Alex MilneReseñas

Some great stuff in here!

This series continues to be fun and enjoyable while still leaving me feeling like I'm missing a LOT of back story that could make reading this even more enjoyable.

Still going to keep with it as I'm enjoying the story regardless, but if you're not used to jumping into years of continuity in media res, then maybe sit this one out.

This one was a slow burn for me. It contains a one-shot and the first 3 issues of this series. I thought it was pretty good until issue 3 when the story started to pick up and I got really into it. I'm exited to (eventually) read Volume 2 and see where this story goes from here.

Such a great conclusion to an amazing run.

Just two bots sitting on the outer hull... sniff... I'm not crying, you're crying!

Tarn.

Tarn!

TARN!!!

James Roberts and company put out the best narrative in Transformers history.

It blows your mind how much of this early run is paid off in both large and small developments through the rest of MTMTE and Lost Light.

Chromedome, Overlord, Rewind.

Just an amazing, heartbreaking series of issues. It's impossible to capture everything from the assault on Prowl to Pipes' end. James Roberts makes you feel for robots.

There aren't many comics I'd bother to go back an reread. James Roberts is brilliant. Alex Milne and Nick Roche are fantastic. Josh Burcham is just perfect. These issues are undoubtedly the genesis of the best run of Transformers content in any medium.

Outstanding

The story didn't really hold my attention but I enjoyed the artwork.

The story didn't really hold my attention but I enjoyed the artwork.

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Though I gave up on John Barber's take on Transformers a couple years ago now, I still had some curiosity about how it would all end, and so I dutifully picked up Unicron, which ties up the IDW continuity that began all the way back in Infiltration-- three-and-a-half years of reading for me, and thirteen years of storytelling for them.

Anyway, it's about as bad as all post-Dark Cybertron John Barber Transformers comics have been. Too many characters I don't care about, too much ancient Transformer mythology, too many banal human beings, too many shoehorned-in other Hasbro properties, too much indecisive Optimus, too many characters reverting again and again. Why did Starscream undo his progress from Till All Are One? Why am I reading about yet another millennia-long Shockwave masterplan? Didn't the jokes about Thundercracker writing screenplays wear thin years ago?

I guess the biggest point of frustration for me is the title character itself. Say what you will about the 1980s Transformers film, but Unicron is awesome in the original sense of the word. Its coming feels ominous and significant and unstoppable; it is the doom of a universe. Where and why does it come from? Irrelevant. It hungers, and it will have you. Here, though, Unicron never dominates. Neither the writing nor the art give it the immensity it deserves, it always feels squeezed in, instead of dominating. I usually like Alex Milne, but his Unicron just feels really unimpressive. Ooh, it's sucking up some rocks. And then to give it an origin story that ties into one of the mediocre Hasbro properties! Visionaries, I think? I've already forgotten. This diminishes Unicron and thus the whole story.

The IDW Transformers universe had a strong start in Infiltration, and despite missteps such as All Hail Megatron, went some very interesting, unprecedented places once the war ended. But John Barber, the same architect of those innovations slowly dismantled them after Dark Cybertron and then piled on the mistakes with the Hasbro comics shared universe-- necessitating the destruction of the entire continuity, because there was no other way to reset things to the way they'd been. But that destruction turned out to be as banal and uninteresting as the writing that made it necessary to begin with.

Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence

I'm so bad at understanding comics. Good job I can go read a plot summary on the wiki afterwards.

I got this from a humble bundle.

Let me start a slow clap for this volume, if I may. I absolutely adored it! Is it possible for a series to just get better? I'm terrified that it can't keep riding this high, but I think James Roberts might prove me wrong. There's so much goodness wrapped up in Volume 3 of More Than Meets the Eye. I was given so much back story. Events that happened before the war, the way some of our characters met one another, even the reason that personalities are the way they are currently. What's more brilliant, is that all of this information was given to me by way of our amazing characters sitting around, drinking, and telling stories. What could be better?

