Tension is much more dramatic and affecting than a sudden all out brawl, and that's what the whole "In Disguise" thing promises. They have to hide for this or that reason, or you know that anything around them could be an enemy spy, waiting to pounce... Even Beast Wars, which is in a setting devoid of any reason whatsoever for them to be hiding, they came up with the idea that if they're in robot mode for too long, they die. It's a dramatic device, the rules of the world and the conflict we're watching, and you need those kinds of rules to engage with an action story.

Now, in the history of the franchise, has this element been used to particularly great effect? No. Right from the start the G1 continuities introduced the Dinobots, who, instead of playing by some kind of different rules that make their alternate forms relevant (like maybe they lose control and Hulk-Out like in FoC, that's at least something) are just normal Transformers with cool, but objectively useless alternate modes. They don't hide them; they're not even faster! Why would any Dinobot other than Swoop ever transform?? By issue 3 of the Marvel Comic the Decepticons were operating out of a high tech alien castle situated in plain view of all humanity. There's not even secret bases! They're literally public knowledge, how are they in disguise?

Even Furman's IDW run, which I love for at least trying to bring the tagline of the entire franchise to bear for once, usually still just amounted to a lot of big metal guys shooting at each other. There's some stealth missions and the Decepticons' described modus operandi makes a lot more sense than their usual "CONQUER! PLUNDER! STEAL ALL THE OIL!" approach, but if you look at the actual set pieces and action beats, it's a lot of driving and shooting or standing and shooting until one side yells out "Retreat!"

I'd like to see a take on the franchise that goes even further; instead of an uninhabitable Cybertron destroyed by war or a Cybertron destroyed by war that only a few robots can live on, I'd like to see a Cybertron that pulled itself back from the brink with an uneasy alliance. Maybe Megatron is a black ops type, destabilizing worlds and slowly syphoning their resources in the process, disavowed by the Decepticon hierarchy but doing their bidding, and an Autobot counter-insurgency task force is formed, led by an Optimus Prime still haunted by having had to bend the knee for the sake of peace. Neither side can openly attack or even acknowledge the other's existence without risking reigniting the war, so they have to stay hidden and carry out their agendas in secret on Earth, while back on Cybertron we can do all that political drama folks always seem so fond of. But that's a harder sort of sci-fi than this franchise would probably ever be willing to do.

TL;DR, I think there's a a reason the phrase is "Robots in Disguise" rather than "Robots in the Form of Other Machines With Other Functions, Primarily Transportation", besides the fact that the latter doesn't rhyme with "More than Meets the Eye" at all

 

IDW has some big problems, and it reflects in their pool of talent. Alex Milne, in my opinion, is about as good as Liefeld, but Liefeld is better at telling a story, frankly. Yes, Alex can draw feet and hands better, but his art is messy. To the person who made the "if the art changes the comic wasn't good to begin with comment", not true. Comics are a visual medium. They fit, tops, less than a third of the writing per page as a regular book, and it's mostly dialogue and thought bubbles, so the artist carries a ton of weight. Kirby basically made Marvel - that's how powerful artists are in comics. In fact, I'd argue writers haven't become superstars in the comic world until recently, and there's a reason ARTIST alley is a staple at comic conventions, not WRITERS alley.

I originally wanted to be a comic artist - that's usually what comics inspire. That's, to me, where More Than Meets the Eye suffers the most.

Nick Roche, on the other hand, is a good artist, in my opinion.

I also think James Roberts is a so-so writer. I prefer Barber (and some others). Not for the politics. Roberts and I see pretty eye to eye there, although I do find his politics to often be a distraction. I feel like sometimes I'm reading his opinions and not the opinions of the characters. The way he writes I often find a lack of weight provided to dissenting voices (for example in Watchmen, Moore finds Rorshach's politics despicable, but you can feel he sympathizes with and has a lot of respect for his convictions). There's something about MTME that is very ideological - in the sense that when someone is wedded to an ideology they often paint others who aren't as crazy or evil (example: Star Saber), rather than rational actors who have different motivations and or valid reasons for their beliefs.

I also don't entirely buy the turncoat Megatron, especially after Megatron Origins which (despite the art) I think was a very strong comic. Megatron is a complete psychopath who seems a bit dull and incapable of self-reflection, but also somewhat justified in his actions. I'm a big Magneto fan, so the Autobot Megatron doesn't bother me, but there's a part of me that groans when they church up characters like Megatron and Magneto. Sorry, in the real world you don't get to apologize, act nice, and pretend you didn't murder thousands of people. It would be like if Stephen Colbert put OJ on his late-night show following his release.

Honestly, I don't want to sound like I am excessively hard on MTME or IDW in general. Overall it has been good, it's just gone on a long, long time. MTME seems to me like a 30-40 issue idea that was stretched out way too long, maybe even a 20 issue idea. As my comparison above, to The Walking Dead, there's only so long for that premise, especially since they started off with such as explicit mission.

 

Agreed 1000%!

 

You nailed my precise problem with Roberts' run (which I still enjoyed overall). Every character who doesn't cleave to his (Roberts') personal ideologies is immediately painted as either insane or evil. It made LL feel like I was reading a polemic instead of a comic.

 

I have no idea what to make of this assertion. The cast is pretty diverse and there are maybe dozens of fascinating characters in his books that don’t come across as evil or insane. I have no idea which ideology they are supposedly sharing.

 

Sorry, maybe I phrased this poorly. Characters that don't share *Roberts'* ideologies or beliefs are generally portrayed as the bad guy and without a terrible amount of nuance. It becomes a way for Roberts to effectively get out his frustrations and feelings behind his twitter feed by setting up characters to express them. Star Saber is just one example - I'd have to go through my old posts to see other comparisons I made (there also was a poster called hardlurk who used to point these things out in addition to analyzing the sociopolitical leaning behind Roberts' stories at the time, which I (totally IMO, of course) thought made for good/insightful reading.

To be fair, this is my fault for following Roberts on Twitter at the time.   Though I suspect I would have found it just as heavyhanded at times...

 

Holy shit. I just read every single page.

I have never seen so much

“I’m not a racist but ...”

“I’m not a sexist, but ...”

And

“I don’t hate gay people, but ...”



I wish some of these posters would just come out and admit what they are. It would make them sound less like buffoons.

I especially loved the part about that marvel letter not being so extremely racist and prejudice and how Star Wars wasn’t political  

And no. I wasn’t talking about the legitimate concerns and criticism of the books.

Anyhow. I loved the books. No interest in LL tho.

 

Reading MTMTE/LL gave me such a joy when bingeing it. It really shot up my love for Transformers comics and I got the same excitement last when reading Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run.

 

That GL run is fantastic.

 

I thought he was talking about Lou Gehrig being diagnosed with ALS....

 

 I prefer this.