I used to see him mainly as this for a while too, in fact I don't think I really cared too much of him until issue 12 where it showed there was more to be done with him. Now with his current friendship with Cyclonus and his little lying persona, he's become more interesting to me. The same could be said with Cyclonus.

 

I thought this was the entire point of the issue.

The entire journey of the Lost Light, bots have died. Death all over. Dude leaves a bar (or whatever) and suddenly GIANT DECEPTICON DEATH MACHINE stomps his life out. Dude is in the engine room and RANDOM QUAMTUM EVENT FUSES HIM INTO AN ENGINE! Oh look I've just been SAWED IN HALF!

The whole point was, finally, no one dies. These weren't random deaths. They were forshadowed, and through character choice, they were prevented. The crew is tired of letting themselves be killed. And yeah, you don't have a lot of response time when someone saws your buddy in half and kills him instantly. But when you're confronted with the chance to kill a guy your promised him 20 issues ago you would, suddenly, with all the death you've witnessed for months, it's not all that romantic anymore.

And the greatsword is not some random item that magically appeared this arc. It's power debuted years ago in the Drift mini series. Everything that happened to Tailgate was forshadowed, including his shrinking spark.

So, whatever. I appreciate death in comics. When there is no death, there is nothing on the line. And for me, this issue felt great to me, because the characters said, no, this time, no one dies. No matter what. Maybe next arc. Maybe next issue. But after all of we've been through, we're going to do everything in our power to end this one together.

 

My Top 9 Ninth Doctor Moments - YouTube

 

Have to agree with Gogdog, I'm a sucker for the 'Just this once, everybody lives' ending. Guys have been dropping dead left and right, it was nice to see everyone make it for once.

I didn't have any issue with the greatsword, it was talked about years ago, it was talked about in the last few issues. It isn't like he magically had the off key for a doomsday device in his pocket. It was a plot device sure, but for a character like Cyclonus who swore to off Whirl it led to such a huge moment for character growth. When he first set out with the crew he planned to kill one of them. Here you have him at the end of the season, not only did he not kill the guy he planned to, but he saved the life of another. He might have wanted to kill Whirl originally but he didn't because he's isn't that guy anymore. In a way he's done what he needed to do in order to be himself again. I guess you could even call the repaired horn and face a visual metaphor for his 'rebirth' if you will. But hey maybe its 6am and I'm reading way too much into things.

 

You're not, and that's a terrific observation: Tailgate not only helped Cyclonus fix himself in the spiritual sense, his gift of the horn represents that in the physical sense as a token of that as well.

 

I loved the issue all around.

I'm surprised in the thread there isn't more speculation on the message from the giant spark so here goes:

The symbols in the first balloon are Skids's face, a yellow !, the faction logos and a silhouette of the Lost Light. I think the ! translates to "quest". Anyone that has played World of Warcraft learned to equate the two. Type "quest icon" into google image search and the first picture that comes up is a yellow !, I can imagine Roberts doing that and going with it. So the first message perhaps means "hi, we know who you are and that you're on a quest which required leaving the factions on the Lost Light".

The next thing is the Lost Light with a circle and a line through it, meaning something like "the Lost Light won't get you there". Then we have the five moons arranged in a circle around the symbol in the middle which was later revealed to be a physical feature of Luna 1 surrounded by 5 rocket engine looking things in the same pattern. The place Skids ended up when he went through the portal was somewhere that these five moons are currently. I'm speculating that the message was that they needed to plug these 5 moons into the sockets on Luna 1 and that would get result in the completion of the quest as opposed to traveling in the Lost Light.

Remember the creation myth from the annual shows Luna 1 essentially exploding but the dialog over that panel reads that is moon was "torn asunder" and I recall a thread on this board where the entire myth was questioned because Luna 1 had clearly not exploded. Pulling up "asunder" from the dictionary gives:

1. Into separate parts or pieces: broken asunder

2. Apart from each other either in position or in direction: The curtains had been drawn asunder

Luna 1 wasn't destroyed, it was broken into 6 pieces which were then separated from each other.

