Transformers MTMTE and RID Volume 10 Review

Welcome to the pull bags back issue classics

Join us as we talk about comics from yesteryear

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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 86 a la 1986

folks because it is time to talk one last time

for now here in Autobot Lee April even though

this is May 3rd To talk about IDW and their Transformers

series. We're gonna be doing xrid not rid book

formally known as read uh... volume ten and more

than meets the eye volume ten so two trades one

podcast like we've been doing of course ryan

mister night beat is with me here we should celebrate

by talking to the authors of the books uh...

so i can find in sorority so much i love them

only way less creepily than that uh... james

do you want to see my sonic fan fiction on dvd

arts i'm sorry oh my god please no alright we

are here to talk like i said more transformers

we hope everybody on the pull bag and all things

transformers has been liking the comic coverage

uh... we're gonna tease the next uh... auto -bottling

month at the end of this podcast so stay tuned

for that and if you haven't been enjoying the

coverage uh... email mike at thisweekandgeek

.net that's not my email address i know he'll

be like who the fuck is emailing me about transformers

comics well i was gonna give out andrew's email

address but he'll probably get mad i'll give

out his phone number at the end of the show though

Ladies and gentlemen this podcast has now become

the bathroom wall Anyway, I can guarantee you

won't have a good time talking to him Wow dude

come on now Alright rid not rid X rid whatever

Issue number 50 big double issues starting off

the all hail optimists storyline which is pretty

much built to this so one thing about comics

are it this another thing when did this come

up all this came up when we did a nerd news that

at some point i think we should just talk about

some of the issues are things surrounding comic

books and maybe why it's not they're not being

read as much today I'm gonna preface this with

saying that I like X -RID. I like Barber's work

overall. I do not think it is as good as Roberts's

work, but I think that's a really high bar. And

I think if it weren't for Roberts, Barber's stuff

would be known as basically the best Transformers

stories long form running. And I put that, you

know, I willingly put that up against the UK

stuff from Furman, US stuff from Furman, et cetera,

et cetera. So now that I've prefaced all this,

one of the things with comics is the storytelling

now either happens sort of in terms of you buy

a trade and it contains a storyline that will

sometimes kind of build into the next thing,

but it should generally be a pretty self -contained

story. That hasn't really been the last few trades

of our ID so as we move into this one You know,

everything's been building up to this particular

trade. Mm -hmm and You know as we go through

what happens yeah before we get to that issue

50 has six total covers uh according to the tf

wiki yeah there's a great bugger off with that

stuff too by the way when we're talking about

annoyances in comics oh six different covers

yeah not a big fan of the the alternate covers

i think it's was 50th issue it was celebratory

they don't they okay idw generally has three

covers regular Retail incentive and subscription.

So I mean it's not as bad as It was spawn 100

that I can't remember if it was 15 or 20 It was

a lot back to the future number one from IDW

when they first got the license to do back to

the future Had I believe it was 20 or 30 covers

Don't do that, because that usually just annoys

retailers. That's why, because you get people

that want a particular cover, so you feel like

you've got to bring them all in, and then you

end up with a whole bunch of unsold. Or even

worse, the companies that say, you can only get

this cover if you pre -order 100 copies of our

book. Oh good, so we can have these 99 copies

sitting on the shelf. Because one guy requested

this wonderful. Anyway, I'm getting severely

off -topic the six covers There's only two out

of the six that I absolutely love It's the all

hell optimus cover, which is the cover of the

trade which is him with the earth in his hand

uh... and then it's you know heavy is the head

that wears the crown with him wearing star screams

crown those the two best covers for me that's

one thing we haven't uh... talked about much

through this entire yeah both books the covers

for both books are terrific they are Everyone

that works on the cover arts, if I had them all

handy, I'd just read off the names or something.

But in any case, it's excellent. Much like the

interior arts, everybody that's worked on these

does a great job, including the writers, even

though I'm about to... I know. so just to go

over it for this trade for for rid um andrew

griffith and thomas dear on the regular cover

uh subscription a is jonathan hickman subscription

b is mike choy uh subscription c which is optimist

as the whole world in his hands is john paul

bov retailer incentive countdown to 50 cover

was alex millman josh perez And the concave exclusive

where he's wearing Starscream's crown is by Livio.

Yeah, Hickman is an exceptionally notable name

there considering he's pretty big in terms of

comics right now. Anyway, and as for the interior,

just to get to all this over with too, it's Andrew

Griffith, Casey Coller, Livio again, and then

Priscilla Tremantano. tram and tonneau me speak

good english wow anyway uh those are your interiors

uh who all do an excellent job i'll point out

specifics later and yeah the usual crew josh

birchham uh john paul bovey uh josh perez lefuente

and livio as well doing the colors and then we

have tom long and it's chris maury joining them

on lettering sweet everybody does a really good

job here so before I you know tear this apart

so when we last left our intrepid crew Galvatron

was attacking earth and Optimus and his group

had come in to cut them off mm -hmm and holy

crap talk about overkill so you got a handful

of Decepticons and we have two of the gestalts

of From the Autobot side namely superior on and

Victoria on Victoria on who's ridiculously powerful

has gravity based powers and that kind of thing

as well But in any case for whatever reason the

Galvatron and his crew think they can stand up

They have a well, I mean Galvatron thinks that

they've got the ultimate weapon here with a mind

bomb except the Autobots are immune to it because

Wheeljacks figured this out already and all it

does is knock out a few more of his Decepticons

leaving a total of seven Decepticons standing.

So you get seven cons versus a gigantic army

of Autobots and somehow they hold them off long

enough for the humans to attack. in the ends

those skip forward here in the end of the front

gets away uh... mostly thanks to sort of the

human intervention uh... the humans kill alaron's

friend uh... at the end of this with a satellite

weapon which uh... really seems to cheer here

here her up at which point the auto bots have

to run away and my only note for this entire

trade all -out war That's just a bunch of like

skirmishes just like that and then you know,

we end the issue with some of the politics and

Finding out or while getting to see sorry black

rock kind of disassembled by Galvatron and he's

kind of working with him not altogether willingly,

but anyway So as with the other issues my biggest

problem here the humans are stupid in this book

they are It drives me nuts. There's no discernible

difference between the Autobots and Decepticons

to them. You'd think they might have figured

out there were some differences. Gee, I don't

know. When the Decepticons took over Earth and

killed 10 % of the population of the entire planet,

you might want to get some intel on your enemies

at that point. Just going to throw that out there.

One thing that's interesting on a website there

is somebody that's reading through The IDW stuff

in order and this is somebody who's a generation

one fan. I hadn't read any of it. They're finally

up to The more than meets the eye and XR ID stories

Although at the point he's at it's still called

robots in disguise And it's interesting because

he keeps taking points off of the Prowl storylines.

And this is where I'm getting into why this is

pertinent. He keeps taking points off the Prowl

storylines because Prowl is so interested in

Spike. And the stuff with Spike and his introduction

and his existence as a character... Which by

the way is from the Mike Costa days is so bad

that he just keeps docking at points to this

day Which I feel like is fair His spikes just

a bad character Yeah spike is and I know we've

said that before so I don't want to harp on it

too much but like a lot of the human characters

in this just kind of drag down a lot of the book

and it annoys me because the transformers are

so interesting especially one thing i'll say

you know you might have this in note somewhere

i found sound wave really interesting in these

trades sound wave is the shining point of volume

10 for rid for me honestly he is because he is

megatron is gone Well, he's not gone, but he's

you know, he's not a decepticon. Yeah picture

whatever you want to say, you know and and sound

wave wants to Basically live in harmony Yes,

I was seems to genuinely want peace now He still

doesn't care about humans at this point. Obviously

the changes. Yeah, but He Yeah, he genuinely

seems to just want peace for the transformer

race. Yeah, and absolutely tired of being deceived

and used by people and we see it especially later

on he goes against You know, he will not follow

optimists, even though he definitely wants revenge

on Galvatron, but he's just sick and tired of

you know people using him and then he gets blackmailed

and optimists use them anyway uh... but uh...

no i really liked him in this in these books

sound wave i would almost say and i could be

wrong but honestly sound wave is the character

to follow and sound wave is almost the protagonist

almost all not not quite i was just gonna say

uh... having said all that Soundwave's appearance

in More Than Meets The Hype broke my heart way

more than anything he does in this. Well, obviously,

we'll get to that, but yeah, I mean... I'm just

saying, like, he's only in that for three panels,

and holy cow, so... And those are the three most

heart -wrenching panels in Transformers comic

history. I'd argue lose worse in that issue,

but anyway... Okay, yeah, but I'm saying, in

terms of his character... Okay, for him, maybe.

