I was thinking about Megatron's representation in the comics of IDW1 and IDW2 and I realized that they are almost opposite versions of each other:

- The IDW2 Megatron is practically a populist right-wing politician with fascist tendencies, considering that his objective is only the unrestricted consumption of resources and colonization, that is, he used a noble rhetoric about liberation to obtain popular support for his conquest regime, exploitation and oppression. The members who are joining the Decepticon are old war veterans, disgruntled ex-miners and other unemployed blue-collar workers, corrupt cops and government officials, people upset at things like gladiator games being shut down for being too violent or the limited fuel consumption due to rationing or the literal birth control. Cybertron is a multi-party democracy with a centrist government in charge, with the planet in an energy crisis. And IDW2 comics started to be launched during the high point of the UK Brexit debates, which is where Ruckley is from, and at the same time as the anti-refugee/immigrant protests in Europe.

- Already in IDW1, Megatron and the Decepticons are more based on revolutions, mainly in of left, with the main source being the USSR, that when they end the dictatorship in which they live, the movement starts to become increasingly extremist and they implant their own dictatorship. Cybertron was a dictator with a caste system, and the first Decepticons were miners and other exploited classes who were considered inferior, and Megatron started out as a pacifist intellectual who became a revolutionary who became a dictator. The representation of the Decepticons in the comics uses several iconographies based on the USSR, on covers, titles of chapters and images for example.

 

Interesting and perceptive analysis.

 

And that's why I say IDW2 Megatron is a HUGE step up from IDW1 Megatron.

 

I think this is a more interesting descent into evil. IDW1 Megatron's mind was altered by the Senate (albeit the process was left incomplete) and as such he's not even fully responsible for the decisions he made after that, as "he" was no longer "himself" at that point. IDW2 Megatron was basically seduced by power. This is a VERY realistic vision of somebody who was willing to push boundaries going completely off the rails. Yes, one must break a few eggs to make omelets but people get more and more comfortable breaking more and more eggs whether omelets are being made or not and that's kind of where Megs is at... he's still trying to make the omelet but he's definitely getting overly comfortable with breaking the eggs. (Note his callous response to the Rainmakers cradling Ion Storm's body... "I assume he will recover." It's not at all clear he will, at least based on the picture)

 

A character that starts at the beginning of the story is lower in terms of character development then a character at the end of the story.
Wow, color me shocked.

 

That's clearly not what I said.

 

Interesting. This makes me want to read IDW2 a lot more now, if Megs is more like a 21st-century authoritarian.

Roberts wrote Megs as a very sympathetic idealist, and because Roberts was a better writer than Holmes or Dille or anyone else who tackled the pre-war period, we tend to remember his characterization of Megs as kind of warm and fuzzy. I would actually love to see the full arc of IDW1 Megatron written well. Lenin is pretty sympathetic in the beginning too, until he oversaw things like the turn against the Black Guard anarchists and the expansionist wars in the early 20s. Megatron is not only Lenin in IDW1 but also Stalin; at some point he led a society with the robot equivalents of forced collectivization and weaponized famine, still believing he did right.

 

IDW old continuity Megatron was such a misfire that almost anything different counts as an improvement.

 

The Stalin parallel is even deeper... Stalin first rose to prominence as a handsome, charismatic poet long before he became, basically, the non-racist Hitler.

 

Yeah, everything in IDW2 works a lot like the politics, arguments and protests we saw happening in central Europe in recent years. As a Scotsman Ruckley was probably influenced a lot by it and decided to bring it in.

I agree that IDW1 Megs was the more relatable character, but they gave him a full-fledged character story with a proper beginning, development and end and I think it's impossible to overtrump this specific type of Megatron. Everything IDW2 would do would only be a poor imitation of IDW1 Megs, so I think that completely changing him was the right choice. It also resulted in the nice side effect of Sentinel and Nominus not being evil for once, which is nice. I would also gladly take a grey Nova Prime for once. Maybe someone whose mindset clashes with the current Cybertronian culture and people and maybe him lacking empathy, but without being utterly evil. So rather guy from a different era considering modern politics wrong, simply for coming from a place that was basically a whole different culture.

Regarding Megs in IDW2 I still wonder what exact role Exarchon will have if any at all. You don't introduce such a mysterious alien entity for the sake of some lore tidbits of Cybertronian history and nothing else. It seemed like Exarchon was interested in Megs and about to get him but got interrupted during the war. And back then Megs was still a good-hearted, chill guy until he got obsessed with Exarchon and the thought that "Events didn't happen around Exarchon, Exarchon was the event", turning the nice guy into a terrorist controlled by ressentiments and anger. And when Optimus talked about his former friend to Codexa she actually mixed him up with Exarchon himself, implying he acts and thinks like him right now or even more than just that. The question is whether it's just Megatron becoming like him, or if he still exists in some form and is slowly overtaking Megs' mind.