Remember how I keep mentioning how much real life issues make their way into these two Transformers series? Well, if one is more about politics, then MTMtE is the one that's more about common rights and the idea of religion. Some of the characters are highly religious. Some don't care at all. Still others are summed up in the panel below. That the world around us can be appreciated, no matter what you believe in. That last line in the panel hit me hard. So much truth, all in a comic.

I love following the growth of these characters also. Swerve, whom up until now has been a jokester above all else, almost broke my heart in this volume. Watching him talk about his guilt over harming someone he considers a friend, just floored me. It's so nice to see that these characters are multi-faceted. They don't always fit in just one box. They aren't afraid to break out of that shell if it's needed. Although, truth be told, sometimes that's a terrifying prospect. Like, for instance, when Ultra Magnus smiles. SMILES. *shudders*

So anyway, what all my rambling is really leading up to is that this was my favorite volume so far! I still love this series more than anything, and it's just being proven to me over and over again that James Roberts is a stellar writer. More.

Well, I can definitely say that this remains my favorite of the two series! It's honestly because of the thin line that James Roberts walks between tragedy, and humor. Let's be honest, these aren't always the happiest stories. Despite the fact that the war is over, well, it's not really over. Lines are still drawn in the sand. Hatred still exists. Our characters still die. Sometimes in ways that are a bit hard to stomach. If you don't think that you'd feel sad for a non-human character dying, let me assure you that you are dead wrong. Whether these characters are human or not, they have the kinds of personalities that draw you in and make you care. It's evil. It's brilliant.

I'll bet money you know someone like Magnus. Overly serious, possibly OCD. The life of the party? Not so much. You probably also know someone like Swerve, who is over eager and tells terrible jokes. Or someone like Rung, who tries their best to help others to such an extent that they often end up getting hurt themselves. Trust me, these characters are easy to fall into step with. They come alive, and I can't deny that I'm absolutely hooked. It's testament to how well this is written that I actually like some of the Decepticons. Yup, they may have been evil at one point, but now they're just as lost as everyone else. And... this motley band of buddies is kind of funny too.

What I liked most about this volume is that it's actually bunch of short story arcs all threaded together. Each one shows a little piece of something different that's currently going on. We have a mysterious plague that Ratchet and his crew have to figure out how to solve. That particular one almost made me cry. What a brutal way to go! Then, we have the crew of the Lost Light, where Skids is trying to figure out what memories he's missing, and poor Rung is having one hell of a day. Finally, there's our Decepticons in the panel above. Trying to band together, trying to get home, still kind of awful to one another. Yet, again, funny.

I'm really enjoying how Roberts takes the time to set up these relationships between characters. You can see who genuinely cares about others, who separates themselves from the group, and who just doesn't know how to belong. I can't deny, my emotions were all over the place this volume. I should have been prepared. I wasn't. I tell you, I'm more invested in this than you know.

Oh, I LOVED this volume. Hands down, this is my favorite so far. More Than Meets the Eye is still the superior series for me, but above and beyond that was the fact that this whole volume stole my breath away. I wish I could dish about absolutely everything that happens, but then there'd be no reason for you to read this. So, I'll do my best to highlight.

First off, so many layers have been slowly peeled back from these characters. James Roberts has created such depth, even in characters like Swerve. He's my favorite, because of his sense of humor. However I've learned so much about him these past volumes. That he has a deeper set of emotions. That he uses humor sometimes to disguise those. That, even poor Swerve gets lonely.

Another great example of this is Ultra Magnus. I shared the panel where he smiled, which was so totally out of character for him that it was almost terrifying. However there's more underneath that tough and strict exterior. This volume really dove in to what Ultra Magnus is, what he used to be, and how he just doesn't know what to do with himself. He wants to be liked, he's just gotten used to being feared instead. Truth time? I feel for him.

