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popculturebuffet · 8 months ago

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Transformers More than Meets the Eye Retrospective: Dark Cybertron Part Deux (Patreon Review for Brotoman.EXE)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to my more than meets the eye retrospective! It's the end of an era as we finish dark cybertron and bring an end to season one of IDW's transformers books. It's been a long road but we're finally done with an epic finale full of giant robot fights, douchebags getting suplexed and bisected dictators. IT's a good time.

To recap the last part:

Or for the long version, look at this link

When we last left off: Optimus was left at the mercy of a genocidal tyrant who wouldn't shut up, half the lost light was fighting for thier lives , the other half might of exploded , Starscream had concrete proof Primus hates him, and Bumblebee mostly stood around not doing much, which for once was actually the right call. Under the cut we finish that as three autobots debut, an autobot dies and another takes his place, and Shockwave tries to rewrite history without solving a mystery first, the blasphemy.

We open part 7 back on the Lost Light for the first time in a while as Hound is in command

Hound.. is a vetran soldier. I don't know much else and frankly I forgot he was on the ship, and had to look up if he leaves it after this season.. and he doesen't. How he's somehow in the chain of command is beyond me. I mean Blaster is still on board. How does Blaster rank bellow Hound? Blaster has casettes baby. He can do sound stuff.

Anyways the Amonites retreat, giving swerve a chance to realize he missed a call.. and everyone else to realise Magnus now has a LOT of problems as their all headed into Metroplex's eye. Impressive, not healthy you get it.

Inside the rodpod did explode but everyone was outside, so their safe though a legend was truly lost that day.

The Rodpod I

2013-2014 "An Embarrassment to Everyone but Rodimus himself"

- The TF Wiki

Skids does figure something out though: Turns out the reason the arrows looped them back around is that metroplex keeps shifting inside. They also notice Whirl's missing which can't be good. Speaking of can't be good Swirl calls.. and he's DEAD SERIOUS. How reality didn't fold in on itself is beyond me.

Yeah turns out the stuff they found in the water of Planet Danzig creates a "death plauge" And they need to get out now... then they need to get out now FASTER as the amonites are coming.

Back with Nova who continues to prattle about how he controls this unvierse, they can't beat him, his cybertronic turds smell like lilacs. Importantly it turns out I was wrong. the brand new space bridge isn't bumblebee, who escaped but Kup. Hazards of doing this in two parts without reading the second half first. Yes good ole Kup was apparnetly sucked into the dead universe during the infestation event, thank you editor box things, which wasn't on comixlogy unlimited at any point so I never read it. IT did feature the ghostbusters though so there's that.

Point is Kup's in danger. Our heroes , who have been taken from their prison cube to Nova's fortress, can't just up and run with him as his robot bones are brittle and he'll just snap if they move him. He then has nightbeat take thema way.. he dosen't say take them away but he damn well was thinking it.

Back with Shockwave he also mutters about how his plan is far from endgame but is less smug about it so I give him a pass. He's not happy Galvatron tore their space bridge in half but even without the ore he can fix this and has Galvatron carry off a bisected megatron, not trusting waspinator becuase "those damn kids always getting on my metallic lawn and such"

Back in prison turns out Nova has a reson to keep our heroes alive besides the sound of his own voice just not sounding as sweet if he's not berating someone else. He wants their sparks. Turns out Kup isn't a STABLE portal and thus if he wants to escape, he needs fresh sparks to keep the old man alight.

Things seem bleak.. when Rodimus gets an idea. He tells Nightbeat to look at his hand. While cyclonus wonders what the hell he's on about, which on a normal day would be entirely resonable with rodimus, turns out Rodimus has figured out how to free their old pal: The only time he's seemed like himself.. was when he was figuring out cyclonus, deducting the shit out of him. As he puts it it's shadowplay 101 to take away the part of a person that's most .. them. To supress it. So by giving Nightbeat a mystery to solve it fights it. Optimus is doubtful.. but is inttantly proven wrong: nightbeat HAS been trying to fight the brainwashing this whole time but Nova's so strong... but Rodimus presses on..

The answer of course is 190. It's a brilliant play and a brilliant scene: Rodimus rescues his friend.. simply by knowing him better. Rodimus may have a bunch of issues and the truth of this tally is a lot of them rolled up into one... but his strength is in people. He knows how to play them.. but he also knows how to comfort them, and forgetting that is what lead to most of his issues in season 1, ignoring what THEY needed or who THEY were. It's telling that after all he did and went through his two big moments int his crossover both come from empathy instead of his ego.

