Yes.

 

Agreed. I like a good redemption story, but it's just so impossible for me to accept that Megatron of all people would repent of his ways and switch sides. It's just not credible, and I don't know how a repentant Megatron could ever be written in a believable way.

 

I think the answer is- over far, far slower a pace than IDW or Roberts would allow themselves.

"Autobot Megatron" was fine, indeed, was great during the scenes shortly after the reveal of Ravage; that scene of Ravage and Megatron quietly discussing the situation in Megatron's quarters, where Megatron is old, tired, but still ambiguous, and Ravage is concerned, uncertain, bewildered, is a scene I consider close to iconic... but, the series gallivants on, and all too soon we're into the territory of Nice Guy Megatron, with all ambiguity forcibly stripped away. Things happen so fast that we're told, rather than shown, that Megatron's change of heart is genuine- and this is key to why it progressively becomes more, and more, and more unconvincing.

Megatron quietly and sadly reflecting on how he's come too far to truly make good, but wishes he'd chosen another path was fine.
Megatron loudly and vapidly virtue signalling about how he renounces violence entirely and has become a pacifist, just a few issues later, had become trite.

The much derided business with the crew laughing and joking with Megatron, Rodimus teasing him over wanting to say 'Autobots, Transform and Roll out', and so on... all would have been fine, and a sweet little moment showing how far the character had come, if it had happened after years of (out of universe) time. Transformers have a far longer frame of reference, so it would still have been coherent to have Getaway and so on consider it offensive, and catalyse the main plot- but the problem here I don't think was what happened, but rather, the pace of it. We were meant to feel like Team Rodimus, about Megatron, but instead, we felt like Team Getaway.

Then, in turn, Getaway's Heel/Super-Heel Turns. Those would, again, have worked fine at a slower pace. If we'd seen him slowly slip to the point that his vile plan involving Tailgate started to seem justified to himself, as Megatron gradually became more and more accepted. If we'd seen, after the mutiny, him gradually become more and more extreme in his measures. Except that we didn't.

I don't believe it was at all Roberts' intention, but the unfortunate result of the fast pace events took, was that things felt very much like we, the reader, were being held up Getaway as a strawman to tell anyone who wasn't comfortable with Megatron's change of heart, who didn't forgive him, "Yeah, well, there are Autobots like you- and they're mass-murdering child-grooming egomaniac hypocritical bastards, so so are you!"

However... James Roberts was aware that he was writing a comic strip. I do consider Autobot Megatron, in itself, to be a perfectly serviceable plotline- just one which was unsuitable for the framework in which it was put. But Roberts knew what the framework would be. He should have seen- not that it was a bad idea from the start, because it wasn't, but that it was an idea which wouldn't work, the way that he'd need to tell it.

 

The problem with "Autobot Megatron" is that it's not really a plot anyone wants to see, even if they think they do. It sounds interesting, until you really think it over and realize there's no material. As a redemption arc, it always comes across as phony and too good for a character that bad. It's just a gimmick, a spin on one of the established pillars of the franchise for no other reason than to be contrarian, as if that alone would magically produce something meaningful.

Personally, I don't want to see Megatron turn good. It's just not the point of the character. I want to see him be a villain, and I want to see him get punished for his villainy. Him going good just feels like a waste of time, because it's not going to stick, and it's not going to be a satisfying conclusion to his character. It wasn't in IDW1, and it wasn't in TF Prime.

"Autobot Megatron" falls into the same category as "morally corrupt Optimus" for me (though not as bad) in that it just feels like it's trying too hard to subvert established conventions to be "mature" and "smart" but feels like neither. It feels gimmicky.

 

I'm going to go against the thread right here and say that, despite it's flaws, I really liked Morally Grey Optimus and Autobot Megatron and I don't think Autobot Megs should be tried again or at least for a very long time.
Now one thing about it that I found really stupid was how he and ravage never got to actually talk with any of the Decepticons afterwards, which I feel was really needed. Same goes with the LL crew in general actually interacting with the other comic's cast.

 

"Too good for a character that bad" is exactly right.

I was reading the recently released TF Collection volume 12 last night, which was all material I had not read before, because I had quit reading the monthly books at that point. Optimus wants Soundwave to "bow to him"? He executes a clearly defeated and surrendering Galvatron, and then takes his head to the President?!? Who is this guy? That's not Optimus Prime, and actions like that just took me right out of the story and made me wonder what the writer was thinking. It really feels like they were trying to reverse Optimus and Megatron's situations here, having Optimus become a tyrant while Megatron becomes a noble pacifist. It really does feel gimmicky and not at all credible.

