Thanks. -is flattered- I lay all blame at the feet of Nick Roche.  


Idw Prowl's life is a glorious soap opera and he drags everyone along for the ride.

 

Sounds like the story of X-Files  

 

Thanks for furthering your position. I thought you had some good points, in your first post, I was just bothered by the "it's comics" statement. I actually feel pretty much the same as you.

I do like that Transformers are hard to kill. Done right it gives the creators an opportunity for some really good dramatic action.

I think people complain about the fake outs. Maybe we shouldn't be faked out anymore and we should just assume dramatic injury.

Even when I am personally disappointed in any Transformers comic, I still think they are by and large part of what's "right" in the industry. While the big 2 are majority of what's "wrong" with the industry.

 

I find it difficult to argue with Getaway's monologue, because it's a point that's been bugging me ever since the Megatron-becomes-Autobot-thing became a thing. It made zero sense to be to basically let the worst war criminal in the history of ever off with what amounts to a moderately hard slap on the wrist and probation.

But his method is deplorable at best, and just plain spiteful at worst. I can actually understand why the others (even Blaster) are siding with him, but this entire conflict seems like one of those "Because nobody actually discussed anything or tried to work anything out (Srsly if they didn't like Megatron they could've just walked off the LL right? It was completely voluntary), the plot demands a conflict."

Or maybe I'm just way too salty to see what's going on.

 

Not that I disagree entirely, but I think one of the points Roberts has been trying to make with MTMTE is that the Autobots have committed just as many war crimes as the Decepticons (see: Prowl, Wreckers). The Autobots are almost a perfect stand in for post-WW2 America, whereas the Decepticons are something of a mash-up of the Axis powers and the USSR, but are not entirely the villains in this situation. Megatron is more of a Lenin figure than a Stalin or a Hitler, I would argue that the Autobots are attributing the death of billions undeservedly to a character who actually fought for the side of good (the wrong way, with the wrong army) by helping to eliminate the caste-based Functionalist society. As the victors, its easy for the Autobots to cast Megatron as a war criminal but I imagine Optimus' decisions led to just as many deaths as Megatron's seeing as how it was a war fought by both sides of Cybertron. I think Optimus and some of the more enlightened Autobots saw this truth and decided to be merciful to a good person that ultimately lost his way trying to fight a battle for the overall good, though it still doesn't take away his crimes and I can definitely see why Getaway et al did what they did. I imagine Decepticons in the same position with Prime would have done the same thing or worse, but then again we do see the Scavengers finding mercy for a disabled Grimlock (another war criminal, who killed countless Decepticons) which I think Roberts is intentionally using to contrast the situation with the Autobots and Megatron.

 

Megatron is definitely a Stalin/Hitler figure. He's responsible for giving orders he gave and their consequences. He pushed his war of liberation too far insisting at continuing it after the Senate fell. This is when he stopped being a revolutionaire and became a tyrant.

Also, people should really stop calling soldiers who fight other soldiers as "war criminals". They're just soldiers fighting. Which apply to both Bots and Cons. Most of them were just grunts who carried guns and tried to not get themselves killed.
Its good to know you also consider soldiers who ever gave life for your own country "war criminals"...

Guys like Grimlock or any other brute who just enjoyed heat of battle aren't criminals. Now, when they turn weapons against disabled and civilians, like detroying unborn sparks or executing captives, then they can be called as such. But up to this point they're just warriors. Again, it includes both Bots and Cons.

 

I came more onto your side. I disagree, Lord Cryotek, that "Optimus' decisions led to just as many deaths." Or that Autobots are all "as bad." Or that the authorial intent of introducing complex characters and the muddy waters of warfare is to portray the Autobots as equally bad as the Decepticons. For textual proof, I'd cite Grindcore as a big example of how horrible and awful the Decepticons could be.

Simply being a combatant in war doesn't make one a war criminal. I actually might argue that there is a case against Grimlock, based on some of his renegade actions, being cast as a war criminal. But he's still not really wanted or in need of trial.

Megatron may have had good intentions, but as Ratchet told him off in the aftermath of Dark Cybertron, Megatron made a lot of choices that went well past his good-intentioned revolution. Megatron is a murder, and by his hand or by his orders, literal billions are dead. The responsibility for those billions dead are not shared by both sides. He pulled the literal and figurative trigger. He didn't watch his philosophy go out of control, he created, evolved, and designed the army that fought for him. He is now horrified by the DJD but he created them. He found the sickest motherfuckers he could and said hey, take out anybody who doesn't stay in line.

Roberts & Barber have shown that Autobots have done questionable, even bad things, in the name of defeating the Decepticons. I really like the shades of grey that have been introduced. Some characters are dicks and assholes. That doesn't make them EVIL, or even murderers. The Autobots ultimately are still the good guys and spend most of the war trying to prevent the Decepticons from stripping the universe of organics.