Nightbeat frees them while Rodimus prepares to come clean about what's been going on on the lost light.

Back on Cybertron Bee ambushes Galvatron and Waspinator, going full badass and telling Galvatron what he wants what he really really wants and he's sick of not getting what he wants what he really really wants. His blaster dosen't do much, immediate failure is Bee's brand after all, but it does distract him long enough for Bisected Megatron to shoot Galvatron and give us the greatest line ever

Bumblbee isn't happy with Megs chipper attiude, figuring the desolation of Cybertron is making him smile. That isn't, despite all his MANY flaws, Megatron loves this planet... he is however more than a little happy Starscream is in so much pain right now. Scoops calls Starscream out for using his position as Chosen One for his own personal gain while Starscream seethes.

Back with Team Magnus, turns out Whirl was being useful for once in a way that wasn't "shooting someone in the face" or "being hilarious" He was torturing an ammonite for informatoin, which isn't necessarily good but at least got us the info we need; Turns out the ammonites were still miffed and turns out I was wrong again: Whilr didn't END their war, just caused it to kick up with his murder, and they wanted payback.. and naturally Shockwave is behind this, having beefed them up in exchange for their help. Just as naturally the amonite explodes ove rit. Our heroes don't have time to process though as they get some fairly weak threats from above as two new players enter the game

Yup turns out Cybertron isn't the only planet with life as we meet Nautica and Chromia. Chromia won't play much of a roll HERE but is vital to another book whose lead we'll meet soon, but Nautica is a major part of the rest of More than Meets The Eye/Lost Light and i'm so happy to finally have her here. So ends part 7

Part 8 begins and ...

hey hey it's time to come over and have some fun with Megzy Taxi!

I will never get enough of this image. Megatron holdling his own legs, riding Bumblbee like a prom limo. I'm honestly disapointed Megs eventually gets put back together, I love this nonsense.

Back with Team Fuckup, prowl takes the lead.. and for once LISTENS to what someone else actually said deciding to be logical, reluctantly teaming up with soundave and telling Starscream to get his shit together. As for Rattrap he brought them here, as he really dosen't want god emperorship of a burning city.

Back with Team Magnus, Getaway disarms the standoff by revealing Nautica's autobrand. The Amonites break in and the team splits off: Ratchet and Magnus go with the new kids while Whirl and the others stay behind to keep the amonites off their backs. Ratchet breifly questions Chromia about her prounounds before deciding to drop it because the apocalypse is more important than finding out there's female robots.

The duo lead him to Metroplex's brain which is in his right shoulder

And we meet the final member of this trio, and while I love Nautica, she's easily the biggest introduction here for both the IDW comics (If not MTMTE) and transformers as a whole

We'll learn a little more about her as we go but windblade was a hyped intro... though apparently a contriversal one as she was part of a vote for a new transformer design.. and wasn't the one that won it. Protip DON'T do a fanvote if your not going to honor. Her Kabuki design didn't help, though I personallyt hink it's great; it gives her some unique flair.

Windblade's become important, being ported into both the Robots in Disguise cartoon and Transformers Cyberverse along with the movies. It's likely because the autobots didn't exactly have a tone of female characters, and Windblade's unique deisgn makes her stand out. Either way she's a welcome addition to the G1 pile.

Back with Team Rodimus, Rodimus finally explains the number: after a short recap of what happened with overlord and how he let Drift take the fall, he explains he told Magnus then the crew then invoked the crisis act: he let them decide if stayed as captain or not. He won.. but he carved the tally as a reminder of who he has to win back.

Optimus is.. less than sympathetic

It's unflinching harsh ... but i've come to accept it on this re-read as what Rodimus needed. We all need someone to tell us we're not as bad as we think we are, especially if your me or rodimus and have a lot of self hatred. But in this instance... Optimus is right. He's not here to tell Rodimus "You did all you could do". He fucked up horribly and SHOULD have just straight up resigned. He got two bots killed, lied to all of them, and then lied again and let drift take the blame. Rodimus is a good bot.. but he wasn't a good leader and Pipes and Rewind paid the price for it. Rodimus.. simply didn't want to give up: he wanted to still be the captain and redeem himself. And he COULD redeem himself without being in charge.. but hta'ts just not who he is. Everyone has to see him doing it. Has to see him. The attention has to be on him.. and Optimus knows this.

