MTMTE 16 (Spoilers!)

Discussion in 'Transformers Comics Discussion' started by AdyCarter, Apr 24, 2013.

  1. shadowsfm

    shadowsfm Well-Known Member

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    anyone notice heretech's matrix symbol is upside down, like how devil worshipers have upside down crosses and stars? or am i just seeing things?

    i like how the flashback looks so marvel G1, but then was disappointed the art doesn't improve in the present, mostly ultra magnus
     
  2. Jalaguy

    Jalaguy has no known physical weaknesses

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    Reading through again - is that an off-model Glitch apparently being menaced in the last panel of the message montage spread?

    Also, I might have missed some discussion earlier in the thread but I'm not seeing much love for the overhauled 'Meet the Crew' bios? More or less every single one had me laughing out loud...
     
  3. Napalm

    Napalm Drinking About Robots TFW2005 Supporter

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    Yeah, I loved them, funny as fuck and they seemed like a deliberate attempt at lifting the spirits after such a heart wrenching read.
     
  4. Chris McFeely

    Chris McFeely Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, don't kid yourself there, sport.
     
  5. Kraken

    Kraken Is a vegiesaurus, Lex. Veteran

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    Hells to the yeah! The new Meet the Crew write ups are the shiz! Nice to see Percy get bumped up as well.
     
  6. Anguirus

    Anguirus Well-Known Member

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    Agh I can't believe I forgot to mention them, I loved all the new Meet the Crews. I was almost to the point when I was ignoring that page but my eye happened across it (mostly to see if UM was non-Xed) and laughed out loud.
     
  7. maku098

    maku098 indeed a wise choice

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    I love the new ones, especially Brainstorm's.
     
  8. SPLIT LIP

    SPLIT LIP Be strong enough to be gentle

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    Oh God I forgot about those. They're hysterical yet perfect descriptors of everyone's personalities.
     
  9. Cevel

    Cevel Well-Known Member

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    Hey, the few of you who're still going on and on about Chromedome and Rewind being "just friends" or how their relationship is "ambiguous" (and seriously, given everything we've been shown and told in this series I really don't understand how you can still think that unless you're purposefully deluding yourself), I think there's one more thing you need to see. From James Robert's Twitter account:

    [​IMG]

    You can stop being needlessly ridiculous now. They are a canon couple. Full stop.

    Can we all please move on from this now?
     
  10. SMOG

    SMOG Vocabchampion ArgueTitan

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    I think you're the one painting it as an either/or situation, and completely refusing to acknowledge that this series is deeply immersed in that vast range between kiddie toy commercials and Halequin romance. The either/or binary you are forcing is that "brotherhood, loyalty are good" but a soon as there's a heartfelt exclusive "soulmate" bond shown between two emotional creatures, then it's automatically "cutesy adolescent romance".

    And of course, not seeing the forest for the trees... being that this relationship in of itself challenges those culturally inflected biases and expand on the concept of an "alien" culture... one where committed, co-dependant life-bonded couples can exist outside the context of human concepts of sex, family and aging. Unfortunately, for many of us it breaks those childlike little worlds we've cemented this fiction into... or rather, is informed by our underlying "icky" responses to an ostensible "same sex" relationship, despite the fact that the asexual context actually challenges and subverts the "gay" tone, and expands the "alien" concept of Cybertronians.

    I do agree that it's a tricky balance... weighing the "human" versus the "alien" characteristics of Transformers, while still acknowledging to some degree the amount of anthropomorphic behaviour that has always been part of them for narrative and commercial simplicity. Up till now, I think Roberts has been very good at dancing on this fence, keeping the characters extremely human and relatable, while constantly reminding us how different their culture is in other ways, that it is not simply a one-to-one mirror of our human society.

    To respond to this (and your later) extremely rigid and damaged view of relationships, let me first say.... hogwash.

    In a society where procreation, family units, lineage and the institution of marriage are gradually eroding (for better and for worse), giving way to an individualist culture of people who are locked in a prolonged state of adolescence, we've seen the rise of a society that mirrors Cybertronian society in some ways. Marriage, family and lineage are no longer the defining social contracts for community (which I will stress as the main structure behind the institution of marriage, not love, which was historically secondary). However, people still bond and form couples, based on emotional, intellectual and sexual connections. If anything, removing sexual drives from this equation renders the bonds even more "pure"... or "Platonic" if you will (referring to a Platonic ideal, rather than the more common usage).

    In other words, your "cycles" of human relationships, generations of parents and children pushing the world forward... it doesn't actually address the idea of individualistic love. The truth is, the cycle of reproduction you're describing has always been only tenuously related to "romantic love"... the survival of the species biologically, and the emotional well-being of individual sentients ("life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness") being different things.

    Case in point... last summer marked 20 years for my partner and I. In that time, we've had no children, started no broods Our relationship has only grown stronger... even if the importance of sex has diminished considerably. I'm not sure what kind of "changes" you are holding up as evidence of the "cyclical" nature of love, but I find them spurious. We are getting older, naturally... but we don't FEEL older, and would certainly rather not face that. We are two faces of the same coin, we complete each other (if you can stomach the cliche), support each other, and effectively LIVE for each other. Our only real need or desire is to be happy in life and to be together (which are pretty much interconnected). If "forever" were an option for these mortal husks we live in, I'd be all for it. It need not be about "progress"... it can simply be a state of "being".

