More Than Meets The Eye Volumes 6-7 Review

Hi, this is Dan Gilbazan, and you're listening

to the GeekCast Radio Network. Welcome to The

Pull Bag's Back Issue Classics. Join us as we

talk about comics from yesteryear, from DC, Marvel

and more. So open your ears to hear our discussion

of the older continuities, as the Back Issue

Classics are also what's in The Pull Bag. Hello

and welcome to the pull bag. This is back issue

classics episode 81 I'm of course TFG1 Mike and

this is the start of the first annual I don't

know if it'll be annual or not, but the first

annual auto -botly April now people might be

looking at me or listening to this and say What

the fuck does auto -botly mean? There was a clip

from years and years ago one of my first podcast

the TFG1 podcast where I was into where I was

reviewing the old G1 cartoon series and one of

the calls from what he got from michael said

something about uh... sky links holding a budget

guns in his ass was not exactly auto bali I believe

this was from Five Faces of Darkness or something

or other. So, AutobotlyApril, we are going to

be covering a bunch of Transformers comics. Lady

Rek, Beatles Diva, and Haie Prime will be back

to do the Windblade stuff with me, but I brought

in Ryan the Uneven Flo Merkley because he loves

Transformers comics just as much as I do, and

sadly, Spade of the Bolt Matrix, well, he was

given the Decepticon Matrix of Leadership, even

though that doesn't exist technically, and he's

off, you know... taking a plasma bath somewhere

and he landed on web world or something i don't

know but in auto bali april we're going to be

covering more than meets the eye from i d w volumes

six and seven here the good one you can get a

good one whether it's the i volume six and seven

is going to be this podcast over the next three

weeks after this you're going to get rid volume

six and seven Which got renamed to the Transformers?

Yes, which is you know now? It's you know the

book formerly known as right kind of like the

artist formerly known as Prince Yeah, they call

it X rid on the on the forums generally Most

people that I talked to call it not rid So RID

6 and 7 will be one episode and then RIDs 8 and

volume 8 and 9 will be another and then we'll

close it out with more than meets the eye volumes

8 and 9. So yeah a bunch of trade stuff and basically

how we're gonna do this is Ryan is going to synopsize

each issue briefly and then we're going to go

through our notes and discuss the comic. We're

not gonna go through page by page panel by panel

like I normally would do in certain episodes

because we would be here for five hours folks

and no one wants to listen to us for five hours.

Don't leave me. I'm not gonna object to that

I Know you're expecting me to say something witty

there, but well yeah, cuz that's your job No,

it's not all right anyway So fine we begin with

so first of all for anyone who doesn't know This

is in the aftermath of the dark Cybertron giant

story arc Yep, you guys go back to the dark Cybertron

episode Nicole Beatles Diva, and I did we spent

three hours talking about dark Cybertron Which

was all right, but definitely not great and The

biggest event of that and this ties directly

into this trait first trade and really all the

others for this whole run of more than meets

the eye Probably the biggest event was the death

of bumblebee which subsequently caused uh...

along with shockwave sort of betrayal of the

decepticon ideals caused megatron to finally

switch sides yes megatron is now an autobot ladies

and gentlemen deal with it which to be blunt

was not handled well dark cybertron like it happened

way too quickly and it did So the first issue

of More Than Meets the Eye, which is 28, we get

portions of it told in flashback to the trial

of Megatron, actually the pre -trial, I should

say, of Megatron, while the up -to -date stuff

is what's happening onboard the Lost Light, which

has been sent out yet again to try to find cyber

-utopia and the Knights of Cybertron to try to

help fix the planet Cybertron, which is essentially

a gigantic dump. Yep So there that pretty much

sums it up to be honest With issue 28, you know,

we got to run down the creative here. It's James

Roberts on writing for more than meets the eye

It's Alex Milne. I believe is how he says his

name. Yes. Okay, just wanna make sure on art

Who is on colors for this? Is it Joanna? Colors

is Josh Burcham and Joanne Le Fuente. Depending

on which issues. Burcham did 28, Le Fuente did

29 to 33. in this trade and then the lettering

is done by tom long who by the way does an amazing

job it should be noted that milnes i'm not gonna

bother gushing over the arts in every issue bill

is amazing yes as tom long is one of the best

letters i've seen in all of comics his ability

to fits everything in well and make everything

clear and easy to read is astounding in the book

that has this much dialogue So, I mean definite

props to him and because with Roberts with Roberts

is writing style Roberts is I dare I say he is

the Stephen King of Transformers writers By this

I mean he writes a lot of Stuff like he the way

the way his writing style is after reading through

this and reading through volume 7 which we'll

talk about later The man Not only does dialogue

well, but he does actual the storytelling setting

up You know how events are unfolding whether

it's through internal monologue whether it's

through speaking scenes whether it's through

whatever and I swear it reads like the way Stephen

King writes So overall, I mean the dialogue it

kind of snaps and it's that in a lot of cases.

It's the witty Sort of Joss Whedon dialogue.

Yeah Now, one of the criticisms of Whedon is

that, in a lot of cases, his witty dialogue can

be substituted from character to character. Yeah.

As in, you know, any of it could fit anyone he

writes. And it's not necessarily always fair,

but in any case, a lot of people have tried to

attribute that to Roberts. I don't see it in

these issues. I mean... Megatron stuff for example,

you know, there's stuff like his line to wrong

who's these ships psychiatrist Analyzing him

and it's his wonderful line about wrong. Sometimes

a fusion cannon is just a fusion cannon a reference

to Freud, of course but Stuff like that, you

know, it fits the character and it's about the

character And the other thing Roberts does well

in this issue and all of these is set up for

future stuff Which I'm gonna try really hard

not to spoil because there are individual lines

in these books that means something a year to

two years later Some of the worst being the season

one more than meets the eye stuff the lines in

that actually come back at the end of season

two So five years later Yeah, and I love that.

So anyway That's the way you play the long game.

So as I'm reading through this issue, color -coded

lasers, red for Autobot, purple for Decepticon.

That was hilarious. Yeah, I liked the line afterwards

from Nautica, who's a new introduction, who fits

in really well. Nautica's bit that, yeah, you

don't think color -coding, you know, trying to

be generic, eat good and evil. Yeah Which it

does not and one of the themes in this season

is very much sort of for the redemption or Megatron's

past catching up to him. Oh, yeah redemption

and Doesn't go real. Well, no not at all. And

in fact in the first issue. Yeah, he gets jumped

by world Who borrowed atomizers crossbow, you

know uh... and remember it's not the tables fault

uh... uh... it's a lot of uh... uh... uh... uh...

uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...

uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...

Yeah, so that's part of the Swerve and sort of

a comedy bit. Yeah does cruditions as he calls

it crew auditions to try to decide who should

be on the lost light and who shouldn't And hey

look, it's nightbeat So Nightbeat returns from

the dead in Dark Cybertron. Nightbeat's always

been one of Robert's favorite characters. If

you go back and read Eugenesis, which was his

fanfic novel that would result in him getting

a job with IDW writing, Nightbeat's the central

character. So he's always had a soft spot for

him and he gets to use him this season. A lot,

yeah. And the sad thing is, because I know he's

one of your, if not your favorite character,

every time I was reading this, it is so sad.