But let's remember that however righteous Megatron's original cause was, the first major move of the Decepticons was to murder the senate. Okay, they were all pretty awful, and Shockwave saved maybe the one good senator...

but from then on it's pretty much Decepticons as instigators and aggressors. The Autobots are almost entirely on the counter-offensive or trying to prevent all.

Prowl did some bad shit. Others did too. Bad things happened over four million years of war. But "both sides did bad things" != "both sides are equally culpable."

 

So, who was it the Autobots were killing in the war? I mean, I guess Decepticons don't count as deaths by your "logic". And the perfectly good Autobots certainly didn't create and support a caste-based society wherein arbitrarily designated alt-modes could give you higher social standing and lower ones would be relegated to the position of slaves. Morally speaking, Megatron started out in the right and continued war with the Oppressive Autobot regime turned the Decepticons into the monsters we now know and love while the Autobots presumably wiped the blood of the fallen off their faces with their supposedly superior morality. If anything, Megatron went from being a Lenin type to becoming a Stalin type figure, and now has seemingly repented in seeing what he'd become. I would say that his actions and the Decepticon cause (before it was perverted), given the potential future Functionalist timeline we've seen, were necessary moral actions done in the name of achieving a better society (Which Optimus eventually did, not Megatron) and I think Optimus recognized this and as such gave Megatron amnesty. The Autobots started out being in the wrong and worked their way towards a murky moral superiority, while the Decepticons started out in the right and worked their way towards evil.

 

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Ironically his name too is Springer.

I do agree they could have talked it all out and reached some understanding....though they could have gotten the verdict if they actually made some actual progress with the Knights of Cybertron quest.

 

Have you read all of IDW? The Autobots of Optimus Prime are not the oppressors Megatron rose against. There were really three factions: The Senate, the Decpticons, and the Optimus Prime Autobots. Megatron and Prime were both against the Senate's actions. You can't ignore facts that are presented in the story and lump Optimus in with the Senate. When you do that doesn't further you're point of view, it invalidates it.

There is also a difference between combatants killing each other and murder. There are rules of engagement that define combat and murder.

Haywired and RNSrobot great posts, very well reasoned.

 

Weren't the Aequitas Trials all about Autobots who committed war crimes?

The way I've read IDW's version of the war: at the very outset, Megatron was the hero, and Optimus was well-meaning but ultimately in the wrong. Very quickly that changed; however noble Megatron's motives may have been, his revolution quickly descended into barbarism, and eventually added grotesque motives (like anti-organic bigotry).

As the years went on, and the war kept not ending, each side's methods got a little more awful. The Autobots stayed the good guys, but sometimes only by virtue of the fact that however bad they got, the Decepticons got worse. Now that the war is over and the dust is settling, the Autobots can look back and say they were in the right, but will have to cough and ignore no small number of atrocities of their own.

 

Yes, yes I have. Did you READ my post?
" I would say that his actions and the Decepticon cause (before it was perverted), given the potential future Functionalist timeline we've seen, were necessary moral actions done in the name of achieving a better society (Which Optimus eventually did, not Megatron) and I think Optimus recognized this and as such gave Megatron amnesty. The Autobots started out being in the wrong and worked their way towards a murky moral superiority, while the Decepticons started out in the right and worked their way towards evil."

Where did I lump Optimus in with the senate? As I said, the Autobots STARTED in the wrong and worked their way towards being in the right, largely through Optimus's actions. Megatron started in the right and worked his way towards being evil, and eventually repented (after being defeated). I do support Megatron as a character, but he's also the head of a regime that fought in a war that caused the death of millions, and so is Optimus. (I am personally ignoring all of those dumb-ass Livio-drawn -acy's that paint Megatron as some sort of robotic Hitler/Conan the Barbarian hybrid, and so should you as every other part of the IDW universe ignores them completely). Sure, we got to see Optimus feel bad about actions that led towards killing Decepticons and he definitely didn't personally commit war crimes, but he still led the nation/faction that committed war crimes and helped make the decisions that led to many needless deaths and as the leader of a nation/faction he's just as culpable for what the Autobots do as Megatron was for what the Decepticons did, and I do not say that to indicate support for either cause (I think they're both morally grey with good intentions). It's war, both sides caused unnecessary immoral deaths and to pretend otherwise speaks to the infectious rise of nationalism in our world. Just because you disagree with someone who dies, does not make their death morally justifiable. It's only "collateral damage" when it's your side doing the murder.

Back to the question this was initially about: Would I want him on my ship if I was an Autobot? Of course fucking not. The Decepticons would likely have done much worse to Prime, and with that line of thought I really question Prime's line of thinking in putting him on the LL in the first place, good intentions aside. Prime really comes off as something of an imbecile in the IDW-verse, like, what'd he expect? You put their universe's most famous Decepticon who, despite my own detached understanding of him as a reader is to them the universe's most famous murderous monster, on a ship full of war-battered Autobots and then put him in charge of them and expect them to obey him? I would have walked off the ship right then and there, and the fact that the Autobots didn't is baffling. I understand Optimus' intentions as to why he put Megatron on the LL and I personally agree with them morally, but in a practical sense this really paints Optimus as being just plain fucking stupid.

