Lost Light 25: lovely wheels

Discussion in 'Transformers Comics Discussion' started by rikkomba, Nov 6, 2018.

  1. vatarian

    vatarian Archentrope, Black Needle, Suzerain of Metabolisms

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    I got on his case for saying “cringe” a bunch, which bugs the shit out of me and is generally something people on 4chan use as a substitute for actual critique, not because he didn’t enjoy something I did. I think he understood that, and even laughed a little about it, so I’m not really sure why you’re giving me a speech about “RESPECT OPINIONS” when all I was really doing was chiding someone facetiously for using an annoying buzzword.

    As for the matter of “Lgbt” content in the comic.....

    Here’s my hot (luke-warm) take.

    Cybertron was, largely, a monogender, or perhaps genderless, society. The dichotomy of social and labor division based on physical dimorphism and trait-differences in a species with a bimodal method of sexual reproduction..... They just. Don’t exist on Cybertron. The foundation for GENDER as we know it on earth does not exist on Cybertron.

    There are, in the truest sense, no men and no women.

    There’s just the 98% of the species that follows the norm of what we would consider “masculine” frame-structure and pronoun-usage (really, given that the dialogue is written in english for the convenience of the reader, and not because the cast is constantly speaking a perfect reproduction of modern english, I’m not actually even sure we can say that “he” or whatever the equivelent pronoun in Cybertronian is could even be seen as the masculine pronoun in their society. Just the default one.) and then the very small minority, which most Cybertronians don’t even really acknowledge or “get”, who do not

    So. With that context established, our concepts of what is “gay” or otherwise subversive of heteronormatism don’t.... Really apply to these giant, transforming alien robots.

    As a matter of fact, given that 98% of the species is.... Well. Male-coded by our standards..... Relationships, if they occurred, would almost certainly be “gay” as the norm. Not because of any “agenda”. Just because it’s. Well. Realistic, within the context of the setting and the story.

    And you can dislike that if you want, but it doesn’t really say much about Roberts, so much as your own personal values, what you’re used to seeing, and what you WANT to see in a Transformers story.

    I, personally, think it’s nice to see the Transformers as dynamic people who love and build close bonds and subvert their society’s own repressed standards, as opposed to big, gritty, grim-dark fighting machines who just.... Shoot at one another a lot with no real susbstance behind all the “epic battle”.

    You’re welcome to disagree and have your own preferences, but I think choosing the particular route of “Roberts shoved The Gay in my face” is a pretty silly and unreasonable way to do it.
     
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  2. Napalm

    Napalm Drinking About Robots TFW2005 Supporter

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    Ah, excellent.

    There's a painful and grounded reality to Ratchet's funeral that really hits hard. Journeys do end. People do lose touch. It's as sad as it is inevitable.

    The uplifting alternative is a wonderful way to keep the gang together forever, but the cynic in me, he can't help but see the lack of real truth in that. An eternally condemned Megatron focusing on where he was at his happiest, though? Oh, we both see that.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2018
  3. Omnius

    Omnius Guest

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    When Rodimus visits Megatron in his cell, Megs reveals that he still has the Rodimus Star he was given 819 years earlier.
     
  4. timcourtois

    timcourtois Well-Known Member

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    The 819 years is a reference to how long Megatron was living in the Functionist universe before coming back to the "main" universe.
     
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  5. Matrix1981

    Matrix1981 It's Hot Rod's fault...

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    Pretty damn good read... now I really need MMC to make a proper reformatted Ratchet.. and maybe redo Cyclonus...
     
  6. Sagitta

    Sagitta Nuetral

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    When responding I usually "snip & clip" so as not to bog down the response.

    I don't exactly know what "4chan" is to be honest. Although whether IRC, IM, PM, or chatroom, I would think there would be more focus on the content said than using the same terminology which can happen to anyone in any given day.
    But we all have pet peeves.

    Might I assume you may have been referring to Transformers as an androgynous species as well? That's the view I would say I've held as well with very scant exceptions since Transformers were first introduced back in the 80s.

    O
    f course living alien robots can form close bonds within the given context. Still, they would not have the same understanding of the term "family" as humans do. But that does not rule out having strong relationships in the form of friendships that are much akin to that of siblings or deeper than. Their make, emotionally, mentally, and physically is just not there for romance or mating. There's a certain lack of logic it appears to hold. Transformers are mechanoids, not organics.

    The concept of robotic romance was non-existent in the two foundational series before MtMtE if referring to these series and the offshoots alone. They popped the concept in during MtMtE and RiD with little explanation. Roberts himself clarified Conjunx Endura were rare. As commented before, for a story-line known to have a bit of breadcrumbs scattered throughout that forms all these links thats...a glaring inconsistency.

    Never stated it did actually. Same can be said of all of us. We all have our own worldviews that form the basis on which we stand. And our creativity is also going to flow from this or that reservoir.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2018
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  7. timcourtois

    timcourtois Well-Known Member

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    Here's a question that I'm wondering if we ever got an answer to:

    Adaptus had this long-term plan to stop the Functionist Cybertron/Primus from taking over the universe because, apparently, he was watching the whole thing happen some time in his "past." Why/how was he there? And where was he?
     
  8. The Chippy Winger

    The Chippy Winger The Struggle is real

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    My teak;

    MTME is one of the best runs ever in comics. Up there with Miller’s DD and Waid’s Flash.

    LL is self severing, spit in face, I’ll do what I want, I have free reign, click bait after click bait, you are too dumb to follow wtf is happening, I’m too smrt for my own good, utter trash.

