MTMTE #50

[Professor Smooth]

How could THUNDERCLASH, the greatest Autobot of all time, take part in mutiny most foul? All the others, sure, but THUNDERCLASH, the greatest Autobot of all time? That stings.

Gotta imagine that Megatron is going to use all of the spark flowers from his victims to regain his full power...but to what end? To protect his newfound f...fr....frie....friends....from the DJD? Or to lay waste to the Autobots and prove to the DJD that he hasn't lost his way? What better way to prove to your would-be executioners that you are still the leader of the Decepticons than by destroying THUNDERCLASH, the greatest Autobot of all time?

[Yaya]

I kinda wish Thunderclash had not come along. He had this mystique about him when we knew little about him except that everyone adored him. Think it would have worked better if he stayed on that other ship with the, was it Camiens?, and just make frequent guest appearances or had been referenced here and there.

Instead, it's almost like he's just playing the Fort Max role since he left.

[Professor Smooth]

I kinda wish Thunderclash had not come along. He had this mystique about him when we knew little about him except that everyone adored him. Think it would have worked better if he stayed on that other ship with the, was it Camiens?, and just make frequent guest appearances or had been referenced here and there.

Instead, it's almost like he's just playing the Fort Max role since he left.

Pfft, what's Fort Max got on THUNDERCLASH, the greatest Autobot of all time? Guns in his legs? Big deal.

Fort Max is such an afterthought, they didn't even bother to spell his name correctly in #50. Fotress Maximus isn't a patch on THUNDERCLASH, the greatest Autobot of all time

Now, onto random speculation.

I maintain that Tarn is Dominus Ambus, and Roller is just a red herring.

Dude on Bottalk put forth a pretty convincing argument that TEN is really Dominus Ambus, reformatted by Tyrest into a legislator, and that explains why he finds Ultra Magnus to be his favorite. Although I personally think that he'd be more enamored of Rewind, were that true.

I really think that Star Saber's got somebody else pulling the strings, Magnus style, inside that huge frame of his. I don't think it's Drift, or at the very least, I really HOPE it's not.

Still don't buy Getaway summoning the DJD. He's not stupid enough to think that they'd leave anyone or anything alive. So who did he call? The Minicons? The Galactic Council? Tyrest and co? The Wreckers? The Dinobots? A bunch of G2 Seeker repaints?

Who killed the Necrobot? Why'd they kill the Necrobot? I liked the Necrobot.

How do the Bots know the exact minute they're going to die? What's being counted down towards? It's apparently going to leave their bodies intact enough to be retrieved, so they're not going to crash into a sun or anything like that. They're not going to be smelted. They're not going to be run through What's His Name.

When's 51 out? Is it out soon? Is it out NOW? Can I read it on iTunes Japan two weeks early again? Please?

[Metal Vendetta]

Still don't buy Getaway summoning the DJD. He's not stupid enough to think that they'd leave anyone or anything alive. So who did he call? The Minicons? The Galactic Council? Tyrest and co? The Wreckers? The Dinobots? A bunch of G2 Seeker repaints?

From the Q&A, JR said that Getaway believed the DJD when they told him that only Megatron would get hurt.

Who killed the Necrobot?

During the writer's commentary he introduced this page by pointing out that we're looking at the DJD's handiwork there.

How do the Bots know the exact minute they're going to die? What's being counted down towards? It's apparently going to leave their bodies intact enough to be retrieved, so they're not going to crash into a sun or anything like that. They're not going to be smelted. They're not going to be run through What's His Name.

Another titbit he gave us was that the ISIS-style video at the start ended with an onscreen execution in his original script

For a really, really lovely man, he did seem to enjoy dropping these bombshells on a room full of people looking for some sort of glimmer of hope.

[edit]Also, he says "knee-crobot" rather than "neck-robot". Fairly sure there was an exchange in Dark Cybertron regarding the pronunciation of "Nectrotitan" that ran along similar lines...

[Computron]

Still don't buy Getaway summoning the DJD. He's not stupid enough to think that they'd leave anyone or anything alive. So who did he call? The Minicons? The Galactic Council? Tyrest and co? The Wreckers? The Dinobots? A bunch of G2 Seeker repaints?

From the Q&A, JR said that Getaway believed the DJD when they told him that only Megatron would get hurt.

Who killed the Necrobot?

During the writer's commentary he introduced this page by pointing out that we're looking at the DJD's handiwork there.

How do the Bots know the exact minute they're going to die? What's being counted down towards? It's apparently going to leave their bodies intact enough to be retrieved, so they're not going to crash into a sun or anything like that. They're not going to be smelted. They're not going to be run through What's His Name.

Another titbit he gave us was that the ISIS-style video at the start ended with an onscreen execution in his original script

We are going to be absolutely emotionally devastated by the end of this aren't we?