Uniting the 6 pieces will either complete the quest or be a big milestone in the future.

 

It's funny, I'm playing through Borderlands 2 again, which also uses yellow exclamation marks for quests, and I totally didn't clue into this until you pointed it out. Good catch.

 

They should have a Milne-minibot be a psycho mass murderer just for the contrast...

I don't think that's a fair characterization of my position. Terminal disease can be interesting. Ratchet "suddenly" discovering Tailgate has three days to live despite no previous symptoms and a previous thorough examination? That's just the universe being an asshole. After the Overlord business this threatened to tip the book into a less fun place. And after revealing that he was TWO WEEKS OLD the knife was twisted even more. Saving him at that point got a MUCH stronger reaction out of me than letting him die. Letting him die would be the Mark Millar thing to do, and would land with a dull "oh I guess that's that" for me.

I don't object on realism grounds...well, except for Ratchet being a complete boob who needed an accidental death light flash despite looking at all his "gears and pulleys" earlier.

It's the timing that is contrived. So just on this most important of all missions, the completely asymptomatic Tailgate starts falling apart, co-incidentally JUST after Ratchet ACCIDENTALLY discovered it? Geez, the only reason I didn't mention how weird this whole thing felt before was because it didn't occur to me that it didn't read that way to anyone else.

And yes, terminal disease is cruel so...I don't need it to feature into my funny books about near-immortal robots, I guess? I didn't need Roberts to tell me that usually you can't stab people healthy?

That last sentence is where we disagree. Having Tailgate start dying for unrelated reasons just so he can be a martyr for the big event feels cheap and a waste. Having the crew come together and save him is inspiring and a victory, a more intimate one than whatever Doctor Who bullshit Perceptor did to save all the "knock-offs."

In general Roberts needs to stop the teases. Tailgate seems excessive coupled with Ambus and Whirl. (And if one of the three had died I'd prefer Ambus.) This is a more general point though.

It was effective and correct for Wash to die because it was the end of the franchise and we had to believe these stupid zombie orcs were actually going to kill everybody.

Finding the cure for cybercrosis just too-late to save Tailgate is just yanking the audience's chain because it can be done.

Well, I feel like the impact of Overlord wouldn't have amounted to much without a bit of a body count among named characters. (Thankfully we didn't get the promised "MASSACRE!")

I bought Ratchet's explanation of the Stormbringer zapping him past his sell-by date. As I said, it was the timing that felt very suspicious. No, his illness was not seeded from the beginning, because he had absolutely zero symptoms (besides "curdled energon" and the difficulty transforming that was expected just due to stiffness) until just after his diagnosis. This felt like an acute disease, not a chronic one.

Besides, I expect we will learn that even with the conquering of cybercrosis, sparks will still prove to be mortal...this should give our recurring medical characters some interesting thought/debate.

Not to me it doesn't. Secrets have propelled us through this first arc but I'm kind of sick of that being everyone's schtick and point of interest. Now Tailgate knows that he doesn't WANT to be a hero, just as everyone on board will start to think of him AS a hero. But Cyclonus is still the villain to many and for good reason. Just because he loosens up doesn't mean anyone else will...in fact, he's just made himself harder to ignore.

I do as well, we just disagree here. I think Wash's death was one of the most brilliant pieces of writing in that decade of cinema. I think Tailgate's would have been wasteful.

You're not alone! I was reading this issue on my iPhone...I was like NOOO CYCLONUS YOU SUCK

Cyclonus has had a chip on his shoulder since they sculpted his face in 1985. Now he's actually got the respect of the command crew and a couple of friends, not to mention the ability to smile.

