All Hail Megatron #5 preview.

[griffin]

Posted here:
http://comicnewsi.com/article.php?catid=231&itemid=12379

A five page preview of issue 5, which introduces the writer's new character.

[Golden Phoenix]

Looks good. Hopefully we will either get some big back story or finally some real forward momentum.

[Lord_Zed]

S'ok, looks very cartoon season 3. I wish AHM had a little more character variety.

[GoktimusPrime]

*shudders at Transformers calling each other "boy" and "man"* (-_-)

[jacksplatt11]

*shudders at Transformers calling each other "boy" and "man"* (-_-)

While it does seem odd that they would call each other those things, I'm not really fussed... Just out of interest, what kind of things would you like them to refer to each other as? "Bot"? or something similar?

[i_amtrunks]

So why have they refused to show Kup for 5 pages when he graces the cover?

Swarm, Hot Rod off Earth, Kup alive and well... so much to fill in on from Maximum Dinobots.

[GoktimusPrime]

While it does seem odd that they would call each other those things, I'm not really fussed... Just out of interest, what kind of things would you like them to refer to each other as? "Bot"? or something similar?
Neither. These are alien robots... there's no need for them to try and sound so human. :/ That was one thing I thought that G1 writer Bob Budiansky always did quite well in - making the Transformers seem so otherworldly. The live action movie writers did a good job with that too IMO... but I really dislike it when the Transformers start acting far too human. It's something that we endured in that awful Transformers Armada English dub... I was hoping that it would be a thing of the past. And this isn't the first time McCarthy has done it in AHM either... I mentioned this to him on this board but I guess he's chosen not to take that on board. :(

[Paulbot]

You realise this comic was probably written a couple of months ago don't you? Even if he did agree with your post, most fans (particularly the audience this series is trying to sell to) remember Kup from TFTM where he used words like Boy and Lad.

[Sky Shadow]

*shudders at Transformers calling each other "boy" and "man"* (-_-)

Although I'm not the greatest fan of 'All Hail Megatron' (which isn't a dig at the writer - the Cybertron scenes are great - I just hate the Earth bits [Spotlight: Blurr was excellent too, by the way]) I don't think McCarthy can be blamed for doing something that's been done to Transformers for over twenty years.

"Keep at it Springer my boy, help's at hand!"; "Looks like the big boy needs a little training!"; "Yo, Bluestreak! Over here, man!"; "Worry later, man. We've got some rescuing to do!" etc.

[GoktimusPrime]

I don't blame him alone. The majority of TF writers make them too human, even Simon Furman who is my favourite all time TF writer. I'd say that Budiansky, Orci and Kurtzman are in the minority of TF writers who IMO can write Transformers quite well as other-worldly beings. So I'm not really out to single out McCarthy for this... it's just one of my TF writing pet peeves and it just irks me... every time I come across a Transformer saying or doing something that's unnecessarily too human... it's like hearing fingernails being scraped down a blackboard.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y227/goktimusprime/avatars/jam_shoulders.jpg

[Lord_Zed]

You kinda get used to a lot of those humanizations, but every now and then they drop one that feels really out of place. To date the one that bugs me most was from the first Dreamwave series when Prime utters "May the heavens help us" seemed rather out of place for Prime, but I guess it makes a certain kind of sense as Family Guy has taught us that he is Jewish.

[jacksplatt11]

Neither. These are alien robots... there's no need for them to try and sound so human. :/ That was one thing I thought that G1 writer Bob Budiansky always did quite well in - making the Transformers seem so otherworldly. The live action movie writers did a good job with that too IMO... but I really dislike it when the Transformers start acting far too human. It's something that we endured in that awful Transformers Armada English dub... I was hoping that it would be a thing of the past. And this isn't the first time McCarthy has done it in AHM either... I mentioned this to him on this board but I guess he's chosen not to take that on board. :(

Say Prime was talking to 10 or so Autobots, and said "Ok guys/men, let's kick it" (NOTE: I know Prime doesn't speak like this, it's just an example) what would you like to be in the place of guys/men/any of the terms they use that are human?