Oh, and then there's the whole idea of relationships that extend beyond just friendship. I find in interesting that I never considered that there might be actual deep relationships in this story. It's probably because I started out this whole journey with the idea that robots don't have feelings. Well, I was definitely wrong. I'm happy about that. And I've learned so much about all of these characters that the fact that they might be happy together? Just makes me smile. And weep. This time, it definitely made me weep.

There's been a lot of destruction, and even some death. I've mostly gotten used to it. In this volume though, it reached a new level. So far, James Roberts has made it feel like most of the time characters can come back. They can be saved. They might be gone for a while, but it's okay because there's always possibility. This time, I don't think that will happen. Poor Chromedome. The final set of panels in this story almost killed me. Does that tell you how invested I've become?

*wistful sigh* So good. So good, and so sad.

My new favourite thing. Transformers as queer romance/quest novel with many quips and twists.½

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Megatron has really been the focus of "season two" of More than Meets the Eye, and implausible as I found the idea of four-million-year-Hitler coming aboard the Lost Light as co-captain, his trajectory in these stories has really worked. By this point, the main cast has accepted him... and he has accepted the ways of the Autobots, even refusing to partake in combat.

But it all comes to a head here, when the non-main-characters decide they've had enough of Megatron leading them, and kick him and the main characters off the ship... and then they're promptly set upon by the Decepticon Justice Division, Overlord, and a whole army of Decepticons.

Once again, James Roberts does his thing, with some edge-of-your-seat writing that had me physically tense or tearing up or both. I've really come to love these characters and their adventures, and this volume is filled with both hero moments and dark ones. Particularly when Rewind reaches the goal of his own personal quest... wowza.

Plus Drift and Ratchet are back! It's the culmination of all sorts of stuff, but it also promises much more to come. More than Meets the Eye is still the best ongoing in comics. How is that possible?

Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This volume of More than Meets the Eye is less focused than the last few, in a good way. Instead of featuring one big story, this one gives us a number of one- or two-chapter tales, spotlighting the broad cast of this book in a variety of situations. Among other events, the Decepticon Justice Division learns that Megatron's gone Autobot, Brainstorm is put on trial for the events of volume 7 while Ratchet weighs up what's important, the Lost Light finally catches up to the Vis Vitalis and has multiple dance parties, the entire crew visits a sitcom version of Earth, and the Lost Light discovers a clue to the existence of the afterlife. Phew!

After what I saw as getting overly convoluted in volume 7, volume 8 is largely a return to form. The D.J.D. plotline continues to burble away in the background, but this volume makes it more likely that some kind of confrontation is coming, as the D.J.D. learns of Megatron's heel-face turn, considers ending it all, but then realizes that Decepticonism is not a person, but an ideology. Nice enough, but of course the best part of the whole issue was the jokes, particularly learning how much the D.J.D. is into forms; their ferocious, ruthless, murderous leader chastises his subordinates for poor safety etiquette: "You think we have a health and safety policy because it's fun? Which reminds me: appraisals, my quarters, soon as Nickel [their medic] gives you the all clear. And this time come prepared--bring you P.D.P.s." This last word is footnoted as "Personal Development Plans"; the D.J.D. has to fill out the same kind of forms my wife does as a high school teacher!

The next story is cute, mostly for Ratchet's considerations of his friendship with Drift, who departed the Lost Light all the way back in volume 4. I look forward to seeing where this goes, because I miss Drift. (Words I never thought I'd say after All Hail Megatron.) Hopefully Ratchet does bring him back to the Lost Light.

After that comes what must be one of the wackiest More than Meets the Eyes stories (though not the wackiest; that's coming up), where the Lost Light and the Vis Vitalis both come under attack by aliens who feed off charisma. New crewmembers such as Nautica and Nightbeat continue to get some much needed development, as the Vis Vitalis crew has been joined by a number of Camiens, including Nautica's amica endura. I like Nautica a lot. (Maybe I was predisposed to, because my wife and I both took a "which Lost Light character are you?" quiz and she got Nautica!) In some ways, though, this story gets to be James Roberts as his most James Roberts-ish because it ends with the characters having an indie music dance party!

