Straight of the bat, I have absolutely loved Galvatron since he made his debut in the cartoon movie. To me he felt like a completely one dimensional character who only valued conquest and domination. There were no grey lines, no interpreation, his story was simple ; Megatron 2.0. The herald of Unicron.

Marvel's issues were difficult to come by back then in the area where i lived (no such thing as comixology or the internet) so it wasn't really possible to follow that continuity.

When my cousin's told me about IDW, i had a complete mindgasm when i started reading the stories. It was everything i had ever wanted and I waited to see what they had in store for one of my beloved characters. Turns out not a whole lot.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a rant by some fanboy about their opinion about what direction the character should be taking. It's just that i feel that time after time, anything to do with Galvatron has been so "meh" that he comes off as a character placed just for the sake of moving the plot along.

My grievances lie with the portrayal of his character and the inconsistencies of the plots hes a part of (as according to the IDW timeline). He's shown to be Galvatron the mighty, Galvatron the war hero. In the RiD annual, he had arrogance but atleast was still a somewhat ok character. He understood the limits of his power as he protests to Nova that he can't do anything when Monstructor and Omega Supreme fight. His dialogues were atleast more refined then constantly only grunting about how weak everyone is. From there its a roller coaster ride for the ex-Cybertronian hero. (Not going to get into Heart of Darkness / Infestation as i think its been beaten up a bit already)

Bringing him back in DC seemed odd at the time (considering how many times hes been defeated by some gimmick or the other) but suddenly being friends with Nova made little sense. I guess you can look past that and say "ok, the heart of darkness was controlling both of these beings and they were seduced by power infinite to betray one another". He then proceeds to dismember Megraton in under a second. Look at his facial expressions at the end of RiD # 26. Would it not seem inappropriate for somoene who considers them self "strong" and has fought so many campaigns to look so terrified? There is no sequence to show what happens later but albeit he is defeated by Monstructor which makes me think of about the power Galvatron actually possesses (assuming he takes on Devestator later on in RiD). It also makes me wonder was he simply tossed into a plot that completely invovled Shockwave and he was just placed at the helm of the Decepitcons for convenience sake (so Megatron could go Autobot). I mean did he even do anything substantial in all of DC?

I mean while we debate about how the plot of RiD #29 is turning out to be, why did the decepticons choose to follow him when he basically was out to eradicate them as a result of the D-Void.

Now we have him on earth playing second fiddle to Soundwave and while i understand this plot will develop, he has the same one track mentality and is just grunting about how weak everyone is. While he is becoming one dimensional again, unlike the cartoons, we know that he has a large backstory and that his personality has flipped flopped so much that I just don't feel as we are ever going to see this Character resemble anything given to us by IDW in his backstory about the Cybertronian Warrior.

I am entirely sure that I may be wrong (in my assessment )and would be happy to be convinced otherwise. I mean where do you think its going to lead to? a transformer constantly spouting about the cybertronian warrior code resorting to just one scheme or another? :/

tl:dr Cybertronian warrior hero telling everyone how weak they are whilst also being shown as weak/terrified. Resorting to strange schemes while talking about shaming the cybertronian legacy

 

it would be an exciting character development to find out galvatron went schitzo. but i dont think anyone ever will think of that

popular theory is that he got added because of this summer's movie

 

Perhaps the upcoming issue #30 might give us some insight on his past.

 

Without making excuses for sloppy writing and mishandling of the character, and probably with great inaccuracy..

His Spotlight presents a character with an idea of a great destiny awaiting him.
He is unimpressed with his commanding Prime, the idea of usurping him is presented and he follows through with that in Spotlight: Sideswipe by shooting Nova in the back. He takes The Darkness from Optimus who is in the throes of being corrupted by it and gets good and almost killed by Prime in the process.

We next see him emerge from the solar pool the big fella threw him in and it's from here where he starts to unravel mentally. He feels he has a bigger purpose (again), as if something is guiding him and this is where he starts building the army that comes to the fore in Chaos.

Obviously it's during Heart Of Darkness where things become convoluted and confused. If we simply take his resurrection and subsequent manipulation as an act by the Dead Universe to cross through into ours (D Void being the fictional enemy his mind has been twisted into believing is real), it kind of makes sense if you squint your mind.