Yes. But in RID, he is... he's absolutely awesome

i absolutely love him in this because it's just

so refreshing to see and i know you're gonna

get into john's writing later and that's fine

and whatever but it's just his writing is excellent

especially for the transformers it's just the

human stuff and the human polity ticking is a

very insignificant like there's not a particularly

good reason for it like you have The Trying to

figure out how to word this one of the reasons

I love the expanse is there is a an incredible

discovery made By humankind that completely changes

the face of the universe But the humans in the

expanse are so terrible human beings and terrible

people that It doesn't matter. They still like

continue their old grudges and wars and everything

else Because humans are just dead sets on that

kind of thing the issue And there are people

that break away from that in the expanse the

issue with that that in our ID is nobody breaks

away from it spike is still a piece of garbage

who just hates all the transformers and doesn't

care who gets hurt as long as It's one of them

the only one that kind of comes across as even

having the slightest bit of a brain To bother

learning anything about their enemies is marissa

Yeah, like even the president doesn't care and

i'm into issue two now when i'm talking about

this but like even the president doesn't seem

to care that there are definite differences and

that You know the they may not like the autobots,

but they're clearly trying to do things to help

rather than hinder Yeah, absolutely You can distrust

them, that's fine, they should, but at some point

you have to acknowledge that, gee, maybe we shouldn't

have signed a treaty with a bunch of purple insignia

psychopaths that keep trying to wreck stuff.

What I love, I'm just gonna go back just for

a minute, I know we're on to 51 now, but in 50,

there are two things I absolutely love about...

This trade and what Roberts will do a few times

in when we get to that but You know stand down

Galvatron or face my wrath. That's essentially

optimist quoting Megatron from the movie. That's

Okay, it's not it's not the the face my wrath

part is no, but it's definitely more Proactive

slash angry than we're used to with optimus.

Yeah, absolutely series. He's continued to kind

of get darker and more angry And a lot of that

is based on the initial sort of thing in this

like basically in this first battle in this issue

Optimus and co could have ended this at this

point, but the humans intervene Yeah, start attacking

both sides. Yeah, by the way again If you're

the humans wouldn't you want like one side to

eliminate the other and then when they're weakened

then you attack Yes, they're just jumping in

and get everyone piss getting everyone pissed

off at you. Yeah, pretty much Yeah, I know I'm

talking like actual tactics which the humans

in this are too stupid to use but anyway Yeah,

so Part two, I like it. I'm just kinda weirded

out by Bumble Ghost. I mean, I know we're not

there yet, but every time I see yellow, it's

like, oh, I know Bumblebee's coming. And of course,

the reason why I'm seeing yellow now is because

we have Sunstreaker here, because he's trying

to save Side Swipe. Well, Side Swipe EA is comatose

post whatever it is that happened to him in...

uh... way back in nine which still annoys me

cuz i mean he was shot and he ate a grenade at

close range then he's shot in the head at point

blank range and they they just kind of go like

yeah he's in a coma and jesus what's it take

to kill these guys Anywho, the main gist of the

second issue, and this is one of my issues with

it, is that it's kind of a holding pattern. Aileron

gets angry, Sterling has died, that's their friend

from the previous issue, and she goes to visit

the White House and is treated basically like

any visitor would be treated by the Trump administration

and is immediately attacked. uh... wait wait

okay wait a second wait wait wait wait a minute

here this comment came out before agent orange

was elected so i'm just saying like you know

if you had an angry uh... max suited uh... from

the chinese transformers uh... no anyway What

they are in this issue So Victorian intervenes

to save Sunstreaker and prime and aileron And

that's kind of the end of the issue. There was

an awful lot of human politicking in between

but already mentioned that It's very significant.

Yeah, I really don't care about spike and his

family to put it mildly To put it the way I would

want to, would require a number of expletives.

This is an explicit podcast, folks, so... Man,

at one point, are you writing your book and you

go, this is a bad character? Because trust me,

it's happened to me when I've been writing and

that kind of thing before, but whatever. Issue

three. The medium in the message. It's a little

stronger in terms of, we get the Cybertronian

politics, which is at least a little more intriguing.

Yeah, it's way more interesting. Yeah, and I'll

this issue is some of the best of Livio's art.

I absolutely adore, there's a couple sequences

I adore, the Galvatron RC fight where they just

sort of talk and kind of explain to each other

where each other's position is right now. A,

that's a good scene, and B, it's quite good art.

And then the other one I liked was just sort

of the outlines of Megatron and Shockwave. on

a later page when the mistress of the flame is

talking to optimists and they get these sort

of like fire ish outlines of them i like that

a lot too yeah that was really really good uh...

and that's what i love about having them like

we all know red for autobot purple for decepticon

orange for autobot you know whatever you know

red orange whatever and sometimes like And that's

what I said last time when we did rid volumes

eight and nine, was that you have to have two

different color palettes for the different plate

for Earth. It has to be blue sky, green grass,

or whatever. And that's what we had in part two.

And what I've noticed is these are going back

and forth, back and forth, between Earth and

Cybertron. And that's what I don't want. If you're

going to give me a five -part story i don't want

three of those parts directly on earth and back

-to -back i want it going back and forth between

earth and cybertron and that's what they're doing

and that's what works for me so seeing the orange

palette seeing optimus in the mistress of flame

it's it's just so fun uh... and i think alan

ron is a very interesting new character uh...

because she is Trying to learn and not necessarily

fall into God yeah, I like her I prefer We know

we're not doing till all or one, but I don't

care yet. I prefer Wind blade in that respect

that she's sort of an outsider the thing I like

about wind blade is at the start especially she's

extremely naive yeah it doesn't take long for

her naivety to disappear because like it takes

next to no time before she realizes for example

star screams a scumbag yeah it doesn't take long

for her to come to terms with to with the fact

that the Autobots are not particularly good overall

either although we'll get into more of that in

the one shots yeah yeah I mean The thing with

wind blade you're right. She is the main core

Chameon, I get it. I think that's how they say

it. Chameon, Chameon, whatever it is. I tried.

She's the core character on Cybertron. There's

also Chromia, but because Alaron is kind of on

earth, she's you know Yeah, this gives somebody

basically a wind blade to be with Prime. Essentially

just because we only have one and she's stationed

on yeah Cybertron trying to keep a Metroplex

alive and be Starscream in line. Yeah So the

most important thing in this issue is probably

near the end which is We get a long -standing

kind of plot hole cleared up slash brought up

again As Optimus proceeds to blackmail Soundwave

with the news that Soundwave allowed Horrible

to die in front of Needlenose way back in Robots

in Disguise. Right. I think that was the first

trade, actually, if I remember right. Yeah, it

was. And that's been something that if they told

the other Decepticons that Soundwave willfully

killed one of their own to cover something up.

Yeah. Eh, it probably wouldn't go over well,

yeah. Yup. The, um, the sub cover for 52 is Bumblebee

looking at Skybited Tank. I love that, that's

hilarious. So 53 begins and I did not notice

it until now, but that's Galvatron with Blackrock

and the ones and zeros and whatever, because

we're kind of learning that Blackrock isn't exactly...

And honestly, I wish they would have done something

a little different instead of using Blackrock.

I wish they would have used, like, um, Dr. Arkaville.

That would have been fun. Yeah, I don't mind

that. He was a great character. So I mean the

Autobots and Decepticons in this case, Soundwave

and his crew, we kick off the issue with them

sort of setting up their staging and getting

ready to assault Galvatron's underwater fortress.

And I mean the rest of the issue really is that

fight. Yeah, that's pretty much what the issue

is is the underwater fight. Now at the end of

the previous issue Starscream set up the news

media to come through and you know basically

jump slash surprise Optimus which is exactly

what happens. Yeah. To make him look bad. Yeah.

What I do love about the underwater battle Galvatron

ship the Nemesis. it uh... all i i i will never

not love all the callbacks kids that's never

his ship though i mean i know it was never his

ship obviously but you know how are you going

to work in the reference without you know so

yeah the the whole battle here in fifty three

is about galvatron figuring out the Earth enigma,

I guess you could say. Blackrock has the power

of the combination of, or the enigma combination,

whatever the hell it is, anyway. His source code

is part of the enigma of combination. Yeah, so

Galvatron, well sorry, through Blackrock, Galvatron's

able to combine, and as we learn, uncombine first.

the transformers at will so he breaks up victorian

and then forces a group of autobots and decepticons

together into sky rain yeah and the issue ends

with the sort of that merger yeah the sky rain

merger you know what it reminds me of the sky

rain thing Power core combiners any anybody can

combine with anybody Reminds me of a really ugly

transformer cuz Skyrim design is not pretty Well,

you guys Skylinks in there. That's why it's not

pretty. Yeah That's not the artist by the way

the toys Yeah, no, no, we're not we're not saying

it's the art. We're just saying but it's yeah

because it's it's skylinks it's cause the most

somebody else street her sunstreaker uh... so

with fifty four uh... we start that one off Well,

Superion hasn't been broken apart and they begin

speculating why, as well as Prime and the rest

of their forces that were still in Monument Valley.

