Comic review: More Than Meets The Eye season 2: #28 onwards

[i_amtrunks]

Oh, the feels! What a cheat on the last page.

Ravage and Skids, but maybe Ravage will pull through. What a way for Skids to go, remembering what he had done so well to forget, unless there is more we do not know about.

Do we know where Maximum Magnus or whatever he is being called went during the battle, or is he the one firing the shots at the end? The other few survivors took the remaining parts of Ravage back to Ratchet.

Also not sure why Megatron went down so quickly in a heap after the fusion cannon was taken out, it surely must be a ploy, but the art did not make it look like that. Hope this isn't an old switch and bait.

Also not impressed with Deathsaurus, as I thought he might've stood up to Tarn and withdrawn his troops, he was made out to be a different type of Decepticon leader.

[Paulbot]

If Deathsaurus withdrew he'd be putting himself and his crew on the DJD's list though...

[SMHFConvoy]

Do we know where Maximum Magnus or whatever he is being called went during the battle, or is he the one firing the shots at the end? The other few survivors took the remaining parts of Ravage back to Ratchet.

The three shots fired could be Nightbeat and Rung.

[GoktimusPrime]

So much awesome! I really like how this story draws in the audience's emotional investment into the characters. It makes me care when Ravage gets torn apart. I care when Cyclonus gets smacked into the ground. I'm exhilarated when Megatron comes to the rescue (a feeling that is otherwise reserved for a heroic entrance by Optimus Prime); it's not every day that I find myself cheering for Megatron! I am anguished when I see Overlord sadistically taunting Chromedome. I have a level of empathy for when Deathsaurus' hand is forced in ordering his troops to besiege Megatron. I feel torn when Skids falls (I'd rate it as the 3rd most traumatic non-Optimus comic death after IDW Shockwave and G1 Scorponok).

Yet the emotional intensity of the story was also nicely punctuated by small moments of comedy (without needing to resort to crude innuendo like Bayformers), like Ultra Magnus telling Rewind that he, "can't deal with it now," or seeing Tailgate taunting that big Decepticon in order to deliver a classy one-liner with his finish blow. And there was use of alt modes (they do transform after all!); seeing Vos being used in his sniper rifle mode (awww, please make a toy of this guy, Hasbro!) as well as the Lost Light crew transforming and rolling out with Ravage. And seeing Cyclonus flying by and blasting away at the enemy was spectacular! The sense of intense movement in a single panel is quite reminiscent of Geoff Senior's art from the G1 comics.

I also agree that seeing Megatron being emotionally defeated after the loss of his fusion cannon seems completely out of character. I was expecting him to be more like, "I'll rip out your optics!" Perhaps it is some kind of ploy. I sure hope so. This issue was made all the more enjoyable thanks to being written in fully correct English (no spelling, grammar or punctuation mistakes).

Bring on the next ish!

[Jinto]

Also not sure why Megatron went down so quickly in a heap after the fusion cannon was taken out, it surely must be a ploy, but the art did not make it look like that. Hope this isn't an old switch and bait.

I also agree that seeing Megatron being emotionally defeated after the loss of his fusion cannon seems completely out of character. I was expecting him to be more like, "I'll rip out your optics!" Perhaps it is some kind of ploy.

I have to disagree with you both.

Think about it - Megatron has spent 4 million years with that gun on his arm. In his mind 'death comes from here'. Then the war is over and he gives up his weapon. He's wrestling with his history and his newfound pacifism. Suddenly he's forced to wear that weapon again and become the killer he's trying to put behind him, to protect the people he's actually starting to care about, them BAM - the weapon and symbol of his power and ability to kill is destroyed right as he needs it the most.

No wonder he broke down. The guy's having a massive identity crisis. He doesn't know who he is, should be or wants to be. And he's being fought by the very guy who worshipped the 'old Megatron' and is specifically tasked with killing those that aren't loyal to him.

P.S. Yeah, I'm betting Magnus or Nightbeat/Rung fired those three shots.

P.P.S. Anyone notice Nickel shot Chromedome in the right shoulder while wielding Vos? Could be our agent 113. I know she's allegedly non-Cybertronian but that could be a ploy. Unless Vos can aim himself?

[Paulbot]

P.P.S. Anyone notice Nickel shot Chromedome in the right shoulder while wielding Vos? Could be our agent 113. I know she's allegedly non-Cybertronian but that could be a ploy. Unless Vos can aim himself?