 

The Necrobot planted flowers for people killed or ordered killed by an individual. We haven't seen Optimus's field yet.

I think that's why Hoist is one of my favourites, and why others have mentioned seeing him with the mutineers was so powerful. His entire schtick is being Joe Schmo. And everyone else is crazy enough or special enough that just being a normal guy IS a stand-out feature. So it would be truly disastrous to change him, whereas Spinger's, um, potential deals, well, he is a triple-chaning Wrecker-leader with Matrix-affinity, so he's already a bit of a showpony, if I'm honest.

Also, great synopsis.  

 

I'll respond more fully later when I have access to a keyboard, but a. I'm not attacking you. I disagree with your take.

More importantly, however, is that I can demonstrate that your reading of who and what an "Autobot" is - and who was responsible for the caste system - is incorrect.

I should think that the difference between killing an enemy combatant in the context of ongoing war vs killing entire planets of organics or prisoners of war is self-evident.

 

or Prowl's.

 

Of course it is. Please respond to my second post as I clarified what I thought there, but I'll give you another short response. The Wreckers and the Dinobots committed many monstrosities, and Prowl had an entire city destroyed, which are lesser atrocities but still what I would call a war crime. Also, I would imagine that, in their fight against the Decepticons on other planets, the Autobots also caused as many or more deaths as the Decepticons through collateral damage (again, in the initial parts of the war when they were still the evil empire in charge of a large portion of their galaxy), and killing Decepticons, and I am glad that MTMTE and SOTW/LSOTW are expanding on that period in Transformers history as war is and always will be a morally grey area. The typical depiction of Autobots as pure-good paragons of justice bores me to tears, and if this were not fiction I would say their depiction was clearly Autobot propaganda (joking). As I clarified in my follow up post, the Autobots (or rather, the Cybertronian regime in power pre-war, if you will) started as an evil oppressive regime and became the "good guys" through Prime's actions whereas the Decepticons started being morally right in their fight against the caste system but became "evil" through Megatron and his followers' blind fight for freedom that eventually became a warped grab for power causing the deaths of billions. There is some inconsistency to this narrative as the editorial direction of IDW has changed over the years, but post MTMTE/RID TF comics seem to fall in line with this version of history. In the end, I personally believe that Megatron achieved his goal accidentally by creating Prime and Prime recognized that without Megatron none of what they'd worked to achieve would have been possible (A fact proven by the alternate Functionalist timeline) and as such sentenced him to live with people who were "victims" of his cause. War created Megatron, Megatron did not create war, if that makes any sense. I would personally say my own morality falls in line with pre-war Megatron's, but post war Megatron is a truly despicable character who realized this and is now attempting to make peace with his own guilt.

 

Hmm, that raises an interesting question. How does the Necrobot determine the ultimate guilty party? If Optimus said to Prowl one day "I need this done. Get it done." And Prowl goes and...does what Prowl does, are those flowers planted around his or Prime's statue? What about Tarn's kills? His or Megatron?

I imagine they probably both get a flower. "You pulled the trigger but you told him to."

I think the only real discernible difference between Autobot and Decepticon warcrimes is there's probably fewer instances of Autobots going "BWAHAHAHAH DIE, FLESHLINGS!"

I mean, that probably happened too. But not as many times.

 

The biggest difference between Megatron and Optimus is that he was given a simple solution of separating Cybertron into two Autobot and Decepticon territories.
Except he was pushing for total control because he wanted to be a supreme ruler and to him nobody was allowed to not agree with him.
Leaving other people alone and stay only with his dedicated followers was not an option.

And that's not defendable in any way. If not him pushing it further, there would be no war. The second faction wasn't looking for it. 100% sure Megatron did create this war by his unwilingness to compromise with anyone.

Technically Optimus's Autobots hardly were the same a Senate faction. Optimus's bots whey were as illegal and revolutionary as Decepticons. A bunch of police officers who revolted against their own government. If Optimus had less luck in accidentally finding Matrix, he'd have no more legality to his function than Megatron...

 

Necrobot has his work cut out for him then. Can only imagine his day to day routine during the peak of the war. I do agree that a flower is likely given to both parties, the one who made the order and the one who pulled the trigger/sword/murder device of choice. Would be interesting to see the fields of other characters like Optimus, any of the Wreckers, or hell what about Shockwave?

And for another question that dawned on me, which I apologize if it's already been brought up. Getaway and Atomizer approached everyone after Megatron's trial and asked those two questions right? Ratchet included. Curious what his answers would be.

 

Yeah, exactly. I would even argue that a character like Prowl is almost worse than many of the evil Decepticon characters we've had, if only because he believes himself to be doing good.