Not sure if it totally doesn't belong. But took me a moment to parse what they were doing.

I don't particularly like panels like this. I don't like it male/female or male/male unless it's earned. Knockout and Breakdown had a fantastic relationship in Prime which could be taken as either just great friends or maybe a little gay for each other. But Prime didn't have inter bot relationships as far as I remember.
I'm all for gay representation. But I'd prefer it, if it was an actual story. Like Arcee and Greenlight in the main story "raising a kid" together. That's a relationship. I hope we see them together again soon.
Had we seen Breakdown and Knockout actually interacting in this issue it would've been much better deserved. Instead we just had a panel with them walking by with one in front of the other, literally no chemistry and Knockout literally disappearing while Breakdown confronts Thunderclash. At least have him in the background looking nervous/worried.
This, this is just kinda sad pandering. An empty gesture hoping to get people to talk about it.


Still loved the issue though.

 

While I do agree with most of what you said. Did you perhaps think they were already together. I mean in the last idw phase we saw them together and while they did not show them being intimate. Both moon racer and knockout verbally said they were married. The same could be said about chromedome and rewind it took a couple of books and the fact that everyone kept referring to them being more than friends. Sometimes you don’t need a buildup to show if someone is already in established relationship.

Also we can interpret this kiss could be a token of good luck and love because of the current situation and their jobs. Sorta like when you say goodbye to a love one before leaving the house.

 

Shipping and Transformers never works for me. It's always an eye-rolling moment.

 

SIGNAL LANCER~!

 

i got to say, the whole premise of an elite squad hiding in plain sight as celebrities is real creative and a fun concept to watch and i look forward to seeing it explored more. i really hope they stay more involved in the colony worlds and not sucked into the events of the war for a good while.

 

As for the kiss, my first thought isn't to be scandalized by it, but rather to think "how/why would robots kiss?"

The reality is that it's visual shorthand we understand to indicate that the bots are in a relationship of some kind, so whatever. A zillion years ago, Bluestreak didn't know what a kiss was, but that was another time and place* I guess


*see what I did there

 

See that's one of my issues with MTME. I don't particularly care if it's straight or gay, TF-TF or even TF-human relationship but the overly zealous attempt to inject humanized TF romance. Just no.
I don't dislike shipping. I'm just turned off when it's so obviously unnecessary and desperate fan pandering. TF wasn't even supposed to be about romance.
But hey at least Tumblr is rejoicing, right David?

 

Don't forget Lug and Anode!



And with them if we count head kisses then they smooched twice

 

Oh shit, yes!!

 

How much buildup do married people actually need to kiss each other, and why do people always call it "pandering" when artists and writers are creating content that they clearly like making? Jack Lawrence loves drawing bot romance. You can get him to draw anything of that sort whatsoever if you're willing to pay his commission fee. I have plans of my own in this matter.

 

Yeah because there was never anything like that in G1 whatsoever, not with Beachcomber and the mermaid girl, Powerglide and Astoria, Orion and Ariel? G1 was absolutely devoid of romance. Bots just don't like each other that way. Orion must have been jealous about other bots getting too close to Ariel because she was so competent at her job he was afraid he'd lose her to another team.

 

I hate that either or thinking. Its possible that Axiant didn't like those things, either. I sure didn't, particularly the Girl who Loved Powerglide. I am more fond of it these days, but I thought it was particularly stupid as a child.

 

Nobody has to like it, it's just that I'm always freaked out when people say it was never there or it doesn't belong in the franchise, because it has always been there, and therefore it does belong in the franchise.

I don't like that they always made up names for things by sticking "cyber" or "retro" or "astro" in front of perfectly ordinary words, but I don't complain about it not belonging in the franchise.

 

I need to rephrase what I said slightly, because my point didn't get completely across.
We obviously don't need giant storylines before someone can kiss and obviously they can have been in a relationship. But I personally just prefer it, if we see some hint of them belonging together.
Again I refer to Arcee and Greenlight. We see them in the background together in a couple of shots. We have some offhand remarks from other characters that they're mentoring together. Then we have an issue focused on them trying to get away ending in a kiss. We know them, we know the stakes. We cheer when they kiss.
If we'd seen Arcee and Greenlight kissing in the background before the focus issue we would've smiled. Because we've been shown and been told they're together. It's cute and it's lovely.
Or like in Chobits' example, people referred to Chromedome and Rewind being together. That's what I'm talking about right there.
Point out to me in this issue where we can see Knockout and Breakdown are an item. The closest we get is a neutral walking by in a random shot, where one is walking behind the other.
In fact, take that panel where they're walking passed. Why aren't they walking side by side instead of one behind the other? There was room.
Why aren't they just at a table enjoying a drink in the background? Or maybe at a table in the background looking at each other?
Why wasn't Breakdown nearby to cheer Knockout on during his game. To be fair, Breakdown doesn't strike me as a guy to cheer, but at least have him in the background looking smug at his love is being good at something he loves doing. Or maybe have him in the background looking critically at Minerva and Knockout when they briefly spoke signifying him being protective or maybe a little insecure.
Why wasn't Knockout in the background when Breakdown confronted Thunderclash when moments before they were walking around together?
The backgrounds in this issue are filled to the brim with call outs and references. Obviously drawn by someone with love of the subject, so why is that relationship nowhere in there?