So Prime, Soundwave, Aileron, and the news network

also get attacked by the humans who continue

to be really useful. as we move on the next sort

of important note is that superion is a natural

combiner and so he has the ability to manipulate

the code as he learns after he gets knocked around

a bit uh... and he begins to do so he fixes the

codes uh... and makes himself larger in the process

basically by accident but still any roughs up

the nemesis Blackrock gets away with Skywarp.

Yeah, Skywarp actually moved. That's Skywarp

taking off. I think that was Astro Train landing,

actually. Whatever. Anyway. Prime convinces Soundwave

to breed the humans' minds who are attacking

them. Superion breaks apart. This is all happening

sort of concurrently Soundwave discovers that

humans are a lot like Cybertronians and have

the same sort of emotions and that kind of thing

Which okay Yeah, okay Galvatron gets away underwater

Nobody else does well except for Skywarp. He

leaves with Black Rock. Yeah probably because

he's had about enough and we finished the issue

with the fairly major note that sound earth sound

wave optimus prime raises a Titan from earth

yes this is the Metro Titan which oh boy I'm

so happy because if there's one thing I wanted

more of it's the transformers on earth so I was

ecstatic when they established a city there oh

boy Yeah, the Transformers just broke bad, everybody.

That's some real heavy sarcasm. I'm so sick of

fucking Earth. Anyway... Honestly, Cybertron

and the Lost Light stuff is my favorite. Yeah,

I mean, it just flows a lot better. And again,

part of that is the human characters are terrible,

non -combelling, and to be blunt, they're poorly

written and utilized. I have no interest in hearing

from any of them. Now, again, part of that is

when they were established, they were garbage

and there's no coming back from that. And that

was before Barber. Yeah, there's no fixing a

lot of these characters. Spike in particular

is just not going to be redeemable. And I don't

know that there's anything you can do to make

a long time reader care about him. And his backstory

is such a part of who he is in this run for whatever

reason that you almost need to be aware of it

at least somewhat. So a lot of people will go

back and read the Costa stuff or read about it.

And I've seen very few people write about it

positively. So you're not going to end up with

a very positive sort of feeling about it. I would've

just wrote him out. Just use a new character

or something. Yeah. Maybe he'll be killed soon.

I was gonna say, yeah, kill Spike off, have him

have a son named Sparkplug, age Sparkplug up,

and whatever, anyway. Why are you making the

same family? Who cares? I know, I know. There

are more humans on Earth than the four we saw

in the Transformers cartoon for crying out loud.

uh... god chip chase we can bring him in no he

he he uh... uh... so we go we go back to okay

okay we go back to cybertron thanks to your reporters

everyone saw what optimist did raise the titan

so yeah i really wouldn't wait looks really really

i don't no like that panel of her where she says

that i don't know if she is sad angry x i know

she's not excited as she's got this weird sad

almost frowning depressive look on her face the

bulk of this issue is uh... galvatron fighting

with sound wave rc and prime and it should be

for the millionth time is one of my problems

with Galvatron and that is his willingness to

just off his own people Why would you follow

this guy? There's no reason Astro train is an

idiot at this point for being loyal Yeah, and

I like Astro train, but yeah, I love Astro train

and this depressed me to all hell when I was

a kid I enjoyed the Astro Train action figure

more than I did the Blitzwing one. I liked them

both, but I just liked Astro Train more. I like

both of them in the old cartoon series, but this

just depresses me to all hell. Blitzwing liked

football, so he was way better. Okay. What? I'm

just saying. Anyway, so the only highlight I

have here after astro trains demise the fact

I'm not going to leave you. When did you get

feelings just go? RC and cosmos that was hilarious

I liked the I mean the final showdown was good

and well done Brian, you know kills Galvatron

Executing him and then puts his head on the White

House lawn Yeah Which is pretty harsh, but awesome

And we get sort of a three -page denouement at

the end which was nice It was nice to see like

at least have a little bit of the after effects

And not a whole lot, but it worked yeah So we

see, you know, we get to see a page of, actually

it's more of a page and a half or so, full page

if you add it up, of Earth. The Titan, you know,

is now a city for them. The Council is in love

with Optimus for raising the Titan, which Starscream

let them all watch, which was not a good call.

And then he has a chat with Bumblebee's ghost,

basically about how he badly screwed up. Told

you so. Yep. that's the best line from Starscream

and Bumblebee is the end of this was the I told

you so I okay so people might be wondering but

wait TFU and Mike and riding the uneven flow

weren't there two more issues there are 56 and

57 But they're not in Volume 10, they're in Titan's

Return. Yeah, they're contained in the Titan's

Return because they were the prelude to that.

Oh, okay, so that's... The prelude slash... Titan's

Return itself, if I remember right, was only

one issue. Right, it was. But the... It started

with two issues of XRID, and then... It's finished

off by two the final two issues more than meets

the eye. Yeah, and that kind of Which he a Fort

Max is back. But anyway Yeah, overall volume

10 I liked it I thought it was interesting I

Like some of Barbara's writing I love the art

in this I think the art in this is really good

It was out of the four that we've done for for

a rid volume six to ten I Probably have to say

it's my favorite. Yeah, it's out of the floor.

I Mean, you know, you've got sound wave almost

like I said before almost a sympathetic Character

to the point of he could be he could be a protagonist

You know you've got optimus going all give me

your head Which you know it's more movie than

then comic but whatever You've got RC you know

Showing some character growth yeah quite a lot

actually we didn't yeah talk about that that

she's been a character that Since a not very

good beginning we will say in Furman Spotlight

and the early days has very much had to be redeemed

into something more Yeah, and yeah, this was

the first one where yeah, she starts really improving

Yeah, absolutely She does and it's just a nice

character driven story that I Think is easily

followed And the art as we said before the art

is amazing I love the differences because there

have to be differences like I've already talked

about but I love the differences between Earth

and Cybertron I love the different art styles

Because I don't mind that If you have, like I

said before, if you have one issue on Earth and

then the next issue's on Cybertron, I don't mind

having two different artists do that. Now if

it's three or four, five or six artists in one

book, all at once, that's a little strange, that's

a little weird, but other than that, I think

this is really good. I almost want to give this

a 5 but I'm going to give it a 4. It gets a solid

8 slash 4 out of 5 for me. Yeah. Absolutely.

So we are going to take a quick break and we're

going to come back and talk about More Than Meets

the Eye Volume 10 after this. Hello geeks and

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.com. We are back here in Autobotly April on

the pull bag in All Things Transformers talking

about More Than Meets the Eye Volume 10. You

want to get the... Creative out of the way same

people as usual Robert's writing Milne and Cahill

Doing the arts with some additional stuff from

Sakamoto Colors are by laugh went Tara Montano

that's better than I did last time and John Paul

vogue and both and then the letters are by Tom

long again Absolutely and everything in this

these book is outstanding the art the lettering

It is phenomenal absolutely it is And we open

with one of my favorite stories so far pages

just because it's very minimalist Every bit hat,

you know starts with the letter a but it actually

sums up the Series really well if you've been

reading it. Yeah and then it is Probably, you

know three of my favorite setup pages Mm -hmm

in a transformer book as the lost light crew

has sent out their sort of last rights and we

see everybody substantial reactions to it so

we get to see you know see Jetfire and Prime

watch it first and we get to see you know Starscream

and Scoop, Fort Max and Red Alert, Windblade

we get to see the scavengers you know Wheeljacks

with Windblade I should have mentioned him too

and anyway one of the things I love is all of

it is dripping with character There's more character

in everybody's, you know, usually two or three

word bubble Goodbyes whatever you want to call

them then there are in entire comics I know and

it's just it's so well written There is so much

here like rung stuff where he says you know if

i die in my alt mode disassemble me just in case

whatever it takes just put me beyond use which

is a point to you know we don't know what rung

turns into and it's apparently something insanely

significant but it's been a mystery of the series

and so yeah a it's depressing but b it's a point

to that and then we get magnus finally saying

using the word fun Which was great, even though

he struggles. I really liked Wurl's just no funeral.