 

I know it isn't the popular choice having Damus/Glitch be Tarn over Roller but when I first read it I knew right from the start Roller was not Tarn, he is head and shoulders taller and wider than Optimus Prime and Tarn is shorter than Megatron who is a similar height to Optimus. Roller would have to downsize quite a bit to be Tarn. That and the fact that Damus had an ever evolving power that disabled non sentient machinery and Roller did not and the fact that Damus showed up Popping his head out in every scene with Optimus and his old crew like where's waldo/where's Damus? meant to catch the readers attention.

 

I still find that scene, and the Soundwave reaction in particular, so melodramatic. I never, ever understood what Soundwave's character was supposed to be in IDW, and I always found his investment in his minions very trite and predictable. Him having some psychic mental link that causes sadness is just so pointlessly dramatic. Like I'm of the mind that Soundwave wouldn't really give a shit, especially given everything that's happened in his life, over his minions due to being, y'know, a Decepticon and Soundwave. He's characterized by his lack of emotions and cold, analytical personality. Him "feeling" Ravage die is so silly. He's a tape recorder, not a Jedi.

That's one thing that really stuck out to me with IDW. Everybody was this hyper-emotional person who had the exact same immense depth of feelings and relationships as everyone else. The fact that Soundwave, again a person who's usually(?) characterized as being emotionless and uncaring, has a little episode just makes him feel like every other character. The whole group of sad onlookers also bugs me, as I feel like half those characters shouldn't even care at all. It's dramatic for the audience's sake, not the actual characters' or story's sake, and it feels forced and fake.

For characters who are this hardened by war, and have such complicated histories with Decepticons and death itself, it's remarkably mushy. When everybody is so emotional, and every death is so tragic, none of them feel at all poignant or believable.

I still don't see how this is in any way supposed to be effective foreshadowing. "Glitch" has the very specific power of disabling non-sentient machinery via touch. In a world of Transformers with absurd, ambiguous abilities, those limitations are key to communicating to the audience the boundaries of the ability lest they become nebulous and confusing. It's just something you gotta do when dealing with sci-fi. How we are then supposed to "logically" conclude that ability would "evolve" into non-contact killing of Sparks (which aren't actually machinery) through voice is just ridiculous. It's like establishing Spider-man's very specific powers and at the end of the story he suddenly flies and shoots lasers and you're supposed to assume that "well flying is just an evolution of jumping and shooting lasers is just the evolution of shooting web."

Plenty of characters did that, though. MTMTE had a positively huge cast of characters, in past and present, and was constantly having previous faces pop in from time to time. If it was meant to catch the readers' attention, it failed and was lost among the sea of other cameos and guest-stars.

See, when you bloat a story with so many pointless individuals, just piling on named character after named character, with each as potentially prominent as the other due to the ever ebbing and flowing cast, such "subtle" cameos become increasingly difficult to discern from everyone else. Add to that the more overt (yet not so overt as to seem insincere) red herrings of Roller and the natural assumption that Tarn's identity would, y'know, have meaning or satisfaction in any capacity, and the "hints" that it really was Glitch seem just ridiculously mundane.

 

Well Damus/Glitch could in the later part of the story use his ability to disable machinery from a distance and it was stated in the introduction panel to Glitch that his ability would become powerful one day. So I found it enough of a clue. But I see your points.

 

It was really the leap from "non-sentient machinery" to "Sparks, a distinctly non-mechanical component of Transformers who are very sentient" that was the big thing.

Also, it seems vanishingly improbably that Tarn wouldn't use that ability, like, for anything else besides talking down Sparks. Like if he'd had that power of disabling machines, especially if it evolved into disabling Transformers, (or at least components of them) why not use it? Why did it have to be his voice? Isn't that a downgrade from the instant disabling Glitch could do, not an evolution?

 

True lol yes definitely a down grade from doing it from a distance. It appeared that disabling machinery from a distance was done from his mind like telekinesis and my theory is he later learned that his voice could create a frequency that could disable sparks but could only be accomplished with his vocal processor or something that could create a frequency or sound which perhaps could not be done with his telekinetic ability.

 

IDW probably likes watching too much CW, lol.

 

Just to jump on the morally grey Optimus. Was it a case of the characters being faced with a hard choice that challenged their convictions leaving them with questions or was it like suddenly Primes making weird choices?