This kiss, to me feels like this last minute addition. I feel like you can even see it in the panel composition. We read from left to right. We were in a countdown, the guy counting down is the first guy you see, he's all the way in the back. Now on the right you're suddenly force to zoom all the way out to focus on a kiss which takes place massively in the foreground. I mentioned that I couldn't immediately parse what was happening, that's because it doesn't flow with the story or the panel itself. Are Breakdown and Knockout big players in the story? As far as we know, no. So why are they so far at the front? If you ask me, it's for the shock value.

In that same vein Ravage Stanixa, why are you assuming they're married? There is nothing to support that claim, because we aren't shown anything. No ring, no handholding, no matching shirts. No offhand remarks by others. Nothing.
It could be a fling.
Maybe Knockout is cheating on someone with Breakdown. Or viceversa.
Maybe this is the culmination of Breakdown and Knockout pining after each other for months. Maybe they just declared their love right before a big dangerous race and they're sealing the deal with a kiss. We don't know, we're not shown anything. There's no romance.
We're shown a kiss for a kiss' sake. Not a statement of love. That's why I call it pandering. If he loves drawing bot romance then please draw bot romance. Not a randomly inserted kiss and then pass it off as writing romance.

 

Not really into bots kissing like humans. It just looks like cosplayers and not Cybertronians. Not that romance hasn't existed since virtually the start in tfs. See sunbow and marvel plus of course idw1 where we were hammered over the proverbial heads with it.

I'm not a fan of it because there is simply no real need. It's nice that we have couples but let's leave it as implied.

I think a relationship of sorts or at least a connection has been implied with cosmos and blast off too if I'm remembering correctly

 

Say, aren't those panels from a comic written by James Roberts?

Anyways, aside from the kiss between Breakdown and Knockout finally solidifying what had been implied in pretty much every fictional appearance since Prime, I'm surprised nobody's touched on Road Rocket. They're obviously using the Legacy Arcee mold as a base, but I find it particularly interesting that they haven't used any particular pronouns in referring to them, unless you count Octopunch's "That Fool" which is pretty gender neutral if you ask me. Now while it could be safe to assume they're a girl now, it's also entirely possible that RR is just a very lithe guy, which is the assumption I'm going to personally operate under until proven otherwise. The reason for this may literally be as simple as Hasbro just not knowing internally (or at least not providing the creative teams with this information-- Hasbro has not had the best track record of communication with their creative middlemen) and the writer just playing it safe, but there ya go.

Anyways I'm a UT boy and I am living for all those cameos. Who the hell thought we'd ever see Signal Lancer again, let alone in the perfect context?

 

Given that they have been referred to as spark-mates in TFP in at least one Hasbro Insta post, and have been previously shown to be together as conjunxes endura in 2 previous IDW comics, I'd be wanting a buildup if they weren't together.

Or would you say the same thing if it was Optimus kissing Elita? If not, you should maybe think about why.

 

I could be wrong, but think this is Skram

 

If transformers can hate enough to start a war or transform into near perfect replicas of earth vehicles, I don’t get why people are perplexed by a fucking smooch. I feel like your priorities in comics is very very off base if you see gay sentient robots kissing and focus on why they would kiss

 

So you're drawing conclusions from an unrelated Instagram post and 2 unrelated IDW comics, amongst which is probably the MLP crossover? By your same argument, Thunderclash is behaving really out of character. He's nothing like what we read in the previous IDW comics.
Seriously though, what's interesting about your argument is that you're agreeing, but refusing to agree. It's not in the comic, which is my point. This is badly written, serves no purpose and thus is pandering.

Yes, had it been Elita and Optimus it would've been just as out of place. It would've been pandering to the Elita/Optimus shippers. You can paste whoever else you want to put in there, it's still bad. No build up, no pay off, no relation to the story at hand yet still positioned front and centre.
If you fail to grasp that, you're failing to grasp the point and are focusing solely on the fact that there are 2 guys kissing. Your entire post shows that you're not even reading or otherwise not understanding what's being said, especially with that weak dig at me at end.

As a result, the most interesting thing about this entire discussion is that apparently you're adamantly opposed to the idea of having Knockout/Breakdown shown earlier together in the comic in a scene either hinting or outright showing a relationship before a big kiss? That's...quite a stance to take. Would you like to explain why you have a thing against showing gay relationships?