Back on topic though: aside from recent populists IDW2 Megs also has some allusions to Hitler himself. The era shares some similarities with the Weimar Republic, especially considering that it happens during a rather short timeframe set between two world wars caused by the same people, a centrist goverment with good intentions but a weak defense, agitators using restrictions posed upon them for their narrative of being victims of a centrist government suppressing their culture (including expansionist and racist urges) and false flag actions as well as violence caused by the own faction being used to frame the government as weak. Basically killing your own people to prove a point and pretend to be the savior of the very problems you caused yourself. I fully expect that there will be a schism within the Cons at some point, considering how many hints were dropped about Megatron's underlings disagreeing with him. It could follow an attempted purge maybe, which would be another similarity with German history of the 30s. But this is just speculation at this point.

The DJD in particular had a lot of this.

 

Interesting--I did not know that! I had only heard about how he was essentially raising money for the Bolsheviks via classic mafia moves.

 

I can't say much about IDW2 Megatron as I can't be fucked to read more than I have yet, but anything would be an improvement over the latter of IDW1's Megs.

I do find it rather amusing that James Roberts, who from what I recall is a proud socialist, who of which have a long history of downplaying / warming up to / being friendly with communist despots and socialist dictators decides to depict Megatron as a sympathetic and sensitive soul complete with symbolism and resemblances to communism and the USSR.

Really activates those almonds.

I believe you'll find Stalin was very racist and racism in the USSR was common and pretty well documented, but then again many people back then were. The history buff in me was compelled to correct that.

 

So, to clarify, what I meant by that was the basis of his monstrousness wasn't racism or racial superiority per se, as Hitler's was, but ideological superiority... politics. Communism, at least in theory, was something that anybody could embrace, as opposed to "being an Aryan." It didn't lead to any less human suffering though. (It's also true that Russia was more directly responsible for stopping Hitler than the US was. War makes ugly bedfellows.)

 

As opposed to anti-communists, who have never gotten in bed with fascists or ruled in a dictatorship.

Spoiler

Oops, I dropped that.

Anyhow, it's not uncommon for dictators to be portrayed as sympathetic at all. Char Aznable, anyone? Really, they should have the Autobots start out as the reactionary "White Army" to the 'Cons' "Reds". Only, Optimus comes into the picture once they get thrown off of Cybertron as a De Gaulle type, and recruits the NAILs into their coalition.

 

I don't believe I implied in my post that Anti-communists haven't done such a thing before, I was just stating that it's become almost comical how often we see people of a certain political leaning downplay and outright disregard the insidiousness of the communist ideology, because ultimately the commies simply view socialists as useful idiots that will usually get the bullet once they've served their purpose.

You're right, it isn't uncommon for dictators to be portrayed sympathetically, I just find the irony of a socialist depicting a stalin-esque revolutionary like Megatron as a good person deep down, not really focusing too hard on all the suffering, genocide and other horrible things he did at the same time too hard to ignore.

 

Here's the thing. Governments and businesses are both run by people. So if one system is "government is run by business" and the other is "business is run by government," either way the same people run everything.

That's kind of what was going on before Megatron dropped the bomb on the Senate, it seemed. The government was throttling resources to the extent that private business and even full physical self-realization was basically at their whim. When things are already like that, it's really not all that hard for a fascist OR communist type leader to step in, because all the resources are bottlenecked by a gatekeeper anyway... the gatekeeper's identity doesn't matter all that much when it comes down to it.

 

I think both characterizations make for interesting ideas, the main problem with them being that they're wrapped up in questionable writing decisions that really hamper what could be amazing stories. With IDW1 Megatron, the story is over and we can look back on what worked and what didn't. IDW2 has been playing a slow burn that I think has harmed the storytelling more than it helped, but we can see the intentions of the writing even if it's not the best execution.

 

Well first off, Id just like to say IDW Megatron is essentially 2 different characters retconned together. The furman megatron was G1 megatron with some twists and was definitly the villain. Roberts megatron was written like the mtmte characters were. The two megatron didn't exactly seem like the same character so the made retcons to make it look like megatron was brainwashed by the quintessons etc.

IDW2 Megatron seems more like one cohesive character so far. I think the charcter is interesting so far, but there is alot that can happen in the future. My only concern is that Megatron might turn into another bland, evergreen, characterization and I'm kinda annoyed by those recently.

I like the IDW1 stories, but looking back I do actually see that depiction of megatron as a socialist/communist "hero figure". I think it fits in fine with the story but I dont really like when writers push their political ideologies into writing like that (if it was intentional, I'm not sure if it was or just a byproduct of having multiple writers with different creative ideas). In general though I dont like people to politicize things like transformers comics (but thats not likely going to end any time soon).

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I wanted to provide some comments on the political discussion to help analyze the differences between the two versions of megatron.

 

Very glad they found a way to depict Megatron that is true to his nature, realistic, and pertinent to modern times. I just wish their depiction of Optimus was similarly spot on. If Optimus must be a politician he should more passionate in what he believes in instead of trying to keep peace with the local fascist. Who is still his old friend. When will they let that die?

 

But what other reason could Optimus Prime possibly have for fighting the war if he didn't have a personal stake in it?