THEN THINGS GET ABSOLUTELY NUTS.

Explaining it is probably beyond my powers, but in short there's a fake Earth based on sitcom tropes where the crew has to project their holomatter avatars... an Earth upon which their own adventures appear in the form of a comic book called More than Meets the Eye. Of course this leads to lots of self-referential jokes: Cyclonus complains that the planet is "weird and farcical and-- and unrealistic," but Hot Rod retorts that their own adventures are if anything, more unrealistic. But also there's some cute character-based stuff. So maybe More than Meets the Eye at its most More than Meets the Eye-ish isn't so bad after all.

The last story in the book was my favorite. The Lost Light arrives at a planet home to the Necrobot, a mysterious Transformer who visits Cybertronians at the moment of their death. There's more good character stuff here: Chromedome and Rewind's love for each other even though Rewind is seeking a previous lover, Nightbeat's hope that there's something more to the afterlife than the Dead Universe, and a couple great moments for Megatron, including one that's absolutely heart-rending. But also Megatron tries to learn how to banter, with little success.

Though it's never been bad, I feel like the post-Dark Cybertron iteration of More than Meets the Eye ("season two") is just now hitting its groove, finding its feet, &., &c. The new characters are starting to feel like old friends, and the drama and the comedy are in good shape. I can't wait to see what happens next... but I will have to, because as per the chronology I've been following, I'm about to hit my longest gap between More than Meets the Eye collections: I have six other books to read before I turn back to volume 9, whereas normally it's been one or maybe two. That's life in a shared universe, I guess.

Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

The series name of More than Meets the Eye has slightly changed, with the removal of the leading article from "The Transformers." Beyond that, though, this volume is more of the same in both good and bad ways, with More than Meets the Eye at its most character-based but also perhaps its most obscure. After a prologue with a couple minor characters running afoul of the Decepticon Justice Division (poor guys), the main story kicks in with the reveal of an alternate universe where the Functionists (a political faction which believes Transformers' functions are defined entirely by their forms) are in command. This appears to be the responsibility of Brainstorm, who is secretly a Decepticon and has traveled back in time to kill Orion Pax (the future Optimus Prime).

So what we get is time travel hijinks, More than Meets the Eye-style, as Brainstorm skips through time, and Rodimus and company skip after him, blundering into key historical events and trying to stay out of trouble, but not very well. It's fun-- of course-- and funny-- of course-- and gives us some nice moments of insight into our characters, including Megatron and Rung. The Functionists are terrifying, and we get to see some flashbacks scenes from volume 3 in a new light, which is clever.

Almost too clever. I've been reading IDW's Transformers comics for almost three years now(!), and still a lot of the intricacies went over my head. Dramatic revelations were only comprehensible because I read the articles on the Transformers wiki. There were definitely moments where I felt like this story was in danger of disappearing up its own self-referential backside, unfortunately. It's so clever you can admire what Roberts is doing, but it's hard to enjoy it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I always enjoyed it. More than Meets the Eye is, as always, replete with details large and small that make it one of the sharpest comics on the stands. But being its most typical isn't its best.

Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This picks up six months after Dark Cybertron, and major changes have taken place on the Lost Light, the biggest one being the assignment of Megatron as co-captain. I'm of two minds about this. One the one hand, Megatron as captain provides possibilities, for both jokes and for drama and character introspection. But on the other hand, I find it implausible that a dictator and committer of genocide, whose five-million year reign of terror makes any human monster look like someone who was at most mildly rude, would be accepted aboard the Lost Light (or anywhere in Autobot society) under any circumstances. It's like once World War II ended they made Hitler captain of an American aircraft carrier and everyone acted like it was a minor inconvenience, only a million times more unlikely. So, I like it and I don't like it at the same time.