Which sums his thing up well. You know, Nightbeat

wants his head left if possible. Okay, we gotta

talk about this. Alright, so... Nightbeat is

your favorite character. Yeah. I've known this

for two or three years at this point. Since we

decided to go back or I decided we would go back

and do all of these trades in in the spotlight

month here inside the pull bag Every time and

I've told you this already. I've said it the

other podcast every time I read nightbeat I hear

your voice in my head you have to No, it's a

good Because half the stuff he says I know is

stuff you would say uh... uh... so at some point

i'd be end up writing out there is a lot it's

really good but uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...

uh... uh... uh... speaking of dying i mean we

already had this before remain in light was the

volume five story arc for more than meets the

eye and now we have the dying of the lights by

far the best title for one of the transformer

stories ever it's strong uh... so uh... the warning

uh... we discover through optimus jetfire was

sent out three weeks ago and so we don't back

to three weeks ago uh... the autobots liberating

a planet With Megatron at the forefront, but

he's commanding them from the ship Continuing

his vow of non -violence. He's not actually involved

in the fight But he's coordinating everybody

and so there's no losses We kind of get a you

know things seem pretty good Megatron by the

way gets to I should have brought it up in the

scenes sort of bit we do, but he gets to say

Autobots roll out, which is cute. Okay, yeah,

we gotta talk, because that's the... Once again,

you told me that I was going to end up not liking

Rodimus after reading this. Well, that's later,

but anyway. I know that's later. but at the beginning

here I really dig it's not so much Rodimus it's

it's Rodimus and Megatron together yeah they

work well together Megatron's obviously the more

serious focused one yeah because you know Rodimus

is, you know, that easy -go -lucky kind of guy

kind of thing, and I just, you know, I love this

exchange between them. This is Megatron. It was

my idea to make the most of this quest by helping

people along the way, but it's only right that

the focus, but it's only right that we focus

that help on our mechanical brethren. And Rodimus

replies, Oh, don't be so picky, mechanical, organic.

So what? Life is life. I tell you what, just

this once, how'd you like to give the order?

Would that cheer you up? Go on, say it. You know

you want to. Oh, very well. Hey, Rodimus is great

through like the first three parts of this, but

we'll get to it later. So we come back to the

lost light and Megatron's teaching a class. I'm

sorry, Professor Megatron, that just creeps me

out. It makes sense. I mean, he's the oldest

of the bunch there. Yeah, obviously. But yeah,

talking about the Knights. And one thing that

comes up again is the prepare, confront, repel

insignia we keep seeing from whoever it is. And

Skids mentions that he saw it in the portal in

the space bridge from... Way back in issue 21,

which was the fifth trade, right? And we get

sort of a brief discussion thunderclash sees

it in his visions as well So yeah, that's significant

but not to this trade Yeah as we continue on

Megatron suddenly just kind of loses it we discover

that that's Someone has you know shot the crew

basically with something that causes them to

relive or Imagine actually it's imagined in most

case in everybody's case He imagines there. They

all imagine, you know sort of their worst fears

or something disturbing for everybody. Yeah I

do, by the way, like that, uh, Tailgate mentions

that he heard Cyclonus crying out in pain, and

Cyclonus' reply is, it's not a sound he's heard

before, just so we're all clear. Which I really

like. Rewind, of course, hears from Dominus again,

and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Megatron's,

by the way, was hearing all of the organics he's

killed, basically, crying out. uh... you know

what that reminds me of it's like ten billion

screams and then nothing it he's only one he's

the uh... more than ten billion you know what

i mean for star wars you know i mean just before

that to megatron revealed that he's never been

happier than he is at this point as an auto -bot

yeah so anyway rotamus gets sort of his group

together And mainframe suggests Whirl come along

to guard Velocity. And they all leave on the

Rod Pod for the source of whatever it is that

fired on them. Before we get too far into the

Rod Pod adventure, I love the panel with him

and Magnus. Which is another way of saying Rod

Pod shuttle bay for 10 minutes time. Hold on,

someone fired on us and you want to run towards

the gun? Yep, and then disarm them before they

can take another shot. And I like Megatron's

bit after. When did you first realize he uses

bad grammar to distract you whenever you object

to something he wants to do? He does what? Yeah.

That's awesome. Megatron and Magnus's relationship

is phenomenal, and its development in the Lost

Light series has been really enjoyable as well.

But anyway, I'm jumping. Okay, so what I like

about the Rodimus Magnus panel that I just mentioned...

It reminds me of... And I know everyone hates

this and I don't care. Reminds me of Five Faces

of Darkness. Don't you want to say something

about peace and tranquility through the galaxy?

Oh, screw that! Start the games! That's what

it reminds me of, is the two of them looking

at each other in the old cartoon series. And

you're right. Megatron... Honestly, Megatron

and Rodimus and Megatron and Magnus make this...

Whole story for me, and then you know we get

the rod pod and I just love the rod pod well

anyway jumping forward they end up on a They

end up on the at the Necrobots planets again

B. They can't get away from it, and they can't

raise the lost light They're immediately attacked

by a number of Decepticon ships In the melee

a bunch of them are injured to the point that

we see them in The opening three weeks later.

Yep, and they end up going to the necro bots

Not well, they call the fortress, but it's really

not it's been just a sort of a building Yeah,

night beat and skids discover the corpse of the

necro bot It was killed by somebody And continuing

on, our crew sort of splits up. We get Ravage

goes out to try to see who attacked them. Rodimus

and Co stay inside and Rewind gets the... Rewind

gets the comm system working. And we discover

that all of this was plotted by a mutiny on board

the Lost Light led by Getaway. Yeah. Now not

all of this as we discover is plotted by getaway,

but no obviously not but you got blaster there

you get getaway Interesting so there's atomizer

who makes sense. Yeah last is Questionable mainframe

sort of makes sense bluestreak hoist and grapple

are a bit of a surprise Crosscuts riptides a

surprise. Although he did talk about not being

a big fan of Megatron before So I don't know

and There are other characters I'll be really

curious when we eventually rejoin the lost light,

you know I can't imagine thunderclash going along

with it for example or perceptor or So I'll be

curious to see what's happened of them. I think

it's interesting. We don't see them in this shot

Yeah, but we'll see that's something for another

book So yeah, they've mutinied And we discover,

to very few people's surprise, Ravage discovers

that it's the Decepticon Justice Division themselves

on board the planet, along with DeSaurus's 500

troops. Yeah, the 500 Decepticons. And we end

with Megatron realizing that, you know, they're

here for him. Yep. And he says, you know, this

is how it ends. So there's about a dozen amazing

scenes in this. Yeah, we can't talk about them

all. We can try to, but... The stuff I want to

sum up, Getaway's plan and how he did it was

really interesting and brings in a whole ton

of different things. So the nudge gun slash Skids'

gun filled with blanks that can wipe out memory,

they used it to find out who would side with

them in a mutiny. which is absolutely brilliant

although evil and And Yeah, I mean all those

Callbacks are really good. The one thing I really

appreciate is getaways not wrong You know, he

comments that Rodimus is a terrible captain and

they haven't gotten anywhere he's right He Just

yeah, I mean He mentioned, yeah, he even says

Rodimus is an obstacle, which he basically is.

I mean, I'll be curious to see how they've progressed

again, you know, when we get back to them eventually.

Yeah. Um, where is the line? There was a line

in, I forget who says it. It's in 50, I think.

Where was that? Um, there was a line where somebody

said something about right here right now i forget

who said the damn thing but anyway because i

wrote it down in my notes for issue 50 not for

or maybe no it's 51 it's coming up i think anyway

i do want to mention that issue 50 in the individual

issues has the story that's at the back of this

trade oh okay which is uh no what the hell was

it Yeah, no guns, no swords, no briefcases. Hey,

I was right. Yep. Which again has about a billion

and one callbacks and scenes. It's a good little

story. I'm not going to spend too much time on

it. It's a really neat addendum to issue 50.

Yeah. And we see some characters who are long

deceased such as Rewind, Pipes, Drift hasn't

been around in forever. but he's not dead uh...

so that there's actually you've just gone like

for max in some of the others so that story originally

was at the end of issue fifty is that we're supposed

to be yes okay so it's not supposed to be at

the end of fifty five notes in the back it's

in the ass and of the trade for whatever reason

in reprints Cause I got re like, I thought that

was like an epilogue kind of thing. Like they

figured out a way to 50. And you're supposed

to feel, or you're supposed to know that something

bad's gonna happen, as if you didn't already,

by the way, because Roberts is writing this,

but anyway, as if you didn't already, because

Getaway is the one looking at, you know, the

crew, when Megatron says, well, you know, why

would you go back in time? Well, you'd, you know,

see all the people that you can't see anymore,

because they're gone. Well, there's your cue

that some more people are gonna die. Yeah. with

issue 51 we start at the fortress as they call

it yeah even though it's just a building yeah

yeah Tarn and co give them a warning and then

leave as Megatron says you know show a power

let them worry and then leave and then he promises

to come back yeah what I love about and I think

this is more so Tom B. Long and anybody else.

