Character discussion : This Week 'Fortress Maximus'

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:51 pm

So what do we know about old maxy?

Optimus Prime Rib · Post by **Optimus Prime Rib** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:01 pm

Ive posted a few times what I think of Max. He got Spike killed.

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:03 pm

Didn't he run away from the war, flayling arms an' all??

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:13 pm

I thought the way he deserted the war on Cybertron was damn irresponsible.

The way he fled to a heavily populated planet like Nebulos was damn stupid.

If anything, Galen and Spike gave him more balls.

His finest moment is probably his defeat of Galvatron. A good fight, though at the time I was slightly unconvinced he could manage such a feat.

Optimus Prime Rib · Post by **Optimus Prime Rib** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:21 pm

I hate Max because he had so much wasted potential. Hell Ratchet was a better warrior. Bumblebee had more balls it felt.

Post by **Best First** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:22 pm

a very inconsistantly written character, in terms of both personality and power levels;

1) He's a frigging coward and idiot who is happy to leave a hole in the War effort and jeoporidise a peacefull planet
2) under Galen, wo himself has a massive eprsonality shift, he becomes Mr Warmonger
3) He essentially becomes Spike
4) In Timewars he is bloody nutter attacking the future bots as he does. And he seems quite capable of rough housing with Roddy - plus no signs of Spikes personality
5) Then he gets done by Megs in one panal - what?
6) Then its bloody Spike again
7) Then we actually get both personalities working together and suddenly he can have Galvy (which i admit i rather enjoyed)

Then in g2 Spike has receretd to his 'its not my war' line even tho he seems to have gotten over that at the end of G1.

Bit of a mess really. I like the end of G1/G2 stuff best - but for teh most part his character seemed to be twisted to suit the story and we don't have much real insight into who he really is or what hsi motivations are.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:32 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:The way he fled to a heavily populated planet like Nebulos was damn stupid.

His plan to show the Nebulons that they meant no harm was bloody stupid, too.

"Oh, here's my head. Never give it back to me, even if the war I ran from follows me here."

Talk about absolution from responsibility.

Somewhere on Nebulos is Fort Max's head, still sat there quite happily not having to worry about the lives he ruined and the damage he caused.

I dislike him.

ShadowSonic · Post by **ShadowSonic** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:51 pm

One thing I never understood, why did Fort Max attack the future Autobots in Time Wars? Didn't he recognize Kup and Rodimus (he still looks like Hot Rod!)?

kevinjohnson999 · Post by **kevinjohnson999** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:52 pm

I find it difficult to believe that Maximus had Galvatron to be honest! It was a nice way of tidying up the war on Earth though...

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:05 pm

ShadowSonic wrote:One thing I never understood, why did Fort Max attack the future Autobots in Time Wars? Didn't he recognize Kup and Rodimus (he still looks like Hot Rod!)?

The data tracks were in his head on Nebulos

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:40 pm

I always disliked the treatment of Spike in G2 GI Joe stuff...it's really obvious that he's not a Joe, he's not part of any of their plotlines and he just seems to be treated as if he's completely expendable. I get the impression the writers had no respect for him whatsoever.

One place where the cartoon had the advantage over the comic was that they actually characterised Cerebros, while in the comic, we only ever saw him in the sequences where "Spike becomes the head of Cerebros, who in turn becomes the head of Fortress Maximus!" Did Cerebros have any personality of his own?

And did Max need Spike and Cerebros to function or was Cerebros by himself sufficient?

And why was there no Cerebros in G2?

Max also loses points here for size inconsistency. He grew and shrank according to the phases of the moon, as far as I can tell.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:52 pm

Metal Vendetta wrote:One place where the cartoon had the advantage over the comic was that they actually characterised Cerebros

Yeah, but the cartoon didn't characterise Fort Max, though.

The cartoon treated FM as an extension of the Cerebros/Spike bond; whilst the comic treated Cerebros as just an intermediary step between Galen/Spike and Max. Well, when the comic remembered the gadget existed.

If that makes sense.

Cartoon = Cerebros is the robot, Max is an extra bit
Comic = Max is the robot, Cerebros is the extra bit

Really it's down to the omission of Cerebros from the Headmasters mini. Which I think was a smart step to try and keep Fort Max on the same size scale as Scorponok, but was completely undermined by the addition of the unit as soon as they hit the main series.

Could have been quite different if Cerebros had been introduced in the original arc.

What do we think of the characterisation of Fortress Maximus in the Headmasters cartoon? Remembering that the little little guy is Fort Max, and the "Cerebros" body is just a battle suit (if you will), and then the giant FM is an even bigger one. Was that a wise way for them to do it?

A bit of me prefers the Takara take to the human/robot amalgam (which they themselves would tackle in Masterforce).

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:07 pm

haha I love him in G2, he spends the whole issue sneaking up on megs, then dies, wicked!

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:13 pm

so then - in the name of quantifying everything

Greatest moment:?

Worst moment:?

Fan popularity Rating:?