I could see some one like Optimus very much sticking to what their "prime directive" says to the letter until they end up in a catch 22. I'd say the "right" way would be for Prime to think about his ethics and come to an plan in the spirit of the law rather then it's literal interpretation. This would lead onto him being a little more open about differing perspectives and out of the box solutions down the line.

I still don't quite get Autobot megs. Like everyone should naturally want nothing to do with the ultra fascist murder machine. I get that they wrote him to be sorry in universe and characters seem really keen on forgiving people in later IDW comics but as a reader from IDW's first run comics till around Maximum Dinobots it just doesn't logically make any sense.

I think whom ever writes this stuff gets ideas about what'll make an interesting moment and/or design off tv/movies etc then twist personalities and circumstances of events to fit rather then seeing what he's/she's actually got to work with and planning something out long term. Like Maximo is clearly designed off Loki because that's popular. Another recent one is killing CJ in the typical way he's been killed before. Like I get it "memes" but you're throwing away a legacy character in the on going series to make a reference.

Anyways the only other thing that crosses my mind right now was QuickSwitch showing up and being killed by some magical force. kinda goes back to me saying things arnt planned out but it kinda sucked since QS being a Six Changer he's basically perfect for crazy action but nope. Drills a tunnel and then he dead.

 

I think that's why for a lot of people he's their favourite, considering this was the most amount of characterization he ever had since Marvel UK. Plus this is a new continuity for Soundwave, so he doesn't have to be characterized the exact same as previous versions.

It was more of the "characters being faced with a hard choice that challenged their convictions leaving them with questions", as IDW Prime was always presented as morally grey from Furman's run, as he wanted to depicted what Optimus would act like after leading a 4 million year long way the was fought on multiple worlds rather than just Cybertron. He then had a (somewhat rushed) character change back to a more Sunbow characterization, with then future stories merging the two.
Like how after the war, he was presented with choices like annexing Earth, but inorder to stop the constant rogue Decepticon and alien attacks, executing Galvatron after giving him multiple chances at surrender and with him admitting he would never stop even in the face of Onyx Prime returning. As well as using the fact that people believed him to be the possible 13th Prime in a religion he didn't believe in to question what is meant to be a Prime and to do as much good as he thought he could with it, since when IDW wanted to bring the whole Aligned 13 Primes thing in, Barber took the idea of someone possibly being a child of God to it's most logically extreme conclusion.

It's like Windblade said at his funeral, "Destruction was his company. Did he cause it—or prevent worse? The thing that made Optimus who he was... was that he asked those questions." He was an Optimus that still had the core values of Optimus, like trying to reach out and finding sympathy with the literal creation of their own created Devil, but was willing to do some less then normal Optimus things to do it, with 4 million years of war under his belt. This with the lack of senseless violence and actual characterization and exploration of the idea that Bay Prime lacked is probably why he's one of my favourites, flaws with the storytelling and all.

 

Oh yeah, there is one more thing I forgot!

Their obsession with trades. Usually a trade comes out like a year after that particular story was done, but idw loved trades so much that they basically come out immediately.

In some cases the trade even comes out before the floppies are even released. Remember how in 2007 instead of shipping TF TM #2 they shipped the tpb instead?

And since tpb are cheaper than the individual issues they basically just teach readers to wait for the trade, since in most cases you'll still be able to be up to date with everyone every four to six months. It's what I did with the MTMTE and RID, just waited for the trade and savs money.

 

Totally abandoning the Autobot command structure that was in place in the - Ations. That was fresh and new, made perfect sense, made the Autobots seem more serious and organised, and made things a LOT more interesting insofar as potential future stories. Optimus dying shouldn't have been a problem. Instead, come AHM, everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and nobody of actual rank meeting is acknowledged, nor did they try to meet/negotiate.

It was a travesty, a waste of good story potential, and something we hadn't actually seen before. And again, it made a terrific contrast against the Decepticons, who were the cult of Megatron. But AHM just flipped it and made it the cult of freakin' Optimus. Sigh.

 

I put that in the "blame All Hail Megatron" folder.

That whole angle you just said made it look like, ya know, an actual WAR was going on.

Oh, I forgot the "everything was Shockwave´s fault" was probably the dumbest shit on par with AHM.