Twice he asks Prime to join him on the (not in his eyes) foolhardy crusade, once on Earth and once on Cybertron before it all kicks off. He wants to save the planet. If people choose to stand in his way they are fodder to him. He is steadfast in his belief that it his destiny, right up until he gets offed by a starship dropping on his head.

Prior to the current comics, his characterisation is actually pretty consistent. He initially desires greatness which ends up becoming delusions of grandeur puppeteered by a greater evil.

The Dark Cybertron through RiD Galvatron though, yeah.. he's more in line with the brief 'WE ARE AWESOME. LET'S ALL SPEAK OUR NAMES' snippets we saw of him in the Annual (and that was homage to the early Marvel comic character introductions regardless), but there wasn't enough meat on the bones of that introduction to properly explain away the glaring disparities to his presentation earlier in the fiction. Plus he was, like you say, a plot device to move the story forward. Shockwave had him good and proper.


Now we're getting a character who just sees himself as from a greater era, as better, stronger and with the urge to constantly remind everybody of his name. So I guess there's the superiority thing that consistently runs through the character but it's fairly reaching. It's almost like the events of Chaos reset him to the pre Benzuli Cybertronian we had barely seen anything of. Which is bollocks. And lazy.

Pretty certain we will be given deeper insight into his new motivations but as it stands it seems to be that the Decepticons require a figurehead of power and authority - which he delivers in bucketloads - while Soundwave is potentially the mastermind of the operation.

I'd like to not casually disregard his previous appearances.

Used and abused in Heart of Darkness.
Used and abused in Chaos.
Used and abused in Dark Cybertron..

Given that this time round he may well turn out to be just a convenient stopgap to unify disparate troops, Galvatron needs to realise that his destiny so far has amounted to being nothing more than anothers pawn. In that regard, the use of the character has been consistent throughout.

 

He's Evil Conan. It's not inconsistent with anything that came before, it's just a new hook. I'm kind of into it myself, but it hasn't really been utilized well yet because in RiD #29 nothing was in fact utilized well.

I also really enjoyed his superiority complex over Megatron because he's not stronger per se than Megatron--sucker punches notwithstanding--but he sees himself as a lord and Megatron as a peasant putting on airs. He's a 'bot out of time just as he always was.

 

So, I may have missed this discussion at the beginning of Dark Cybertron, but how exactly did he come back after Chaos? Was it just written off as "Dead Universe Magic"? Does this Galvatron even have any memory of what happened during Chaos? Does he have any memory of betraying Nova in Revalations?

 

It was handwaved as "we put asaide our differences" and that was that. We don't know EXACTLY how he came back, or what he knows/doesn't know yet about what happened. As mentioned earlier, it would be an interesting take on the character if, after he returned, his mind literally broke, and he's become more or less unbalanced.

 

I kind of like the Robot Conan the Barbarian personality they've given him...even though it contrasts with his earlier appearances. I like the idea of it.

 

While that is true. He has interacted with a lot of Cybertronians before including Prime. However this so called "warrior supremacy complex" was not really portrayed in any of his interactions and appears to be quite a recent development. If you refer to spotlight Galvatron, you can see that he isn't busy taunting anyone for being weak. In fact he also spares a few of the autobots because he wishes to be still in control of his destiny (and also destined for something glorious).

Also some notes from the TF Wiki article about Galvatron's role in infestation:

Galvatron shows amazing restraint. He turns up to enlist the Autobots help, and they spend the first part of the issue demanding his surrender, attacking him, shooting him, throwing Inhibitors on him, and all he ever does in return is knock Optimus away and shoot the ground in front of the Autobots to get them to retreat. He even tells the humans to get out of their cars before he throws the vehicles at the zombies.

Now compare this to DC / RID Galvatron which is "Me strong, you weak". Which is not to say that i don't mind him becoming a character like Conan but i really hope they plug in some of these holes. Overall its just irritating that our best explanation so far is the DU voodoo which is used to magically tie plots together.

Right now i'm thinking he's a schizophrenic as a result of different authors in the IDW franchise just as Mechafire and shadowsfm suggested.

 

Honestly, I enjoyed him well enough in DC, his "Evil Conan" persona was just a fun take on the character, but on the other hand I'm not sure how I feel about him being a main villain of sorts. His very role in RID #29 made me cringe especially.