    And how is that different from a Chromedome and a Rewind?

    The world is full of enduring, loving childless couples, people who have united with or without the benefit of some ritualistic/materialistic cultural spectacle, whose family lines have not been merged or branched as part of the deal. These are not simply for the sex, or for financial project or communal fortification... it is founded in an individualistic and primal desire to not to be alone. As Brainstorm points out, some bots never find their conjux endura, that person that fulfills that primal, personal need. But the need exists.

    You can even see some corollary in the way old people, widowers, retirees, people past their child-rearing years, alone or happily living a separate life from their families, form loving, caring, supportive couples. The fact that they are in their twilight years is sort of irrelevant...the point is rather that they are now in sociologically neutered state, neither creating families nor slaved to overpowering sexual drives, nor merging into a unit with more socio-economic clout or staying power. They merely want the company of someone that understands them and cares deeply for them for the rest of their time. Again, how is that so different than sexless robots with a human capacity for emotion, and who live for millions of years?

    Again, nonsense. The love you're describing "between friends" is only remotely limited in degree to the romantic love you're throwing out the window. Do friends not have "cute" little nicknames for each other (though often disguised by macho posturing)? Do best friends not grow jealous or sad when they're apart? A couple, in many ways is simply a case of "best friends" who love each other above all others, who consistently "get" each other, who are committed to ALWAYS be there for each other... with all the stigma and boundaries of gender proscription and homophobic panic removed from the equation.

    Only if you learn nothing from it. Science-fiction isn't just sensory entertainment... it also provides the opportunity for us to, through a lens of fantasy, consider other possibilities, other models for life, other perspectives on existence. This is why I'm fine with Transformers "growing up" a bit, and providing this function for its now grown-up fanbase.

    I don't disagree with you there... though it does seem to run counter to your expressed wish that these types of subjects remain out of the fiction.

    :eek: 

    It might be a bit too convenient, but at the same time... Brainstorm and Chromedome have a real history. It would make that whole conversation particularly ironic.

    Yeah, I still don't really buy it. Fort Max has shown himself to be unreliable and a direct danger to those around him. Drift was part of a strategic covert operation with the best of intentions, that was mismanaged and went horribly wrong. In short, he's only guilty of the kind of hubristic, risk-taking, rules-breaking decision that Rodimus undertakes ALL THE TIME.

    Now, this could actually explain Rodimus' particularly forceful reaction... going back to Furman's run, invoking those reasons of shame and fear that caused him to operate as a loner in the past... the only life he was risking was his own.

    As far as throwing him off his ship... sure. The Autobrand thing was a bit much though, even regarding Drift's past as a Con and then as a Neutral. It kind of disavows the fact that he undertook his mission as an Autobot, FOR the Autobots. Of course, we also don't know how Drift managed to replay the story of how Overlord got onboard without incriminating any living operatives. It seems like he would have had to twist up or omit a lot of stuff...

    Technically, cultural and philosophical discussion is perfectly alright in this forum, especially where it relates specifically to Transformers discussion (and given this series, it's hard not to fall into that). I think it's healthy to bring these discussions into the mix, and I think it's great that a Transformers series can provoke these topics intelligently, after decades of toy commercials and pew-pew laser battles.

    I suspect that Rewind KNEW about Chromedome at the New Institute... but didn't really know the full extent of the horrible things that were happening there.

    Of course, it's possible that Rewind found out, and freaked... leading to a bit of "editing" on Chromedome's part. :( 

    Yup. I think people can discuss how they FEEL about this, but it's really beyond pointless to argue that maybe, just maybe, if you look at it a certain way, there's nothing remotely "gay" about it at all, and they're "just good buddies"...

    (... which is of course hilarious when one considers the queer sociological discourse that surrounds homosocial dynamics in the first place. ;)  )

    Yeah, there's some of that, but that gesture also definitely shows Ratchet's powerful empathy and compassion shining out from beneath his crusty surface. He DOES care about people, even people who drive him crazy like Drift. And of course, part of this is probably because he wishes he could start "fresh" himself like Drift seems to have done, and let all the pain of the past go. In that way, I think there is a bond between them (also of course, the fact that Ratchet saved Drift back before war).

    zmog
     
  11. mirage4lifeyo

    mirage4lifeyo Well-Known Member

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    Great issue, powerful and emotional.

    One thing that jumps out from the great use of the montage of Rewind's archive footage to deliver his message, the image of Prowl in the montage is both brilliant and chilling...the frame of Prowl saying the word "Rewind" is the exact face and frame of Prowl from the following conversation in MTMTE #1, when we are given our first proper introduction to Rewind as a character. It was of course when Prowl was desperately trying to cajole Chromedome into staying rather than leaving to join the Lost Light...and this exchange occurs:

    PROWL: "Rewind! You're his best friend. Can't you persuade him to - your light's on. Are you recording this?

