More Than Meets the Eye - Ongoing series

[Llama God]

Oh yes, very much so. A nice build up for what's to come, and a great sense of foreboding.

Also, I think that confirmation that...

SPOILER: Click to show

Tarn is Roller is given by the fact that he's seen drinking innermost energon through a straw. Again, it's all down to a straw...

[Philip Ayres]

Also note how Tarn

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recalled Skids in his memories another hint Skids was Agent 113?

[KnightBeat]

It's a reasonably good issue, but I can't help feeling disappointed that

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Optimus Prime probably won't be on the Lost Light to face Tarn. Tarn clearly has unresolved issues with Prime over being abandoned.

[Fortmax2020]

...assuming fan theories are correct.

[Kingoji]

one of my earliest theories about agent 113 from waaaay back around LSotW was that he was Crosscut. This was based on the fact that Squadron X had another Crosscut in it's ranks, and mention is made that he were often mistaken for a member of the DJD. But since former senator Crosscut shares a body type with Skids, it's possible that the SX Crosscut were the victim of some third-removed mistaken identity. Shared Name > Shared Body > Chinese Whispers.

But that wouldn't really stand because it would imply that people knew either what this 'DJD Crosscut' looked like or what his real name was (since the districts they name themselves after are pseudonyms).

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Just read #39. Once I got past my usual MTMTE-over-humanising-TFs gripes (the chewing brain comment - Transformers don't eat like us, so don't chew - Tarn's face mask - he has a perfectly good robot face, TFs don't have to have human faces under them - the DJD bureaucracy - too identical to our civil service, should be completely different for robots - too little transforming to non-humanoid forms)... I loved the issue. Very entertaining throughout, and very TMUK, especially the final page, a big one for Destron fans. The best bit - Deathsaurus's box of explosives.

"Would you mind taking a couple of steps backwards?"

Martin

[Philip Ayres]

But isn't the point of Tarn's facemask to conceal his identity

SPOILER: Click to show

because he's Roller

?

[Fortmax2020]

That suggestion is still to be confirmed. Please modify future statements to reflect the speculative nature of fan thinking.

[Philip Ayres]

I think that it's concealing his identity isn't in dispute, just a little doubt on which identity it's concealing.

Which then asks the question why has he still got his original face when the rest of his body has been modified?

[Kingoji]

The mask may not be to hide his identity so much... after all, nothing has ever been said in-universe that would express a mystery in that regard, even when it is still a mystery to the reader (much like how everyone knew in Shadowplay that the senator was Shockwave, they just didn't need to say it amongst themselves). The DJD is much like IDW's Ultra Magnus... the identity they are most commonly known for is fixed, but if they are killed someone else 'becomes' them. Hence the mask of Tarn is probably more ceremonial than anything.
Also of interest is that if Tarn *is*

SPOILER: Click to show

Roller,

then that would imply that he has filled that role since the founding of the DJD, which might explain why he has no fear of his compatriots despite his, shall we say, displeasure of their savagery.

[Kingoji]

My personal bugbear with MTMTE is the constant introduction of entirely new characters, and it's something that grows a little every time it happens. Nickel? Why not, for example, use a random Mini-con that was a blank slate? It's not like she would ever need to be described as such, but it's far more exciting for older fans to see a re-purposed old character than a brand new one, and new fans would still be discovering someone for the first time anyway. And Riptide? What has he brought to the table that's unique, and why could Manta Ray or an upscaled Seawatch not have filled that same role? And to me, the DJD was never as exciting as when they were just a repeatedly-mentioned group that fans could speculate over which old Decepticons might be candidates for.

It's not so much a complaint, I just can't get behind the logic of it sometimes. It works with the likes of Rung or Pharma, because Rung is a complete enigma and they needed the reader to not know Pharma was a villain right away, which would rule out the use of someone like Tarantulas.

[Philip Ayres]

Tarn's mask might be to hide his identity from the Autobots not the Decepticons.

[Llama God]

Oddly enough, I don't have any complaints myself about the introduction of new characters. Which is odd, considering how annoyed I got when Michael Bay invented new characters for the films. Maybe that's because we're getting new characters but not at the expense of any of the legion of established, well-known characters in the comic, or maybe it's just because James does it better. Either way, I don't have an issue with the introduction of Nickel. Nickel exists to tell a particular part of the story, that might cause too much issue if existing characters were to be used (see, for example, the use of Micromasters and Gorlam Prime), so that's fine. To me, anyway.