I heard your voice in my head the whole damn

time. I don't think Nightbeatz speaks with the

horrific monotone tone. I'm just saying, with

the words that Roberts gives him, it's crap that

you would say. It's logical stuff that you would

be saying. So kind of the overall takeaway from

this issue is the crew is not happy with Megatron

being on board Which can you really blame them?

He killed you know millions and millions of Autobots

not to mention committed genocide all over different

planets and exterminated organic races so yeah

he's not popular for some reason yeah and it

goes like like you said earlier it goes back

and forth between six months ago and six months

later where we you know the present day is the

lost light stuff and then they go back to the

trial i'm gonna say this right now this is nothing

against roberts directly but when i first read

this and keep in mind i was reading these as

they came out however many years ago this was

the trial put me to sleep Well, I don't know

I don't I'm not I'm not saying now I'm not saying

when I read them now I'm saying when I first

read them for some odd reason the trial bored

the ever -living crab I'm gonna get into the

trial a little bit more with the next issue Okay,

but I will say like the one thing about season

two probably even more than season one It all

works better in trade Especially the tenth trade

which is the culmination and the season finale,

right? uh... worked way better than it did in

individual issues because that's how i read it

and then you know i've gone back i'd buy all

the trades reread them constantly to the point

that a couple of them are already sort of not

in great shape uh... say i mentioned the next

issue and as well as well as well as well as

well as well as well as well as well as well

as well as well as well as well as well as well

as well as well as well as well as so i want

to get into is the issue ends with the find a

coffin no uh... and as as we open issue the second

issue of this, which is 29. A, they've brought

the coffin on board. B, Tailgate has recovered

from his near -death experience way back in the

fifth trade of More Than Meets the Eye, so he's

sat out Dark Cybertron. He also wakes up and

finds out, oh, Megatron's now co -captain. And

swerve has one of the legislator robots ten guarding

the bar now But we continue on with the trial

in this and we're split between The trial and

then the present day in which the two big events

in the present day Like I said, I'll get into

the trial in a second. The two biggest events

present day are We see chrome dome has been seeing

Rewind is essentially his husband, Conjux Endura,

who died way back in the fourth trade, has been

seeing ghost images of him while portions of

the ship, including Nightbeat's quarters, are

disappearing. And then the other big event is

the coffin is brought on board and revealed.

again this is interspersed with the trial now

I just want to start with the trial here and

my summation it contains two of the best portions

of this book that sum up why I love it one is

Starscream's speech about Megatron where he absolutely

buries him without Without so much as you know

calling him names or anything like that is Glorious

and pure Starscream It worked so well It is one

of my favorite moments of this entire book So

I absolutely love that bit And then the other

part of the trial which I believe is from this

issue and it may not be the changing of the plea

yeah I liked that the no sorry it's in the next

issue damn it the other portion of the issue

of hell with it I'll just mention it the other

portion of the trial I really liked is the bits

with erotimus and the data pad which he receives

In this issue, but we'll get to the resolution

of that because it's in the next one. Yes Poor

Rodimus see a trial stuff. I Don't care what

they would have done I would have loved the trial

stuff if it had gone on for 700 more pages with

saying nothing Just if that Starscream speech

were in there. It is glorious and sums up his

character so well he's such a prick in this.

Like he is a conniving, backstabbing scumbag

interested only in his own power. And they do

it so well just through dialogue. Oh, yeah. Because

you don't need him. You don't need Starscream

in this series to pull out his null ray and blast

somebody. You just have him talk. But they did

in our ID. that was the thing like they had him

you know that's how he came to power i'm just

saying it's nice to see him just use his tongue

to be absolute scum i loved that so yeah the

issue was a winner just based on that for me

uh present day stuff you know without ruining

the reveal i mean the corpse inside the coffin

is erotimus yeah Well, yeah before we get to

that my first note for 29 before we move on to

30 was see folks Rodimus is more than just a

new leader In this series. He's a battle. He's

a proven battle -hardened guy who admittedly

makes mistakes and then we get the coffin reveal

and I I pretty much lost it at this point. I

pretty much, even on my reread of this trade,

half the time, I'm gonna admit it right now,

I had to reread certain panels, various pages,

because I did not know what the hell was going

on until they eventually explained the shit.

Well, that's the part of it. I mean, this whole

anarchist slaughterhouse and the sort of stuff

doesn't click together until the last and second

last issues. uh... and in terms of the present

day and past days stuff kind of time together

first of all i mean seronomous takes the data

pad from atomizer which supposedly has the list

of all of the people who wanted him lost light

for being a terrible captain which to be blunt

he was uh... any kind of continue it's to be

as megatron berates in in this as well for a

They have no director of security, so he posts

Trailbreaker, who is a useless drunk at this

point in the series. B, I mean, Ronimus is never

there. It takes his own corpse to get him out

of his suite, as we'll see in the next issue.

But I mean, Ronimus is not doing anything here.

as captain so I liked his arc that gets really

get started with the Taking of the datapad and

reading about who wants to get rid of them Absolutely,

and I love the reveal though of the whole datapad

thing With 30 as I started reading issue 30 I'll

say this right now It's kind of jarring for me

for the whole back and forth past present past

present past present At least on the reread.

It was I don't know if it was initially when

I first got the issues, but Sometimes going back

and forth back and forth. It's just I don't know

It was just kind of weird the trial is something

that could have and possibly should have been

handled in Dark Cybertron, but that was so rushed.

Oh, yeah I think well not I think I mean what

happened was Roberts had to go back because Without

it. There's so little context given for why Megatron?

Yeah, yeah, it was just poorly handled and I

appreciate the fact that yeah He went back to

kind of fix it. It gave him an opportunity to

do stuff with Rodimus's growth that we see in

30 and Yeah, I mean, yeah his growth quote -unquote.

So Guess I'll summarize 30 we begin with the

trial where Megatron gets broken out by all of

the Prisoners that were captured way back in

the fourth trade of lost light And from there

fourth trade or third third trade I think that

was a while ago. Wow. Anyway They bust out Megatron

and he actually refuses to leave uh... my favorite

uh... i do remember when i went to my local comic

shop to get issue thirty and i had seen the covers

that were going to be happening going to be coming

out before hand i wanted that sub cover so that

i told them what you need to make sure you have

this sub cover the sub cover is rotamus handing

the keys to the lost light to megatron yeah it

looks like he's floating yes yes it's just one

of the best covers of this series to this point.