I will grant Rodimus stepping down wouldn't of been the best call either: Magnus is holding in there but just went through it, drift is gone, and as we saw today apparently hound's next in chain of command somehow. The only one who could POSSIBLY take over the roll and be okay coming out the other side at the moment is Ratchet and it's a roll he dosen't want. Rodimus shouldn't really be in charge.. but who else is there? And when we answer that question, will Rodimus, or ANYONE like this answer?

For now though those questions remained unanswered, as Kup is back up.. only to get a cyclonus chucked at him. Nova Prime is back, he's pissed and he challenges Optimus to a fucking challenge. One shall stand, one shall fall.

Back with Team Magnus, we get more of Windblade's deal: while the term dosen't come up yet, she's a Cityspeaker. She can communicate with titans like metroplex: while he can't TALK she can read his brain patterns. As for how this trio ended up here they were on Thunderclash's ship when they picked up Alpha Trion, who is usually with metroplex. He told them about Metroplex's crash and couldn't help him because he was so very close to something else and since the Vis Vitalis can't travel too fast due to Thunderclash's condition, Team Windblade volunteered for it and have done what they can.. but it's not enough.

Thankfully Magnus flashes on WHY they were brought here: to give Metroplex a jump using the quantum engines the same way they saved thunderclash. Magnus asks him tow ake up one last time.. and they hope: for a jump that will both revivie the titan and take the lost light and everyone in the titan home. "Burn bright metroplex, one last time".

Speaking of cybertron things aren't going well for Team Fuckup

Their attempts to attack the Necrotitan are failling, it's stomping i'ts way towards the triage center they have set up... Prowl flat out admits they need a miracle.. and sure enough a certain someone has been called many things..

I applaud the artists for all this glorious physical comedy with bisected megatron. While part of it's in the dialouge, props to Roberts and Barber, the visuals with this have been amazing

Prowl pulls a prowl and decides to just..try and shoot megatron. Despite megs both apparently having more of a plan than they do and being half a person and probably being able to easily survivie a shot to the head.

Turns out though Bee's faith.. was misplaced. Megatron hasn't changed and his plan is the truly awful "Evacuate like hell, let me call the DJD and we'll retake cybertron" Bee promptly drops him and calls him out, getting to the heart of things; Megatron was a freedom fighter.. but he isn't anymore. It's a cause he forgot for a campaign of terror, a talking point he ONLY brings up when he needs it. It's a good speech from Bee too. I don't have enough space for the panels sadly but you should still heart it in some form

"When I was in charge I stared into the darkness so long I let it consume me. I looked at our endless war, the friends we lost, the world we destroyed. But what I should have seen is our perseverance: we don't give up. And i'm not letting cybertron fall to anyone, not again. We make a stand for everything that's worth standing for. Our sacrifices won't be for nothing, We'll face shockwave and this monster together... and this time the good guys win.

And as he says the last part... hope arrives

Part 2 picks up right where this left off, as we're now down to just two main plot threads

Still some jumping around, jumping around get up get up and get down to be had, but it's now more contained. The Lost Light is back as Swerve proudly announces, and our heroes , fittingly crash into the planet. Bumblebee stumbles back into idiot mode a bit being genuinely shocked their somehow alive... in a comic where he's already seen Megatron and Metalhawk both come back from certain death. As Megs himself put it "Since when does anyone stay dead?". It's not a good sign of your ablility to lead when the previous leaders of both factions both didn't buy the explosion as a sign of death.

Remember: if there's no corpse and you didn't see their body turn ot ash or dust in front of your very eyes like poor hardhead, then there at least POSSIBLY alive. Say what you will about Rodimus as a leader, I have, Optimus has, Getaway has and will again, he knows damn well if there's no corpse or flaming bits of autbot in the atmosphere, their probably okay.

This plot point has always bugged me: NO ONE bothered to investigate and everyone just.. assumed they were dead. I get if they didn't have the resources but it dosen't sound like anyone tried. A loud explosion with again NOTHING left happened.. and they just assume the Lost Light's gone. I get the lost light couldn't contact them to prove they weren't dead.. but this is also a giant army that's had tons of bots go missing for less. Part of the Lost Light's mission is picking up various stragglers scattered throughout the universe who may not know the war is over. You see why maybe I didn't give everyone the benefit of a doubt going up the ass of a guy who can't bother to do the basic things to check if someone's actually dead!

So.. back to the good part. Inside Metroplex , Windblade understandably asks if he Mags knew he was throwing Metro at another titan. He wasn't, but figures Metro knew he was needed to fight another giant robot. Giant Robots can just.. sense these things.

