Just read this one at midnight UK time. Nice to have that excitement back, no? Anyway will read it again later but initial thoughts...

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So ‘Pharma’ is the Grand Architect. I hope the predictions are right and it’s someone just using his body. He just doesn’t seem like a serious enough villain to be the all out big bad. Anyway, Skorponok gets his own. Quite surprised to see him bow out this early but hey ho.

Sunder and Froid are back. No doubt their special skill sets will play a role later on, even if Sunder is seemingly neutralised right now.

Megatron appearing again is nice- wonder who he’s bringing with him from the FU? He very conspicuously covers up his chest where the Autobot symbol might sit. Hmm.

Quite surprised that he’s integral to this storyline. I thought James Roberts’ inclusion of him in season 2 wasn’t always planned. But if this end of the whole MTMTE/LL arc was planned from the start including Megs, this makes that statement...hard to reconcile I guess? Anyway, I am glad he’s back, symbol disguising or not.

 

Well, Drift did have that one vision eons ago.

 

Fun read. Better than some of the other comics released recently. I’ll admit I was fooled by the shadowed face of the GA. There is no way James planned this ending from the start. At best he had the sweeping plot points planned and altered it to fit the changes made.

 

Oh yes, indeed. In more tired ramblings from me, if

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Pharma is a meat suit (metal suit?) for a Quintesson and Megatron is their ultimate foe does that mean Monstrosity is somehow going to be made central to this story?? Shocks!! This isn’t an entirely serious observation before I get jumped on.

 

Lost Light 21...good issue all in all...that ending has me so nervous, like legitimately nervous about 22, I can't even begin to tell you. There's a direction to take that...and a direction to absolutely not to take that...and I'm reaaaaaaaaaaaal nervous about which road awaits

Cause if what i fear to be pulled...is pulled. I'm going to be very annoyed. Roberts made a big bad comment on twitter a couple of days ago and I'm very antsy

 

He did? I missed it, what did he say?

 

I agree with you

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his hand just so conveniently covers the insignia and he has a fusion cannon on his arm......

 

Just "meet the big bad"

Which in this book, there's two options. And I know who I WANT (in fact would argue the story needs it to be)...but that creeping sensation in my spine is telling me...hmmm

 

Huh. So that was a thing.

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So...Pharma was somehow dropped off by the warren millions of years ago, where he somehow saw into the future what's about to happen - Megatron returning. And so using what he apparently briefly witnessed, he spent millions of years becoming the Grand Architect to bring what he saw into being planning to send Megatron into another universe, but he didn't consider the possibility that he was the one who had brought him over in the first place. And apparently nobody had any clues as to who he really was. Tyrest and Scorponok are plainly in the dark.

Yeah, really going to need to find out how he managed to survive his head being blown off, if that really is him.

Buh-bye Scorponok. Was getting tired of his smug ass, honestly...

 

Megatron got his fusion cannon back.He really did something in FU 

 

I gotta admit this issue had me hyped for the next

I like season 2 more then most people and i forgot how much i mossed grandpa megatron

 

Read it. I think it's a lot clearer where most of this is heading towards now. If you've read Eugenesis some of this is probably starting to look a tad familiar. =) I'm maybe disappointed somewhat that it looks like there's been some changes of the grand plot a little bit since the beginning of the series, but on consideration I think they make for a much better narrative.

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I don't believe the Quintessons are involved at all - not even in a "body hosting" capacity. In fact I don't think they ever were.

Many people noted that there's some inconsistencies here regarding the "Grand Architect" (and I've noted a couple here too):

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• G.A. Pharma isn't totally insane like the last time we saw him (which I'll call "Crazy Pharma").
• G.A Pharma and Crazy Pharma have totally different speech patterns.
• G.A. Pharma is powerful enough to go toe to toe and kill Scorponok in one shot, even with a cheap shot - there's no way someone this powerful would have *ever* been afraid of the DJD back in the early issues of MTMTE like Crazy Pharma was.
• G.A. Pharma appears to have no idea who Rodimus and crew are, other than Getaway telling him. Crazy Pharma knows quite well who Rodimus et al are.
• Pharma has some sort of incredible protection against a mnemosurgery attack that no one understands. This doesn't make sense for either G.A. or Crazy Pharma.

Further,

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G.A. Pharma has been active for millions of years. This means he in fact would be providing orders before, during, and after Crazy Pharma's appearances in the series.
G.A. Pharma constructed Necroworld (the hollow, since abandoned planet, mold for the pseudo-Cybertrons) - which is notably full of Aequitas technology. Crazy Pharma remarks on how amazing all of this is while in "Remain In Light", so his remarks there don't really make any sense in light of him being the G.A.

However I don't think these are inconsistencies - they're clues.