We should also note, we didn't note this earlier,

I think it's on this series and the other one

as well. The whole point of Aftermath of Dark

of Dark Cybertron is they're calling this arc

Dawn of the Autobots. Yeah, because the Autobots

have won the war and post Dark Cybertron, the

Decepticons, we'll see in the other series, don't

have a leader for a bit. And then they start

sort of branching off Leo get into that later

So yeah in this series we continue on with the

trial Rodimus in present day comes out and looks

at his corpse and Megatron berates him to his

face for taking stock as Rob as Rodimus says

which by the way, I love that Gets back that

goes back in Megatron's face much later In another

trade that we are not talking about. So anyway

Megatron agrees to a plea deal where He will

be executed upon the Upon the finding whatever

you want to call it whenever the Knights of Cybertron

are found Megatron will then be executed So essentially

he takes the guilty plea but through a loophole

is allowed to go on the lost lights journey to

try to find them. And he's given a speech, which

we'll get to that a little later. Well, the speech,

after I read the whole thing with the speech,

my note is Megatron. Megatron is owning up to

his own evil ways, something I thought we'd never

see in any Transformers fiction. I adored the

speech, so I guess we will get into it. I mean,

some of the stuff, you know, although I reject

the charges against me, I do not deny that I

am the founder of the Decepticon movement. I

started it, and I am about to finish it. I hereby

renounce this. Decepticonism and its offshoots

and denounce all those who continue to fight

in its name. There's nothing intrinsically special

about our race. Nothing that lifts us above non

-mechanical species. We were wrong to assert

ourselves. And to all those who follow me, I

say this. Do not expect guidance or wisdom or

answers. I have none. I never did. To all those

Decepticons still out there, I give one final

order. Stand down. Discard your weapons tear

off your badges and stand down Free yourself

from the shackles of a flawed philosophy and

move on the Decepticons are over the war is over

and thankfully we lost I Love that that is some

I need somebody to send that to Frank Welker

to make sure he says that in Megatron's voice

Yeah uh... the speeches he does through the trial

story he being roberts uh... are exceptionally

well done oh absolutely the writing is so good

and the uh... so uh... back to present day they

investigate the dead romans and they can't figure

out the fact that uh... yeah i mean dead romans

resembles the Uh, how was it? We'll get into

that later. The present -day Rodimus somewhat.

It resembles the present day, yes, somewhat,

but resembles the past one and we'll see why.

Yeah. A little better, so anyway. Yeah. Um, and

then we kind of get to the point where the lost

light is disintegrating. Yep. And everybody has

to basically, you know, get to the shuttles and,

and they, uh... They abandon ship. they've been

insured but hey look guess what this is one of

the ships they have been there and the rod pod

uh... uh... so in a flashback we see it's been

rebuilt uh... rod pod is ronan's is for a fixed

ship that's shaped like his head he he he uh...

because he's a terrible you don't need maniac

uh... the rod pod during that exchange uh...

ronan's destroys the list after showing it to

ratchets and Asking him, you know what he should

do with the list of all of the people who? Don't

want him on board anymore and ratchet tells him

to just move on etc. Etc Rodimus destroys it

and ratchet just says good because it's a fake

And Rodimus asks him, is it? How do you know?

And Ratchet replies with, because my name's not

on it, which is wonderful. So I mean, we know

Ratchet's one of the people who didn't want him

back as captain. Ratchet in this series is amazing.

Glorious. Between the whole thing with Pharma

and the hands and everything else way back when.

Just, oh my god, I have never. realize a ratchet

could be written this well. And then lastly we

end with some more dialogue that I adored which

was as they all you know jump ship Rodimus and

Megatron are yelling well it's mostly Rodimus

is yelling at Megatron over the comm system telling

him I'm blaming you for this Megatron this has

got you all over it and then Megatron says sorry

not guilty which is a cute reference to the trial.

That was another fun issue. It was so fun. It

really, really was. And again, Milne's art is

great. The colors are great. I honestly didn't

think that I could really believe Megatron with

an Autobot symbol on him. But the scene where...

they're gonna break him out where we're seeing

says the backpack grab it in megatron i'm sorry

to see when it was a nice gesture it looks like

the way that this is colored the way that the

known druid it looks as if his decepticon symbol

has either been taped over with an autobot symbol

or his decepticon symbol has been ripped off

and a lot of symbols underneath i was my dad

all right yeah that's why it's just good attention

detail i'll note one other thing too throughout

this series uh some of the touches that milne

in particular is great at uh if you watch the

autobots insignia on megatron's chest its expression

changes based on megatron's expression and there's

this glorious page an issue uh in the last issue

of this season before the The last two sort of

tie into Titan's return, but the last issue of

the main arc features an incredibly angry Megatron

with the fusion cannon smoldering and tearing

into Decepticons, and the Autobot insignia looks

as furious as he does. Wow. But there's a lot

of that. If you read even these issues and pay

enough attention, yeah, it's expressing Expression

changes based on his which is a really cute touch.

That's awesome. Yeah, I like that I appreciate

from a writing standpoint. I appreciate that.

This was the last issue we get flashbacks Yeah

from now on we're present day with the exception

of we open with how the Autobots received the

lost light That was awesome Which was just a

you know, cute like three page bit with drift

Yeah, because it brought Drift back for us. Yes.

Yeah, he won't return for a while. But who would

have thought I'd like Drift, by the way, because

I hated him during the McCarthy stuff. And then

he was terribly written all through, well, everyone

was terribly written all through Acosta's run.

And for whatever reason, Robert saw something

there and kind of redeemed him, which is impressive

work. But yeah, we return to present day with

the next issues the Autobots of Sorry Autobots

Decepticons everybody has evacuated the lost

light And now they're in space and one by one

the crew on the rod pod is disappearing The rod

pod contains Megatron crosscuts skids Gears,

that's right blaster getaway Nautica Ammo, who

was not used very often. Wow. Huffer, Chromedome,

Swerve, Hoist, Nightbeat, Riptide, Tailgate,

Dipstick. Dipstick, by the way, who made his

debut back in Last Stand of the Wreckers. Cyclonus,

Hound, Ratchet, and Highbrow. I love Megatron's

line, you Autobots always live in the past. Yeah.

You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me

of Galvatron at the end of the movie. You Autobots

die so easily. That's what it reminds me of.

So as you die, the most important things here

are A. Nightbeat asks for everyone's history.

in terms of how they were born. This is important

much later for Megatron in particular, because

Megatron refuses to say. And then we learn, yeah.

Yeah, we learn much later why, and not to mention

why he would refuse. Number two, as everyone's

disappearing, Nightbeat's trying to figure out,

you know, exactly why it is. But also HoundSpot's

Ravage on board. So Ravage, at some point, we

saw him earlier, might I add. So we, the audience,

knew he was there. But Ravage is on board the

Lost Light. I think this is interesting. I think

this is interesting because the only other time

I've ever seen Hound and Ravage together was

in an early G1 episode when Hound and Spike were

going after him and were going to capture him.

This is like More than meets the eye part three,

I think or maybe the episode after that so it

was early To be fair by the way ravaging this

series and these comics can talk which by the

way much prefer. Yeah And so yeah the issue ends

nightbeat figures out why everyone's disappearing

At which point Megatron berates him because he

figures it out after everyone's already disappeared.

Yeah, why weren't you able to stop this? Everybody

disappeared because or rather the ones who disappeared

were all the crew that were on board the lost

light when it launched Way back in issue one

Dun dun dun and that's where thirty two opens

up where we have the explanation of all there

were eventually two lost lights because of things

the quantum engines in the lost light work similar

to sort of jump engines in battle star galactica

where just sort of jumps to a different place

and appears in another one and when the lost

light exploded again way back in issue one because

one of prowl's idiots I can't remember who is

shocker or it was one of them or sorry shocker

or anyway one of them got themselves stuck in

the quantum engine and caused a gigantic sort

of failure this created the second lost light

which our crew now find themselves aboard hey

this is swerves are you sure it's trash must

have been a good night yeah And they very quickly

discover the crew dead. And that's obviously

bad. Very bad. I love Ravage in this. His speech

with Megatron is glorious. Another amazing speech.