The crew of the lost light reunites with Hound filling them in on why their here, and why they didn't call sooner: they did.. but STARSCREAM answered, something Hound and Blaster are pissed about. Also when Hound mentions the thumb, Prowl just.. can't reissit making a pissy comment about how "I thought you were looking for the knights of cybertron"

Megatron has a plan.. and this time it's not "Let me take over again that worked out so well the first time". He just needs a hand getting his half a body over to Metroplex's thumb.

Back with Team Rodimus Optimus and Nova have been punching each other, but turns out Nova has a secret weapon: adaptive armor. He can turn into any previous prime and thus uses this to gain the upper hand.. then turns into Optimus because he hasn't reminded anyone what a dick he is in the last 10 minutes. He starts to hit a wall as Nova continues to punch him, with Optimus finlaly breaking and reiterating why he's so intent on not being called Optimus Prime anymore: If he carries on the legacy of such horrible men.. he's endorsing it.. and them. All they did.

Back with Team.. .Something, things aren't looking good. Whirl is getting tired of killing people, which he admits is a bad sign, and Megatron prepares his hail mary: use the ore inside him and his space bridge self to bring the thumb back to metroplex. Bee dosen't know if he can trust him and Megs smiles as he peaces out.

Back with Optimus, Rodimus does what he does best: give a hell of a speech, this time explaning WHY he's always wanted to be a prime so bad

"You're wrong I never wanted to be Rodimus Prime, not deep down. Deep down I always wanted to be you. The real you not Orion Pax. When you became Optimus Prime, when you assumed the title the world didn't know the truth about Nova, Nominus and the rest. Back then being a prime meant demonstrating, no embodying certain standards. It meant decency, integrity and morality, all the things chancers like me pretend are unfashonable because deep down they scare us. And they scare us because we try to live by them but can't. Well guess what: you can. You can and you do every day. Thanks to you the word prime still means decency, morality and integrity. Listen the world will always need a prime.. but only if that prime is you. "

With this Optimus FINALLY snaps out of his self loathing and easily overpowers Nova. Turns out the real reason Nova dominated wasn't that he "controlled the universe". it was confidence. He used Optimus' own self loathing against him and once that was gone... and he made the additoinal mistake of hurting Rodimus... it was over.. was was the life of Orion Pax

With that Optimus is truly back.. I mean I never stopped calling him that but neither did half the cast. Our heroes are kinda stuck for the moment so we go back to Cybertron.

Team Fuckup is back to it's faviorite pastime: arguing. In this case Prowl is pissed at bumblbee's plan and our buddy once again has had enough of Prowl's shit over the course of the last season and chokes him breifly. If it were ANYONE ELSE this would be horrifying but it's prowl so

Scoops reveals the prohecy to starscream.. and the important part is the endgame as we finally get a sense of waht Shockwave's REAL plan is: to remake time and space as a constant present: no past, no future, just one NOW, one point in time. Forever. A stagnant nightmare that never questions or wants more.

For now though it LOOKS like our heroes have won as Megatron does what he promised and with his body back in full, Metroplex heals. now at full strength he easily finishes the Necrotitan and his intenral systems finish all the amonites.

Back with Shockwave though.. all of this was to plan.. or at least not so off plan he can't easily adjust: he has all the ores lined up, he has everything he needs, now he just needs to close up loose ends, having Metalhawk take Waspinator away.. and preparing to turn Galvatron into a battery. Good news is Metahawk seems to be recovering.. and thus only hides Waspinator. Good poor dude has been through enough and was entirley played. Unsuprisingly everyone else involved was a disposable pawn, with only Jhiaxus being in on it.

This sudden but inevetible betryal is also a good time to talk about the villians of this piece.. and how most of them are... meh. Shockwave himself is good, but spends most of the event in the shadows, despite us knowing i'ts him. The rest though are kinda one note, either fairly generic minons or in the case of Galvatron and Nova Prime, archetypes i've seen better. Owl House and Amphibia both did a better job of "villian who wants to return things to a worse time they think was a golden age", with more reasons why than "I'm an evil asshat." They fit their narrative pieces as "Sizeable threat who will be back later", and "The living embodiment of everything Optimus hates about being a prime".. but there's not much beyond that. Nova is just an expansonist colonalist asshole who won't shut the fuck up. That's all he is and neither book really built up how awful he is enough to make his return this big gasp. He's a big threat, he's evil and his murder of hardhead is legitly sad.. but he's ultimately just a gloating dickhead who goes down the minute Optimus looses his self loathin, excuses himself and lets hope in.