    REWIND: "Um...yes?"

    PROWL: "Well DON'T. It's extremely annoying, you filming everything all the time."

    REWIND: "I'm an archivist. I'm archiving. This could be an important conversaton. It could have repercussions!"


    Rewind was...right. That conversation did indeed have repercussions. He was, in fact, filming the beginning of the exact chain of events that led directly to his own death. Seriously. Immediately after that conversation ended, we know now that Prowl had the duobots and Drift go ahead and install the "cargo", Overlord. The rest is history.

    Rewind's introduction in MTMTE #1 was of him filming the beginning of his own end.

    Damn, Roberts, you are good. Chilling and tragic, but good.
     
  12. General Magnus

    General Magnus Da Custodes of the Emprah

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    I think Rodidmus keeps Fort Max around as a big attack dog. Ultra Magnus aside he´s probably the strongest bot in the ship.
     
  13. WilyMech

    WilyMech Well-Known Member

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    I think Rodimus is operating on the phrase keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Fort Max is to much a loose cannon to be completely trusted. I don't think we seen all of Fort Max's psychotic episodes yet. As powerful as Fort Max is in Last Stand of the Wreckers he was not exactly nice, kind, noble warden of Garius 9. There is a dark side to Fort Max that has not been touched. It seems the Headmasters of the old Marvel series are the main players now. I think Roberts has plans for Fort Max.
     
  14. Jalaguy

    Jalaguy has no known physical weaknesses

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    I forget, have Rodimus and Prowl ever interacted significantly in IDW fiction?

    'Cause if Drift specified that the Overlord plan was Prowl's I could easily see Rodimus going with a kind of disproportionate punishment when he found out his cool best friend who he trusts with everything was secretly working for a stuffed-shirt like Prowl behind his back...

    Also, just to confirm, I too teared up over Rewind's message. It was those last three words that got me... :( 
     
  15. Anguirus

    Anguirus Well-Known Member

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    ^ Rodimus is like the antithesis of Prowl, and annoys him. But unlike Ironhide and Springer he's at least never punched the guy.

    I kind of think Rodimus is an enormous hypocrite, and is rapidly backsliding as an effective leader. In his own way he seems as lost without the war as Magnus.
     
  16. General Magnus

    General Magnus Da Custodes of the Emprah

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    Is Magnus immortal or not fated to die? I mean, from the comic, the guy has been cored not one, but twice. And that´s not counting the k-bomb decepticon who hit him.
     
  17. mirage4lifeyo

    mirage4lifeyo Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately during the Costa run, they found themselves briefly aligned, which like so many things about the Costa run was kinda ******ed. But, when "Rodimus" first decided he wanted to bail on planet Earth since the war was over, Prowl was among the key Autobots who decided to join him in splitting, at least initially...


    However, there was also some tension there, because Prowl in following protocol to the letter also was the one who called Ultra Magnus to Earth to investigate the death of, I believe, Ironhide, and that investigation and Magnus' presence on Earth wound up being a real sore point for Hot Rod/Rodimus that really gummed up his plans...so there would be some tension I guess in that regard betwen Rodimus and Prowl. Honestly though its been so long since I read the Costa crap, and my motivation to re-read it is zero, that I don't remember the details that well beyond the above...


    However speaking of Prowl, I will say that we should not forget about Fortress Maximus's vendetta against Prowl for taking so long to send reinforcements to Garrus-9. I don't think a psychosis that massive is gonna just subside no matter what sort of therapy Rung can give him...eventually if/when Prowl and Fort Max are ever face to face again, the result will not be pretty.
     
  18. SPLIT LIP

    SPLIT LIP Be strong enough to be gentle

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    He's just really tough.

    I mean, his name is Ultra Magnus.
     
  19. mirage4lifeyo

    mirage4lifeyo Well-Known Member

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    One of the consistent themes that Roberts has explored with the Transformers as a race - both in MTMTE and his other IDW work as well as in his excellent fan novel Eugenesis - is how incredibly hard it is to kill a Transformer, like permanenently. Not impossible, which he makes clear, but its very very hard, to the point that they had to create suicide clinics because its hard for bots to kill themselves on their own. I applaud Roberts for exploring this because, frankly, its the ONLY way you can possibly explain the Transformers canon of them having life spans of four million years plus, but yet also being AT WAR and hence TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER for millions upon millions of years. They HAVE to be incredibly hard to kill for that to be even remotely plausible. For that reason, Magnus, being one of the best warriors and most elite 'bots around, would make sense as also being incredibly resilient when it comes to recovering from severe wounds.
     
  20. WilyMech

    WilyMech Well-Known Member

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    Right now I get feeling that Prowl is none to popular with the crew of the Lost Light. It almost be the same if Chromedome to lesser the degree after he did mnemosurgery on Prowl. The people RID now knew something to happen to Prowl and I think that the two groups will not be pretty. Overlord is going Cybertron and blurts Chromedome secret yeah I can see Bumblebee being none to happy about that. There going be some nasty divisions with crew of Lost Light and Cybertron's RID.