Greates moment, taking the war from Nebulous and worst moment leaving the autobots and bring the war to nebulous?
Also failing to rescue dano and totaly wrecking fort-max in spikes failed assult on ratbats undersea base/spacehip.

Speaking of headmaster bonding, Maxy and Scorpy seem to be the only decent characters were gain an understanding of in the Headmaster process. the only other detailed fleshy-TF bonding would be Fracas and nightstick, and Hi-Q

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:16 pm

I think his greatest moment is when he twats the all-powerful Galvatron by getting him slightly wet.

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:21 pm

kevinjohnson999 wrote:I find it difficult to believe that Maximus had Galvatron to be honest! It was a nice way of tidying up the war on Earth though...

Yes, Galvatron survived a punch from Unicron earlier, perhaps Furman just wanted to retire Galvie for a while

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:48 pm

Yeah, I think we all know Galvy didn't die.
Furman could have made it less ambigious and had him blown to bits. But didn't, which is good. Let Fort Max have his moment of glory.

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:26 pm

spiderfrommars wrote:Yeah, I think we all know Galvy didn't die.
Furman could have made it less ambigious and had him blown to bits. But didn't, which is good. Let Fort Max have his moment of glory.

Armada Megs killed him instead.

AHHHHHHGG!! I just hate that sooooooo much!

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:36 pm

Brendocon wrote:I think his greatest moment is when he twats the all-powerful Galvatron by getting him slightly wet.

this is after he survied a volcanic eruption...

maybe the swarm got him...

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:46 pm

Oh yeah, welcome kevinjohnson999 to the board peeps.

I invited him to join us when I saw that he was a UK comics fan as well.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:01 pm

Welcome Kev!

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:21 pm

Welcome to the loony bin!

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:01 pm

Is he local?

Post by **Best First** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:22 pm

Hello!

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:36 pm

Bonjour!

bobaprime85 · Post by **bobaprime85** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:49 pm

Welcome Kev! You'll never get out alive.

Darth Aux wrote:
spiderfrommars wrote:Yeah, I think we all know Galvy didn't die.
Furman could have made it less ambigious and had him blown to bits. But didn't, which is good. Let Fort Max have his moment of glory.
Armada Megs killed him instead.

AHHHHHHGG!! I just hate that sooooooo much!

Best. Armada Moment. Ever.

Anyway, I'm not that surprised that Max took out Galvy, since having a "Galvatron goes on rampage. Again" story would have been fairly pointless. Besides, after beating the crap out of damn near everyone in Time Wars*, Galvy really did just need a simple ass-kicking. Hook, Line and Sinker don't count.

Fort Max? A rather stupid leader that should have had some kind of official reprimand for abandoning the Autobots in the state they were in, and taking a sizeable force with him. And then taking the war to an innocent planet. Friggin' irresponsible.

*which deserves a 6, by the way

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:15 pm

An irresponsible prat that had potential but was just to dumb to look at the bigger picture at times.

veritech · Post by **veritech** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:32 pm

It is interesting to read the comments reguarding Cerebros/For Max. Did anyone else remember that in a few issues of the Headmasters Mini, Fort Max actually had the head of Cerebros!

What I mean is that Cerebros transformed into a a giant version of his own head!!! . . . which was then attached to Fort Max body.

Now, obviously this is a mistake on the part of the artist, but what a mistake! I cannot believe that any self-respecting editor would let this one get by!

As a kid reading this comic, I really had no idea what was going on when I saw this mistake . . . very confusing.

But I never really got the "concept" of Headmasters. Did the Nebulos/human actually become the larger tf's personality (did the human actually control the tf body)?? Was the tf basically just a mech suit for the human? That's the way Scorponok was portrayed. But later, as has been stated by other posts, Fort Max actually dialogues with Spike, thus implying that his personality (spark, dare I say) remains intact.

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:40 pm

I liked the personality of Fort Max (and Scorponok for that matter).

But I think it sucked that we also lost 2 citybots.

I wish that Fort Max and Scorpie were redesigned.

The orgininal (toy) concept was like this:

Spike > Cerebros > Fortress Maximus

Zarak > Scorponok

My personal concept would have been like this:

Spike/Galen > Cerebros (as a mini Fort Max) > Fortress Maximus (citybot)

Zarak > Megazarak (a mini Scorponok) > Scorponok (citybot)

That way we would still have a smaller Transformer to interact like they did in the comics.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:46 pm

veritech wrote:Did anyone else remember that in a few issues of the Headmasters Mini, Fort Max actually had the head of Cerebros!

What I mean is that Cerebros transformed into a a giant version of his own head!!! . . . which was then attached to Fort Max body.

Now, obviously this is a mistake on the part of the artist, but what a mistake! I cannot believe that any self-respecting editor would let this one get by!

As a kid reading this comic, I really had no idea what was going on when I saw this mistake . . . very confusing.

Well, to be accurate, Cerebros didn't exist in the comic until the 'new breeds' were on their way to Earth.

What you saw was Max with Cerebros' head: Galen becoming Cerebros' head, and Max putting it on, rather than Cerebros becoming a giant form of his own head.