    Sorry not sorry.
     
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  9. Sagitta

    Sagitta Nuetral

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    He discovered the Warren where one can travel through time & space. The issue of the minds where Adaptus is concerned confuses me. I wonder if in his case "change" meant Adaptus had the ability to possess other mechanisms with the Warren helping him do so from afar without him realizing.

    I mean, he saw false-Primus enter our universe and that was the basis for all his long-term planning. However he never actually saw just how the Functionists were able to cross over. Nor the fact that he was responsible for it and the threat that was posed was all his doing. Which, in itself, seems like really flimsy writing to me.

    One would have thought if Adaptus was so in touch with wanting to prevent the entire episode from ever happening he would have found out all he could of it. Instead he jumped to conclusions. Even thinking in real time the false-Primus could be "sent back" into it's realm even after the means of doing so had been destroyed.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2018
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  10. Ricky Spanish

    Ricky Spanish Shingo No-Prize

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    While Roberts is done with IDW I have no doubt he'll be back to a new Transformers universe in the future with something new, he certainly opened the door for cameos with the duplicate Lost Light and Omega Guardians.
    I don't know where Transformers is going in comics given IDW's massive losses these past few years, I am going to Cyberverse and Siege War for Cybertron but wish James Roberts all the best, it was a fun and inspired read.
     
  11. Laserpants

    Laserpants Well-Known Member

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    The theory of the duplicate Lost Light happening all in Megatron’s disembodied brain and spark makes awful sense.

    Which I, fearless optimist, choose to interpret as while there’s life, there’s hope. One day the political climate will change, eternal punishment for someone who’s actually tried hard to atone for their crimes will fall out of fashion, and he’ll be released. Rodimus will get his own crew again, Ratchet will be dead but Drift will move on, and the rest of them will go on living their lives.
     
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  12. Chris McFeely

    Chris McFeely Well-Known Member

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    When he left Cybertron on Luna 1 millions of years ago via the Warren, he and the moon were briefly deposited in the future, during the events of "Crucible," and saw Functionist Primus attack. He then turned around and fled back into the Warren, returning to the past and starting to plan for Primus's coming.
     
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  13. RNSrobot

    RNSrobot Keeper of the Waspinator Swarm. Blam.

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    I will be very surprised if the next book does not align closely with the current hasbro direction.
     
  14. GoLion

    GoLion Banned

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    What they're doing now has stopped working. You can blame that on any number of factors but, ultimately, it's not working anymore. Hasbro has mandated IDW to correct course. We'll see if this unification strategy works. I doubt it will, but we'll see.

    My wish is we could keep the current crop of writers but give them stronger editorial oversight. A writer getting to tell his story is great, but doing it at the expense of the sales is a costly mistake.

    Have any new writing teams been announced? Has anything been announced? That's troublesome. When do we worry? I guess they still have until January to make any formal announcements, but I feel like they should start making them relatively soon if they want to keep the... momentum going.
     
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  15. DaveWire

    DaveWire Well-Known Member

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    It just occurred to me MTMTE and Lost Light together ran for exactly 84 issues. '84, heh, nice number to end on.
     
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  16. Hooper_X

    Hooper_X hit dogs holler

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    We all die someday, but not all of us live. I think that's kind of the point of #25, no?
     
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  17. DrTraveler

    DrTraveler Wheeljack, Wheeljack, Wheeljack

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    I'd say that MTMTE was the tighter book all around. Lost Light starts badly with the Functionalist Universe when it probably should have opened with the very next story arc. And then it gets compressed due to Roberts getting the word the book would end with 25. It has some overall challenges.

    I still like the final story arc though. That all worked for me.
     
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  18. RNSrobot

    RNSrobot Keeper of the Waspinator Swarm. Blam.

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    I am eyerolling at the first two paragraphs of your reply. Let it gooooooooooo

    It is surprising they have announced NOTHING to this point. If not a creative team or title, a release date. Simply given the way comics work it could mean the books are six months out still. Which could have some wisdom, give people a nice breather from all of this. But it also risks being forgotten.
     
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  19. Sagitta

    Sagitta Nuetral

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    Well, for one thing IDW would have been better off avoiding Revolution & tying in all those different series together
     
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  20. noblekale

    noblekale There can be only one!

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    I also saw "what if this is all in Megatron's mind" at first. But, then I also saw, what if the duplicates weren't exact? The exact science of "quantum duplicates" can be argued, but, something to think about, no matter how well you do it, every duplicate is going to have flaws. The two glaring ones to me were Ratchet and Rewind. Yes, Ratchet's body was breaking down, we saw that from the start. But, what if in duplicating, it also increased the flaws of the duplicate? Kind of like when you try to make a mold of a piece and cast it, that little scratch you barely saw on the original suddenly shows up as a glaring crack. With Rewind, since he's already a duplicate, it would essentially be a duplicate of a duplicate. Anyone who used to copy video tapes or cassettes can tell you, when you start doing chain copy of things, it starts losing quality fast.

    Maybe I'm reaching with this, but using real-world examples of copying things, it just makes me wonder if the New Cybertron crew are duplicates, and the originals are in the other universe. Or, again, as said before, the entire second ending could be in Megatron's head.

    As for Cyclonus, he reminds me of this old Italian guy I know. When he's in a bad mood, he keeps everything to himself. When he's in a good mood? You bet your ass he could grab you and kiss you on the cheek and say something in Italian then start laughing.
     
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