The only issue I'd have with it at all, I guess, is that we've had a massive number of "new"/non-main characters used in the most recent few issues, and I really, really want to get back to the core crew of the Lost Light. Those are the guys I have fun with, and those are the guys (and gals) I want to see. So I'm impatient for that. But I also have every faith that what Roberts did in this most recent issue was to lay the groundwork for some serious consequences for those characters that I love in the very near future. It'll all work as part of the whole...

[legios]

I'm quite enjoying the fact that we are getting new characters introduced in MTME. One of the things I remember fondly from the Marvel Comic is that we would occasionally get a bunch of new Robots turn up - like the guys who Auntie sent out to fight Shockwave being unearthed by Ratchet or us cutting back to Cybertron and meeting an Autobot resistance cell or the worst sociopaths in the Deception "Government" - and we would have the opportunity to get to know these new folk and this would shake up the status quo. When IDW's Transformers comics started we had a little bit of that with us meeting their versions of some familiar names, because the IDW versions were not necessarily identical to either their counterparts in either the Marvel Comic or the Sunbow Cartoon (some were - hello Shockwave, but others even iconic names like "Optimus Prime" and "Megatron" had significant differences). Over time that ship gas well and truly sailed, and now we have come to the point where any "known name" that is introduced is probably going to hew to some recogniseable hybrid of their Sunbow or Marvel personalities (with the balance seeming to be dependent on the writer of the particular book)* In that light I like the introduction of either wholly new characters like Nickel, or ones without previous development like Thunderclash because they come without the burden of expectations and are an unknown quantity who we get to learn about as we go.

This is one of the underlying reasons why I've dropped IDWs "Transformers". I found myself kind of disappointed when the answer to "what is Sky-Lynx like in this universe?" was "The same as in the Sunbow show". It wasn't the main reason, but in the absence of a particularly engaging plot it did seal the book's fate for me.

Karl

*One day I am going to have to sit down and analyse this whole trend of how the term "G1" has metamorphosed from identifying the original Sunbow cartoon and to folding in first the Dreamwave comic and then Marvel and later IDWs output. I think there is an interesting shift there that I suspect has some basis in changes in the nature, size and cohesiveness of Fandom. But this isn't the post for that. And also, there doesn't seem to be a research grant on offer, and whats left of the MRBC takes a dim view of Pro Bono work and I still like to drink in Mer...Freelance Peacekeeper bars.

[legios]

Apr 14, 2015 10:08:06 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Tarn's mask might be to hide his identity from the Autobots not the Decepticons.

Or in a psychological sense to hide it from himself. Masks are very important in ritual terms as a means of "othering" the self, not just from onlookers but also from the wearer. In many shamanic traditions once someone dons a mask they are socially accepted as being a different entity to that which they are without the mask. Tarn's mask may represent his way of dealing with an internal dissonance between who he has to be and who he still feels he is. This would fit if he had been a convert to the cause who has never quite squared his view of the idealistic revolution he intended to join and what the movement has become. (The same might explain his wish to do the job "right" instead of "fun" like some of the rest of the DJD).

Karl

[Bogatan]

All for new characters here too. Partially because if the marvel comics hadn't done it there'd be no Impactor, Xarron, Straxus, RacknRuin, Jhiaxus and assorted bit players. Partly because I got sick to death of the habit of sticking in "unimportant" transformers in the background or having them used as cannon fodder.

Not that I'm against inserting an under used character in to a role, thats essentially MTMTEs gimmick, but as we dont know Nickels fate it too soon to know if she is the next big thing or cannon fodder.

[Bogatan]

Apr 14, 2015 14:04:19 GMT legios said:

*One day I am going to have to sit down and analyse this whole trend of how the term "G1" has metamorphosed from identifying the original Sunbow cartoon and to folding in first the Dreamwave comic and then Marvel and later IDWs output. I think there is an interesting shift there that I suspect has some basis in changes in the nature, size and cohesiveness of Fandom. But this isn't the post for that. And also, there doesn't seem to be a research grant on offer, and whats left of the MRBC takes a dim view of Pro Bono work and I still like to drink in Mer...Freelance Peacekeeper bars.

