From my exposure to the comics, #80 was a great way to end it, while ReGeneration was a..decent attempt to keep to going with plotlines unresolved or touched upon. Hot take, G2 is SUPER EDGY it's almost jarring. Remember in Deadpool 2 where he kind of mocked the 90's era of comics with Cable and all of those guns, that's where G2 lies, and this ain't an end chief. Plus we never get a full understanding of the Liege Maximo who was a last panel appearance that never explained himself unless you read that one-off comic from TFWiki. Yeah G1 was cheese, but G2 really messed up some character personalities, a really poor attempt to redo the comic timeline while getting down with the times, and also has my contender for "Worst Sideswipe".
I liked the G2 comics personally. It had a different style and feel to it of course, but also not. It wasn’t unfamiliar. Regeneration One just didn’t work for me. The biggest point against it was that issues weren’t self-contained stories. They were written for the trade and it hurt it being drip-fed the story monthly. Even multi-part storylines in the original Marvel comic like Matrix Quest and Target: 2006 were still fine as stand alone issues too.
I remember finding Generation 2 to be a bit too one-note 'Grim-Dark' even back in the 90s, and even more so now. I think the trouble is when everything's far too unremittingly bleak and gruesome, it simply loses impact- the reader begins to automatically dis-invest. "New character I'm starting to like... nah, they'll die horribly, why worry." That's not to say that it's poor- G2 gives Megatron some extremely nice dialogue and characterisation- although, in truth, I think it goes a little too far the other way there, and makes him into something too much of a 'cool bad guy Mary Sue'. Regeneration One seemed to have more light and shade, and I actually rather prefer its take on the actual 'second generation Cybertronians' than that of Generation 2 itself - but sadly, much of the rest of it felt a mess. The Ultra Magnus/Galvatron sequences I liked- although better to have gone all out and made it the final rematch, rather than the bizarre "We all know this is closure, but we'll have the editorial and one of the characters insist that they haven't met before in this universe, just because we don't want to alienate the small percentage of the Marvel G1 comics fans from the US who have bothered to pick up *this* title, but have never bothered in the interim to pick up a copy of the UK continuity's Target :2006 et al..." business. The Megatron plot, which seems to rear its ugly head in all of these sequel storylines, never ceases to exasperate me. In "Another Time and Place" and "Regeneration One" both, it's confirmed that the Autobots returned the Neo Knights to Earth. In Generation 2, there's no evidence of that, although presumably Optimus didn't just shove them all out of an airlock on the way back from Klo- but, at any rate, in that continuity, Optimus has contact with GI Joe, still on Earth- and in all continuities, the 'Earth' story of G1 ends with an alive and well Fortress Maximus, near the Ark, wondering what to do next after dunking Galvatron in a pond to see if he's a witch. I may be the only person who finds this egregious, but to me it makes the Autobots seem like utter blethering cretins that, then, in all continuities, they have every reason to be informed that the missing Ark (containing a number of their troops, and for which their lieutenant commander had been urgently searching, prior to their departure from Cybertron) had crashlanded on Earth, but in none of these continuities do they bother to actually check it. "Another Time and Place" and "Regeneration One" do at least do the narrative courtesy of admitting that Optimus Prime has managed to let himself down, his team down, and the people of Earth down, by making such a massively negligent error there- giving both the first, and the most recent, endgames a rather overblown "Prime's a penitent moron" sub-plot- but neither gives a really credible reason to explain this massive display of Stupid. I can accept that the nucleon explosion in the stasis pod bay could well have wiped out most of the Autobots who Grimlock was hoping to revive- but given that when we last see the ship in Generation One, Galvatron's just torn his way out, presumably leaving an open passageway back to where he left Megatron, it seems inconceivable that they could have missed him. As it is, we're asked to assume that either everyone- humans and Autobots alike- just plain forgot about the Ark, or else that a conversation went on along these lines: OPTIMUS PRIME: Oh, by the way, Grimlock, while I was dropping off the Neo-Knights, I did hear the Ark's on Earth- didn't you want it for something, at one point? GRIMLOCK: Me Grimlock was looking for Ark because me Grimlock was pumping Nucleon into Autobots in Life pods to revive them. OPTIMUS PRIME: Ohh, right, I see. So you were bringing back to life all the Autobots in my ship's medical bay. Like my old friend Ratchet, and like Megatron. GRIMLOCK: Me thought they were all Autobots, so me pump Nucleon into all life pods. OPTIMUS PRIME: I suppose maybe we should look into that, see if they survived the crash, after, you know, the Ark was stolen, and all. GRIMLOCK: Later, maybe. TV on now. Really, if there's another sequel, I'd very much like it to begin with the Autobots having got Megatron's body safely in cold storage on Cybertron- maybe with Ratchet in stasis somewhere as well while they work on trying to somehow separate them. If Meggy must be brought back into the picture, have someone steal the body.