 

Galvatron is my favorite TF character, but my appreciation for him is based on the 1986 movie and G1 Season 3. I think he works best as an irresponsibly powerful future version of Megatron that is almost certainly insane. His bravado stems from the fact that he believes himself to be invincible, and maybe he is. He finds total immersion in molten lava to be relaxing, and in the Headmasters cartoon he was in the heart of Cybertron standing right next to the bombs that destroyed the planet, but he was totally fine. Galvatron rules because he's indisputably the strongest Decepticon. His leadership style is erratic and unpredictable, but his sheer might assures that nobody can depose him. At best he can only be stalled or temporarily incapacitated.

I realize that in the comics it's probably better to have Galvatron and Megatron as two different characters, but if you strip away Galvatron's "powered-up future Megatron" identity, he doesn't have much left to work with. Is he still supposed to be extra-mighty even though he's not inhabiting a body that was custom-built by Unicron? If not, then what is his distinguishing trait?

I actually like the idea of him as an "evil Conan" as some have mentioned, but if that's what IDW is going for then it isn't coming across very well in my opinion. I know that my preferred version of Galvatron is an impossibility in current continuity, but I'd sure like to see the writers make him special in some way.

 

Ok I admit I kind of...read around Infestation and Heart of Darkness. Had no interest.

 

Good topic.

I loved him in the Animated Movie..despised him being used as an insane Bot.

I much prefer the more, logical, focused yet ruthless Warrior. The new MTMTE direction with him as Leader is a fresh start for him (hopefully).

 

The problem that is that he has been portrayed as anything but being the strongest and most unstoppable. They have reduced him to being a lackey, always someone else's second in command.

Taking over as Leader in MTMTE can be afresh new change for him, if they choose to go that way. Let him become the angry, focused, ruthless Leader that Megatron was.

 

I'm still waiting for IDW to say that their Galvatron is an upgrade of Megatron who time-travelled to the past from the future.

 

^ That seems less likely with every issue. Once they established what Galvatron actually thought of Megatron, I think that set up their relationship. Galvatron was NOT a radical freedom-bringer in the past.

Which isn't to say it won't happen. It will happen when the next regime takes over from Roberts/Barber and tears up everything and imposes their own "true" vision of Generation 1.

 

It MAY happen. Hopefully it doesn't. Those two have made Transformers interesting again, and going back to Autobot vs. Decepticon, Megatron Saturday morning cartoon villian and no character depth would ruin the franchise for me.

Personally, I don't want to see time travel brought in. It ruins everything because "let's just go back to before X died and save them" and you completely lose any impact deaths might have. Just take a look at Uncanny Avengers for an example of this.

 

I think what bugs me is how he identifies himself Decepticon and chose that side. When the Ark 1 left, he was just a Cybertronian following his leader. In Heart of Darkness and Chaos, he was just trying to save Cybertron. Granted, he was being deceived and was actually gonna destroy it, but he didn't know that. He thought he was doing good. While maybe not having the best intention ( trying to conquer the universe with Nova ), he was never outright "evil". He should have been faction neutral like Cyclonus. After being taken on a ride by Shockwave, you'd think he'd have sided with Megatron and Optimus since they stopped Shockwave. His move to join Soundwave just makes no sense.

 

That would be immensely chaotic. Personally Time travel/multiverse are terrible ideas in my book. While it does give the authors leverage and freedom to carve out a new path, they blow up the entire timeline in the process. I mean how would that even work? Galvatron existed before Megatron was born (or well i think so since i don't know when Megatron was born). Does he choose to go back in time and then has a personality/memory wipe as a result?

Right now we are faced with a few scenarios (both of which won't really help the Galvatron cause) depending on Soudwave's motives. I'm basing these scenarios on the fact that Soundwave can read a transformers spark and might know what Galvatron's true intensions are.

Scenario A : He is manipulating Galvatron (who doesn't believe in the decepticon cause) so he can take revenge on Megatron which again makes him a lackey and wouldn't help much as Megatron is not on earth.

Scenario B: Galvatron and Soundwave both believe in the decepticon cause but it would end up with Soundwave pulling the strings of Galvatron to keep the decepticons in line.

Best bet which would give it Justification is Galvatron giving them a new cause which would take them far away from earth and the idiotic Earth defense.