The title shot pages, like where Megatron says

that, you know, then he promises to come back.

The dying of the light, how the colors are changed

on the letters. through each of these parts of

the story as the story is to three cns is how

they go from kind of a little yeah how it kind

of goes from like a white is light gray to dark

gray sick is dying of the light to me is it's

obviously megatron story uh... so as we go now

go ahead swerve is the one that says uh... just

so you know right here right now has reached

the top of my situations never to be enlist.

So I saw that right here right now and the first

thing I thought of was the 1990s Jesus Jones

song. You know I feel like I go off topic a lot

on this show but at least my brain sort of stays

like within the realm of possibility. Anyway,

so our crew... First of all Attempting new discover

ways out they find The teleporter is an option

to leave or at least they think it is. I'm really

curious if it would have actually worked We'll

get into that a little later Megatron says he's

not leaving he vows to sort of sacrifice himself

Finally sort of embracing the autopot In that

he's supposed to be having said that this is

a callback to to the speech skids gives him way

back in slaughterhouse and Yeah, this time Megatron

makes the Autobot Lee whatever you want to call

it decision Now stupid move number one for Marotomus

as well during this speech He refuses to listen

to ten and all which is important later on And

going forward, they all split up. They send Ravage

out to try to discover a ship to get off the

planet, preferably the DJD ship so they can leave.

Megatron leaves to have a chat with somebody

who, let's be honest, we all knew it was going

to be Tarn. Ten follows Ravage. See, I was starting

to like Ravage, but then he uses Ten as a distraction,

so while the DJ Dean and everyone else beat the

crap out of him, Ravage is able to sneak around,

which is really mean, because Ten gets absolutely

mauled. We discover what Ten was trying to say,

which is they can come up with some sort of defense

to help keep them alive. Meanwhile, at the...

issue ends with 10 getting absolutely torn apart

by the dj d however you know just before probably

the killing blow they're stopped by somebody

and though the uh two someones uh that intervene

and save him i mean it's Know it's the return

of ravage or ravage. It's their turn of drift

and ratchet there. We go. Yeah Which was really

great, and I think anybody who watched it Definitely

enjoyed it Yeah Because at this point of the

story Ratchet had already we already talked about

this ratchet left what in 48 or 49 What was ratchets

goodbye issue? I think it was 40 so it was in

the eighth trade so it was before that actually

okay well anyway um... so ratcheted left and

drift has been gone for a long time because we

had empire empire stone empire stone that's what

it is drift left in the fifth trade of more than

meets the eye although technically it was at

the end of the fourth and so we now have them

coming back which i find is interesting i think

that's kind of cool Because again, we're kind

of at, you know, the final run here, so you want

to bring everybody back that you possibly can.

And Drift never did get killed, so, you know,

and Ratchet are back. 52. We open with the crew,

in this case Ratchet, Drift, eventually 10. you

know, gets up trying to fend off the DJD and

DeSaurus' crew with limited to no results. There's

some great banter here, by the way. Yeah, there

is. Anytime Ratchet and Drift are sort of, they're

friends, but their banter is very much antagonistic

with each other. Yeah. So anyway, in the end,

Drift takes the pet, as in Kaon's spark eater

hostage, and with that Ravage is able to help

them get away by using the ship that Ratchet

and Drift came in on, which promptly gets shot

down and they have to land and all go back to

the place anyway. Meanwhile, Megatron is chatting

with Tarn, which has amazing dialogue. This whole

issue has some of the best dialogue in transformers

period It does yeah My favorite line out of this

issue is from Megatron I Am more than aware of

my legacy every day. I collapse under its weight.

Yeah I'm telling you If I could just, you know,

steal Frank Welker for a day and have him read

Megatron lines for a 12 -hour Wally Burr session,

I would, because, oh my god, I need to hear half

of Megatron is not about lines coming out of

Frank Welker. That would be amazing. Tarn's stuff

is great here too, but yeah, Megatron also has,

you know, the comments that... I know that not

long ago somebody tried to kill me before I was

born and I know that I hated them less for their

ambition than their failure to realize it Which

is great, but he had turn sort of basically says

in the end I'm doing this because I admire the

person you were and hate the person you are And

before that, I love Tarn where he says, this

is it, you won't even try to resist, fight back,

damn you. It's just after, yeah, it's the next

line. Oh, okay, it's after that, okay. Never

again. Yeah, so Tarn beats the ever -looming

crap out of Megatron and seemingly, well I mean

Megatron, excuse me, ends up laughing and just

saying, you know, I'm better like this. Yeah,

and Tarn says no you're better dead and shoots

him with this dual fusion cannon tearing Megatron's

chest apart Megatron survives this although barely

and As Tarn is going to kill him. He's interrupted

by none other than overlord So things for the

Autobots you went from horrific to even worse

Since you know the entire team including Megatron

wouldn't have a chance against Overlord, but

anywho In the meantime ratchet and drift return

we get a great scene between Rodimus and Drift

yeah that Drift is quick to forgive him, but

again Rodimus was you know made the poor decision

I love the panel of the two of them where Rodimus

opens the door and it's just him in shadow with

his Autobot insignia showing in the sides of

the the red of the sides where he's like yeah

sort of glowing there yeah there you are been

looking for you everywhere for you that makes

a change ow direct hit lose a life and I love

that they're actually you know Because it's been

a long time since drift has been in this for

me like I like I've said before I'm not like

you I have not gone back to read the original

First few volumes of this so yeah, it's again

for me. It's it's open and refreshing to see

these two together again Yeah so we jump back

Megatron or Megatron sorry Tarn and Overlord

are now fighting over who gets to kill Megatron

this doesn't exactly go all that well for Tarn

considering that you know he can't hurt Overlord

he can you know knock him around a little bit

but it doesn't do any damage and Overlord meanwhile

can hurt him but they eventually decide like

alright fine you know we'll both kill megatron

uh... and in the end megatron has taken his crappy

little scooter and headed uh... back to relative

safety will say uh... and then we get to one

of my absolute favorite scenes of this trade

uh... rewind and nautica I was gonna skip over

that because not so well the only reason why

the only thing I want to bring up about it is

Poor Nautica. I mean her face Yikes poor Nautica

Okay, I just loved the next scene is set on the

peaceful tyranny, which is the DJD's ship and

Oh Overlord is such a prick in this scene or

these scenes. He is delightfully evil and manipulative

I Love him hearing from him. I had missed him

He's just such a jerk to everybody And he cares,

you know doesn't care about anybody at all So

anyway, he you know, he taunts the TGT constantly

in the whole thing Probably because he knows

like the entire crew can't hurt him. So he's

just gonna be a knob to everyone But in the end

Kayon interrupts upset that the Autobots have

run off with the pet And again Overlord just

consistently taunts Tarn about this and mocks,

you know the DJD Etc etc leading Tarn To you

know tell him I never realized you cared for

that creature as much as you do Sorry as much

as you did as he proceeds to rip Kayon's head

off and then crushes the remains against overlord's

chest So yeah overlord's goading basically, you

know got tarn angry enough to tear off one of

his own troops heads And a nice little scene

nickel and disorder is quite clearly see that

Tarn's not exactly the person, the loyal person

Decepticon they thought he was. And, you know,

if Overlord's immature goading can make him,

you know, murder one of his own men in cold blood,

it's not a good sign considering that they were...

DeSaurus in particular was only with him because

he displayed... The capability of being loyal

unlike Megatron who was willing to just throw

away troops. Yeah And the issue ends with a bloody

Autobot symbol yeah Megatron makes it back and

He's holding his Autobot insignia that was torn

off by turn I like this issue. I think this issue

is fun. I think we get more of the DJD, you know,

we get more of Tarn, Thesaurus and Overlord and

watching the three of them kind of deal with

each other is interesting. I never thought I'd

ever really say this about Megatron, but... He

really is a sympathetic character at this point.