Other than that, this is another solid volume of More than Meets the Eye, not the best, but definitely of the consistent quality that James Roberts and Alex Milne have maintained since volume 3. Having all of the crew except for those who joined after issue #1 vanish is a smart move to give some time to new characters; so far I like Nautica, the earnest ex-teacher, and the appearance of Ravage has some potential. Plus all the old characters get nice moments and promises of interesting developments, like what's happening with Tailgate and Cyclonus, or Rodimus, or Chromedome, or Brainwave, or, well almost everyone. Also this pays off some ongoing plot threads seeded so far back I'd forgotten about them, so thank goodness for the Transformers wiki! Dark Cybertron was a bit of a dull derailment, but More than Meets the Eye still knows how to make you laugh and make you cry. (No actual tears this time, just metaphorical ones.)

The Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

No actual tears this time, though I did feel my eyes misting up at one point.

I read a review that described volume 5 as the perfect jumping-off point for More than Meets the Eye, and though I haven't read what comes after yet (before we get to volume 6, there's a crossover with Robots in Disguise, Dark Cybertron), I can see why. Most of volume 5 is given over to "Remain in Light," a story about the Lost Light making it to Luna-1, the lost moon of Cybertron, and what they find there draws together a number of the ongoing character and plot threads of the series: Rodimus's often misguided brashness, Ultra Magnus's love of the rules, Ratchet's lack of confidence in his own abilities, Skids's inability to remember large chunks of his own past, the mysterious "legislator" robots from way back in volume 1, Tailgate learning about the importance of semicolons, the missing Circle of Light on Theophany, Fortress Maximus's postwar aimlessness, and so on. It's not quite as good as volume 4 (but it seems unlikely to me that anything could be), but it is a solid tying up on the main ideas of this series-- yet at the same time it sets up revelations for future issues.

The emotional core of this volume was Tailgate. Tailgate has been a wannabe and and outsider this entire series. He woke up from a four-million year deactivation in volume 1, having missed not only the Great War, but even its political context, and volume 4 revealed that he wasn't the bomb disposal expert and potential Ark-1 crewmember he had claimed to be, but a waste disposal expert who was supposed to prepare the Ark but not crew it. Tailgate is obviously in love with Cyclonus, who's from the same time period as Tailgate, but lived through that four million years, much of it as (if I understand correctly) a resident of the Dead Universe and sort of a zombie(?). Tailgate is excited to be on the Lost Light because he finally belongs somewhere doing something, but Cyclonus would rather be nowhere at all. He hates everyone else, and he hates himself, and he hates Tailgate for trying to get him to open up. Yet sometimes they bond (in one of the previous volumes, they sang songs of ancient Cybertron together).

Anyway, volume 4 ended with the revelation that Tailgate had a week left to live, as he's so old that he had contracted cybercrosis. Salt is rubbed in the wound by the extra revelation that Tailgate was only two weeks old when he began his four-million year nap... his body's millions of years old, but he's only had a year and a half of actual life experiences. Throughout the adventures in this volume, a countdown timer periodically appears, showing us how long Tailgate has left to live, and it is brutal.

Of course, things don't go quite predictably, and I won't spoil it here, but James Roberts includes two good fakeouts as regards Tailgate and Cyclonus, and got me both times. Chromedome and Rewind's love may have formed the the core of volume 4, but Tailgate and Cyclonus obviously share love too, and Roberts does a fantastic job with its intricacies here. Who'd ever thought I'd be effusing about robot love? (Well, anyone who ever heard me go on about Silverbolt/Blackarachnia when I watched Beast Wars, I suppose.) Tailgate gets a day-saving moment that's amazing.

This just scratches the surface: like in volume 4, a lot of characters get great hero moments (Ratchet is awesome!) and there's also a lot of intriguing Transformers mysticism (Skids may or may not go to Cyberutopia, but wherever he was, it's weird), and an extra bit of information is revealed about Overlord's presence on the Lost Light and Drift's departure (never thought I'd say it, but I miss Drift). And, of course, there's the usual assortment of jokes: Rodimus talking about how he has to live up to having flames on his chest, or Swerve defending his bar with a talking/singing blaster designed for kids.

