MTMTE #9 Review

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Wed Sep 26, 2012 2:13 pm

Just finished reading it. Brilliant issue - the best since the Fortress Maximus stand-off issue.

And another excellent cliffhanger that's sure to make someone I know very sad indeed.

More soon after a little more reflection.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Wed Sep 26, 2012 8:42 pm

Just brilliant.

This is turning out to be a truly special series.

The RID annual is also pretty good.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:31 am

Fantastic. Never been so upset to have a cliffhanger. And a good cliffhanger in the middle of a relatively quiet story!

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:59 am

One of my favorite issues thus far.

The presentation of this story is the best yet. Love the clever way Roberts is narrating this story through different members of the cast.

How bout Rung! "Was he behind the counter the whole time?" Laughed out loud at Rewinds "Tadaa!" moment.

That mail-away Powerdasher bot with the drillbit head! He's even in it!

Kickass cover by Milne, by the way. One of the best yet.

Mystery element. Check. Humor. Check. Suspense. Check. All the ingredients that make Roberts series one of the top comic series out there.

One thing I think might be in order is a few pages in the back defining some of the endless terms and names James churns out. Like the Triple M, etc. It's getting kind of hard to keep all these 'movements' straight, so maybe giving us one page at the end that defines these things would help. When they're mentioned, I'm not sure if it's for the first time or something new.

"A+"

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 10:45 am

I'm absolutely loving Milne's work on this now. I use to dislike his work, but now he's reigned in the hyper-detailing and upped the range of expressions in his characters he's really doing it for me.

Missed him a lot on the MTMTE Annual (which frankly had godawful art!).

And yeh, this issue was full of plenty of twist and turns. Loved seeing Nightbeat back for a quick cameo. Also enjoyed the smooth transition from character to character as each takes centre stage in the narrative. Really superb writing on the whole - and of course Robert's Prowl is back!

On a side note I really enjoyed the RID Annual too. The last three issues of RID have gone a long way in restoring my faith in Barber's writing. The Annual provides a satisfying conclusion to the story begun in the MTMTE equivalent - I especially enjoyed the homage to the first issue of TF.

Post by **Kaylee** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 11:42 am

I was genuinely sad when I ran out of pages of this to read

Post by **snarl** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:46 pm

It was very good wasn't it.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:50 pm

Very dense, lovely stuff. I was initially unsure how they were going to keep up this framing device for three issues when every "He said she said" gag had been done already by Ratchet and Drift, but the introduction of a proper present day plot at the end stopped that fear.

Hard to pick out favourite bits, everything from Nightbeat (surprised its taken Roberts that long to sneak him in), the Red Dwarfish (again!) way Chromedome works out Sherma was killed by the Decepticons; my annoyance at Rung's non-death being cancelled out by it being turned into a plot catalyst here; Sonic and Boom being reused in a way that underlined the random connections factor... well everything. Possibly my favourite issue yet.

And whilst it's nice it looks like we're going to get an explanation for Autocracy ignoring the previous "Megatron and Prime first fought at Sherma bridge" claims, I'd much rather the book just tell Autocracy to [composite word including 'f*ck'] off.

The ever improving Alex Milne really hit it out the park this month. I've already waxed lyrical about how he doesn't seem like the same guy who did Origin but this feels like the end of an upward curve he's been on since the already very good second issue.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:50 am

Yaya wrote:One thing I think might be in order is a few pages in the back defining some of the endless terms and names James churns out. Like the Triple M, etc. It's getting kind of hard to keep all these 'movements' straight, so maybe giving us one page at the end that defines these things would help. When they're mentioned, I'm not sure if it's for the first time or something new.

I think it might defeat the point - James's writing style very deliberately sets out these seemingly minor references which are then revealed to be crucial to the plot later. Like Trailbreaker first mentioned the Necrobot in issue #3 as an example of something that didn't really exist. Or the occasional references to the mysterious "Institute" are bound to hugely relevant to an upcoming story, probably Skids's past. If you do get stuck, there's always the wiki which will usually have every reference so far collected on one handy page: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Militant_Monoform_Movement - one thing I've noticed there is that the better a TF series is, the quicker the articles get written about it and the MTMTE articles are flying up these days.

This was a great issue. I was worried that its flashbackiness would stymie plot development on the Lost Light. I needn't have worried.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 8:55 am

Metal Vendetta wrote: I think it might defeat the point - James's writing style very deliberately sets out these seemingly minor references which are then revealed to be crucial to the plot later. Like Trailbreaker first mentioned the Necrobot in issue #3 as an example of something that didn't really exist. Or the occasional references to the mysterious "Institute" are bound to hugely relevant to an upcoming story, probably Skids's past.

There have been a few others as well, Magnus only ever having smiled once being there in the character profiles right from the start as the set up for a gag nearly a year later is a good sign of how insanely micro-plotted this is.

There's clearly a huge, huge amount of forethought and planning been put into this this (something that was also very evident in some of the "This bit will be important in one of the ongoings" notes in the Chaos Theory scripts).

But with enough tug to allow for wild flights of fancy like buffing up Swerve's role more that originally intended or creating an entirely new issue two at the penultimate hour when they realised there wasn't enough room in the first issue to have the Skids and 1984 bots turn up on Cybertron as well (going into writing issue one the Sparkeater plot would have been the second issue).

Both Roberts and Barber- who as editor and general co-conspirator probably doesn't get as much credit as he deserves even if his own book is the slightly anaemic one- have done a masterful job there. And it's clever, because it creates tension out of even the most minor and throwaway of gag lines, it keeps us looking out for the next hint of what's going to bite our heroes arses next (though Luna One can't be far off, they've been dropping bigger and bigger bombs about that from the off).

I mean, I am a cynical bugger. And I certainly still have my issues with IDW as a company still (events in recent weeks over distribution issues reminding us that the only real difference between them and Dreamwave is Chris Ryall pays and thus doesn't own a Porsche) but the simple trick of getting two people who know their **** running the Transformers side of things and leaving them alone with it is paying dividends.

James Roberts neatly combines two things in one package, being a super nerd fan and a great writer.

They don't always go togther- Ben Yee is likely a lovely chap and someone who has done a lot for fandom but letting him near the Beast Wars comics was a huge huge mistake. For a small yet telling piece of where his influence was malign, there's no attempt in the second mini to explain what the hell the green goo that the entire plot revolves around is to anyone who hasn't seen the relevant Japanese show.

Which is just about everyone reading except Ben Yee (and I'll put that down to him rather than Furman because Simon is actually pretty good at that sort of thing; like how we get all the info we need on Berko very quickly in ReGen One for his cameo to work for new readers- he's a guy who runs a space circus that flies about a lot).

And of course, sometimes you get someone who isn't even slightly a fan and can't write and we call them Mike Costa.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:41 am

What i also love is how quickly things move - i think back to late 90's x-men where things like "what was Gambit's connection to Sinister" and "who was the third Summer's brother" would drag on for years and either be forgotten or drip fed and teased.

Here - things get set up, knocked down, There is a sense that things that are teased will have at least some resolutuion in the near future - it's great.

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:42 am

Anyone else get a sort of "Battlestar Gallactica*" vibe about MTMTE - the different dynamics that exit between the various crew members, the foreshadowing, the utterly compelling mythology, the feeling that no one is untouchable, the episodic-nature-running-parallel-to-an-overarching-plot-structure, etc, etc.

It's brilliant stuff.

* Reboot version, not the camp 60s show

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:03 pm

The thing I love most about MTMTE is that Roberts has done something that I have been hoping for since the later days of Marvel. He has created a new crew of bots that we have gotten to know very well and has made us care about them as much as the original Ark crew.

In the past, it was more about adding dimensions to the regular cast that we've known for over two decades. It was always a mystery to me why other writers did not take obscure characters and make them their own. James has done that, and I think aside from him, perhaps Hasbro deserves credit for finally freeing up their comic book talent to do whatever they want with it. Despite my being unimpressed by the work of writers like McCarthy and Costa, I will give them some slack because I'm sure Hasbro mandate did not allow for things they no doubt wanted to do. Not to say they would have done well by it, but no doubt their hands were tied. I think Hasbro has pretty much given free reign now. Barber admitted as much in a recent interview in fact.

Breaking that 'Hasbro' wall down may very well lead to even greater possibilities in the future. I've said it before, it's a good time to be a Transfan.

Post by **Best First** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:10 pm

Mr_Tigg wrote:Anyone else get a sort of "Battlestar Gallactica*" vibe about MTMTE - the different dynamics that exit between the various crew members, the foreshadowing, the utterly compelling mythology, the feeling that no one is untouchable, the episodic-nature-running-parallel-to-an-overarching-plot-structure, etc, etc.

It's brilliant stuff.

* Reboot version, not the camp 60s show

In a word; Yes.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:43 pm

Yaya wrote: I think Hasbro has pretty much given free reign now.

Given that this is the first TF comic I've read with a fairly graphic illustration of hard drug use, I think we can assume that.

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 1:25 pm

James Robert has just joined twitter if anyone else wants more amusing wordy bits penned by our favourite TF scribe -

https://twitter.com/jroberts332

Post by **snarl** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 5:50 pm

The writing style actually reminds me of Buffy

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 6:05 pm

Metal Vendetta wrote:
Yaya wrote: I think Hasbro has pretty much given free reign now.
Given that this is the first TF comic I've read with a fairly graphic illustration of hard drug use, I think we can assume that.

Drift as a space smack head before we knew him was a McCarthy idea wasn't it? Mind, I may be misremembering as that mini was amazingly bad, being basically everything Drift looked like he was going to be in AHM but actually managed to just about avoid. Him inspiring Megatron because he's awesome being the worst Mary Sue moment.

IIRC Blurr does have what's effective electronic drug addiction with the drooling idiots in the corner of the bar plugged into the VR game thing.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:52 am

inflatable dalek wrote:Drift as a space smack head before we knew him was a McCarthy idea wasn't it? Mind, I may be misremembering as that mini was amazingly bad, being basically everything Drift looked like he was going to be in AHM but actually managed to just about avoid. Him inspiring Megatron because he's awesome being the worst Mary Sue moment.

Uh, I only have vague recollections of the Drift series, but I don't think we saw him quite as whacked out of his head as we do here.

inflatable dalek wrote:IIRC Blurr does have what's effective electronic drug addiction with the drooling idiots in the corner of the bar plugged into the VR game thing.

Yeah, "Simultronics", but I don't think Blurr ever tried them? Wasn't he saved from that by Starscream?

On a related note, this issue also contains the first canon reference to a Predabot. Now that's scary.