So they continue investigating. They discover

that there is a copy of Overlord on board as

well who's been killed. And at this point, everyone

kind of figures out simultaneously that everybody

on board this duplicate Lost Light was slaughtered

by the Decepticon Justice Division. And we get

some... Man, so... Well, that's really the end

of the issue, so I'll just get into some of the

points. All right, I said I wasn't gonna gush

over art, but my god, is the art good in this?

It's so good. The corpses, like, this is... The

corpses the battle scenes where you see the DJD

slaughtering the crew Everything is so well done

in this and in terms of the writing I mentioned

it before Two moments that stick out to me and

then I'll shut up the Megatron ravage conversation,

which again does a great job of illustrating

why Megatron wants to change And it even ties

into some of the costa stuff which I was really

impressed with the fact that Roberts is trying

to reconcile the evil twirling mustache villainy

of the Costa Megatron to this one is really impressive

and does it in a way that's somewhat believable

and then the other moment that really stood out

for me is Nightbeat and Nonica find Brainstorm's

briefcase, the oft -mentioned briefcase from

season one, and Nightbeat opens it up. And you

get these, and this is a combination of good

artwork and writing, the panels are all out of

place. And you're supposed to read it in the

order denoted by the elevator signs in the back

as they... Excuse me, as they go down. And so

you're supposed to go, you know, six, five, four,

three, two, one. But it's completely out of order

in the panels. And yeah, that's important in

the next trade. For me, I like, because it's

been a while and I don't really, like I said,

myself, Amy and Ender covered the first five

trades of this series and RID. And it's been

years since I've gone back and read any of that

stuff. So I like seeing what actually happened

to the Fusion Cannon because I forgot he didn't

have the Fusion Cannon. Yeah, he melts it down

as part of his sort of punishment. Yeah, I absolutely

love that. One of the reasons why I said when

I read Nightbeat in this is I hear you is because,

nah, I'm pretty insufferable. That's something

you've said often. Yeah, probably. Seems familiar.

You put Galvatron in Joe? Yeah. Yeah, but issue

32, absolutely love it. The art is amazing. The

writing is great. The story is... kind of mainlining

a little bit more for me like you said there's

no constant flashback kind of thing um... which

is fine like i said you know i like the flashbacks

is just when i think about them and when i think

of how many times that they went back and forth

it just kind of It's fine. No, I appreciate I

said it before too. I mean, I appreciated that

the trial only lasted the couple issues And I

think at that point, yeah Roberts had done what

he wanted to with it So it made sense to end

it instead of try to keep it going through the

whole arc Not to mention it would have really

stank. I think You've got all these, you know

horrific scenes of all of your main cast having

been slaughtered if you had that like jarring

sequence where you go back and everyone's fine

and you're just at the trial. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely love issue 32. I thought it was great

With issue 33 we get slaughterhouse part 2 the

road not taken. Oh, of course a Robert Frost

reference. Why not? Yeah, he loves those Roberts

that is oh Rewind on the cover. Oh, man. I remember

when I get went to get this is the comic shop.

I'm like really Rewind really? They're really

gonna rub it in our faces that he's dead Well,

he comes so the reveal at the end of the previous

issue was that rewind is alive However, it is

the alternate universe rewind and we actually

get into the full explanation as both night beats

and Nautica Just sort of joined together and

work together to figure out exactly what happened

and we see sort of again and not I really like

The artwork is or sorry a nod to the fact I really

like the artwork we actually see The sort of

past events as they now unfolded for this alternate

crew And I liked the kind of callbacks to stuff.