The story spends 3/4 of it's story.. on anatagonists who just aren't that intresting, and it's one of Dark Cybertron's biggest weaknesses. If your going to have a big bads minons take center stage they need to be charasmatic. These two dipshits weren't. I will give credit where i'ts due: the necrotitan was decent. I wish it had a less generic design.. but th eidea of this unstoppable giant monster of a transformer that simply by MOVING FORWARD decimates all in his path and whose one action decimates the one city cybertron has left, is terrifying and mostly well done.. but his generic design and taking up so much of the story makes it get tiresome fast.

So with issue 10 we're at a break in the story: the Necrotitan is FINALLY down.. though it's far from over. We also FINALLY get shockwave's plan and how all the pieces connect. In short all the various ores he seeded throughout his minons, such as putting death and ressurection in the necrotitan and change and life from metroplex. So all this, all these interactoins and plans.. was to get all the energy in place fo rhim to unmake the universe.

The idea of this .. isn't bad: that this complex as hell plan was all a masterstroke and he's almost won. The problem is it dosen't work narratively: the ores come up only in the setup for robots in disguise and overlords backstory in more than meets the eye. They aren't really that important.

Not helping is that Shockwave having this big plan in the background.. was something ANYONE reading this would guess> he's on the cover of the first issue, nova and galvatron both come off more as patsies than the actual plan and their plan of a new "golden age of cybertron" dosen't really fit Shockwave. Shockwave is a being of pure logic, why would he be nostalgic for an age of cybertron that failed horribly and lead to everything falling apart. He sees all the angles.. and thus sees WHY Nova and galvatron's day was done.

Instead we just spend most of the plot wondering how all this connects and it's just "oh the thing tha'ts associated with him was it, cool'> the actual PLAN is good, Shockwave wants to rewrite history to be one singular repeating moment, taking the complications and troubles of time away even if it takes the good with it. It's a truly horrifying concept, a world that can never change or grow and will jus stagnate in stasis for all time. The buildup to it just dosen't work. It makes all this epic battle.. come off like a distraction rather than some masterstroke. There were easier ways to pull this off in and out of universe.

Back with Team Fuckup who are slowly not livnig up to that name, Bee apologizes for choking Prowl for his insolence but Prowl's cool with it he deserved it. He's less cool with the fact their taking a break as Shockwave is still out there, but Bee insists they'll deal with it.. but deserve at least a second ot bask in having the lost light back. Unfortunately he also asks if Prowl has anyone he wants to see.. and we cut to Chromedome, with Bee blisfully unaware of HOW bad Prowl fucked over the lost light. At least for Domey's sake he's decided not to dig into metroplex's memory when asked: he's done enough of that shit and is finally saying enough is enough. No more.

Onto Megatron whose getting patched up and admits it probably isn't easy for Ratchet.. though weirdly, and in a sign of things to come despite Ratchet assuming Megatron's talk is intimdation.. Megs GENUINELy seems to be trying to make conversation and is complementing ratchet. It seems Bumblebee really got to him.

Back in the dead universe our heroes are stuck playing a game of "who wants to sacrifice themselves" before Rodimus tells them for the love of god stop it. No one's doing the big heroic sacrifice, they can find another way.. and sure enough.. Cyclonus hears singing.

We cut to swerves where sadly we don't get a ton of charcter interaction. The dinobots sing a bar song, some guy talks to brainstorm, and we DO get Swerve meeting his hero in blur.. only for Blur to find him annoying. Story of the poor guys life. It's not BAD character interaction what we get but it feels like Roberts and Barber were more intrested in plot progression than actually crossing over these casts, having them trade stories and really interact. There's a good moment or two like Hound pointing out how weird it is that after centureis of shooting their all having drinks, but in a 12 issue maxi series it's telling it took THIS long for any of the main casts of both books to interact and we're only putting aside one issue to do it that much. Part of the point of a crossover is to have interactions you normally CAN'T have. None of the lost lighters really get a chance ot talk to bumblebee or the others outside of a line or too.

We do get a good moment with Megatron at least: He calls bee in.. and asks him a question.. when does he think Megs came closest to victory? Bee of course is just a tensy bit horrified by the question.. but it has a point

It's a setence that gets to the heart of Megatron's arc here and beyond: that he really did have a point, really stood for something once: he was fighting simply so his people could be free... and the second he started a war, he lost sight of that and became a dictator.. and now he sees what he's become and dosen't much care for it. It's the start of one of the best arcs in all of More than Meets the Eye and one of the larger reasons why do this crossover: Without it we miss the start of one of it's best characters. We saw megatron in RiD and before this.. but it's here that Roberts fully takes the wheel after hinting what he could do in Chaos Theory and it is glorious.