Yeah, that's kind of been this run. Yeah 53 starts

off where we are on the Necro World the end Yeah

Megatron's been been slash being repaired The

crew is getting ready For what's about to happen

tailgates getting brainstorm raw materials The

others are kind of running around trying to see

what they can gather. Rodimus decides it would

be best to try to get some intel from the Spark

Eater. So Chromedome, who's still recovering

from the last time he took somebody's memories,

gets up and decides he'll do it. Meanwhile, Magnus

is being fitted for new armor, slash Minimus

Ambus. I love your scenes with him. Yeah, Nightbeat

begs him to be allowed to sort of go off and

investigate the planet since it's, you know,

might be his last chance to and ends up taking

Rung with him. Leaning to sort of a quick awkward

goodbye because Nonika's decided to be an Amika

and... what the hell is it? Amika and Dura, isn't

it? Yeah, it's alright. with a bunch of the Lost

Light crew, Rung, Brainstorm, Velocity, Nightbeat,

and Skids. Skids is taken aback by this and it'll

be interesting going forward to see why that

is because he has an awkward goodbye with Rung

after that. He's clearly distracted. My guess

is Skids was in love with Nautica and wasn't

happy that he got... the amica and dura treatment

because he probably wanted oh man what's the

damn it what is it that rewind and chrome dome

are and the others i can't remember now anyway

the sort of standard sort of marriage uh for

trans mothers in any case yeah uh maybe that's

what it is i mean i guess we'll see so we jump

back to chrome dome Who is now, you know working

on? the pets slash the spark eater and it should

be noted that these scenes are now interspersed

with rewind finally talking to minimus and I

love about Dominus and so between the two scenes

switching between each other a We learned that

the spark eater was agent one one three the DJD

agent who was giving them information Right,

so the spy B. Yeah, we discover that is in fact

rewinds long -lost love Dominus ambus And chrome

dome discovers it at roughly the same time Yeah

So number one here Yeah, hell with it. We'll

get to it after So rewind runs in Yeah, and in

a really good scene that evokes the same It's

the same imagery as way back when overlord killed

rewind Rewind there with chrome dome, you know

missing an arm on the floor because rewind when

he's given the choice of either chrome dome or

Dominus slices off chrome domes arm to save him

Using one of drift swords by the way which again

is a callback because it was drift sword that

was stuck in the door that killed him Way back

so all that was really good. That's how the issue

ends Before we well before the issue ends what

I love about this is You said rewind comes running

in yeah when he comes When he comes running in,

first of all, I love the panel of, it's him!

I love that. That spotlight panel on his design.

And then he runs right into Rodimus and uppercuts

him. It's not actually the end of the issue.

It's the end of that storyline. So I want to

finish that. Yeah. Rewinds correctly points out

that Rodimus is an enabler. Rodimus is a complete

piece of shit in this issue and is one of the

main reasons why I'm not a big fan. He's told

repeatedly by both Ratchet and Drift that this

is going to damage slash potentially kill Chromedome,

but he doesn't even acknowledge it. He just,

you know, asks Chromedome, you know, what do

you see? Hey, keep going. And you know, nobody

tries to stop him or sorry, uh... he doesn't

try to stop chrome dome at all despite yeah again

ratchets and now it's drift that calls rewind

in and rewind in the end stops it uh... the finale

to this i forgot that this is still part of the

same issue yes the cyclone is the time stuff

would well the main is to the portion is cyclones

and world have here fixed up the turrets on the

outside Yeah, and I mentioned this before anytime

cyclonus and world talk it is wonderful. Yeah,

they're great together and Yeah, my favorite

bit of that is cyclonus is You know world asks

like, you know Well cyclone says well, he'll

survive this at any rate talking about tailgate

and uh... world replies because of the upgrade

and cyclones just says because i'll split this

world open and tear down the sky before i allow

him to come to even the slightest arm and yeah

i like that the entire conversation is great

the dialogue in this issue is amazing the dialogue

in this entire trade is astounding yeah it really

is Roberts is beyond his a game at this point

yeah and we close with they've made Megatron

a new cannon he refuses to use it and the rest

of the Autobots decide to you know charge possibly

to their death and Rodimus tells him that he

is the better captain Yes. No, Megatron tells

Rodimus that Rodimus is the better captain. Yeah,

which is definitely not true, but anyway. Obviously.

We have Brainstorm revealing Maximus Ambus. Yeah.

A much larger, yeah, a much larger Ultra Magnus,

Ultra Maximus, or whatever they're gonna call

him. That's hilarious, I love it and I think

my favorite panel after that is Come here guys

group hug It's hilarious And that's how the issue

ends with the group hug and they all go out fighting

yes 54 opens with the Fighting continuing, but

the Autobots are doing surprisingly well To the

point that chrome dome, you know punches by the

way another great scene here is Overlord confronts

chrome dome and taunts him about rewind dying

slowly and painfully But chrome dome punches,

you know Overlord and knocks him like away quite

a distance and That's somewhat surprising and

as Taron mentions Mostly desaurus actually mentions

that he's very surprised at how well they're

fighting them off and we get a flashback to just

earlier Yeah, oh where we discuss tailgates spark

spasm Which empowered the people around him temporarily?

Because he suffered something traumatic so they

discussed doing it again and skids willingly

submits himself for it And chrome dome without

the use of his needles now because he's decided

finally to stop doing it and Rodimus doesn't

enable him for once Chrome dome helps skids remember

What we saw in issue 49 Right, which is cork

dying and a whole bunch of others at grind core

because of skids Yeah So anyway, it's the spasm

that's allowing the Autobots to survive. Unfortunately,

it wears off. And then we get another fantastic

conversation between Ratchet and Megatron, which

is over the dying body of Skids. Ratchet finally

tells Megatron that the stuff he's been taking

that supposedly weakens him, the fool's energon,

isn't real. Megatron's been in control this entire

time. Yeah. And that's so great, because you

see that Megatron is willing to change, unlike,

you know... Four million years ago. He wouldn't

have been but you know five million years at

this point and in a lot of ways Tarn is Megatron

at this point too in that he refuses to change

or to Deviate and has decided that Megatron needs

to die yeah, so interspersed with this is ravage

on the screen and Ravage, you know finally Tarn

catches him and literally rips ravage in half

Okay, before we get to this, because I know this

is really emotional, I have to go back to one

of my favorite scenes. This is right before Ratchet

and Megatron's conversation, where Rodimus flames

out. I love that, because I'm like, eat your

heart out, Johnny Storm! She mentions he hasn't

done it in a while. The last time was Maximum

Dino Bots. Oh, sweet. Love that. So we get the

Megatron ratchet conversation, which is very

awesome. Again, I don't want to get worse, but

I love just how Megatron's attitude and his outlook

has kind of evolved. And he is trying his best

to not necessarily change or evolve the people

around him, but because of his addi - Like, he's

not sending Whirl out or Rung out to die. Like,

you know, normally, if it was Megatron the Decepticon,

he would have just shot them with the Fusion

Cannon. So, I'm loving Megatron's character change

and character - Yeah, and just - building of

the characters that once he starts killing he

won't ever stop again and he may not be wrong

so anyway uh... ravage gets torn in half skids

unsurprisingly because it was mentioned a long

time ago that if skids found out what happened

you would probably kill himself well yes skids

dies uh... trying to tell brainstorm what happened

to quark Hmm. It should be noted in a nice callback.

The last thing skids ever says is I'm scum ratchet

scum And the first thing he said is why is my

name scum? In this series, which is a really

nice slash depressing callback So skids dies

which is I was miserable at this point. We get

the sleep -tight soldier from Ratchet. Yeah.

And the Autobots and crew are surrounded, and

things look rather bleak. And then Megatron comes

in blasting. Oof. And we get an amazing one -page

panel of a very angry Megatron. And I've noted

this before, that if you pay attention, the Autobot's

insignia changes its mood based on Megatron's.

And it's very angry here. Yeah, it's Hulk angry,

folks. It's amazing. I love this panel. Because

he has his cannon again. Like we said earlier,

they wanted him to take it back. It's not necessarily

his original one, but they tried to make it as

original as possible to the original Fusion Cannon.

And I just absolutely love that. Probably the

only time I'm not going to complain about the

choon. Megatron proceeds to absolutely destroy

everyone thrown at him. Yep, pretty much. As

Tarn and co watch on, Tarn has Desaurus converge

his troops who are getting slaughtered while

pulling back his own. Which again is not making

Nickel or Desaurus feel particularly good. yeah,

but in any case they continue Megatron reaches

the body of ravage and Absolutely like screams

at Rodimus and code again inside because he doesn't

even need them And proceeds to continue like

decimating everyone until you know calling out

Tarn again now earlier in the book when Nickel

using Voss in his sniper rifle mode fired on

chrome dome. You'll notice he hit him directly

in the shoulder And here they hit the stock of

Megatron's fusion cannon So same area different

arm. So obviously they were practicing for this

Megatron as You know Tarn says without his gun.

He is nothing Megatron drops to his knees, seemingly

in surrender, and they proceed to, in theory,

execute him off -panel. Not before we find out,

too, that Rodimus and everybody are watching,

and Velocity and Ratchet are working on Ravage,

while Nautica and Ten are looking over the corpse

of Skids. Which again is sad. This was a great

issue for continuing on from anything else. Yeah,

it was an amazing issue. Issue 54 was great.