The volume is wrapped up by a coda issue, where the Lost Light crew tries to recruit the Circle of Light to help on their quest by showing them the documentary film Rewind was working on before he died in volume 4. As you might imagine, hilarity ensues, especially as a large chunk of the documentary (it spans the Lost Light's whole voyage) is about Thunderclash, the Greatest Autobot of All Time, who knows as much about typefaces as Ultra Magnus, helped Ratchet pass his medical exams, was fatally injured saving orphans from a supernova, is capable of teaching Perceptor things he doesn't know about science, once bore the Matrix of Leadership while Optimus Prime was on sabbatical, and turns out to be on the exact same quest as the Lost Light.

The Circle of Light turns out not to be fans, summing up the whole approach of this series highly effectively, shouting comments at Skids like:
"Everyone on board the Lost Light is cracked in the head!"
"Yeah, dysfunctional isn't the word! There isn't a normal 'bot among you!"
"And that wouldn't be so bad if you actually made progress-- but as far as I can make out, all you do is argue, crack jokes, and get sidetracked doing pointless, silly things that only you find amusing!"

Skids struggles to defend it, saying, "'Silly?' I guess you don't see it if you're part of it..." But the reader is part of it, and the last page of this volume warmed this reader's heart. No matter what comes next in More than Meets the Eye, these five volumes will have been a work to treasure.

The Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

I don't normally do this, but it seems warranted here: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. That said, I went into this volume knowing some of what I'm going to talk about, and if anything, I think it made the book more effective.

BUT ANYWAY

I don't often cry at works of fiction. It happens on occasion, though, perhaps more as I get older. The death of the Tachikomas at the end of season one of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Penelope Wilton chaining herself to the bus at the end of episode 4 of Bob & Rose. Moira taking her suicide pill in the last chapter of On the Beach. Evelyn Smythe's contemplative last moments in Doctor Who: A Death in the Family.

But I don't think I've ever cried at a comic book.

I cried three times reading this one.

The first time came in the first issue collected here. The Lost Light crew assaults a rogue Decepticon stronghold. James Roberts tells the story in two parallel tracks, switching back and forth between the attack and its aftermath. Rewind is injured, and his conjunx endura Chromedome is freaking out about it. Now, I was spoiled a while ago on the fact that Rewind would die, so as the book came to a climax, I started tearing up. Rewind doesn't die here, but the end is still fraught with emotion, as we learn how Rewind and Chromedome first met, and then the last thing we see is the moment of Rewind's near-fatal injury. It wasn't a Decepticon who injured him; rather, Whirl purposely locked him in a room with an exploding bomb because Cyclonus was also in that room. Plus, misanthropic Cyclonus actually threw himself on the bomb to save Rewind. Oh wow so many feelings as everything that's happened throughout the issue slots into place.

I didn't cry at the second issue here, but it was good fun: the Lost Light arrives at a pleasure planet, and everyone goes out drinking. Jokes are had, we get to see the crew's humanoid holomatter avatars, Ultra Magnus tries to lighten up (and fails), and Tailgate reveals his dark secret to Cyclonus. If you love when a tv show does the wacky side episode where the crew lets loose, you'll love this.

The fourth issue is where I lost it for real, not just tearing up, but genuine crying. Decepticon phase-sixer Overlord (late of Last Stand of the Wreckers) is let loose on the Lost Light, and Rewind dies for real-- but even aside from that the thing is filled with amazing character moments, paying off all sorts of character details from throughout the series so far. It's not the climax of the whole series, but it does feel like one for the first fifteen issues. Ratchet, despite being a medical officer, throws himself into battle one last time; Pipes, the ship's punching bag, is punched (to death) one last time, but using his dying moments to save the ship; Rodimus shouting "'till all are one!" saves the lives of everyone on board. That last one is a brilliant bit of writing, transforming a running gag into a key plot point and clever bit of trickery.