This is awesome. A ship full of Autobots that think he's a murdering zombie monster suddenly have to socialize with him! Also, he has to deal with his best friends being an infantile sluicer and a mutilated psychopath, i.e. people he would have looked down his nose at during the Golden Age.

And how do you think Chromedome is going to react, that the murderer of his friends at Kimia got to stab HIS little buddy better while he had to blast his into oblivion?

Cannnnn't wait.

We can only hope. It's hard for me to properly envision "season 2" after bringing everyone together at Cybertron...how will this even work to split the books again? I feel like I don't know what's coming and it's a fun feeling!

 

I Think I've Got It

I too was wondering this. And like most I have really enjoyed Roberts and Milnes works minus the odd hiccup along the way.

I think the 5 moons are the Guiding Hand. Essentially they are all transforming planets that need to converge on Cybertron for something or other.

Thats why Luna 1 had huge rockets on the back of it.

I also think their may be some thing about the planets combining with Cybertron. (From one came many?) But I'm grasping on that one.

My only obstacle to this idea is how would you factor Mortilllus into this… Bearing in mind her essentially is supposed to have murdered the other members of the Guiding Hand…

I took the Skids symbol to mean surprise and I thought the black thingy was perhaps a reference to the Banzuli Expanse…

Roll On Dark Cybertron I guess!

 

I think Ratchet was exaggerating (if only slightly). I don't think that there are that many bots walking around that are quite that old, and even fewer still who have not undergone upgrades. If we remember waaaay back to the Kup/Prowl short story Everything In Its Place, Kup basically made himself impossible to repair by not undergoing upgrades. Nothing was backwards compatible enough to use as replacement parts.

Hypothetically, if Ratchet were to open up Cyclonus, he'd find a very similar internal anatomy, though he might in that case be expecting it. When Tailgate was first brought on board, there was no reason to expect him to date back to the days of Nova Prime.

We still don't know much about what is really involved in being "forged". When it was first mentioned, it created certain expectations and connotations that I'm not sure apply anymore. I hope it doesn't mean that new sparks just "grow" a body around them. That would bug me.

And welcome to the thread!  

That's a good point. Skids has some of his memory back, sort of. Rewind and his archival lectures are gone. Who else if not Tailgate is going to be our culture/history exposition proxy?  

Which brings up a point (if not necessarily the one you intended)... how many "named" characters have actually died in this series so far, despite the gloom and doom? Shock and Awe? Animus? Sonic and Boom? That Guy Who Sounds Just Like Megatron? Ambulon?? Where is all this anguish over shock deaths actually coming from!?

I think we've got Flywheels, Rewind and Pipes, unless I'm forgetting someone. Two randoms and one meaningful plot death. That's really not bad. Despite all the constant peripety, mortal jeopardy and nigh-fatal injury, very few significant characters have actually died... to the degree that people have actually started to complain about how it's cheapened the experience of suspense and peril. I think the Tailgate revival is just the latest and most egregiously incongruous example in a series full of hail-mary reprieves.

Well, it kind of is. A Great Sword is a magic sword (effectively) that is powered by your soul (spark). It's used for cutting things in half, from what we've seen. It's basically a lightsaber (following the logic that a lightsaber is honed and guided by a Jedi's mastery of the Force).

So now, abruptly, we drop one in Cyclonus' hands, and then, in the 59th second of the 11th hour, we backpedal and explain how it's also a magic spark transfusion machine, that allows you to send your soul through the blade into someone else's soul, and give them a boost. Without cutting their innards to shreds and killing them, ostensibly.

I mean, it's not like Cyclonus has ever USED a Great Sword before, or trained with the Circle of Light, or has anything beyond Whirl's half-baked rambling to go on. Nope, he just jabs that thing right in there!

This is absolutely "just because" logic. It's cosmic hoo-hah and doublespeak to pull a save out of your exhaust pipe. Hell, it might have almost been better to have Cyclonus bury that sword in Tailgate fully expecting and intending to euthanize him, only to find that through some cosmic, mystic happenstance, his Spark went out to Tailgate. At least you could then chalk it up to the 'mystery of the magic sword' rather than some brilliant, implausible plan, revealed after the fact.