Everything about it is just so fun. The writing

is great, the art is great. So many good Megatron...

Images in this specific issue the whole trade

honestly, but this specific issue has so many

great Megatron shots this Trade or this storyline

works much better in trade formats. I read it

individual issues and singles and it works a

lot better in trade it reads a lot faster with

less stopping basically, so Yeah, but yeah, and

then we reach the finale Yeah, we're sort of

everything becomes clear. So first of all, we

open with the black box consortium Who we haven't

seen for a while, but essentially getaways deal

was for overlord All right. So in terms of who

knows what getaway knew had the black box consortium

wanted them to kill Megatron. Getaway didn't

know about Overlord because there's no way he

could have and he didn't know about Tarn and

the DJD. So in terms of how so in terms of how

evil getaway was he didn't know that he Unleashed

a sadistic phase sixer and the DJD on Rodimus

and crew He thought it was just the consortium

and they might just take Megatron and the rest

might be stranded He didn't know that you know,

he unleashed a bunch of psychopaths and that

the necro bot would be killed and etc, etc Presumably

at least that's how it seems And the consortium

here seem not interested in keeping their promises

and essentially conspire to blow up the entire

planet. Yeah. This is important very soon as

we discover Megatron survived the attack of Overlorn

and Tarn by activating Trailbreaker's force bubble.

If you look very closely, way back in issue 35,

when Megatron handles Trailbreaker's corpse,

he indeed picks up his hand, but we never see

him put it back down. Right. So that was a nice

touch. He had planned for all of this, and Ratchet

sort of, or Ratchet, damn it, why do they keep

mixing them up? Ravage ends up sort of taunting

them about how many steps ahead Megatron always

is. Meanwhile, DeSaurus is struck with the Conscience

sort of weapon and he and Nickel feel miserable

about all of the deaths on their heads because

Tarn and his little vendetta. So DeSaurus and

his troops pull out. More troubling for everybody

again, and I god I love this character Overlord

leaves because he's a prick because Overlord

is working for the black box consortium and Overlord

knows that the planet's going to be destroyed

Yeah, and so because he's such a jerk. He doesn't

bother to tell tartar to anyone else he just

Just leaves yeah, I love him Also, by the way,

how dumb is the black box consortium for working

with him? Because I mean, he's inevitably just

going to get bored and kill all of them. Anyway.

Whatever, nobody said they were smart. They weren't

smart in their first appearance, so this is not

out of character. So yeah, Megatron is trapped

inside the bubble. Everyone is left. And we jump

back to Ravage, Taunting, Brainstorm. And the

stolen briefcase is brought up but Megatron left

the briefcase and We will eventually find out

that he left it here on the Necro world In the

meantime Taron breaks through the bubble to have

a chat with Megatron who was indeed not You know

upset or anything Megs proceeds to get up and

just maul the DJD. He tears off Tarn's cannons

before he can fire. And we discover Whirl's arm

from way back in the first issue of season two.

Mm -hmm, and we get an explanation that Megatron

and by the way This is a really neat sort of

reference to both his tech specs and the old

Marvel UK stuff from Furman Where Megatron could

tap into antimatter? Yep, and Megatron, you know

enraged tells, you know Tarn that you know, he'd

won he You know, he got to he was going to accept

his fate he was at peace he was happy And the

DJD came back and ruined everything. At this

point, by the way, the mighty DJD are pounding

on the wall of the bubble trying to get out.

Yep. Because it was never about keeping them

out, it was about drawing them in with the bubble.

Yeah, I like this. I think this is great. We

do eventually find out who Tarn is which is Kind

of interesting. I think it's interesting because

Overlord was right So Megatron kills each one

of the DJD one by one leaving Tarn for last And

we get this gorgeous scene that you know Taron

tells him do it at least I'll die a decepticon

and Megatron says you and I both and Tears off

his mask and puts it on as his insignia Yeah,

and finally we discover Taron in fact was not

roller who has emerged Randomly in the end we

discover it's from the cryopods They weren't

filled with organics. They were filled with transformers

And it was all of the names that were on the

missing list of the NecroBots list. So NightBeat's

speech to him way back convinced him to use the

briefcase to go back and save these missing characters.

So it's the NecroBots fault they're missing,

A, but B, they're alive. And so anyway, yeah,

Roller is one of them. So he's obviously not

Tarn. We discovered Tarn is actually Glitch,

who was a member of Optimus Prime's, sorry, Oran

Pax's, actually they were Shockwaves, but anyway,

squad of outliers. And if you go back and read

the issues with him, Glitch is present every

time they talk about Megatron. And it's a nice

little nod that in the end actually makes sense,

as well as Tarn's weaponized voice is an extension

of Glitch's powers that we saw early on. And

Shockwave even says his powers are going to get

stronger and change. Well they did. Oh yeah they

did. So yeah. My favorite part of this whole

reveal and the ensuing, you know, Rodimus comes

in to try to save Megatron. I love the two panels.

I'm gonna have to have my buddy Neil put these

together for me, but in the in the Comixology

guided view we've got Rodimus saying brainstorms

pulling me back in five seconds come on because

he's reaching for Megatron and you have a close

-up of Megatron's face and you have a close -up

of Rodimus's face and you can clearly tell The

two very different emotions on their faces. Megatron

was prepared to and wanted to die here. Die,

yeah. And Ronomus, you know, is surprised by

that, that Megatron is more than willing to face

his death. This will become a theme in Lost Light,

but anyway. Okay. Because one of them's prepared

to die for what he believes in, the other one

is not. Yeah. And so anyway... they return to

the Necrobots boss fortress this is this is the

heart wrencher folks this is the I still maintain

skids as death was worse but anyway Megatron

gets back in time just to say you know I'm here

Ravage I'm here it's me Ravage paws Megatrons

insignia which is now the Decepticon mask from

Tarn and says don't change back which is exceptionally

interesting because we don't know what he means

as in don't change back to an Autobot or Decepticon

it's deliberately vague Ravage then dies and

we get a neat sort of three panel view of Soundwave

just collapsing you know holding himself up by

a table So he knows Ravage died. At least he's

not flipping the table. Yeah, Megatron's response

is a nice callback to Prowl way back in the first

issue. It's the exact same scene. It's drawn

the same way with Megatron flipping the table.

Yup. Megatron loses it and points his fusion

cannon at everybody. But it you know decide deciding

that he needs to leave now when he's interrupted

by terminus who is alive he was one of the ones

saved by the necrobots and right terminus asked

him what's happened and Megatron says nothing

everything and then just I lost my way and the

insignia falls off of him and he's an Autobot

again, yeah so yeah, then we get a brief sort

of denio ma of how all of this happened. I mentioned

it before that the Necrobot, thanks to NightBeat,

used the briefcase to go around and save the

missing Transformers. And then we get the setup

for Lost Light, which is the last two panels

are the geobomb from the Council going off wherever

it is NightBeat and Rung are. And this is important

because it appears the NecroBot's world was actually

a mold in which Cybertron was forged. Also, time

is working differently, so the two of them are

there at a completely different time than everyone

else. Yep. Dying in the light conclusion. Do

not go gentle. The end. So Skids and Ravage are

dead. The DJ he died Yeah, that's good. That's

something that a lot of people discussed before

the only thing I'll say is overlord very much

Said it best probably because he just discussed

the fact that That Tarn was a nobody and just

a thug and yeah glitch if it had been roller

rollers pretty well known and you know was literally

friends with orion packs etc etc this in the

end made more sense overlord obviously knew who

he was right um i don't know it for a lot of

people it was a downer or a down note just because

it wasn't somebody notable but on the other hand

it was set up to not be somebody notable too

so yeah Yeah, and I mean I like it. I think it's

interesting I think that this might be the best

character developed Megatron story Almost ever

when you combine it with the other stuff the

previous trades it pretty much is by far Yeah

Well, that's what I'm saying his entire arc is

this essentially concludes season two I mean,

yeah, we still have 56 and 57 which will happen

when we do Titans return, but you know You know

this pretty much is it is I mean the other stuff

is basically just a It's a complete like it has

nothing to do with this yeah And, you know, from

issue 28 to issue 55, it's a full, full -on character

growth story. You know, and it's great because

how many times anybody, not just us as fans of

Transformers, but anybody in general, how many

times are they going to see a Megatron that is

just the Decepticon leader? Most of the time.

