All Hail Megatron Issues 7 to 12

[Paulbot]

Issue 8 is now out and basically anything I want to type about this issue is a spoiler, so...

Spoiler alertThe clearest link yet to the Furman series is in the final page which is a homage to the final page of one of Furman's comics. There's a comment about a new character that might be reflective of fan response. There's a character that looks like Perceptor but otherwise doesn't appear to be Perceptor. And Ironhide gets some good character moments in this issue. End Spoiler

[Sky Shadow]

Issue 8 is now out...

Some great work from the creative team this month.

Things I liked a lot:

- Reflector having multiple personality disorder.
- Starscream's scheming to change the title of the comic and his mysterious accomplice.
- The traitor and the fact that his reasoning behind his actions not only make sense but are also quite awesome from a character and storyline POV.
- Barely any humans (and those who are around all get tortured or killed. Hurrah!)
- That Bumblebee shares my opinion of Drift.

Things I disliked a lot.

- Perceptor and Drift being kewl yet again. Sigh.
- In terms of visual storytelling, I have no real idea what was going on during the Perceptor-is-kewl section.

So far, Volume II of AHM has been quite excellent. If the traitor's 'one condition' is fulfilled and Perceptor and Drift both die excruciatingly painful deaths it will be pretty much perfect. (No, it's not going to happen - I'm just saying.)

[hotaru_oz]

yeah I just got the latest issue yesterday and I don't want too say too much for the sake of spoilers but I am eagerly awaiting issue 9

[Zahhak]

I personly like perceptor..but he does seem too..action hero-ey most of the time. I agree with skyshadow but I'd like to add a minor complaint that shrapnel still does not have his little speach qwirk, unless ofcourse he's spose happen via some sort of injury or something.

also the more I see the swarm the more I wanna make toys of them.

[FFN]

I ain't happy about the whole Sunstreaker thing. I liked where Furman was (intending) to go with the HQ/Prime-style merging and melding of minds for Hunter and Sunstreaker as glimpsed in Hail and Farewell (I wonder how much was going on in the back rooms at IDW for Furman to create that as canon to his story without the knowledge that his entire storyline had been dropped in favour of AHM).

As callous as Sunstreaker is, it's just not Sunstreaker to want all humans dead. He isn't an idiot. One group of humans captured him, not all humans were responsible.

There are reasons why seemingly jerkface 'bots such as he and Grimlock joined the Autobots rather than the Decepticons.

[GoktimusPrime]

and in AHM..1 or 2 when they showed frenzy new psyco gimmick...

Actually that's not new - G1 Frenzy's always had that ability. The G1 cartoon never used it (they just made Frenzy a Rumble clone) but he did use it in the comics. In G2 Wheeljack amped him up to the max when they were fighting the Swarm and Frenzy literally vibrated himself into oblivion (though with a massive happy smile on his face, appreciating the sheer power that Wheeljack had given him).

From Frenzy's G1 tech specs:

"Sow panic and surrender will bloom."
He knows no cause, only craves to spread fear and destruction. // Can roll his drums to produce high-pitch, grating sound of 200db. Disorients and disrupts electrical flow in opponent's circuitry which makes them malfunction.

And in G1 he did use this ability against humans too.

So I really like AHM Frenzy - he's definitely in-character with his G1 counterpart.

I mean if it was laserbeak/buzzsaw/ravage I can imagine him caring a bit as they were more like his pets and(for what they showed) pretty much 100% loyal and obidiant...rammble rammble rammble

Laserbeak, Buzzsaw and Ravage aren't semi-sentient beasts - they are fully sentient and intelligent beings like other Transformers. They all spoke in the comics, Ravage spoke once in the G1 cartoon and spoke a lot in Beast Wars.

In The Headmasters, when Soundwave and Blaster killed each other, it was the Decepticon cassettes who rebuilt Soundwave as Soundblaster (and likewise the Autobot cassettes rebuilt Blaster as Twincast). So there's one example of the cassettes caring for Soundwave. Though still not necessarily Soundwave caring for the cassettes... that and the fact that it would've been written at Takara's behest to sell the Soundblaster toy!

As callous as Sunstreaker is, it's just not Sunstreaker to want all humans dead. He isn't an idiot. One group of humans captured him, not all humans were responsible.

There are reasons why seemingly jerkface 'bots such as he and Grimlock joined the Autobots rather than the Decepticons.

Grimlock was pretty nasty king.

Also, I think that it's meant to show how heavily traumatised Sunstreaker became after his horrific experience at the hands of the Machination - developing a deep-seated resentment against humans. Perhaps pre-Machination Sunstreaker was the Sunstreaker we're more familiar with, but after his time with the Machination he changed. I'd say what they did to him was more than enough to justify him falling toward darkness. But at the same time you could tell that Sunstreaker was loaded with guilt about his deal with the devil - it was consuming him from the inside. This still shows that he is still a good character. Good characters still do bad things, but they differ from evil characters in that they don't revel in it and rather feel bad about it. He also tried to justify it to himself with an attempted utilitarian rationale - that they would sacrifice another world to save theirs (and thus the galaxy?). In the end he realised that he was wrong, hence his confession and attempted redemption.

I thought it was good showing that Autobots (and Decepticons) aren't good or evil by nature, but by the decisions and actions they make. Now IDW still need to work on further developing Sunstreaker from where he is in Maximum Dinos to what he became in AHM... but of course, that's been an issue with AHM from the outset. Hopefully it'll all make sense when everything's done and dusted. Yeah, I'm being optimistic.

[liegeprime]

Some great work from the creative team this month.

Things I liked a lot:
- Barely any humans (and those who are around all get tortured or killed. Hurrah!)

ah something realistic then, good.
As it should be, its a wr of giant freaking robots rampaging everywhere, there SHOULD BE BLOODY CASUALTIESSSSSSS!!! I hate it even in the movies that when Prime fell from the building he was thrown from by Megsy when he landed no human got splat!! WTF?!? Good to see that is not the case in this fiction.

[Tallestblue]

Just read AHM #8 today! (One of the advantages of being buddy-buddy with people in a comic book store)

S!
P!!
O!!!
I!!!!
L!!!!!
E!!!!!!
R!!!!!!!
S!!!!!!!!

Lots of suspicions confirmed, and flashbacks to before AHM and the end of -TION and Maximum Dinobots, Sunstreaker being an enormous Jerk to Hunter, all of humanity and revealed as the Traitor! EEEE!! And the Last page with Hunter!! Double EEE!!

[i_amtrunks]

It's almost like between writing the script for issues 6 and 7 McCarthy was forced to read all the IDW stuff that preceded AHM, it's finally meshing into the other series.

Good call to Paulbot and others who picked the traitor, although for him to be exposed (at least to Ironhide) then sacrificing himself to save the rest of the team was very Hollywood.

I wonder know if Kup did know who the traitor was, or if he only knew that it wasn't Mirage?

A bit too Hollywood with Perceptor and Drift again, the upcoming Drift Spotlight should hopefully flesh out this cardboard cut-out character. Some more lines for 2nd tier character Cliffjumper, but other than Kup, Ironhide and the Traitor, barely anyone else bares a mention on the Autobot team.

Things were looking interesting on Earth, until the preview art for Issue #9.

Art is getting better and better, but I feel once Devastator is brought back, the problems might return, and since it would be most logical for the focus to switch to earth now, I guess that is going to happen.

So the series is improving, it was just one of those things where the series had to hit rock bottom before improving, all that has happened in issue 1-6 could have been made into 1 issue, these last two comics have been much better.