I've only actually read Regeneration One, so I can't actually talk about the others critically. I've read about the other stories at tfwiki, so from a distance, I would have to say Regeneration one, because it actually ends as a story. The others pretty much just stop. I like how rg1 ends all of the plot threads with a sense of finality. The war's over, permanently, the universe (and multiverse) is saved and everyone's finally learned how to live in peace. Spoiler Not to mention how everyone dies of old age, Rodimus being the last one, with his corpse sending energy to the demons that have blossomed into new life.
I liked how Regeneration One ended but didn't care for the first story arc. I didn't like how the Decepticon Underbase casualties were stored onboard the Ark when in issue #74 Grimlock says the stasis pods all contain Autobots or the Autobots forgetting about their ship and Earth for 20 years.
I never read the G1 comics so no opinion there. I have the first 3 issues (I think) of G2, and to be honest at that time I had no f'n clue what the F&#$ was going on lol. The art was horrible. I didn't know who the new bad guy was. I was thrown for a loop. I would need to dig the issues back up and give them another read to see if I can understand what was going on.
Well, unless somebody decides that the loss of nearly all life on Earth was a price the Transformers have no right to pay for peace, digs out some old time-jump equipment and starts changing things, of course...
I don't blame you. That was pretty stupid of them to not check the one planet they've been defending for decades.
I still want a detailed synopsis of what happened in the 2 years between G1 and G2. We never found out what happened to Shockwave and Ratchet after the Ark crashed at the end of issue 78. And no, Regeneration 1 doesn't count in my book.
As for a Generation 2 interquel: No idea or particular opinion on Shockwave, though since he was such a major player throughout G1 and the dramatic irony of his having used Megatron's Optimus Prime-based paranoia to undermine and control Megs, and then subsequently being utterly undermined himself by his own Galvatron-based paranoia over the next hundred issues or so, it's tempting to speculate that he did, in fact, meet his end at the hands of the Megatron/Galvatron II team-up. As for Ratchet, I'd always been partial to the theory that, being soaked in Nucleon as he was clearly shown to be, he didn't die - but when Megatron's remnants were unearthed by Bludgeon and whisked off to Hydrus Four to take part in "Another Time & Place" (explaining why none of the cast are Nucleon-embuggered during G2), poor old Ratchet woke up, before eventually going into the same chrysalis state as Grimlock did during Still Life- and latterly hatching out into a new, improved, more powerful form, adapting to the death of Megatron in Hydrus Four by assimilating the molecular link into the person of the survivor, meaning that what hatched out from Ratchet's chrysalis, stronger, faster, more alive... was Megatron III - note the change of personality he shows during G2, his ability to repair and revive Starscream, his sudden preference for a new body and change to a vehicular alt mode, the apparent affinity with the life-giving Matrix, and his eventual rather surprisingly easy alliance with Optimus Prime, etc. He believes himself to be Megatron, of course, thinks and acts just like Megatron at first, but, as with Megatron II, underneath it all, really isn't, but rather a mental fusion of Ratchet and Megatron into one personality, just with the physically more robust and superior form having won out in the appearance of the body.
Is flipping through that website the only way to read it? Is there a legit download somewhere of the whole thing in .cbr format?
Sure. Not "officially" I don't think, but I did make one for myself: MEGA I could only find the one digital cover though so both parts are on the one file.
I’d like to see Regeneration 2. It would take place in the U.S. Generation 2 continuity and not a retelling of or sequel to Regeneration One. #81 - #82 : set immediately after #80 and leads into Generation 2 #1. #83 - #94 : the original G2 comics renumbered #95 - #100 : the aftermath to the original G2 comics focusing on Liege Maximo G2 #0 and the G.I. Joe crossover are not included in the renumbering, but do stay in continuity.
It’s too bad the Megatron story (in RG1) has to be knocked out first. Would of been cool to make him the big threat to face in 100. Optimus vs. Megatron while Rodimus vs. Galveston at the same time. That would of been cool.
Yeah. That sounds like it could have worked out better. He always kind of felt like a minor villain or "mini-boss" in the original series though, so it kind of makes sense that he wasn't the "final boss" to defeat.
