Honestly I'd read a Care Bears comic if it was written by Roberts at this point so I see where you're coming from  

But still the storie you can tell on Earth are a lot more limited than what you can do in space.

Plus the thing we have now feels to me like season 3 of G1 cartoon done right. And I'm loving every moment of it

 

and was part of Nova Prime's inner circle, encouraging him to explore space. How Ratchet Got His Hands Back - Tailgate (G1) - Transformers Wiki

 

I never liked Season 3. It was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for me as a Transformer fan, back in the day. No, wait... that was Pretenders.  

But yeah, I'm really enjoying what IDW's doing now, though my default setting is Earth just because I like the "secret war" context. But I can suffer through this for now.  

Yeah, I remember all that. However, since the RID Annual actually told the story of Nova Prime deciding to leave Cybertron, Tailgate's absence (besides a cameo) is notable. I think part of this is that it's just really hard to accept Tailgate being part of the same inner circle as Cyclonus, Galvatron, Scourge, Jhiaxus, Straxus... it would be like putting WALL-E in the DJD.  

zmog

 

Was he in the inner circle as such, or was he just on the fringes? Like Ironfist never getting credited for inventing Primes gun, was Nova like 'Who wrote this report again? Tail-who? Never mind, just get him on board, we could use a nerd. He can do the dusting or something.'

 

This is my favorite simile now.

I can dig this idea.

 

That makes the most sense. Nova and his crew of over-the-top theatrical self-important heavies, and the little guy whose name they keep forgetting, who's all "I'm helping! I'm helping!".  

Y'know, it's been implied that Tailgate was a last-minute substitution, and that Roberts had originally written that part for a character who wasn't available. I'd really be curious to know who that would have been.

Well, he is a trash compactor. He should fit right in with the DJD alt modes.  

zmog

 

Exactly, and hilarity would have ensued!

Powerglide wasn't it? But he'd already briefly appeared in an earlier comic and so wouldn't work.

 

Really? I didn't realize he'd actually specified who he originally had slotted into that role. Powerglide... whose only real character trait is being cocky and red (like roughly 50 other Autobots basically). Well, the personality doesn't fit really... I'd be curious to know more though.

zmog

 

^ At least it seems like an alt-mode more along the lines of Cyclonus, Straxus, and Scourge?

 

Well, he flies... I guess there's that?

(not that Nova or Grindcore fly... and do we even know what Jhiaxus' altmode in IDW is?)

zmog

 

Ummm, he who must not be named?

Spoiler

Voldemort Prime?

Could be,,, or Rung was named after another Rung. It's happened before (Prowl)

Judging by his boredom/lack of commitment to Magnus's "class", I took him for some sort of free-spirt. The kinda guy who takes up Archery, Pottery and Zumba to make his boring desk job more palatable. Why was he on Nova's crew? He has an awesome resume, but chances are he'd have blown the job interview.

(admit it, we've all known a few people like that)

I got the impression that the spark-eater (an energy being perhaps?) possessed the corpse of a mech-life form. So the spark eater might be alive, sentient and "born" as you say (but xenobiology is such a headache sometimes) but they "wear" transformers "skins" like clothes. Perhaps from an transformer's point of view another transformer would be "infected" by a sparkeater, there might even be some form of symbiosis. But ultimately I think the sparkeater is some sort of parasitic life form.


Okay, enough wild guesses, here's my questions:

1.) I'd love to see the other races in the galaxy. There have been mentions of the Cybertronians being cast-out of galactic society, and so far all we've seen of alien races are backwaters (Earth) and criminals (the slavers from Drift), oh,, and one scene in a spaceport where Drift had to dress up like a mummy so no one would recognize him as a Cybertronian. So yeah, just a hint of a broader galactic base.

2.) Much as I hate them, the Quints must have played some part in the origin of the Transformers. So I'd like to see Barber/Roberts take on them. Personally, my take is that they did not "invent" the transformers (though they STILL claim they DID) but merely "found" Cybertron and it's race of sub-sentient machines. They enslaved them and sold them, but at some point the Cybertronians became self-aware and rebelled against the Quints. Forming the first Cybertronian Society.

3.) Spotlight Erector! When will this happen?!?  

 

Yep, and cos I was starting to doubt myself, I checked with him on Twitter and he confirmed, and is glad that he used Tailgate instead anyway.

 

Yeah, it was mentioned in the MTME TPB. It was based on an idea he had for a series called War Stories, with one being about Powerglide getting stasis locked for millions of years and then waking up to find the Autobots fighting the Insecticon Swarm. He wanted to recycle this, but then found out that Costa had already used Powerglide for a cameo in Chaos.

Glad they went with Tailgate though.

In Shadowplay part 1, he's listed along with the other big names of the Ark-1 crew on the memorial (along with a guy who's named Hy-something). That does suggest he was part of the inner circle.

 

Actually, James suggested Powerglide to Costa since he was struggling to think of Autobot flyers for that mass take off scene. (Says more about Costa than James...)

Not necessarily, you'd think that a memorial would list everyone who was lost, not just the five or six officers. When they get around to building the Lost Light memorial, I don't think it will just list Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Red Alert, Drift and Swerve.

 

Sure, that's the boring answer...  

And seriously, I'd have to feel like that was just covering up for an error, since having a psychiatrist named after the founder of his art is just so... obvious.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Yeah, it's looking like you're probably right about that. I like that idea.

GASP!!! Have you not read the MTMTE Annual yet??? Galactic Council flagship! In case you haven't read it yet,

Spoiler

didn't want to ruin the reveal, but those suckers are HUGE!!

Also, there's that dude that's hanging out with Wheelie and Orion Pax. Grak? Garn?

Well, it's hard not to notice the recurrent "five-who-are-one" motif in the expanding IDW Cybertronian cosmology... they may be quite different in this incarnation. Maybe related to the Primus origin itself!

Nah, if they'd used Powerglide, we'd all be like "OMG! Roberts' Powerglide is such a sweet little guy! Amazing! *gush*gush*". It's true that Tailgate has never had much in the way of prior characterization though, so it was (almost) like starting from a blank slate. I kind of miss having the old G1 bio version around though, that little lunatic.

So Roberts kind of boned himself on that one, eh?

Somehow, the name "Powerglide" does sound kind of old-fashioned-y doesn't it  

Or just another name on a memorial, really. Those aren't just for important people.

zmog

 

Woa, hmmmm

Could shockwave and turmoil Have used the time traveling ship Ts smuggle overlord onboard the lost light? And possibly, cause the initial sabotage that veered off course in the first place?

 

Once you've got a time machine, all bets are off. I hope it doesn't get too ridiculous.

zmog

 

Keep in mind that the time machine aboard Turmoil's ship doesn't let you travel backward and forward through time--it only lets you travel through it sideways. Orion was only being thrusted through time in RiD #10 because the machine was interacting with LV-117's mutated soil. (which it had been made from in the first place)

 

Whatever "sideways in time" really even means, besides being a cute turn of phrase. Any way you slice it, once you introduce a time machine into your fiction, you've basically given yourself "get out of jail free" card for ANY plot entanglements... which tends to bother me. There is just too much room for abuse. I hope our dear writers at IDW tread very softly now.

zmog

 

when will Cyclonus kill Whirl?   his speech in the last mtmte made me think of this