I mean 99 .999 % of the time that's what you

see Megatron as but if you give this a shot and

you're willing to look at it on you know what

it is that you know he is making up for his he's

trying to at least yeah yeah he's trying to and

he does have his moments of like you know In

the in the in the classroom scene at the end

when he goes off on somebody and punches somebody

or whatever You know obviously he's gonna have

those moments, but you know well to be fair I

mean he was tortured with the voices. Yeah of

all the people he's killed, but yeah The because

in the back of the trade as always they have

the the various different covers my two favorites

are the the dying of the light Megatron which

is issue number fifty cover sub a one and then

cover sub b uh... which is just megatron. I like

the normal one for i think it was fifty two but

anyway the one where tyron is holding down megatron

as it's a picture of his face being pummeled

was really well done there was a uh... a retail

exclusive or whatever for 52 by one Carlos Ramos

where it's G1 Megatron and Optimus facing off

with Unicron at the top over Cybertron, so that's

kind of cool. I really dig Brendan Cahill and

John Paul Bowes. Don't worry, we're the good

guys. I love that one because it's Megatron,

Cyclonus, Whirl, Ravage. Absolutely love that.

Yeah That's a good one. That's that was an alternate

cover for 52 Alternate for 53 is swerve at his

bar, which is cool alternate for 54 retail incentive

was wind blade Nautica and No, that's velocity

not chromia So I enjoyed that The Rodimus one

the alternate for 55 the subscription one for

55 is kind of cool but Who is the bot behind

him in that? I don't know What is it the alternates

for 55 it's Rodimus and somebody else like in

the background behind him It's Rodimus and isn't

it ROM the Space Knight? Oh, okay, that's a ROM

alt cover. That's what that is. I just love the

way that Rodimus looks, though. That was cool.

Yeah, if there's one thing I love, it's the whole

revolution thing. Anyway. Alright, we'll get

to that. Come on now. Come on now. Can't be that

bad. Well, it probably can be, but we'll get

to that later. Overall, more than meets the eye.

Volume 10, Dying of the Light, absolutely enjoyed

it. I think it was a nice send -off for the entire

series. You know, callbacks galore, as always,

as it should be, you know. All of the artists

do amazing, amazing work, as you know, always.

And Robert's writing has honestly never been

better. Oh, yeah, no, I know. Okay. I'm just

making sure. What would you give volume ten for

more than meets the eye? By default, I mean,

I pretty much have to give it a five. I mean,

there's... I don't know. I mean, there's... Probably

the biggest thing is... comic or a story generally

succeeds if You feel something and this book

definitely made I think pretty much anybody read

it feel something Absolutely, it did. Yeah, so

it was definitely a success on that Note and

yeah, it closed off a lot of the old threads.

So We find out who Taron is and the DJD we discover

Or rather we close off skids story arc and you

know not knowing What he had done and his past

etc etc that's completely closed we get some

closure on the fate of Overlord So yeah, I mean

I Don't know there's a few of them absolutely

I gotta say yes Rodimus can be a dumbass but

I still like him I don't know yeah his his behavior

in this one was pretty bad yeah it kind of was

mostly is using a poor chrome dome yeah that

that was bad I will say That was very bad of

Rodimus. Bad Rodimus, you should not do that.

But, overall, his entire... Because he's not

focus of the story. I mean, he's... Don't want

to say he's a background character to Megatron

But he kind of is because this is this whole

trade is pretty much the conclusion of Megatron's

story the entire season was very much dedicated

to Megatron and yeah to a lesser extent tying

up a fair amount of the stories from the first

series of trades absolutely and it's just so

wonderful everything about this book everything

about this trade folks is absolutely amazing

there's nothing in this that is off model there's

nothing really in here that I can't even nitpick

anything honestly there's I mean one of the things

I found too is and I hate to it seems like I'm

picking on John Barber, but one of the things

too is he's Sorry Roberts's stuff here is Probably

a better send -off for the title. I mean he closes

off a lot of the threads pretty much expertly

and While I'm not a huge fan of the renumbering

To and the renaming to lost light one If this

enough threads were closed off here that it's

a I guess a little more Okay, obviously some

of the major stuff though like getaway has taken

the lost light is Fairly important in terms of

direction. So it's still bad timing but And what

are you gonna do? Not much you can do And as

I said, folks, we will be coming back to Transformers

later in 2017 because this is the 30th anniversary

of when the G1 cartoon ended this year. 30 years

ago this year is when G1 went out with a rebirth.

Went out with a whimper. Hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey. So we are gonna take a quick break come

back and let you guys know what's coming up Next

time on the pull bag and next time for our transformers

coverage as well. We'll be back after this We

brought the entire convention center to the brink

of an inter -genre geek war We're going to tackle

this podcast thing. We've got to do something

really special. It has to be cool daily in audio

form and undetectable by radar. Something that

screams summer. I know, let's do a Phineas and

Ferb review podcast. We'll call it the Podcast

Organization Without a Quillacronym or Pauka

for short. What do you think? I think if we're

not careful, Candice is going to bust us. You

can find Pauka on the GeekCast, Radio Network,

iTunes, Blog Talk Radio, and all of the other

methods you find podcasts. We are back here inside

the pull bag rack wrapping up auto bodily April

here in the first week of May and Coming up next

in the pull bag is gonna be our Batman month

It's our third annual Batman month join JT from

Saskatoon and I as we talk about more of Batman

Beyond the 2015 series by Dan Juergens And Bernard

Chang we talked about the city of yesterday wired

for death arcs and then we get into Batman Beyond

rebirth, which is the 2016 series where we talked

about uh... escaping the grave parts one and

two i'd call it parts wanted to decide to split

the issues up anyway also in next month we're

gonna have it's basically kind of all animated

feel you know and beyond was the original cartoon

series all that but joe reid and i in the middle

of uh... of that are going to talk about the

batman t m and t adventures series the six issue

series from idw and dc comics of that'll be going

on was surprisingly good i have not read it yet

Well, if you want to know what happens you see

shut up I Will fly I will find some way to fly

into Canada just to beat your ass if you spoil

that And as I said earlier in the show before

we took the break folks next time we will be

talking Transformers here inside the pull bag.

It'll be another auto -botley month where it'll

be auto -botley August so There's another one

of these Autobotly things going on. And in that,

we're going to talk about a bunch of different

Transformers stuff that honestly has nothing

to do with Lost Light or Optimus Prime just yet.

So in Autobotly August, we're going to be talking

about Transformers Punishment, Redemption, and

Salvation, Three Trades, One Podcast. This is

all of the Dinobot art stuff. Which, to be fair,

does tie into... It does. It does. Spoiler alert,

it's the best stuff Barber's written by a mile

because it's amazing. Okay, there you go. Episode

150 will be myself, Lady Wreck, and Ryan talking

about Sins of the Wreckers. And then the Windblade

crew will be joining me for Till All Are One,

volumes one and two. uh... ryan will be back

to talk about angry birds transformers so we're

gonna have a little fun with angry birds and

transformers and at the end of auto bali august

in uh... abacus you classics episode will talk

about uh... titans return which is the conclusion

to this this series and then after that at some

point yeah well okay well sort of the after math

after math i guess and then at some point probably

ryan's probably going to hate this but whatever

uh... the next time we'll talk about transformers

will probably be february of next year which

i know that's a long ways away but we can always

pre -record your special on uh... the last night

oh well yeah but that's not comics i want to

know you want to talk about it for at least four

to five hours no not really not at all This is

my favorite movie ever. Oh, please. Have I liked

the Transformers live action movies? Have I liked

certain aspects to them? Yes. I'm going to debut

my list of ten reasons why Transformers 5 is

way better than the 1986 film. Somebody please

put a fusion cannon to his head. You know I'm

not serious. What the hell is wrong with you?

I know you're not serious, but Jesus Christ,

dude. Fusion cannon to the head right now anyway

So yeah, that's what's coming up here inside

the pull bag. We've got Pretty much this year.

I'm not gonna reveal everything but pretty much

this year almost every month is gonna be a spotlight

month As I said we got Autobotly August We got

Batman month coming up in May next or this month.

I should say June is gonna be a little bit of

a spotlight month, but not really jay July will

be uh... september october it pretty much everything

his spotlights for various things this year inside

the pullback stuff that i wanted to get to for

a while so hopefully certain trades get released

by the time some of the later content uh... uh...

is supposed to come out here they've been pretty

good releasing the trades on time i know they

have uh... you know I'm one of those where I

may or may not be here in October or November.

I may be going on vacation, so some of the stuff

I want to pre -record. So yeah. Where can the

people find you online, sir? On Twitter, at Nightbeat.

I finally got it right. Hey! You remembered!

Yay! You can find me on Twitter at TFG1Mike,

you can follow at The Pull Bag on Twitter, also

follow at GeekCastRadio and This Week in Geek

as well. Until next time, make your great escape

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