[bumblemusprime]

[*]Papa Snarl is ageing in reverse.[/list]

He did invent dice when he was a kid

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Right... I think I've asked this many times before this issue, so maybe I'll get an answer now in comic book form.

But the credible threat of the djd is what exactly?

You have roddy, magnus, cyclonus, whirl,megs etc... That's not exactly a bunch of low level transformers, in fact if you were picking your team of super duper transformers most of them would be a shoe in no?

So, won't this lot just smash the djd up anyway?
And if they can't, then no one can.
Why haven't the djd just taken over eons ago?

[Yaya]

You have roddy, magnus, cyclonus, whirl,megs etc... That's not exactly a bunch of low level transformers, in fact if you were picking your team of super duper transformers most of them would be a shoe in no?

Ha. Good point. Even without Megatron, you've got a pretty powerful crew of bots.

I think it's just the sadistic nature of the DJD that makes them that scary. But we know what happens in the end to bullies....

[Metal Vendetta]

But the credible threat of the djd is what exactly?

Well it's all down to power levels, isn't it? I think Roberts has been pretty consistent in illustrating the scale of the DJD's threat throughout the series with regard to the other characters - there are distinct "power levels" in the IDWverse and through their various interactions we know that the DJD are at the top end of the scale:

Level 1 - Ordinary 'bots. These guys are the cannon fodder of their respective armies - they're fairly robust and they can survive stuff like decapitation and so on but compared to those above them, they die fairly easily. We've seen guys like Pipes and Flywheels get taken out without any effort at all by much more powerful foes.
Level 2 - Trained, upgraded or otherwise augmented 'bots. I'm thinking Wreckers like Impactor, Springer, Whirl and Roadbuster, Bludgeon, Cyclonus, Drift, Rodimus and others who are tough and/or really good at fighting but not necessarily super unvincible. They can go toe-to-toe with the big guys but the outcome isn't guaranteed. Plot armour gets involved here too.
Level 3 - Point One Percenters. Guys like Fort Max, Scorponok, Shockwave and Grimlock - explained as having a special type of spark that make them super double hard bastards. In most confrontations, they're going to come off better than their opponents. Prowl describes them as "once in a generation" 'bots. I don't think we know for sure that Thunderclash is one of these, but I'd bet money that he is. Galvatron's probably about this level too, maybe a bit higher.
Level 4 - Outliers. Or at least the more powerful ones - Orion Pax's team of mutants made the Point One Percenter Roller feel outclassed and Tailgate seems to be really powerful these days.
Level 5 - Combiners. Kind of hard to place on this scale since we haven't seen many examples of Point One Percenter/Phase Sixer V Combiner fights, at least not in MTMTE. They don't seem to have the planet-levelling capabilities of Phase Sixers but they're definitely up there.
Level 6 - Phase Sixers. Point One Percenters rendered super unvincible and capable of taking out pretty much anything. In Black Shadow's flashbacks we see him taking on the Wreckers, killing three of them, then a whole battalion of Autobots that includes Prime and Magnus and he still kills 3003 of them. Even Prowl says that the Autobots don't have anything to match them. I'd put Thunderwing in his planet-killing suit here as well.
Level 7 - Prime and Megatron. Because they always have to be in a class of their own, no matter the continuity. Though with Megatron on the "Fool's Energon", he's down a few levels.
Level 8 - Titans and such.

When we were introduced to the DJD, they had Black Shadow, a Phase Sixer, at their mercy and they had already killed at least one other. They've also killed Borebit (who was a member of the Primal Vanguard), Flywheels, Blip, a bunch of Gripper's mates, dozens of Deathsaurus's troops and the entire crew of the alternate Lost Light minus Rodimus and Rung but including Drift, Magnus, Whirl, Cyclonus and Hyperion, former leader of the Wreckers. And then Overlord, another Phase Sixer. In terms of power levels they're easily at the top of the tree, I'd say second only to a Titan, a fighting mad Optimus Prime or Megatron at the height of his powers. Swerve was so scared by them he didn't talk for weeks and Deathsaurus was so wigged out by them that his first reaction was to try and kill Tarn before he could even utter a word. Then there's the fact that they're now allied with Deathsaurus (who's got to be Point One Percenter level or thereabouts) and five hundred of his guys (most of whom will be level 1 or 2 but there may even be a combiner or two or something amongst them).

You have roddy, magnus, cyclonus, whirl,megs etc... That's not exactly a bunch of low level transformers, in fact if you were picking your team of super duper transformers most of them would be a shoe in no?

So, won't this lot just smash the djd up anyway?