So speaking of Glorious, Prowl tracks down Chromedome, who understandably has been avoiding his ass and wants to confront him for the whole memory erasure thing.. despite the fact doing so also cost Chromedome a lot, and was done ENITRELY because Prowl is an egotistical jackass who can't let go of control over his ex and who smuggled a dangerous criminal on board a ship because he can't let the war fucking go for five minutes. It shows Prowl is TRYING to change.. but still can't accept WHY he needs to, that he's got control issues. I mean it took bee fucking choking him for Prowl to actually start listening to him. Prowl wants to change.. but can't as long as he can't accept the consequence sof his own actions. On the bright side, Chromedome is REALLY not in the mood to take his shit and that leads to the greatest panel in all of comics history

Keep in mind Chromedome WARNED him. He fucking warmed him to get the fuck away. And he didn't so Domey POWERBOMBED HIM OFF A CLIFF. his expression of pure terror is just.. gold. Even after the poor guy DIED a heroes death he still can't accept rewind.. and boy did he pay for it.

So we get a brief intermission from this fight as Magnus asks Chromia if he can talk to metroplex, but the poor guy's mostly inert. He wants to ask about the knights... people had BEFORE but he figures with the raised stakes etc he might. no luck though.. Chromia already tried.. but he said no one deserves to know. Keep that in mind.

Magnus has to go break up a fist fight though, and Prowl is somehow getting lower than mocking someone's widow telling Chromedome everyone's too focused on the day to day and "HE NEEDS TO GET SOME PERSPECTIVE" and NO reaction image can represent the level of facepalm I gave over that.

Magnus breaks it up. Prowl is ONCE AGAIN a prick who ONCE AGAIN can't read a room telling Magnus "manhandling a senior officer is hardly behavior of the duly appointed.."

First off. You aren't you old crone. Autobot chain of command right now has you as Bumblbee's first officer. Rodimus is on Bee's level.. and Magnus is HIS first officer. Ergo, your on the same fucking rank.

Magnus corrects him.. he's not the duly appointed enforcer of the tyrest accord, but he STILL can make a citzen's arrest and lays out just why prowl sucks. And hearing this from someone as logical, as defferent to authority as magnus.. fucking slaps.

See this scene.. is why I fucking hate Prowl. He's confronted with the blood on his hands.. and refuses to accep tit wasn't worth it. The ends didn't justify the means. People DIED due to him.. and he still thinks it's okay. Magnus said it better than I could've dreamed but what the hell; Where does it fucking end? And how far is prowl REALLY from the people he's trying to stop? The events of the last two arcs are almost ENTIRELY on prowl not giving a shit who got hurt if things went wrong. A huge chunk of the unvierse nearly died.. and Prowl can't accept it wasn't worth it.

And here's the kicker: It really wasn't. There wasn't some greater good acheived. Putting Overlord on board caused Red Alert to self harm, killed Pipes and Rewind, and did more damage to Chromedonme's psyche, not to mention sent Drift off the ship. His black ops against tyrest, while well aimed... only caused the fucker to esclaate and had the lost light, the very people he clearly resents most in the world, not been there, genocide would've happened. Prowl is an arrogant, egotistical piece of shit who can never accept that while the FIGHT isn't nover, the war is, and he can no longer justify dooing horrible shit with it. And even if he could.. it's no excuse. Prowl just wants to do what Prowl wants to do without any consequences, and dosen't understand that's not what the Autobots stand for. Even at his weakest.. Bumblbee at least got THAT. He got that the way he was starting to think was wrong. He came out of loosing Iacon better.. Prowl came out the same. And all of cybertron ins going to pay for it. Thankfully for my blood pressure and for our heroes.. the lost light no longer has to foot the bill.

Magnus parts after the constructicons want to throw hands, not helping Prowl's case, and points out he's glad he has friends because "you'r the lonelist person i've ever met. "

So we end part 1 with Scoops revealing where he got all this.. Senator Shockwave. Yup.. and to confirm things are about to go sideways again, Metalhawk returns iwth his team and shoot starscream. Not fatally bu tonly because he's delivering a warning... just in time for Shockwave to send every last amonite there way, millions descending on the planet.

