Hey everyone, welcome to the new series. Does it feel like 2012 again?


GOD I MISSED THIS BOOK'S WRITING!

Revolution with Milne on art was Fantastic, but LL #1 missed Milnes schedule, and I heard he was pretty upset about not being on art duties, but it is what it is.

That feel of the OG MTMTE is here.
Ok, last chance, I am going to be brief as I only had one read through and don't ant to ruin the experience of discovery, but light spoilers ahead.......

Spoiler

Anode is a Camien, knows Velocity, and is referred to as a "SHE" by Ultra Magnus.

Rodimus is intense, and it is indeed Drift that helps him with the Respray. I will not ruin the read, but the reasons for the color change are awesome and should lead to some good development of Rodimus.

We find out the fate of Nightbeat and Rung.

We have interactions of Terminus and Megatron.

Then we have the noob's who were introduced in the preview. Anode and Lug, whom as you can probably guess get dropped off with the other crew after the DJD stuff in issue 55. These are likely new key players.

Fangry. (heck yeah)

Functionist Universe story from Elegant Chaos is going to play a big role in Season 3.

 

I have the comics in hand, there's 3 RI covers, 1 in 10, 1 in 25 and 1 in 50.
The art is certainly different, it's more Hayato Sakamoto then Alex Milne and it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

 

I'm nervous but excited, because I sorely need some good MTMTE back in my life.

Spoiler

I had a hunch Anode would wind up being a femme, and I like that I couldn't be sure. Although the waistline in the extended preview definitely made it less ambiguous, we've got no lashes, lipstick, or heels to ram the point home. Nice change of pace.

 

All in all, this is a damn good first issue.

The overbearing snark is still there, but Lug and Anode's exchange in the first few pages is by far the worst of it. Most of the issue is, of course, just setting the foundation for Season 3, and it did a fantastic job of that. The sheer amount of mysteries and plot threads that are packed into this issue take me all the way back to issue 1 of MTMTE, where we were all guessing who Prowl was talking to or who sent that message. If nothing else, LL #1 managed to recapture that feel for me, and I'm happy.

Further thoughts:

Spoiler

All the new mysterious and driving questions that I caught from the issue:

• What's Anode's deal? What's her history with Velocity, and why did touching her give Drift a vision?
• Why didn't the geobomb properly detonate? (My guess is that it's meant to work on actual planets, not hollow ones.)
• Exactly how much has Megatron told Terminus about the war, and his role in it?
• What the hell happened to Rung?
• How did everyone end up in the Functionist Universe?
• Drift's vision: Grimlock, Pharma, Worldsweepers, sparkeaters, and whatever that writing means...

Rodimus's new colors due to converting to spectralism is actually pretty cool, and his resolve to kill Getaway will lead to some very interesting developments for him (as well as Drift's concerns regarding it).

I'm still not terribly engaged with the two new characters Lug and Anode, unfortunately. Lug is a bit of a nobody and Anode is honestly too irritating to be likable at this point. Hopefully their backgrounds will make them more interesting as time goes on. Fangry and Rapidfire (whom I believe is a new character) are most certainly welcome additions; it'll be fun to get a proper Decepticon perspective in the mix.

Terminus joining the "main group" is also interesting, mainly because I suspect Megatron hasn't told him the whole story of the war.

 

Spoiler

I get the impression that Megatron's told him the basic story of the war, BUT Terminus is in the position of "his best friend is telling him he's responsible for an incomprehensible amount of atrocities, so SURELY he must be hyperbolizing here." I don't think Terminus has actually twigged to the idea that Megatron ISN'T exaggerating.

Also, I appreciate that the Necrobot didn't JUST save Autobots.

Art felt fine but coming out in the same week as Optimus Prime, I'm not really feeling a distinct visual identity from the book. Both TAAO and Optimus Prime have some distinctive visuals to them, and MTMTE kinda feels visually like "the other book".

 

Yeah, not digging this new artist at all. Feels more like a shitty toy pack-in comic in that regard.

Really not liking Anode so far. Really hope it's not Riptide all over again here.

 

The big draw for me is them now being stuck in the Functionist timeline. This is going to be an interesting arc.

Everything else was kind of same old, same old for me. But that mostly a good thing. Though some interesting setups, primarily Drift's vision and what ever Rung threw up.

 

Just read it. My summary is: YEEEEEEAAAAAAH  
This looks promising!  


I wonder if we will see now what I proposed in one of the MTMTE threads years ago. That Megatron now has the chance to be the hero he always wanted to be in the functionist timeline. So that this is basically like Shattered Glass, but with a clever background how it came to be.

 

Spoiler

I did wonder if shunting them to funcionist universe was a consequence, intended or otherwise, of the geobomb.
Felt like Roberts was getting a lot of his ducks in a row.
Rung's mystery: check
Pharma, our first decent look at whatever grabbed him at the end of Remain in Light, and the symbol ships: check
Gridlock, and by implication the Scavengers, coming together with the List Light crew: check
Functionists:check
Plus we get some new danglers for good measure with Terminus, Fangry (deluxe toy now please) and whatever's up with Anode. A good set up and I enjoyed the scenes with Drift and Rodimus but I really hope that Magnus, Tailgate, and Brainstorm aren't stuck as the one note gag characters they've been for a while now. Certainly felt a bit more plot than character oriented and I hope that's just the cost of set up.

 

I really wanted to see more of the other universes, like the old Dc's "Elseworlds" and Marvels "What If"s series.

 

I generally liked it. Came away from it a lot more excited than I did following the start of season 2.

My one quibble: I HATE with a burning passion the functionalist universe. If they don't completely wreck the place in the next few issues I won't be happy. Starting season 3 there is an ominous start.

 

I also wonder if Rodimus will come back with his own matrix  

 

well hello there Ricochet/Stepper!

 

Anode sucks.

 

The only reasonable course of action then would be to have a "What if the Decepticons won the war?" scenario.

 

Yeah. It was fine. Not great. The first shot of Magnus - he looked stumpy.

Way too much focus on a terribly obnoxious new character (anode) with a fully unremarkable design.

 

Yeah, I thought the same while reading. I remembered what art we had before and that under other circumstances this art would look really great. It's just that we had better art before. I had the same problem with modern X-Men comics. Some look great, some look like traced porn images and others totally stylistic. I somehow preferred how the old comics all looked the same.

I decided not to dislike the art just because we had a better artist before. It's not really bad. It would be unfair to hate it.

 

No, what if Whirl never beat Megatron? Maybe Orion can stop him before he does too much damage.
What if Megatron never turned to violence and kept with his original ideas? What if he never threw his datapad away?
What if Megatron accepted Orions friendship when released from jail? There are many scenarios.

I like the last one the best because when they back in time, Megatron talked to Orion and Orion asked Megs to join him and finally Megatron said someday he would. I would love to see a world where he did that from the beginning. Reminds of that G2 picture of them ruling Cybertron together with capes. (I think it was G2 comics)