I'm starting to worry that these comics are going to cost me an arm and a leg, forcing me to buy all the best characters in toy form. Hmm.

• Blurr's race track (with various traps and hazards along the route) reminds me of when he raced against Hot Rod in 'The Rebirth, Part 1'.
• The death of Piston, a generic redshirt, is played really well here. Compare this to the rather soulless death of Bumper in Megatron Origin and we can see already how the Spotlights (and their remit of being character studies rather than epics) are already showing their worth.

This is bright, breezy and easy to read - the total opposite of Megatron Origin. Whilst the plot may be a bit clichéed and uninspiring (with an obvious ending), this is still quite fun. 3/5

I mentioned Casey Coller above. At a convention a couple of years ago, I met him, and he seemed very nice (not having read any IDW, I hadn't a clue who he was) - he was sitting near Simon Furman at a signing table. Not wanting to miss the opportunity in case he turned out to be one of my future favourite artists, I asked him to sketch me a G1 Ratbat (I love G1 Ratbat). Having now seen his art in an actual book, I'm glad I got the chance to corner him, because I do really like his style.

 

CC is popular with the G1 folk (and not only).

It's odd you reading in this order, because whilst chronological for Phase 1 IDW, it's actually all over the shop with Phase 2 thrown in. This SP came out around the time Blurr made his first IDW appearance in AHM, so not for sometime after M:O.

Thinking about it, this may be the only story to capture the effect of the rising war on those better off, but not politically involved in any way. Blurr's journey is fairly predictable, but the backdrop is interesting in that sense.

 

Yeah, it's strange how they worked out the order of these reprints, but it does work, I think (so far, at least). They may have been published many months apart, but M:O and Spotlight Blurr just feel right sitting together, somehow. It's like when you buy a greatest hits album and there's a weird sequence like 'The Girl is Mine' straight after 'Beat It'. It shouldn't work but it does, and for that I guess you have to credit the editors/compilers, who seem to have put a lot of thought in putting this together.

 

The problem is the hardcovers were collected prematurely.

The pre-war chronology, as it exists now, starts at Megatron Origin, but is continued as follows:
Spotlight: Orion Pax (which explains his "new" body design)
Spotlight: Blurr
Autocracy
Monstrocity
Primacy
Spotlights: Cliffjumper, Thundercracker, Shockwave, Hot Rod, Soundwave
Infiltration, etc.
After that, all the pre-infiltration era stories occur as flashbacks in "present day" stories.

I'll also note that SL: Nightbeat ends pretty much at the same time as Escalation, making it's placement prior to Infiltration curious, at least.

So by reading the chronological order created by the hardcovers, you're already missing parts of the tapestry which were published after these ill-conceived (or, at least, ill-timed) collections.

 

Did you like Five Faces of Darkness?

Autocracy, Monstrosity, and Primacy are written by the same guy.