Well going by the list above, we've got:
Level 1 - Brainstorm, Chromedome, Nautica, Nightbeat, Ravage, Rewind, Rung, Swerve and Velocity. A scientist, a mnemosurgeon, an engineer, a detective, a spy, an archivist, a psychiatrist, a metallurgist turned bartender and a doctor. Yes, they've all got some moves and they've survived the war this far, but they're explicitly not fighting characters and the DJD have killed three of them already while forcing the fourth to record it. Ravage's stealth may help him out here, Nightbeat could have some tricks up his sleeve and Nautica's a possible Outlier but even so, they're not the most fearsome fighting team out there. If Brainstorm doesn't have an array of exotic weaponry with him (did he manage to grab anything from the Rodpod?) he's more of a hindrance than a help.
Level 2 - Cyclonus, Rodimus and Whirl. This Cyclonus is an upgraded version of the one the DJD killed on the alternate Lost Light having got his spark-powered Master Sword and all but Whirl's pretty much the same. And sure, Rodimus has the touch, but that wasn't enough to save him from getting the snot pummelled out of him by Scorponok one-on-one or getting captured by Lockdown's guys and he only survived Overlord because Chomedome had pre-emptively spiked Overlord's mind against him.
Level 3 - Ultra Magnus. Really good at fighting, shame he's now only got one arm but even when he had two he was nearly killed by Overlord. Ten is probably about this level too.
Level 4 - Skids and Tailgate. One's really good at fighting and one's really powerful but neither are anywhere near as resilient as a Phase Sixer.
Level 7 - Megatron, if he can find a way to power up, otherwise he's probably, what, Level 3? Level 2?

I think the threat to our heroes is very credible even if most of them do have ten inch thick plot armour. The Scavengers were lucky that the DJD were distracted at the crucial moment by a much more deserving target (a Phase Sixer versus a bunch of nobodies no-one cares about) but our guys are clustered around #1 on their List. The last time the DJD were in this situation when they went to collect Overlord, the very sight of Drift caused them to flip out and kill everyone on the ship.

Why haven't the djd just taken over eons ago?

A fanatical devotion to Megatron, coupled with the fact that he was probably the only 'bot who could beat them. They've followed his orders to the letter thus far but now they're off the leash and they've got an army of 500 Decepticons with them. Their rejection of Megatron in favour of "the cause" has upped their threat level from inquisitors, dangerous only to heretics within their ranks, to crusaders, dangerous to pretty much whoever they choose next.

On the flipside, it's hard to imagine that Megatron would create a unit within the Decepticons that could conceivably beat him, so I'm sure he will reveal that he holds some kind of advantage over Tarn - in his flashbacks we saw Tarn being rebuilt by the same guys who rebuilt Shockwave so it's not impossible that there's some kind of shadowplay or killswitch built into him, indeed Megatron would be pretty foolish not to take that opportunity. However, the other members of the team seem to get replaced on an ad hoc basis and if they had a killswitch implanted presumably Tarn would have to be the one to do it, meaning that he'd be able to remove them as well.

[snarl]

I'm not 100% that all the DJD are in the higher levels, but Tarn defo is.

He's a .1% outlier coated in Ununtrium.

I think normally Vos and Kaon would be at 2 and Tes and Helex at 3.
However they're all a cut above as they're on nuke fuel.
They're a very, very cohesive unit - arguably their biggest strength (aligned with tactics - IE we can assume they're sneaky ***** and strike when their foe has their guard down - seen when they sneak up on the Victory Decepticons)

I reckon only Tarn is a .1% though
Only Tarn is an outlier
Only Tarn is coated in Ununtrium.

The others are juiced up 2s / 3s

Even then, it's not hard to imagine how they took down Blackshadow as easily as it was implied they did.

Tarn ambushes him, and almost immediately he'd been incapacitated by Tes.

BS was still durable enough to live through the melting and electrocuting.

We know DJD members have been killed in the past. Just not Tarn.

[Metal Vendetta]

When's 51 out? Is it out soon? Is it out NOW? Can I read it on iTunes Japan two weeks early again? Please?

Preview. Eep.

I'm not 100% that all the DJD are in the higher levels, but Tarn defo is.

He's a .1% outlier coated in Ununtrium.

I think normally Vos and Kaon would be at 2 and Tes and Helex at 3.
However they're all a cut above as they're on nuke fuel.
They're a very, very cohesive unit - arguably their biggest strength (aligned with tactics - IE we can assume they're sneaky ***** and strike when their foe has their guard down - seen when they sneak up on the Victory Decepticons)

Oh yes, this, all of this. It's like how individual Wreckers would be 2s or 3s at best (Impactor was originally a Point One Percenter until the Tyrest plotline contradicted that) but the Wreckers as a team could be level 5 or 6 on a good day. Tarn by himself is pretty powerful anyway but the rest of the DJD tip the scales in his favour. As a unit, they have to rank about 6.5 if not 7.