I don't remember it ever just referring to the sunbow cartoon. From the day I walked in to a toy shop while on holiday in America in 1993 and saw the whole first wave of G2, by default everything before that became G1 just for convenience. And as a brit I even get to ignore that awkward bit when Hasbro dropped the G2 branding on the later waves in the States, which essentially put G2 in the same bracket as Headmasters etc. rather than something totally separate like Armada.

But I can see how in those days everyone would have had the time and relative isolation to interpret the idea of G1 in their own way.

Dreamwave I think is probably the big culprit. Selling the comic as Generation 1 made sense at the time to distinguish it from Armada, but did set a precedent that anything using something close the to original Transformers characters and forms should be defined as G1 which just makes the term increasingly ill defined.

[Kingoji]

My issue is more along the lines of the frequency of brand new characters introduced (and their importance or uniqueness justifying their creation) against the hundreds of established cast which yet languish in an occasional crowd scene if they're lucky. Like I say, what does Riptide bring to the series that a blank (but known) slate like Seawatch (or even Seaspray in this continuity) cannot? I mean, as an example, James has said in the past that both Swerve and Tailgate were only used because his initial desires couldn't be met, with RiD taking Bluestreak (whose role was then given to Swerve) and Powerglide turning up in a battle and removing the possibility of his supposing to have been buried for millenia (which then became tailgate). Neither of the two we have have personalities that mesh with the little that was canon about them before, but there's no complaints about it.
So since it has been proven that the series can and will take names that did next to nothing and create what many will forever consider the definitive characters for them, why doesn't it happen more often?

I am still a little bummed that the DJD are all 'brand new' characters because speculating about them was part of what was interesting about them. But I'm less bothered by it the more I see it. Probably helped by the whole angle of speculation that still exists around Tarn.

And, y'know, then thing to remember about the times Marvel introduced it's comic-only cast is that even the issues that introduced them typically introduced a few more 'actual' Transformers at the same time, and certainly far more often than they made them up. Also, when the comics made a guy up scratch, you could guarantee that 99% of the time they would be dead by the end of the story.

I think it might not help for me that MTMTE is very much fixed and finite in it's backdrop. We've got a couple hundred characters on board the Lost Light, including many people's long-time favourites (for me it's Smokescreen), and that kind of leads one to hope that the series might spend more time among that crew since none of them are going anywhere. But instead these new characters keep turning up for every new arc, and your hopes for seeing that fave that you KNOW is aboard is dashed for another four to six issues.

[Kingoji]

I'm sounding more pissed off about this than I actually am. It's still like in the top two TF comics ever written. It's just, like, y'know... come on. I'm waiting on guys. Have been since the series* started. And they are Prime fodder for *any* new role given to the new guys.

*by 'series' I mean the entirety of IDW's output.

[legios]

I don't remember it ever just referring to the sunbow cartoon. From the day I walked in to a toy shop while on holiday in America in 1993 and saw the whole first wave of G2, by default everything before that became G1 just for convenience. And as a brit I even get to ignore that awkward bit when Hasbro dropped the G2 branding on the later waves in the States, which essentially put G2 in the same bracket as Headmasters etc. rather than something totally separate like Armada.

My recollection of they way it was used on A.T.T - the only major gathering spot of "organised fandom" I was aware of. (Queue "Sneakers" quote - "Don't kid yourself. It's not that organised") was that the term "G1" was used to distinguish the original Sunbow show from the "Generation Two" edit with the Cybernet Spacecube, and certainly in that environment the tacit understanding was the "Transformers" _was_ the Sunbow series. The comic was an odd spin-off and, of course, there were toys but they were not seen as anywhere as important as "the real thing". So it was a term I mostly ran across in contexts like:-

"That was another thing the comic got wrong. It was always clear in G1 that Soundwave had made his tapes because he and they behave like they are his children."

or

"In pretty much every episode of G1 Optimus Prime's trailer disappears whenever he transforms."

Whereas the Marvel comic was never referred to as G1 - always as "Marvel" or "the comic".

The term may well have been being used with other meanings elsewhere, but at the time a.t.t was the only form of organised TF fandom I was aware of.

Dreamwave I think is probably the big culprit. Selling the comic as Generation 1 made sense at the time to distinguish it from Armada, but did set a precedent that anything using something close the to original Transformers characters and forms should be defined as G1 which just makes the term increasingly ill defined.