Well... Chromedome doesn't have an Autobot symbol on his shoulder and Agent 113 shoots his reports through the right eye of their Autobot symbol. Also last issue revealed who Agent 113 was (and I don't think it's clear if there was a second one?) Chromedome just has really big shoulders so it's an easy target

[Jinto]

Well... Chromedome doesn't have an Autobot symbol on his shoulder and Agent 113 shoots his reports through the right eye of their Autobot symbol. Also last issue revealed who Agent 113 was (and I don't think it's clear if there was a second one?) Chromedome just has really big shoulders so it's an easy target

Oh, I remember about Dominus. I thought there was another agent 113... Bleh, I must have been asleep reading the last issue. I should stop commenting :P

[Paulbot]

Oh, I remember about Dominus. I thought there was another agent 113... Bleh, I must have been asleep reading the last issue. I should stop commenting :P

I think it's a bit unclear if there was another 113 or not... unclear exactly when the DJD discovered their mole, or when Swerve was shot by Agent 113.

Chromedome does needs to be more careful though. He just got that arm put back on!!

[GoktimusPrime]

I have to disagree with you both.

Think about it - Megatron has spent 4 million years with that gun on his arm. In his mind 'death comes from here'. Then the war is over and he gives up his weapon. He's wrestling with his history and his newfound pacifism. Suddenly he's forced to wear that weapon again and become the killer he's trying to put behind him, to protect the people he's actually starting to care about, them BAM - the weapon and symbol of his power and ability to kill is destroyed right as he needs it the most.

No wonder he broke down. The guy's having a massive identity crisis. He doesn't know who he is, should be or wants to be. And he's being fought by the very guy who worshipped the 'old Megatron' and is specifically tasked with killing those that aren't loyal to him.

In which case he's an utterly incompetent fighter. Because it's an extremely basic concept that you never solely rely on "Plan A." Fighters will always have a Plan B, C, D, E, F etc. When I used to train in martial arts, I was always taught to be prepared for my techniques to fail (and thus constantly have back up plans in mind), and indeed one of my personal bug bears are martial arts schools which fail to teach this (which unfortunately are a lot of them ). But even in a modern army, soldiers aren't taught to solely rely on their primary weapon (e.g. assault rifle). Odds are they'll never need to rely on anything else, because a modern semi-automatic assault rifle is such a magnificently effective weapon in being able to kill so many people in such a short span of time (which is why they're illegal for civilian ownership in many parts of the world), but nonetheless, modern soldiers still have multiple "backups". e.g. sidearm (semi-automatic pistol), grenades, bayonet, knife, the guns themselves (can be used for clubbing/whipping), helmet (if you've ever held an army helmet you'll know how heavy they are - imagine smashing that into someone else's face), and as an absolute last resort, unarmed combat. And from this point we have various stages of backups in hand-to-hand combat. So a soldier has a really broad repertoire of techniques that s/he can rely upon, well past the inability to use their primary weapon.

And this is something that was really cool about the Optimus Prime vs Megatron fight in TFTM. When Megatron loses his fusion cannon he immediately begins enacting and improvising backup techniques. He first grabs a nearby energy blade and tries to gut Prime. When he loses this blade, he then resorts to bare-handed fighting and tries to rip out Prime's optics with his fingers. And Cybertronians should be more adept at fighting barehanded because, unlike organic life forms, they are often able to take substantial damage and keep on fighting. One of the few things that actually makes more sense in the live action movies is that the Cybertronians' munitions are powerful enough to kill each other in a single shot; it makes sense that the Cybertronians would develop more lethal weaponry to use on each other. Also, as a seasoned veteran of millions of years of war, he should be able to shelves his personal feelings in the heat of combat; that's what professionals do. Seeing a soldier freak out in the middle of a fight is akin to that scene from The Simpsons when Nick Riviera recalls his time in medical school where he's watching a video of an operation and upon the initial incision he cries, "Oh no, blood!" Of course, Nick Riviera is supposed to be a grossly incompetent doctor...

[Paulbot]

Way to miss Jinto's point that Megatron's having a mental breakdown not that Megatron can't fight because he doesn't have his cannon.

he should be able to shelves his personal feelings in the heat of combat; that's what professionals do

See above

It's kind of like the main point of this whole story