[bumblemusprime]

And sure, Rodimus has the touch

Keeping in line with the Space Stalin thing, I don't think that Megatron kept control ever by his own power levels--he also surrounded himself with fanatically loyal people, of whom Tarn was only one face. He would have had other spies within the ranks. He would have had so many people spying on each other that Ravage's infiltration of the Lost Light was, for Ravage, business as usual. You could think of Soundwave as one face of the spymaster. In theory, you always could have just popped Megatron in the head--but you would have had to get through quite a bit of protection.

At some level, Megatron can't be nigh-invincible in single combat. It's the myth that keeps people scared. Look at the myths that have grown up around Stalin's death, about poisoning and Jewish doctor plots right when Papa Genocide ramped up the anti-Semitic feeling. He seemed invincible. (Okay, some of those myths have some credibility, but I tend to believe that people like history to be sexier than it really is.)

Also, the Victory Destrons appear to be no slouches. The DJD killed the alternate Lost Light on their own, and now they've brought an army of reinforcements in order to take down Megatron.

[Metal Vendetta]

Keeping in line with the Space Stalin thing, [Megatron]... surrounded himself with fanatically loyal people, of whom Tarn was only one face. He would have had other spies within the ranks. He would have had so many people spying on each other that Ravage's infiltration of the Lost Light was, for Ravage, business as usual. You could think of Soundwave as one face of the spymaster.

That's undoubtedly true - I'm thinking of those scenes from the Furman run where he had Bludgeon go off and investigate what Shockwave was up to, then immediately sent Soundwave to keep an eye on Bludgeon, not to mention the killswitches and Achilles viruses he had implanted into anyone who might present a threat to him. And of course there's the Decepticon Secret Service on top of that and the DJD at the pinnacle of this climate of fear.

In theory, you always could have just popped Megatron in the head--but you would have had to get through quite a bit of protection... At some level, Megatron can't be nigh-invincible in single combat.

I think that's where I disagree - when Chromedome was digging around in Overlord's mind, he said that the only person who'd ever beaten him was Megatron, then we cut to Megs whaling the **** out of him in the Pit. During Chaos Theory, Prime and Megs reminisced about how their troops stopped fighting and just watched when they first met in battle at Sherma Bridge. I think that at his peak Megatron pretty much *was* invincible in single combat, presumably explained by his status as the first Point One Percenter hybrid. Hell, in Chaos he took on the combined form of every single other Decepticon apart from Shockwave and still managed to come out alive. I think Megatron being the most powerful Decepticon was a huge part of how he maintained control.

However, that's not the Megatron we're dealing with now - to paraphrase Roberts, he's just an old man with a cat who writes poetry. I see him more as Augusto Pinochet in his later years; a once-brutal military dictator with declining health, under house arrest, with thousands calling for him to be brought to justice.

[Hound]

Maybe if the Autobots were at full strength they might have a shot against the DJD. Only it's not just the DJD is it It's a [composite word including 'f*ck']-tonne of Decepticons too.

Also Ultra Magnus has an arm off. Megatron is on his poisoned energon.

I'm actually wondering if those ISIS style videos were filmed by the DJD at all. Maybe they are faked in some way (I'm not sure how to back this up). Also when we first met the Necrobot, Roberts went into a lot (too much I thought at the time) detail about how he gets around and records all of the death. There is a way out of this situation inside that base.

[Metal Vendetta]

Also Ultra Magnus has an arm off.

Hee hee hee

I'm actually wondering if those ISIS style videos were filmed by the DJD at all.

Oh goodness, now you've set me off. I'd been turning this over in my mind and the only clue we've got to that is what Red Alert said, that the gun had a familiar shadow. What kind of gun has a familiar shadow?

The kind that Megatron found himself missing in this issue. The kind that his chief adversary has a couple of. The kind that he could easily get hold of should he juice himself up on sparkflowers and smash said chief adversary into the dust.

I think it's pretty obvious that the weapon they're being threatened with is a fusion cannon. The question is, who's wielding it?

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Thanks for the clear up, that does make them seem a bit more tasty!

The point about megatron having a way to stop them, if the need arises is interesting.
It would also allow him not to fight if he can just press a button and stop them for example?

[Metal Vendetta]

The point about megatron having a way to stop them, if the need arises is interesting.
It would also allow him not to fight if he can just press a button and stop them for example?

It happened before, way back in Devastation #5 - Starscream provoked Sixshot into attacking, then said his killswitch code out loud and Sixshot went down like a sack of ****. I'm guessing there's some reason why that's not an option with Tarn though, as it would be a bit cheap to pull the same trick twice. I get the impression Tarn's a lot smarter than Sixshot and will have taken measures to prevent it.

There is a way out of this situation inside that base.

Hah, yes there is. Just reading the preview for next issue made me realise what we (and they) have been overlooking - there's a way out of there that's been right in front of our eyes the whole time.