I mean, Rodimus' Matrix Code sacrificial re-write was already a fair bit of narrative contrivance. Okay, so the broken half-shell of the Matrix just happens to contain enough of a fresh Matrix code to refresh the corrupted code broadcast by the killswitch, and for some reason doing this forces Rodimus into some machine that may or may not kill him, for no particular reason other than punching up the drama and motivating him to make his deathbed confession. See, that's arbitrary.

Yeah, I don't think that theme really works in this issue. At this point, a death seems narratively pertinent... a significant death, with emotional punch, reminding us of the cost of living, and the hollow reward of "doing great things"... or perhaps of the legacy of great things done by a sick little waste management bot who still managed to save his friends (and all Cybertronians), but couldn't save himself. That I think is a hell of a lot more poignant.

Again... have they really? Does Ambulon, the narrative equivalent of Cybertronian wallpaper, really count?

No, but he picked up a weapon... that just happened to ALSO be the unforeshadowed miracle cure for Cybercrosis. Oh. Kay.

That is sort of like having a fantasy hero pick up a magic battleaxe on his quest, and then later decide that if he hits the poisoned princess hard enough with it, he might knock the poison out of her. It's pretty absurd.

Or maybe like Luke standing over Annikin's shattered body at the end of Jedi, and instead of saying a tearful goodbye to the father he never knew, but who he freed from the dark side... he says "Hey wait! Let me just impale you with this lightsaber! That should fix you up nicely!" And then they both hop on the shuttle so they can party together as a happy family on Endor. The End! Yay, everybody wins!

Y'know... that's a great idea. That death at the end of the trilogy is such a downer. Lucas should totally do a new ending for Return of the Jedi. The fans will definitely appreciate his new upbeat vision.  

Except Whirl is still a horrible person who doesn't deserve so much mercy or sympathy. Which is of course why I want to keep him around.  

Nope, I'd say that's pretty much bang on. Except with his face and horn repaired, don't tell me that he isn't somehow a bit more boring, right? It's a visual metaphor for him becoming less interesting, I think. Characters don't need to be angst-ridden headcases to be compelling... but in some cases, it certainly helps.  

zmog

 

Also, just had to add...

I wonder if Tailgate's survival WAS mandated by Hasbro, in consideration of their recently announced Legends Class Tailgate figure (clearly modelled on the IDW version). There's a certain irony there, that Roberts took on a cast of fairly obscure characters so that he would have a freer hand when it came to doing what he wanted with them. If Tailgate being propelled to fan-favourite status actually precipitated his survival, in a way Roberts has become a victim of his own success!  

Also, on a different note... I remember him saying he really wanted Blitzwing in this series. If Cyclonus pretty much fulfilled the Blitzwing role, just let me say I am SOOOO GLAD that it worked out this way. Seeing Blitzwing in his place would have bugged me. A lot. This version of Cyclonus works really well.

zmog

 

Because DRAMA! DON'T QUESTION IT!!  

zmog

 

Eh. It's fine. Whatever. I loved it. Every page. It all makes perfect sense to me. A perfect blend of set up and delivery. Keep up the good work, James. Can't wait for season 2.

 

Rodimus probably needed to be hooked up to it because the matrix was dead. It probably needed a spark to power it, given that it has no power of its own now.

Also, as for the battleaxe comparison a few posts above, that's not the best analogy. It's more like finding a sword that allows you to put your soul into it to make it a more powerful weapon. Now, you find a princess with a poison that depletes her soul. You dont hit the princess to knock the poison out of her, you stab her and give her some of your soul energy to her live long enough for someone to give her the recently discovered antidote.

I'm surprised so many people are having issue with that, tbh. It was the one thing that I thought was really well done given how far back the greatsword info has been around.