 

When it comes to how AHM whipped the status quo of -ations I kinda put that blame on the "for-all-mankind" era. Granted I did start reading IDW in the AHM era, but it doesn't make sense how immediately afterwards we're in a post DOTM esque setting with the humans hunting the Transformers. It was weird for the AOE movie with how vague it was, and especially IDW since it did it ironically first. What made it more worse than the Bay movies imo was that atleast there was some pre established military relationship, in IDW it was literally "Transformers? Nah all evil lol, die."

 

I wanna preface this rant by saying I don't hate James Roberts and I enjoyed a lot of his writing. Besides Sins of the Wreckers, nothing IDW did during and post Dark Cybertron is even worth talking about because it's so forgettable, besides MTMTE (for better or for worse).

I remember reading the Autobot Megatron story and thinking the whole time it was all a ruse. That in one issue he'd reveal that he was actually still evil and we'd all go "Ah, you almost got us Megatron, but you're the guy that slaughtered billions of beings on several planets to the point where you had a phased routine for doing it, had literal prison death camps and are called a DECEPTicon. Like, sure, you felt a little bad about it because Bumblebee in his Goldbug colors did a little speech and Ratchet was mean to you in Dark Cybertron. But, c'mon you're like the evil-est guy ever, you'll get over that."

But then it just kept going... and then the mutiny happened... and then Roberts' was surprised fans were taking the side of the characters that didn't like the genocidal despot just hanging around, giving them orders. Because how could you be on the side of Getaway, who's like a child groomer... until Tailgate isn't a child analogue anymore (even though he was kinda shown to be one twice in holoavatar adventures) cause he's dating Cylconus now... So Getaway (who was born to specifically fight the war Megatron started, sort of making him a child soldier, giving him an endearing backstory) is bad because he's being sneaky and sacrificing some guys to get rid of Uber Robot Hitler Man who's in charge (for editorial reasons). While Megatron has killed billions, sometimes just for the lols, and HE is supposed to be who we're rooting for... Then, they made Getaway cartoonishly evil to justify him being the bad guy and idk, it just felt like back peddling to me. Like "No, no! Look how mean this guy is! Nobody is really on his side, it's mind control! He just turned everyone into zombies! Ooo what a bad guy!"

Team Rodimus, who we have been following this whole time, some pre-MTMTE who have been fighting the war since day one, are kinda rude, but ultimately forgiving of Megatron. I can kind of see that, because they have seen him repent and feel bad a lot. But to every other Autobot on the Lost Light, they just see our main characters (some in high places of authority) being chummy with the #1 bad guy for the past multiple millions of years, who led an army of brutes and butchers that murdered their friends and loved ones over those millions of years. They're just totally cool with it.

Like I get wanting redemption and being able to forgive, but there's a limit to my suspension of disbelief.

The Scavengers, they turn into loveable schmucks who care for Grimlock, save a decepticon baby thing and are just a bunch of great dudes! Until you remember their introduction where they're using a still alive, wounded Autobot soldier as kindling for a fire, while he tells them that the war is over and they don't care...

Then there's the Tarn thing that's been talked about to death. I'm not sure if it was Roberts who wrote in the Roller hints or Milne drawing them in, but it was just a lame reveal in the end. It felt like in New Avengers when everybody guessed Daredevil was Ronin and I think it may have leaked aswell, so they changed the reveal to be Echo in a man-suit. I know it was supposed to be Glitch the whole time, but c'mon. It was kinda lame.

 

So... Child grooming is bad unless it's Cyclonus doing it. Again, I really hope this was just Roberts not thinking the implications all the way through...

But yeah, the steady flanderization of every single member of the cast was what really did MTMTE in for me. Regardless of how complex or interesting they may have started off, they just steadily devolved into the thing people recognized them for at a glance and all just kind of took on the same voice of "Interchangeable British Smartass." Chromedome and Rewind went from having a clearly romantic but slightly strained relationship with Chromedome's occupation as Mnemosurgeon being framed kind of as an addiction to just "the boyfriends", Magnus became increasingly rule obsessed to the point of parody, Rodimus never meaningfully matures or grows as a person because ha ha loud asshole who gets his crew members killed repeatedly on a whim funny, you already pointed out how the Scavengers went from kind of being horrible people to "the wacky hijinks side story guys", and of course turning Getaway into a strawman villain for the express purpose of keeping Megatron, who up until recently had been a genocidal lunatic, sympathetic to the audience. Hell, they even have him team up with all the other villains who he should be diametrically opposed to for... basically no other reason than the comic and the entire continuity is being cancelled in a few months and we need to wrap this shit up as conclusively as we can.