Warning: if you don't want to know where the tentacles from the end of "Remain in Light" that grabbed Pharma are from, don't open the next spoiler tag. I'll explain my theory and where the Eugenesis parallel is (keep in mind I'm really about 0 for 5 at this juncture   ) This also ties into the Rewind/Chromedome stuff I theorized in an earlier post and probably explains "back of the neck" as Robert's clue for 24.

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They're from a future issue. Most likely 24 or 25.

GA Pharma has "wiped all memory" of his foe, other than to know he's out there and he needs to prepare.
When Sunder attempts to read GA Pharma's mind, he gets a feedback loop so bad he can no longer perform mnemnosurgery at all.
GA Pharma mentioned that he went into the Warren "a million years ago", predating literally everything that's happened in this series. As noted above, his appearances thus far in the series don't square up with the "G.A."

Notably, Pharma says that he was *witness* to a powerful enemy and refers to the "future becoming the present". That means that either
a) there will be a point in the next four issues when "Pharma from the past" shows up
b) something else. Hint: it's something else.

Something along the lines of what I think the "something else" is:
* GA Pharma gets defeated by Megatron, Rodimus, and crew. Possibly mortally.
* For some reason, to keep the timeline stable (think "Time Wars") they'll need to send Pharma back in time so that he can become the Grand Architect. This is the same thing they had to do with Optimus, Thundercracker, and Frenzy in Eugenesis - once they had done what they needed to do in the future, *their memories were wiped* and they were sent back.
* They'll use the Warren to grab Pharma's decapitated body from the end of Remain in Light. Maybe a sparkeater's tentacles to drag him through.
* Chromedome will perform mnemosurgery on Pharma to remove all of his memories, other than that Pharma has witnessed a great enemy that he needs to prepare for and put in a "feedback override" that prevents anyone else from doing mnemosurgery on him (hence what happened to Sunder).
* They'll shove the repaired Pharma back through the Warren and dump him millions of years ago.

This is the kind of "loop from the future to the past" thing that's been all over MTMTE / Remain In Light so I expect this will be pretty similar.

Lastly, clearly based both on Drift's vision and the likely reaction of the readership, they're probably *not* going to be fighting Megatron. At least for very long. =) Though if I had to guess as to who the real "big bad" of this series is going to be, it's probably the one whose name is the most thematically appropriate...

Terminus.

 

Also no spoilers but that "inspiring Rodimus speech" didn't really work for me. Felt more like the writer inserting himself in there vs. it feeling natural. Just me though.

 

Aw man, what the fuck. I already paid this night for this, as I have subscribed the series. It's already visible in Comixology, but instead of a download button it shows a price tag. And I can't just buy it again to download it. I want to read it now!

 

Comixology UK didn't have this last time I checked, but Google Books saw me right  

First thoughts:

The GA is detectably non-Cybertronian, as the Magnificence responded to them. I reckon that's the Quintesson influence.

I think Scorponok was wrong about the GA's plan, and that the reinforcements from Elsewhere (love the final page reveal!) are to see off the great threat, rather than *are* the great threat. Ties into the infiltration of the Black Box Consortia - that too was about accumulating muscle.

Given how we left last-page-reveal-bot previously, I don't think they're the adversary.

 

Weird thing to fixate on, but credit to Lawrence for drawing the Milne-iest mouth in the history of mouths whenever the Grand Architect is in shadow.

Agree that there's no way

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the Pharma we've known up to this point

is the Grand Architect. Can anyone remember any details that might've factored into using his body? I remember Tyrest saying he was forged back in Remain in Light, but that's all.

Held off on Star Saber, but I confess the death in this issue left me bitter.

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Scorponok's

two-parter with the Scavengers is probably my favorite story of the Lost Light rebranding thus far, and while Star Saber was a minor enough character for me to excuse his rushed demise somewhat, this just feels like a perfunctory tying up of loose ends with a far, far more interesting character. And yet somehow Sunder and Froid, the guys who directly done messed with GA's head, are okay? These two unimportant, unpredictable assholes are let off with a slap on the wrist? Why?

Maybe it would've worked better if the reveal wowed me more.

 

I'm actually really interested to hear your hot take on this. You going to bring it up on Moonbase 2?

 

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Re: Megatron, I gotta wonder... suppose that in the Functionist universe, he in fact became the leader of the Autobot resistance to Terminus' Decepticons?

We know he reconnected with Pax. And Terminus was one of the bots urging Megatron into action while lacking the context to know why Megatron was slow to it. Could well be that a civil war still happened, but one where Megatron took up arms in the name of freedom.

 

Alternate Theory:

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Maybe the war did restart in the FU but maybe Megs had enough self control this time around to end the fighting after the corrupt ruling body was finished.

 

Yeah, it did feel a little stilted I have to say.