And its not like anyone could have done it either. Cyclonus, after being rebooted by Vector Sigma, had extra life energy within him, the life of a newborn. So, to use the example above, the hero with the soul sword has a supercharged soul as well. So it shouldn't be that crazy of a stretch.

 

I dot get it, either. It makes perfect sense.

It's just another example of, when you want to enjoy something, it's best to just enjoy it by yourself. When any fandom discussion happens on anything, it just devolves into why it's never good enough.

I'm just going to keep on reading and keep on loving. No use of letting others ruin that experience for you.

 

I'm exceptionally late joining this thread, as always. However, I do love seeing what implications other people guess for the actions that I only took at face value.

As for the discussion of Tailgate's life or death, I'm more focused on what -did- happen, rather than what storytelling says would be the most effective tale. Much of this probably stems from not disconnecting these characters in a story for reality any differently than I would say, reading the newspaper or reading a history textbook. It all happened somewhere that I'm not, and whether I care about it or am impacted by it is separate from my current reality day to day.

I agree with Gogdog's most recent most, I suppose. Personally, while I might nod at 'okay, that was sort of weird', I prefer to accept the story for what it was, and then debate WHY it turned out that way in the context of the story. I ignore the writers when it's time to discuss the story. They are not the core of what I am discussing, the tale they gave to me is. Any knowledge I have of them is outside - useful, certainly, but not in the primary discussion.

For example, I thought the Rodimus being hooked up with the Matrix thing was... strange. I didn't get why he had to be there, dying, if he could just take the shell out. The explanation that it didn't have it's own power source anymore and perhaps required his spark to make this all work was EXACTLY the sort of thing I look for coming into a discussion thread. I want a discussion of the material, not of the material's construction.

Next issue I'll be involved with this chat from the start, so I can really participate.

 

He was bonded to the maxtrix/ matrix bearer. I'm guessing Nova Prime did something similar when he was originally creating the sparks for the cold constructed.

 

If we're reduced to conjecture, then it wasn't really explained well enough.  

Your explanation is more literal, but it still comes back to the same basic problem. It's still essentially the same as burying the axe in Sleeping Beauty's head, hoping that some of the "magic" that makes things explode will rub off on her and fix her right up. It's a very silly logic.

People keep saying that, but I don't remember Greatswords ever being touted as the cure for Cybercrosis. As I pointed out, they have only been used for chopping things into little pieces. I have an electric chainsaw. I don't expect to recharge my car battery by cutting it in half.

Well, Brainstorm could have done it. He's got that brand spanking new POP Spark. And Rung could have too, since he's got the brightest Spark on board (which must be pretty damn bright, since Rung's ancient, and he still outshines Cyclonus in a Sparkeater's eyes). But that isn't my point... it's the utter contrivance of the magic medical healing sword that made it all possible, even through the most brute, unlikely application.

I'm sorry to hear that knowing other people have different opinions than you "ruins" your appreciation. That must be rough, but I think you can hardly blame the fandom for that.

That logic seems to lead only to "everybody should always say everything is great, all the time"... or at least that nobody should ever be critical of what they're reading or watching. That would be a pretty horrible world to live in, I think.

I feel that taking everything at face value completely obscures the whole craft of storytelling, and the appreciation of art. Divesting a story completely from the structure and means of its telling is... sort of bizarre? For me at least, it misses the point. And on the flip side, I think I enjoy things all the more euphorically when the craft and the content come together in a truly integrated fashion.

I suppose it makes it easier to enjoy everything in the world when you suspend critical faculties. It doesn't matter if your pancakes are light and fluffy, or hard, dry and burnt... they simply are what they are. No sense wondering if the chef could have done a better job, or whether you'd come eat at this restaurant again. Just eat what you're given.

Me, I don't like burnt pancakes, even if there is plenty of syrup.

zmog