Part 11 and the cover, which is still shown in the trade loudly proclaims THE DEATH OF AN AUTOBOT. Sadly it's not prowl.

With the amonite's swarming Bumblbee has a plan RUN THE FUCK AWAY. Though it's for godo reason: with this size of event evacuation is SEEMINGLY the only option.. only for Perciptor to burst his bubble: This is happening EVERYWHERE. Ther'es no running.

Back with Shockwave he slowly becomes everything, everywhere, all at once, living all his timelines at once as they converge. Jhiaxus couldn't be a prouder mad scientest papa: turns out he's so into this.. because the student has become the master, easily succeeding him and both have the same goal.

Bumblbee regroups but to do so he has a big ask, one Magnus relays to metroplex; keep the amonites busy. He gladly agrees, though Windblade's a bit thrown off by magnus opening a conversation with "the world is ending". She.. she's new here.

Bumblbee assembles his own team to take down shockwave: Himself, Magnus (raw power), Getaway and Skids (Secret Agent Men), Brainstorm (Dead Universe Expert) and Megatron.. and whie Bee tries to sugacoat it, he knows what he is. It's made tricky by the fact they stil lhave an army to go through.. but Skywarp shows up with Team Metalhawk, including Starscream whose back to his normal level of ego and overconfidence. Missed that. Skywarp can take them directly in, while Soundwave plans to hold the line for megatron.. though ti's very clear Megs has changed... and has plans for when he gets back.

While they do that Prowl.. does something useful after his jackass parade last issue and forms devistator with the constructicons.. he dosen't want to and bee isn't happy to see it but metroplex needed backup.

So the team splits up with most of them taknig on mooks and screamer going for Jhiaxus, who turns out to have reactive armor. Starscream's got to prepare for one of his greatest weaknesses: a fair fight.

Meanwhile with Bee and Megatron, the duo find Galvatron whose injured. Megatron plans to just finish the bit but Bee gives one last speech to his new best buddy: He encourages him that this ten eyes for an eye attitude of his has caused nothing but an endless cycle of vengance and death with no defendants and points out anyone can be allies.. that goo dor bad.. they can make a new future and that Galvatron could be part of that. is it a tad naive? perhaps.. but it's a still a long ways from the bot who rejected metalhawk and the nails because they didn't fight in the war. Bumblebee's finally realized that to make ANY future.. they have to try something diffrent.. sadly.. he dosen't get to live long enough to do anything about it.

Bumblebee.. is dead. He finally turned the corner and he's gone. And it's telling how much of a turnaround he had during this crossover as i'm geninely heartbroken by it: bee really HAD turned around as a leader, realized how he failed, put his heart and soul into making things right, even turned the staunchest decepticon to his side with words instead of his fist.. and he dies suddenly, tragically and not even all that importantly to shockwave. He died.. because he was there and he could stop his plan maybe.

Megatron is livid as he prepares to fight shockwave who brags, but unlike Nova Prime actually pulls it off.

Back with the others, Magnus is about dead... when Brainstorm starts to feel a little woozy man.. then opens a portal: Optimus and Co have escaped.

Final issue. Whirl and Arcee hang out, sadly the only time they do though she wishes they had more. I forgot to mention she got a new paintjob, a new beginning.

Back with Team Optimus, it's explained HOW they did it: they heard the singing, realized they could make a gate and used Nova's corpse for their end, brainstorm for the other since he experimented so much with the dead universe. Problem is Cyclonus, Nightbeat and Kup all start to drop: they can't surivvie outside the dead universe and SOMEONE need sto carry them back.

So Rodimus and Brainstorm take the wounded back, with Brainstorm finding out he probably needs some of his magic juice himself. While he cooks that up a lot of fighting happens: the metroplex trio join in the fight though neither windblad nor nautica is that experinced, and Starscrema beats Jhaixus as Jhiaxus used some fancy shoulder blades.. and thus told screamer he had them.

At the end of all things Megatron denies he and bumlbee were friends.. but ti's clear they were. He's also horrified by Shockwave taking his idea that all bots are equal as meaning they all mean nothing. Optimus and Magnus arrive for backup.. but can't too much.

So both decide to take a crack at "I know your in there somewhere fight it". Optimus tries appealing to his old friend, the kindly senator he was before the senate turned him into the monster he is. This get shim shot and Megatron decides to try something else.

The impossible has happened: After realizing just how far he's fallen, what he's lost... Megatron.. has become an Autobot. For his people. For his future. For himself. And for his friend. It's honestly a brilliant idea if a risky one: take the greatest transformers villian.. and see what happpens when he truly tries to change. It reminds me of the many times my boy Magneto has reformed. And while it's a gamble, many fans apparently were not happy with this face turn... it's one that pays off as the series goes in my eyes. Megatron is trying to be better.. but it's both a process.. and something that won't go down well with those on the other side of that gun.

It's also something that's amazing it worked so well: before this in a lot of works Megatron was a bastard and you'd be forgiven for thinking this was an idea Hasbro kinda shoved in there.. because it was. Roberts confirmed at one of the cons that this was a mandate by them and he got the job. It's why this reformation takes place over 6 issues.

It's a testiamte to roberts and barber though.. that despite having to do a full 180, crazy.. it FEELS entirely organic to the story: Roberts had done enough background setup with megatron and had a full time travel story planned, so the framework to include him and have it mean something was THERE. He had to speed run his redemption but the fact he accomplished that in a few scenes and made it convincing.. is amazing. It's why i'm glad earthspark went with a reformed megatron as this arc is incredible from the jump depsite all this... and I can't wait to get fully started later this year. It's one of Roberts best acomplishments and i'm excited we're finally to it.

For now though .. it manages to reawaken the senator and in a truly heartbreaking scene they want to just let him go: after all, it's not SENATOR Shockwave's fault, it's what he became.. but The Senator CAN'T stop it: the time tive's part of of him.. and Optimus swears to remember him as he was before , with his new friend's help, putting him down.

So with that we have a few teases for the future: Starscream of course is back to normal, though the autobots, and cyclonus, make it clear he won't be able to slip back in THAT easily. Meanwhile poor soundwave breaks down a bit as he realizes what Megatron has done, and can't fahtom the betryal.. and galvatron steps in to be his new dad, setting up RiD season 2. Which thankfully is now out of my hands.l What matters is Optimus and Megatron. optimus makes sure this wasn't just a clever trick.. and it wasn't. That makes this complicated.. but the two step out of the ship, ready for what's next.

So Dark cybertron.. is mediocre. It has some really good scenes in it: Team Windblade are all great new additions for thir short time screen, the stuff with rodimus and optimus is truly special, Megatron's face turn is well done and Prowl gets powerbombed off a cliff.

Overall though.. it feels padded. It has good ideas, the necrotitan makes for cool imagery, but it tries to stitch so much together to make this big epic with enough space for everyone and everything, that instead feels bloated. While some GOOD shit like the antics of bisected megatron probably woudl've been cut down if this were 6 or 8 issues, the story would've been a lot tighter. We get a LOT of ground repeated: Prowl is pissy with bumblbee, Scoops yells at starscream. Nova Prime won't shut the fuck up. For all the great scenes ther'es a good chunk that's just the same shit happening again and again with only slight progress.

And as i've said it dosen't really "cross over" all that mucH: the casts of each book are largely seqestered from each other, so we never really get any conversation about how the lost light feels now they've had the journey and seen the consequences of leaving (i.e. starscream), or how those who stayed pooped the bed. We don't even get reactions to Bee's death.. the story just.. ends before anyone else finds out.

Dark Cybertron is really like a lot of event comics: it's longer than it needs to be, interrupts the flow of a good book to happen, and the consequences of it are better than the story of as a whole. It was slightly better on re-read and overall is better than robots in disguise, having more character development and less arguing.. but it dosen't save a bloated, messy story that wastes i'ts potetial trying to wring the maximum issues out of the story instead of doing it at it's best.

Next Time: We break from the lost light. Again. First up next month for SUPER MAY we ask the question "What's so funny about truth, justice and the american way?" Then it's Mighty Morphin Summer Baby! As I mentioned last time, we'll be ping ponging between BOOM!'s power rangers comics. I do have a special treat or two planned for the Franchise's 40th anniversary, a review of the movie, covering the first windblade mini series, but both are tbd at this point. I HOPE to cover them by the end of hte year, but it largely depends on my schedule. If all goes well you should get aan extra slice of transformers in August and MTMTE should be back by september.

When we return Season 2 begins! Megatron is the captain now, Rodimus is salty about that, and we see how everyone else adjusted to their new decepticon overlord. Thanks for reading.

#transformers #transformers more than meets the eye #rodimus prime #optimus prime #megatron #ratchet #swerve #ultra magnus #shockwave #starscream #bumblebee #prowl #prowl sucks

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