I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, I'm just interested in what you would suggest that they use in a situation when one TF is refering to a group of TFs (Apart from obviously saying TFs or Autobots/Decepticons), as I agree that as aliens they shouldn't say things like men/guys etc, but nothing comes to my mind apart from the obvious ones I just mentioned. But that would be like me saying, "Hey Humans, let's go get some KFC" or "Hey Australians, we rock"

[FFN]

Wonder what happened to the Xantium (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Xantium).

Silly Autobots! Don't you remember? There is no more energon, hence the whole galactic war for resources, using artificial substitutes and the Ore-13 thing-that-won't-ever-be-mentioned-again.

[GoktimusPrime]

Say Prime was talking to 10 or so Autobots, and said "Ok guys/men, let's kick it" (NOTE: I know Prime doesn't speak like this, it's just an example) what would you like to be in the place of guys/men/any of the terms they use that are human?

"Autobots, transform and roll out!" :)

There are plenty of things that they can say to avoid using overtly humanistic terms. And again, just look through any TF material written by Bob Budiansky, Roberto Orci ans Alex Kurtzman who very intentionally avoided making the Transformers too anthropomorphic and more alien.

Ditto writers of other scifi/fantasy, e.g.: Vulcans, Elves, Orcs, Hobbits... not even Papa Smurf ever smurfs his fellow Smurfs as men, he only ever smurfs then as Smurfs. And in smurfing so he smurfs the smurfacious smurfication that can only be smurfed within the smurfness of smurfaged smurf. :p
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/customavatars/avatar980_1.gif "What the Smurf are you Smurfing about?!"

[griffin]

Transformers apparently have their own language (we've seen and heard it), so having them in print or hearing them in english just means hearing english equivalent wording, like boy, man, lad, genders, measurements, etc... It doesn't mean they are actually using *those* words in their own language - we just read/hear those words in the english translation - the equivalent words we would use.

[roller]

i hope cybetronian doesn't sound like klingon ese in the 2nd movie, thats one ugmo language.

[GoktimusPrime]

Would genderless and effectively ageless robots even have concepts of man, woman, boy and girl, let alone have words for them in their lexicon?

The English language doesn't exist in other scifi fantasies either e.g.: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars etc. - what we hear/read as English is a translation of other languages, e.g.: in Star Wars it is Aurrabesh (aka Galactic Basic) and in Middle Earth unmodified Modern English is the language of Gondor; Rohirrim (language of Rohan) is Old English and Hobbitish is modified Modern English (e.g. 111 isn't called "one-hundred-and-eleven" but "Eleventy-one" in the Halflings' tongue).

It's not the fact that they're speaking English that feels unnatural to me - in a comic book I can suspend disbelief enough to convince myself that they could be speaking in Cybertronian... heck, they could be speaking to each other in English considering that AHM takes place well after the Transformers have been to Earth and would have thusly learnt Earth languages... so it's not a question of language, but a matter of concept - as I said, using concepts that make them feel far too Earthly when they are very much extra-terrestrials.

[Lord_Zed]

Wonder what happened to the Xantium (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Xantium).



The same thing that happened to the seekers altmodes, Hotrod, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Astrotrain, Kup, and every other TF who's toy came out after series 3.

My guess is some sort of Quantum reformating negaton continuim energy dispersal wave! Whatever that is.

[GoktimusPrime]

Easy. Just blow up one of these. :)

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/transformers/images/thumb/1/1e/Planetbuster.jpg/300px-Planetbuster.jpg

[FFN]

Ouch, wonder who uploaded that old screencap by Ben Yee from the 1990s? *checks URL*

OH, Wikia. Not the wiki.


Kup is supposed to be insane.