We've already seen on the lost lights and in

the other earlier stages of the series we get

another sort of slaughter of the crew as rewinds

Version of events is played and so we see that

again Alright, I'll get into the other bits in

a minute. So the resolution here Is they essentially

destroy this lost light, you know and everyone

on it and It's done in there's two great sequences

here and i'll get to my other favorites and then

again like before i'll just shut up so megatron

is berated by skids for not caring what happens

to the planet below because they could just destroy

the alternate lost lights and sort of leave or

they could do it in a way that won't harm the

planet And Megatron has basically decided, well,

there's no mechanical life on the planet, so

who cares? Let's just blow it up. And Skids absolutely

berates him and tells him, you know, if you continue

just sort of doing what you want, then your change

of heart and the insignia on your chest means

nothing. I loved that. Another great sort of

speech and another sign that, you know, Megatron

is going to have to kind of own up and face his

past and be different. So I loved that the other

reveal I really liked night beat in searching

brainstorms lab for a way to shrink Megatron

or somebody down so they can get to the alternate

lost lights engines Discoverers that brainstorm

was actually a decepticon Yeah, so that's fairly

important and all through season one and the

like yeah, he was a decepticon so yeah the issue

ends with the lost light alternate lost light

is disappeared the original lost light and its

crew are restored and rewind not having an alternate

universe version anymore because his main sorry

rewind being an alternate universe version and

his main universe version being deceased slash

blown to pieces is still there Now, the other

moment, the third one I want to get into now,

and again, hate to do it again, but the art here

is so good. It is, yes. The sequence with Rewind

remembering the DJD torturing Chromedome to death

to get Rewind to... Well, A, they tell Chromedome

that if he injects himself and forgets Rewind,

they'll let him live, which is terrible. And

yeah, they torture him to death, and you get

this horrific shot of him with his finger needles

jabbed through his eye plate as he died screaming

his name. That's awful. That actually stayed

with me for a few days. Yeah, that oh god, that's

heart -wrenching So yeah, I mean chrome dome

and rewinds relationship was one of the bright

spots of the earlier seasons and it was used

for a Some real hearts to the book So seeing

how that ended up in both universes how shitty

it ended up for both of them. Yeah That's not

very nice. No, it's not very nice at all Yeah,

no Rewind and chrome dome. They're essentially

the Romeo and Juliet of transformers really Yeah,

and I mean to be fit. Yeah, it's always seem

standing tragedy. That's what I'm saying Not

necessarily that not necessarily that chrome

dome is going to be like, you know rewind Rima,

you know, I'm saying the fact that it's but anyways,

well, yeah i'm saying it's it's always seems

like the two of them always face the the hardest

tragedies in this series and that's almost as

sad as seeing something some robot cut in half

-length ways wasn't really sad there's more shocking

i mean we didn't know if you want all that well

but it was still pretty crappy yeah i did like

you on for what little we saw them volume 6 28

to 33 I Really really enjoyed it. I Thought it

was fun. Yeah, this is one of my favorite it's

a toss -up between this one and The final volume

which reads again reads so much better in trade

than it did when I had the individual issues

It's a toss -up, but it's really good. Yeah I

loved this season as a whole. We'll just get

that out of the way. But yeah, the Slaughterhouse

arc and everything else were some of my favorite

stuff in this. If I was going to rate the trade

overall, the entire book, I'd probably give it

four out of five for the whole story. Yeah, I'd

probably set it at about a 4 .5. Alright, we're

gonna take a quick break. We're gonna come back

and talk about more than meets the eye volume

7 after this I can't deal with that now It's

showtime synergy the latest review podcast from

the geek cast radio network is here So join TFG

one Mike Nicole hailstorm and myself lady rec

as we will be reviewing all 65 episodes of John

the holograms in a 25 episode long podcast You

can find Showtime Synergy on iTunes and GeekCastRadio

.com. We are the truly outrageous podcast that

you want to be listening to. roped into combiner

wars, did they? Nope. Good. Yeah. I don't think

Roberts likes the event books to the point that

he consistently berated Revolution in his issue,

which was hilarious. And yeah, he's right for

not really liking them because Dark Cybertron

did no favors to More Than Meets the Eye or its

cast. No, not at all. So 34 yeah So again we

get Yeah, you're gonna really have to synopsize

the hell out of this one because I was so The

first page into this this trade I was lost I

had no idea what the hell was going on So before

we get into it, I will just say I love this issue

That's all I that's all I'll give for that sort

of thing. So this you know to sum it up uh so

we start on board or on a planet offstead uh

17 and it is actually the planet that was beside

the lost light so yeah the the people that are

here know nothing of they just sort of reappeared

and know nothing about you know what happened

On board the lost light and ended up on the planet

Wow, yeah, so I Mean, it's explained pretty quickly

We jumped from them to the past. All right, so

I'll just continue this one storyline at a time

at this point We go to Mesutene which for anyone

who remembers reading Some of the really old

original transformers comics was the planet that

Megatron started his writing on That began the

Decepticon movement and As we continue on that

planet, we see what happens. There's a basically

a meltdown and The miners are all evacuated now

stuff in between that uh... we get some great

character development for megatron where his

fear of his brain being best with that we saw

in the previous trade during the trial we see

why it's because his brain was messed with before

and that's why he was the evil sort of not as

smart as his writings transformer after that.

So it's kind of neat that they try to kind of

retcon the fact that Megatron's done some really

dumb stuff in the comics, i .e. the Costa run

and some of the others, and they've tried to

kind of reconcile it with the fact that he's

actually intelligent in this series. The real

life reason is we went from an incredibly shitty

writer to a good one. Yeah, there's not a nice

way to put that costas run is awful And actually

a bit of background just for a second more than

meets the eye actually got Andrew Back into reading

comics and he had no interest in transformers,

but I kept on him to read this And he was somebody

who knew nothing about transformers, you know

hadn't watched it that kind of thing and he followed

along and he loved the series And yeah, the way,

and I had him skip over the Kosta run, I gave

him sort of a quips synopsis of what happened

in the earlier stuff and it still worked, so

anyway. So yeah, that's the past storyline. It

ends with Megatron and all of the miners evacuate

the planet, but his friend Terminus, who was

helping smuggle the writings out, has disappeared.

and is gone for whatever reason and we find out

that the meltdown by the way was actually the

fault of brainstorm who has used his briefcase

to travel back in time and this is post now the

previous issue ended with brainstorm having made

everybody in the bar swerves pass out and just

says I can do whatever the hell I want and now

we know he's back in the past So there we go.

That's the summation of the past stuff. The present

stuff on Ofsted 17 involves First Aid, Trailbreaker,

Blue Streak, and Mainframe. They come across

what looks to be a battle and find a damaged

Cybertronian. And in the end, they realize that

it's Voss, a member of the Decepticon Justice

Division. In the end, nobody agrees to help him

because the DJD are seriously bad news. However,

First Aid stays, being a medic. And unfortunately,

First Aid figures out who Voss is when they finally

read the Find, Kill, Cleanse. which is the DJD's

motto. So at this point, he and Trailbreaker

have been giving Voss energon. And so this is

pretty heartbreaking. Doesn't make me very happy.

So Trailbreaker gives him probably too much of

his energon and first aid leaves to go get help.

Trail breaker activates his force field which

will allow him to be safe from Kay or from Voss

I got in front of myself there Unfortunately,

he has trapped himself inside his force field

with Kay on one of the other More dangerous members

of the DJD who murders him horribly Crushing

his ripping out his brain and crushing it against

his own force field Now pork portrayal cutter

yeah will trail breaker well whatever whatever

gets hasbro's faults for not trademarking the

name anyway so in amongst all this probably the

biggest development present day is the fact that

k on took a copy of megatron speech renouncing

decepticon ism with them Yeah, so we get two

major storylines here one the DJD have killed

trail breaker and now know that Megatron has

defected and Two in the past something is happening

brainstorm has gone back in time to do something

We have no idea what? but yeah The two things

I took from this The trail breaker stuff is heartbreaking.

It is yes the fact that they made somebody who

was kind of a drunk joke character in the first

season and redeemed him and made me care about

him enough that I felt bad when he died was sad

because he was just getting his life together

Megatron had helped him do it yep and yeah he

dies and he will not does not return number two

man Megatron's writings are they show pages of

it in this it's fantastic Roberts is such a good

writer and you can understand why people would

want to follow him because he's at that time

your your literal form as in what you transformed

into determined your sis where you were in society

right so Megatron transformed basically into

a mining tool so that's all he was ever gonna

be and yeah you would definitely want to follow

that if you transformed into something more deemed

more useful you know you were brought up higher

you lived in better conditions etc etc it's essentially

Gattaca folks yeah in a lot of ways Yeah, I love

this first issue once I figured out what the

hell's going on. And that's fair, because there's

a lot of jumping in that one. Well, like, okay,

so I didn't know, like going from the end of

33 to the beginning of 34, I didn't realize that

was the planet that was above the alternate lost

light at first. Like I didn't know what the hell

planet that was yes why that's why I was so lost

in the very beginning of it So yeah, the time

frame is jarring and it's mentioned a little

later, but only in a small snippet of dialogue.

Yeah with 35 Well, well the 34 it was the whole

brainstorm thing like why couldn't they just

use counter punch punch counter punch like seriously

that would have made a hell of a lot more sense

I guess in my mind well not later on well no

not later on but I'm just saying at this point

I'm like so a brainstorm was bad but he wasn't

bad but he is like what the hell brainstorm make

up your mind already we worked for the Decepticons

just because he wanted to build a time machine

That was all of it. I mean the Decepticons have

all the best technology because of course they

steal and murder for it So yeah working for them

Now in the end what happened was on the alternate

lost light brainstorm was working with the DJD

and It resulted in them slaughtering the alternate

lost light So yeah, he's not real popular at

this point Not at all. All right, so 35. What

do we got for 35? 35 opens and oh boy is this

important later in the functionalist universe

This is a alternate universe as we eventually

figure out so I'm just gonna spoil things. I

don't really have a choice here It's an alternate

universe. We discover that Its existence is being

rewritten on rewinds database so he is remembering

this alternate universe as the normal one and

we'll get into why soon enough uh one quick note

there's two character moments here at the start

i love one is the conversation between chrome

dome and rewind where they refuse or sorry rewind

refuses to stay with chrome dome right now because

this is not the same rewind I like that they

made that clear that they're not just, you know,

back together immediately and everything's fine.

I like that, you know, things aren't the same.

One of each of them both watched the other die

pretty terribly. And I like that that changed

them and their relationship. It would have been

lazy if they had just gone back to normal. The

second moment I really like is Megatron's obvious

guilt over the death of Trailbreaker. And you

can see that, you know, he's guilty as he should

be because the DJD is his creation, literally.

And yeah, they killed somebody who he was working

with. So... We get a bit of an exposition dump

at this point as well about what's happened in

terms of brainstorm jumping through time. And

they ask themselves, if you were a Decepticon,

how would you use a time machine? Well, you'd

go back in time to change how the war ended,

as Megatron points out. Yeah, very true. So after

this, we jump from the back to the functionalist

universe. Which I won't talk about much because

it's not It's not important yet Yeah, it's important

in season one of lost light Which is another

series, but anyway, so I don't even have to talk

about it, which is nice So anyway, we go back

to present -day they're trying to figure out

where the heck brainstorm is going, they decide

he's probably going back in time to murder Orion

Pax, who, of course, becomes Optimus Prime. Yeah,

I thought that was awesome. I thought just the

fact of, you know, it reminds me of War Dawn.

Yeah. It really does. Obviously, it's not the

aerial bots, but it's brainstorm instead. And

obviously, the aerial bots were not going back

to murder Optimus Prime. Though they almost did,

because they're dumb. They just came online they

were new new bots, you know, I don't know sure

anyway But yeah, no, I kind of love the time

travel stuff with with with brainstorm I did

the stuff. I don't like is the alternate universe

stuff which i now realize of course and at the

time i kind of figured it would be eventually

be a setup but i don't know that it works especially

i like that it was really only uh... the couple

issues that they did it uh... so i didn't realize

it was an alternate universe i thought it was

rewinds dream yeah and i thought i i i was re

it's rewriting his database and replacing the

actual history so yeah having said that any sort

of misgivings i have about that issue uh... are

completely overwritten by how good the next issue

is uh... oh yeah well thirty five the other the

only other note that i really had for thirty

five was uh... I had a couple of notes. Rewind,

D in Chromedome. Okay then, this is all very

awkward now. But I like that. Like I said, it

would have been lazy if they had just decided,

like, eh, he's the same guy, we'll just continue

on. I love... I love Minimus. Minimus is awesome.

I mean, technically it's Magnus, but that's what

I liked about that. Okay, look. Ultra Magnus,

I don't care what anyone says, Ultra Magnus is

not just a white repaint of Optimus Prime, okay?

Ultra Magnus is his own character. He has his

own values. And in this series, Roberts took

it to another level, where the Ultra Magnus character

is just nothing but armor. I mean, Rewind was

stuck in that armor for a while. You know, oh

yeah, I know but you know And then of course

poor Dominus you have no face did prime take

it But yeah 36 go ahead and give us the skinny

on your favorite issue here Oh man, it's great

so 36 opens with the past and Orion packs in

his band who we saw way back in the third trade

of more than meets the eye are back together

and They're trying to protect a hotspots, which

is where sparks. So in other words new transformers

are born slash being formed and Basically, they're

there to try to guard Against whatever brainstorm

is going to do I will note at this point then

brainstorm does not show up in this issue So

they went to the wrong place Again, we'll figure

out why later but anyway The meat of this issue

are all the character interactions which are

glorious. So first of all Rodimus in the past

is trying desperately to warn trail breaker about

what will happen in the future So trying to prevent

his death The other one is another another great

Megatron speech. There's a phone call where optimus

Well Megatron calls for Rodimus, but Orion packs

the future optimus prime answers Yeah, and current

Megatron has a past or sorry is speaking to past

Optimus Prime essentially and it's Beautiful

it is so awesome Another great sort of you know

Megatron running into his past again and really

lamenting his decisions and it just works so

well and this is another one of those that if

the the rest of the issue is still great there's

some really good action at the end as the current

evil primes forces attack the hotspots trying

to change the sparks and there's some great stuff

there but honestly if the rest of the issue were

crap I'd still love it just for that speech.

It's another one of those that's so good. And

there's a couple of really neat little touches.

Rodimus is really concerned about protecting

this hotspot. And it's because if you paid a

lot of attention to previous issues, you'd know

it's actually where Rodimus was born. So he is

literally saving his own life by protecting the

hotspot. The number two thing here is something

we won't figure out for much later. But there

are more insinuations as to the identity of the

DJD leader. Tarn. Isn't it Tarn? Yes. And so

there are heavy insinuations as to who it is

in this issue. However, it's not him. but having

said that all of the clues to who actually was

are in this issue in the previous one with that

character who is actually turn so yet it's really

well -done you know roberts does so much with

the writing he doesn't just write a transformer

story writer transform story i love it when he

throws in various G1 reference like that the

color -coded lasers come on everybody had to

chuckle at that Come on, you know, but what he

does is he takes it and turns it on its head.

He basically I Hate to put it this way, but he

basically he basically emotionally rapes his

readers Every single issue because there's something

in this series in every single issue for somebody

that has been a Transformers fan their entire

life The first one for me that I've noticed out

of 36 was roller Roller you mean he's not just

primes trailer, mate Yeah, he briefly appeared

way back in elegant chaos in the third trade

And it's heavily insinuated that Roller is in

fact Tarn. As I said before, he is not. And the

last sort of, the two last bits that I love in

this, one, and made me kind of feel something,

one is humor, and that is Tailgate's hero warship

of Orion Pax continues, because he developed

that way back in the third trade. And it's and

he actually gets to meet him here and it's hilarious

And number two is the ending which again made

me sad because in the end chrome dome Has them

wipe everybody's memories because for example

skids is there and skids is part of the lost

light crew and doesn't remember this So to keep

the timeline intact, they have to wipe everybody's

memory Well, unfortunately, Trailbreaker insists

on shaking Chromedome's hand, and before Rodimus

can stop him, Trailbreaker has forgotten Rodimus'

warnings that would keep him alive. So now we

know Trailbreaker's still gonna die. And that

was sad again. Roberts is a mean person when

it comes to death. Yes, yes. As long as he never

kills Rodimus, I'll be okay. Well actually no

wait anyway So we get to 37 in a row Yay Yeah,

nice clerks reference so of course 37 opens with

our crew has jumped again This time actually

into the timeline of the third trade of more

than meets the eye But we don't know that yet

And we jump from there to present day now in

the present day the big development is people

are starting to forget Megatron Yeah, I love

that and Actually, this one is called elegant

chaos. Whoops. I can't remember what the old

one old trade was anyway, so People are starting

to forget Megatron which obviously becomes later

or important later because we realized that's

who made the new brainstorm was trying to kill

Yeah, and we actually get alternate viewpoints

of a number of things we saw from both the third

trade and from a much earlier Robert story way

back during the Costa days which was just called

That wasn't chaos. It was part of the police

action trade Which is one of the early ones I

own Volume 3 was annual 2012 and issues 9 to

11. Yeah of more than meets the eye I'm talking

about the Transformers as in costas run. It was

the fifth trade of that which was police action

and anyway, the rest of it is garbage because

it's costas Writing but there's a single issue

in there written by Roberts which goes back into

the history between Megatron and brine and their

first meetings So anyway, some of that is also

referenced here Important bits are anonymous

and co finally find brainstorm. Yep And he continues

jumping through time, this time into the brawl

that would result in Megatron's first meeting

with Optimus. And at the same time, we see what

happened to Whirl, and the reasoning why he has

no hands and had the Empirata happen to him,

much the way Shockwave did. And lastly, like

I said Megatron and co figure out that oops,

that's where Brainstorm is going is to kill Megatron

so events transpire the way they're supposed

to and The two things I loved in most in this

book one Roberts does the quick character moments

really well cyclonus actually apologizes for

his domestic abuse of tailgate yeah and a really

quick sort of segment which is well done and

good that they reference to that and they progressed

on it too I love seeing everything from an alternate

angle It was neat to see the same sequences redone

as well as retconning things such as night beat

seeing wrong in the past Yet rung doesn't remember

night beat Yeah, that was a little strange, but

so now we know why the other issue, too By the

way, you were talking about Roberts playing the

long game Wrong is holding a model of the lost

light That night beat saw future wrong, but we're

talking about an issue that was drawn up and

written I think I can't remember when costas

run was but we're talking years Before more than

meets the eye even existed Yeah, and that's amazing

that Roberts remembered that and not only that

but there's the line from night beat in Dark

Cybertron where he sees the lost light and says

he's seen it somewhere Well, the place he saw

it was the model Rung was holding. Yeah. It was

here, yeah. It's really well done. Like, everything

just kind of clicks together perfectly and just,

ugh. I don't know how he keeps track of all this

stuff. Lots and lots of whiskey, I bet. I think

that would be how he forgets this stuff. But

yeah, no 37 you know we finally get kind of answers

to brainstorm and all that like you said he's

going after Megatron not optimus And again we

we sort of see another At least this universe

is Megatron origin. I mean yeah, we you know

we have There's so many Megatron origins over

the last 30 35 years or so This concept of you

know going as a whole for a second this concept

of Megatron as a freedom fighter who was needed

because of how corrupt the government was is

One of the most interesting versions of Megatron.

I think they ever had oh, yeah, that's why a

lot like I find it so much more interesting than

the there listen there's a place for the you

know mustache twirling evil I'm okay with that

but we've seen that a number of times before

making him somebody who was legitimately needed

at the time is really interesting to me Yeah.

It gives the character of Megatron depth. He's

not just out to ruin the world just so he can

conquer it. He's not just, you know... He legitimately

wanted to make things better for his race. Yeah.

And unfortunately he ended up taking it to the

extreme. And to a certain extent Starscream was

correct when he said that he couldn't control

everything. You know, he created these horrible

kill squads, like the DJD, and these horrible

phase sixers, like Overlord, actually most notably

Overlord, and he couldn't control them. Nobody

could, because Overlord is just ungodly powerful,

and he's nuts. And the DJD are just evil. And

so is Overlord to a certain extent. Love how

much depth he gives Megatron through this series

and again makes him more interesting in my opinion

than he's ever been before So basically what

we're trying to say here folks when it comes

to Megatron at points because he created these

various Robot races and things like that between

the DJD and and an overload just overload by

himself Megatron is the biggest proctologist

in Transformers history wall -to -wall assholes

Well to be fair, I mean he's partially responsible

for shockwave That's true as well. Yeah now he's

not responsible for senator shockwave having

everything stripped away the Government that

Megatron wants to take down is responsible for

that. Yeah, but yeah Megatron still helped along

that path. Although so did others. I mean overlords

cries for attention and general chaos helped,

and pretty much everybody fell into place. Soundwave,

unfortunately, accidentally helped him. So, anyway,

getting way off topic. Yeah, issue 37 was great.

I thought it was really interesting seeing the

whole Megatron angle, and actually finding out

why Brainstorm is doing this. Or at least what

his purpose is why is sort of yeah is finally

explained in the next issue Although we see hints

of it because he looks at quark who oh god damn

it Roberts quarks fates and what happened to

him is one of the meanest things in the entire

series and results in Results in someone like

the saddest deaths. I've read in comics anyway

Back to happier times see see folks IDW and James

Roberts and John Barber and the Transformers

crew They don't need us to call in and vote to

live to see who lives or dies They just do it

and they just make us feel it later. Yes so 38

Yes, the final issue of this trade. Yay, which

This was terrific compilation so absolutely we

open in the future with or the present sorry

with Megatron going nuts because he finally realizes

you know I'm gonna die yeah oh god and we get

the wonderful moment at the end where Megatron

shows off his Rodimus star which Rodimus gives

out to crew members who he feels do exceptional

work and I loved the end of this where Magnus

just shows his off and just goes, neatest handwriting,

you? And Megatron just sighs and says, for abandoning

my evil ways. So some good comedy there. Then

we go back to the past and Rodimus and co. jump

in to try to stop Brainstorm. They succeed in

getting Brainstorm to stop. However, as Rung

points out, Brainstorm had stopped himself because

he couldn't actually pull the trigger. and kill

someone he spent all this time making weapons

to kill people but he's never done it himself

and he can't bring himself to do it however alternate

universe rewind then shoots Megatron and kills

him yeah rewind what the hell man and he's supposed

to be the kind one now having said that again

I don't know how I'll get to it at the end of

the issue so Megatron is dead in the past yet

still exists in the present which offers up a

whole lot of questions Now as they're discussing

this conundrum The body of Megatron is taken

away by a whirl and he pulls the spark that Brainstorm

had with him since the fifth trade of more than

meets the eye Implants it into Megatron's corpse

bringing him back to life Meaning everything

is full circle that Megatron was actually a point

one percenter born in the fifth trade of more

than meets the eye in the present and He was

transferred making him the first spark transfer

ever which is why he wouldn't divulge What he

was he's the first ever hybrid transformer Yeah

So everything comes full circle and makes sense.

Continuing that... So after this, everything's

hokey -dory because Megatron's alive. The only

downer is our crew are stuck in the past. Yeah,

they are. And so in a series of events, which

is wonderful because it makes everything in the

series make sense... Why finally yeah why there

were spark eaters in the first trade is covered

here Where the lost light came from and why it's

Cybertron Tronion technology that somebody else

had is covered because it was built on Cybertron

Why its engines work and why it's never been

replicated is covered because it was stolen after

it was invented And yeah The last bit we get

is that the functionalist universe survived Whatever

happened it didn't erase its existence that universe

still exists a B We're getting more into the

issue then the events I loved in this issue a

everything kind of fitting together nicely I

loved how they tied into the first trade into

this They even had them record the warning to

not leave which is from that first trade Right,

so I enjoyed that To the other thing I loved

was Megatron had to listen to why rewind the

sort of nicest smallest transformer murdered

him I that was interesting. I agree with the

train That was really good timing. So The you

leave you leave after a train out of this. Yeah.

No, he's dead, too. Um, hey What that was in

our ID? So he's oh Boy I loved that it was another

great speech rewind is right that the problem

The why rewind would do it is yes things suck

for the Cybertronian race under the functionalists

and things are awful But billions of other plan

of other beings and hundreds and hundreds of

other planets are now safe So it's sort of the

needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

sort of math So rewind is Spock Kind of yeah,

I mean it's the logic and he's right. It's the

logical thing. Yes things suck for their race,

but everyone else in the entire universe has

it way better and So yeah, he does it for that

reason now world also comes full circle because

a we find out why he's kind of a dink in the

previous issue because He had his emotions and

his hands stripped away from him Yep, and be

he revives Megatron just to get back at the functionalist

so that they don't get to rule Like we see in

the alternate universe Yeah Yeah, that was awesome.