But worst/best of all is the climax: not only does Rewind sacrifice himself to save Chromedome/the ship, Chromedome is forced to kill Rewind in order to save Rewind from an eternity of torture at the hands of Rewind. It's horrifying and beautiful, the greatest moment in an issue of great moments, and across those last three pages, I wasn't just tearing up, I was genuinely crying.

Finally, you get the aftermath issue: funerals and mourning and all that. We learn more about Chromedome's relationship with Rewind, and what we learn is all even more tragic, culminating in Chromedome watching Rewind's last message to him, expressed in the form of a montage of clips of other people speaking. Well, I teared up again. Some of it being laid over Drift's exile from the ship (and the way Ratchet stands up for him) makes it even better.

I can't believe it's a Transformers comic that made me tear up, but really, this might be one of the very best comic books I've ever read, full stop. It has jokes, complex characterization, well-organized long-running plots, tragedy, emotions, and giant robots. It's impossible for me to imagine what else I might want out of a comic. And really, I'm just scratching the surface of what it has to offer.

The Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

I knew from, like, page three of this volume that it was gonna be a good one. The book opens with Hot Rod and a number of the other Lost Light Autobots on some kind of vaguely defined mission. There's some running around, some banter (I laughed), and then you discover that the characters have been miniaturized and are running around inside the mouth of Ultra Magnus, Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, fighting off an infestation of nanobots. Ultra Magnus is so grim that the pistons he needs to smile haven't been used in centuries.

I should have seen it coming, but when the nanobots try to escape through those pistons, the solution to the infestation turns out to be Ultra Magnus smiling, which crushes the nanobots but also turns him into a figure of fun-- and there's probably not anything that Ultra Magnus likes less than fun.

This is all set-up for Ultra Magnus coming into contact with the Galactic Council, the only people who love the rules as much as he does, and what he does when offered a position in their ranks-- an even greater honor than you might expect, since the Galactic Council (quite fairly, it seems to me) hates all Transformers for the effect their eons-long war has had on the rest of the galaxy. Humor and a great character point! What else could I want from my comics?

Meanwhile, the Lost Light has reached Theophany, the planet home to the Circle of Light, who should be able to guide Rodimus and company on their search for the Knights of Cybertron. Well, alas, there's no Circle of Light to be found (even though Drift met them there a few years back), only a slumbering Metrotitan, an ancient, giant Transformer that can power a city. There's some interesting side effects from the presence of the Metrotitan, foremost among which is that Ore, who died back at the beginning of the series, comes back to life. This leads to a long conversation between Ore and Swerve, the Lost Light's bartender, only because Ore is blind, he misidentifies Swerve as Pipes, allowing Swerve to pour out all his secret hopes and fears. It's pretty touching, and the way the subplot of the Metrotitan ends (was there a miracle, or simply a scientific phenomenon?) is surprisingly well done for a comic book based on kids' toys about fighting robots. Or even well done without that qualifier.

The next plotline is an interesting story where Rewind the archivist tries to revitalize the comatose Rung by getting a group of the Lost Light crew to tell a story of pre-war Cybertron they all participated in, which will hopefully jog Rung's memories and reactivate him. So while Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, and Drift investigate the apparent murder of one of the crew, we get a flashback story about Orion Pax (the future Optimus Prime) in the time prior to Autocracy, when civil unrest on Cybertron was beginning to reach a fever pitch, but before open civil war had broken out. (Megatron doesn't appear in the story, having been sentenced to a penal colony during this time.) It's a layered, complicated story, with some good character moments, and some harsh surprises. (I knew the fate of Optimus's supportive senator friend thanks to the Transformers wiki, but still shuddered when it was revealed.) It's an interesting storytelling conceit, executed well, and it continues to add depth to this motley crew of misfit robots. Between it and the first story, this is definitely my favorite volume of More than Meets the Eye so far. Hopefully it can keep up this level of quality.

Also! So many jokes. I love Drift commenting on how often Rodimus overuses "'til all are one!"

The Transformers by IDW: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »