MTMTE #34 preview

[Metal Vendetta]

Click here for spoilery goodness

So... a new faction - the Black Block Consortia, more from Towards Peace, a mystery Cybertronian and a flashback to Froid on Messatine. This could be a great issue, though what Roberts is saying about #35 on Twitter makes me suspect that this is only the warm-up.

[Computron]

Love First Aid as a character and it looks like he might get some screentime for the next story arc. Also his alt-mode got fixed apparently!

Also love that Trailcutter is reading Towards Peace. It's apropo that the TF equivalent of a functioning alcoholic is now reorganizing his life and looking for "something better" to latch on to, just like a lot of real addicts do. Hell, if Roberts decided to actually write Towards Peace, I'd buy it. I'm really interested to see if Megatron will continue following the path of Malcolm X. Start off wanting change, becoming radicalized and then later in life trying to atone for the violence.

It's been said before, but just 2 or 3 TF's having a conversation in MTMTE is more riveting and exciting than a thousand battle scenes.

Edit - So the BBC is the new potentially evil faction on the scene. hehehehe.

[bumblemusprime]

Hey, I'm not that annoyed by the guest art!

Hm. I might get that urge to fanfic again.

[Metal Vendetta]

Also love that Trailcutter is reading Towards Peace. It's apropo that the TF equivalent of a functioning alcoholic is now reorganizing his life and looking for "something better" to latch on to, just like a lot of real addicts do.

Yep, magnificent characterisation there. Curious to see where that goes - could Trailcutter end up becoming something of a Megs fanboy?

[Computron]

Also love that Trailcutter is reading Towards Peace. It's apropo that the TF equivalent of a functioning alcoholic is now reorganizing his life and looking for "something better" to latch on to, just like a lot of real addicts do.

Yep, magnificent characterisation there. Curious to see where that goes - could Trailcutter end up becoming something of a Megs fanboy?

It would fit. Megs "cures" Trailcutter of his alcoholism and puts him on the path to a better life. Now Trailcutter has Megs to idolize. Megatron may have been a bad dude, but even evil tyrants have to have some level of charisma to pull off their rise to power.

Megs has the sort of charisma that people who are scared or facing uncertain times naturally gravitate to.

[Bumblebot]

Megs has the sort of charisma that people who are scared or facing uncertain times naturally gravitate to.

So, come election day, he'll be leading the pub crawl to round up the remaining floating voters?

[snarl]

It's good **** ent eet.

RiD though... bollocks to it, who wants to help me pitch something to them?

[bumblemusprime]

If you got the line, I got the story.

[snarl]

I have no inside line - was literally just going to follow the steps the the professionals list should you google "how to pitch a comic"

What's your idea boyo?

For me, the power vacuum situation in RiD just screams gritty Post Iraq War type plot possibility at me, not the lacklustre am dram politi-bollocks they're currently doing.

[Computron]

For me, the power vacuum situation in RiD just screams gritty Post Iraq War type plot possibility at me, not the lacklustre am dram politi-bollocks they're currently doing.

The problem is that from IDW's perspective I think that's what they tried to do, but it came off as ham-fisted and full of gestalts and inner monologues for some reason.

Ultimately though, RiD never has had a compelling villain. It still doesn't. I think if you want to build a counter-proposal to RiD I think you need to start with a credible source of conflict. Bumblebee's angst certainly wasn't it, and despite their attempts to build Starscream as a Petyr Littlefinger Baelish type character, it only ever worked when James Roberts wrote that beautiful soliloquy during Megatron's trial.

The less said about Galvatron the better.

I think Soundwave would be an excellent choice as a nemesis who isn't a blithering idiot or angry buffoon. Really you need someone who provides authority and stability in the face of chaos and uncertainty. V for Vendetta in the Transformers universe. Normally you'd choose Shockwave for this kind of situation but, well, we saw what happened there.

Some other contenders could be:

Straxus
Sixshot
Razorclaw

Or just straight up invent a new TF.

[bumblemusprime]

I have no inside line - was literally just going to follow the steps the the professionals list should you google "how to pitch a comic"

What's your idea boyo?

For me, the power vacuum situation in RiD just screams gritty Post Iraq War type plot possibility at me, not the lacklustre am dram politi-bollocks they're currently doing.

Problem is, the most interesting side trail I've seen in the books so far was the question of the Circle of Light--that's where I would go automatically. Presumably that's why they are doing the upcoming Drift mini, which will be bollocks.

Hm...

I don't really have a problem with Barber's direction, it's his execution. The concept of Galvatron is fine. He's a commander from a more brutal time--a kind of Hannibal in the 21st century. Problem is, he is totally not acting like Hannibal. Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun and every one of those "barbarian" (have to take a shot at colonialism) warriors brought some kind of brilliant strategy to the battlefield. The Mongols could change directions because of their flag system. Hannibal was pretty good at training elephants. Attila beat the best foot soldiers in history by going for great horsemanship. Saladin was just plain better at PR than Richard the Third.

What does Galvatron do? Grunts cliches at humans.

So Galvy would have to get smarter. Fundamentally, he should be looking at what Megatron did wrong during All Hail Megatron. Megatron used Earth as a distraction in AHM, to try and spite the Autobots, or just to blow off steam (because that story sucked big donkey balls too).

Well, first of all, Galvatron wouldn't bother with Earth. Humans in RiD have become the equivalent of the Vietnamese in 1965: invaded and scorched and invaded and scorched and they are going to be too damn tenacious. Galvatron would either need to commit massive genocide upon humans to completely crush their spirit (which he could, but we won't go into that) or he could just leave them alone.

But if the story MUST take place on earth? Well, screw Alpha Trion. What about all those facsimiles running around, left over from Infiltration? Facsimiles are building themselves new Transformer bodies, from studying the remnants of dead TFs on Earth. Problem is, they're all a little wacky and psychotic and schizo from having to improve their programming, but Prime, being the softie he is, discovers things wants to take the little weirdos under his wing. Hell, they're bringing back Armada toys. These could be the IDW Mini-Cons.

So Prime is using Mars as a home base while they search for Trion on Earth undercover, but the Mini-Con rehabilitation program cuts into his Trion time. Soon the Mini-Cons are also going on missions against Galvatron's galactic expansion. The little weirdos have definite ideas about what to do with humans, because they've lived with humans for years. Their ideas? Forcibly 'upgrade' humans... I'll make it more original and less Borgy later.

A certain Verity Carlo has been stealing their data and is now stuck in some hole hiding out, trying to get the Mini-Cons' plan to enslave the humans to Prime.

Best I can do on short notice.

[snarl]

sounds cool!

Good idea at involving Earth. I really liked the Future UK TF stories with Rodimus and Shockers having fought each other to a standstill, so the war was basically done to the point where it's now frequent skirmishes, not full scale conflict.

That is what I'd try to do on Cybertron. Don't really accept that everybody has just downed tools and is able to live in Metroplex.

[bumblemusprime]

sounds cool!

Good idea at involving Earth. I really liked the Future UK TF stories with Rodimus and Shockers having fought each other to a standstill, so the war was basically done to the point where it's now frequent skirmishes, not full scale conflict.

That is what I'd try to do on Cybertron. Don't really accept that everybody has just downed tools and is able to live in Metroplex.

Oh, yeah, I'd always love a take on that "what would the trenches of WW1 look like if they went on for millions of years?" idea.

Which reminds me: why are Cybertronians still so into hand-to-hand combat? Shouldn't they just be nuking each other from orbit by now?

[Computron]

Which reminds me: why are Cybertronians still so into hand-to-hand combat? Shouldn't they just be nuking each other from orbit by now?

The rule of cool.

[bumblemusprime]

Think that was Costa's one good point--perhaps their long lives, constant upgrades and just plain bad programming makes the TFs get stuck in a rut versus human ingenuity/desire for peace.