I was not expecting world to do that. Yeah to

essentially be the See, I don't know if he's

the hero or what he is, which is why I love this

comic so much He's the punisher of the more than

meets the universe. He's the hero in the sense

that we care about our main characters but I

mean you know he allows billions to die on other

planets so yeah real fun choice yeah we should

know by now there are no fun choices when it

comes to James Roberts and his more than meets

the eye title at all I mean There really aren't

because he goes for the gut he goes for he doesn't

he's not gonna just you know Give us something

to as I said earlier. You know he's got moments

where we can laugh and find enjoyable But he

takes those and he then twists them and turns

them and and just gives us these Jaw -dropping

tragedies That's what more than meets the eye

is it's a comedy filled with tragedies I think

the most impressive thing he's done is I look

at somebody like Andrew who unlike us didn't

grow up with the Transformers Doesn't know these

characters, but he loves this series and he cares

about these characters and the fact that he can

make someone who has no ability to You know has

no attachment to these characters previously

care about these you know robots You know these

fictional robots is astounding and It's a testament

to how good his writing is the best comics make

you feel something the Phoenix Saga The killing

joke Trying to remember others, but of course

mail death of superman now when i really need

to watchman yet you feel something at the things

that happen to these fictional characters and

it's the same with the best of television uh...

you know you know you care what happens to jesse

pinkman or who dick mackey even though he's horrible

scum uh... but yet it's he's so good at leaving

and all the while kind of weaving things past

and present and making this plot lock into pace

into place and it's not always perfect uh...

i would never say that but man this is the best

transformers has been for me oh absolutely and

you know his comic represents all of the best

of it's and i don't mean any disrespect to some

of the great series that Also exist. I love Beast

Wars. I love Transformers Prime but Jeez, I mean

the writing in this You know code of hero is

one of the saddest best individual Transformers

stories and Some of his writing is right on par

with that or at least close to it and he does

it pretty consistently Yeah, I would say that

he does and and I agree with you I See, I don't

want to compare the comic to the cartoon stuff

because, yes, Code of Hero was epic, amazing,

and it was very well written, and the whole Dinobot

story culminated in that, but the difference

is with IDW, they let Roberts, and not necessarily

to a lesser extent, but they let Roberts and

Barber go, what, 57 issues before they rebooted?

Yeah into you know, so I mean we essentially

had what five and a half years or so Yeah, it

was five years for more than meets the eye started

in 2011 and it should be noted I mentioned it

before six years actually last year Yeah, and

I mentioned it before Robert's got a couple issues

to kind of cheat and set things up during the

Costa run as well you got death of Optimus Prime

and I was referring to, yeah, the police action,

and then he wrote some of the stuff during chaos.

Sorry, chaos theory. That was the issue during

the police action arc. There we go. There you

go. Yeah, and then which led into elegant chaos.

Elegant chaos, yeah. Yeah, I know, but... Volume

six and seven for more than meets the eye. I

I love them. I think they're great I said this

years ago when Ender Amy and I covered the first

five trades of this series at one point that

my initial hesitation to This series was that

I did not know a majority like when I first saw

this series come out Other than the fact of Ender

telling me I needed to read it simply for Shockwave's

origin, was that the only person on the lost

light that I recognized at the time was Rodimus.

And I pretty much jumped on board just because

I'm a Rodimus fanboy, but now after so many years

after reading all this stuff I love this series.

I love the art I think Milne is an amazing epic

artist the colorists between Burcham and La Fuente

and Anybody else they bring on besides those

those three are really really great and Roberts

just kills it with the writing Absolutely Yeah,

I mean this is the You know and the comparison

that he gets is to the old UK stuff From Simon

Furman, which was really good But people have

this weird I own all of it It should be noted

actually I own every single Transformers run

with the exception of I do not own all hail Megatron

because I hate it And I and I do not own the

Mike Costa run But aside from - Why do you hate

us? It's an explanation for another episode anyway.

Oh, because it's terrible. I mean, it's poorly

written. Everyone's out of character. Megatron

is portrayed as an imbecile in All Hail Megatron.

I mean, he is an idiot in that series. This idea

that, oh, I won and I didn't know what to do.

Now I'm stuck on earth. I can't do anything else.

Do you do? It just makes him come off like a

moron And you know Starscream points it out and

he's right But anyway, so I own all the Marvel

US stuff all the Marvel UK stuff Dreamwave everything

else from IDW etc. Etc So people always compare

this to the Marvel UK people forget all of the

bad issues in the Marvel UK stories. It's like

the old Chris Claremont X -Men stories. People

remember it and remember it as being this great,

perfect series because they just remember the

really good stories. They don't remember all

the crap ones in between and some of the poor

characterization. So it's kind of the same thing

the Marvel UK is terrific overall and there's

some amazing story arcs But people kind of forget

some of the not so good stuff in there Like people

revoke revere time wars, but they forget that

sound waves decepticons Do absolutely nothing

and exist in the series for no reason It was

why even include them. They wasted time with

that anyway Alright folks join us next week here

in Autobotly April for the pull bag is rating

for volume 7. Oh Whoops, you forgot that fuck

I Gave four point five. I was if I gave four

point five out of five for six so for seven and

I'd say a proof a really high for like four point

two five under six Just it's just under six.

What the hell just under volume six. Oh, okay

The the main issue being there's some really

great stuff in it. There's some great speeches

again, but there's some stuff that didn't work

well the Transitions are a little more jarring

in seven than they were in six between timelines

and there's an awful lot going on now It still

clicks together. Well, but it's not perfect.

So Yeah, absolutely. For a seven for me, I'll

probably give it a three and a half. I really

did enjoy it. But again, if I am completely lost

at the very beginning of a book, that's my own

problem, I guess. But yeah, three and a half

out of five for me for seven. Coming up next

week, we dive into robo -politics with not -rid,

x -rid. Transformers formerly known as robots

in disguise volume six and seven That's gonna

be interesting because I do not remember I remember

these but I do not remember these I have the

same issue. I mean, I hate to say it but there's

a drop The first five trades for our ID were

solid. They are some of Barbara's best work and

after that though there's too much other stuff

going on with them because XR ID is sort of the

flagship title that has to set up all the events

oh boy does not always work no by the way some

of raw not Robert some of Barbara's best work

right now is his Marvel stuff holy cow yeah The

doctor strange Punisher series was outstanding

like much better than I thought it was gonna

be I was really impressed and it comes off almost

as a comedy, which is great Anyway, well you

put dr. Strange who is somewhat comical and the

Punisher who is most of the time severely depressing

again Comedy filled with tragedies Wow Oh boy,

so yeah, join us next week folks as we Talk about

robots in disguise volumes 6 and 7 all as I remember

from at least volume 6 was dawn of the Autobots

Optimus Prime goes back to earth and faces whatever

he has to face and I do remember in the beginning

of that series of that volume 6 Something to

do with thundercracker and writing a play It

had to have some comedy in it Yeah, I guess So

where do people find you online sir at night

beats where today? I was ranting about mass effect

andromeda You can find me at TF2 and Mike you

can find at the pull bag on Twitter at geek castor

deal for all the other network updates Make your

greatest game in the comics, and we will catch

you next week when we were actually back on Cybertron

This is getting expensive! Well, it's finished.

You may not recognize him. He is no longer Orion

Pax. Now he is the first of our new defenders,

Optimus Prime. I was wrong, my friends. I admired

Megatron merely because he was powerful. I failed

to see how he used that power. You've just heard

the latest episode of The Pullback, the GCRN's

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