That is actually the only thing I can think of - in terms of media - that actually is called "Generation One". :-) (And now I've said that I'm sure someone who is actually knowledgeable will be able to point out what I've missed).

And actually I never had any problem with that title - because it was clear from the first issue that they were doing a comic based on the Sunbow cartoon from the outset, so it seemed almost like a mission statement to me.

Karl

[Bogatan]

I'm never sure how well Dreamwave tied to the cartoon as I have little interest in rereading it, but I agree it did at least follow the basic premise of Ark crashing to earth that as I said elsewhere on this topic is kind of a better definition for G1 as it mostly only applies to fiction from the 80s. It still muddied the water though. Heroes of Cybertron and the minibot Keyrings came out around the same time so its pretty obvious Hasbro was deliberately using the branding. Where the Hasbro reissues Gen 1 branded too?

[Bogatan]

Apr 14, 2015 15:15:25 GMT Kingoji said:

I'm sounding more pissed off about this than I actually am. It's still like in the top two TF comics ever written. It's just, like, y'know... come on. I'm waiting on guys. Have been since the series* started. And they are Prime fodder for *any* new role given to the new guys.

*by 'series' I mean the entirety of IDW's output.

I totally get where you are coming from. I'm still waiting for Gears to get another starring role.

... And Actionmaster Thundercracker.....

But at the same time sometimes you need a new character because an existing character, however ill defined previously, is going to cause the wrong reaction from the reader.

In the case of Nickel I can imagine if Roberts had written an existing toy as female that had not originally been very specifically been stated as female there would have been ridiculous and probably angry/pathetic reaction in some quarters.

Having said that has Paradon Medic ever been in IDW?

[Philip Ayres]

Not yet

tfwiki.net/wiki/Paradron_Medic_%28G1%29

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Apr 14, 2015 9:49:46 GMT Kingoji said:

My personal bugbear with MTMTE is the constant introduction of entirely new characters, and it's something that grows a little every time it happens. Nickel? Why not, for example, use a random Mini-con that was a blank slate? It's not like she would ever need to be described as such, but it's far more exciting for older fans to see a re-purposed old character than a brand new one

Not me, if it weren't too late I'd like to ban old characters being "re-purposed". When it happens it's not really an old character being re-used, it's an old name and design being re-used for a new character. IDW Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, etc. are new characters re-using the names, approximate looks and colour schemes of different characters who were in the original comic. It serves a marketing purpose, but no justifiable storytelling purpose. So I say bring on brand new non-toy characters like Nickel and the DJD, and toy characters like Swerve and Deathsaurus who never lived in the Marvel universe. They can become the definitive comic incarnations of Swerve and Deathsaurus, something IDW's Impactor, Rodimus, even Tailgate and Whirl can never be. Even when superior to the original, as is unarguably the case with Whirl and Tailgate who barely appeared in Marvel, they will always be homage acts.

Re: Tarn:

1. Transformers who want to hide their identity don't need to keep their original faces, or bodies for that matter.

2. Colour aside, Transformers who have humanoid faces all have pretty much the same face. Only TFs with non-standard faces are recognisable by their faces.

3. My objection was to the implication that because Tarn's face was non-human, it was for that reason known to be a mask.

4. James Roberts defies expectations, misdirects and surprises his readers. If fandom predicts that a big shock reveal will be that Tarn is XXXXXX, you can bet he won't be.

Martin

[Kingoji]

At this point I honestly think it's 50/50, because there are just as many people saying the above as saying it is so and so. It's surprise the same amount of folks either way.

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{Spoiler}That said, right now I could just as easily see it being Terminus as Roller. It would explain why he's so devout to the teachings if he had a hand in getting them written down.

[primenova]

I need to get #34, 36+ but read #35 last night so don't know how much the time travel stuff effects the story - but it could explain most DJD stuff if it turns up more. (not been reading spoilers on here)

[Philip Ayres]

Issue 40 preview

www.comicbookresources.com/comic-previews/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-40-idw-2015

THIS WEEK

"You sound like Ultra Magnus"
"Five words one Never wants to hear"

[Benn]

Well. First page. Those feels.

[Kingoji]

When did Brendan Cahill become amazing?

[Andy Turnbull]

His work on not RID was absolutely top notch.

Andy