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popculturebuffet · 1 year

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Transformers MTMTE Retrospective: Scavengers and Chaos Theory (ISsues 7 and 8, Transformers 09 23 and 24)

Hello all you happy cybertonianas and welcome back to my more than meets the eye retrospective! For this month we're doing two stories and continuing our side trip. This time we see how the other side of the war is doing in it's aftermath.. and then cut to just before the end and long before it as we get a peak at who Optimus and Megatron are, and what Cybertron was before the war. So join me under the cut for Scavengers and Chaos Theory if you please.

Scavengers:

Scavengers begins with something we've been slowly building towards: we get our first look at the Decpticon Justice Divsion.. and see that the rep they've built over these first few issues and one shots.. isn't an exageration. If anything they undersold it as we see their latest Victim black shadow BARELY alive and begging for them to juts finish it after previously having been partially melted and crushed… only for Tarn the cruel and charasmatic leader of the DJD to lay it out: the deaths are agonzingly slow, and that's the point: every decipticon that hears about this will think twice about turning their back on megatron for whatever reason. It also makes sense Megatron has this sick motivational tool in his back pocket: while some Deciptcons are diehards for the cause.. the vast majority are in it for themselves, for petty sadisim or as we'll learn just because they were made for it. Many would likely screw up a mission just to get themselves ahead… and the DJD are there to explain why this is a bad idea. Tarn himself shows off his talent.. he can literally talk someone's spark into giving up. HIs very voice is his weapon and he saves it for the last. As for them doing this while the war is over Tarn refuses to belivie this, feeling the war isn't over till Megatron says it is… a philsophy that will be challenged horribly next season, but we'll get to that. It's a short but incredibly well done scene that emphasises just what monsters our temporary protaganists are up against.. and what our main heroes WILL be up against eventually. It's not a matter after all this build up of IF they'll meet the DJD.. it's a matter of WHEN. For now though they have another target in mind whose crime is… "He lived"

We break for the lost light which I honestly forgot about but is welcome.. if no less grisly. Rung is alive by some miracle, but is missing his head, and Red Alert, shaken by finding overlord confesses it to rung, and leaves a data slug with him… that in a later scene someone goes back to retrive. Something bad is going on and it's clearly a lot higher up than it seemed with just wingus and dingus.

We then meet our protaganists for these issues: Fulcrum, a bucketheaded autobot who wakesu pt ofind the rest of our new heroes trying to scrap him for parts. These are the Scavengers: MIsfire, swerves' non union decpticon equilvlent, Crankcase whose name matches his attitude, Spinster, the empyrically dumbest person in the universe, Flywheels, who you need not worry about, and Krok, who as leader gets best designs.

We get another subplot, . B ing a good friend Chromedome's been looking into Skids past, and goes to his other close friend for help. Brainwave disected his gun.. and it exploded. He also named it the binary gun because it has two bullets. Chromedome sums up how useful this is.. prompting Brainwave to reveal some actual information, albeit some even he's not sure of.. and given his info his reluctance speaks VOLUMES. The bullet is from the institute

Domey decides after that to just try using his surgery on Skids, who intitallyd ecided he didn't want it but has changed his mind. And while Chromedome's able to get a lot out.. he can't get everything and stops. While Skids want's it… Domey can't ethically keep pressing as there's something Skids is actively repressing, and a memory that traumatic could break him.. and given what Dome's scene, it's probably best he dosent. And knowing what Dome's seen and what Skids is hiding. .yeah I can see why his brain put up this defense mechaniasm. My only shock is that defense mechanisms aren't literal for transformers and a tiny brain gun didn't pop out of the back of his head to zap Domey in the eyes.

Once we get back to our other protaganists we find otu the Scavengers aren't really a formal squad.. but simply a bunch of lost decipticons who Krok found trying to find his crew and are currently trying to salvage enough materials to keep going. This sector in paticular is usesful as Optimus and Megatron went through a phase that's both the bonkers kind of werid I love you only get from a property like this and tha'ts grounded in the real cost of it

It's a brilliant idea I wish got explored more: for who knows how long two fo the greatest stratigests in the unvierse plugged themselves into giant computers and simply treated the entire universe like one giant RTS. It makes sense as their brains are computer based so why WOULDN'T they do this… and then shows WHY: millions died fast, things escilated quickly and it explains why Megatron would shift back to a much slower strategy after this. Optimus likely only did it either becuase he didn't consideer the implications.. or he had no choice. As Krok puts it "lives were reduced to lines and intergers and the only diffrence between us and them is the autobots came back to collect their dead". That last part is what makes me wish we got more out of it: the idea that for one point of the war people were reduced to mere data on a page and the consequences of that.

This brings Krok to another point: the war is over. The Scavengers all got the message "Come home the war's over" and while they think it's POSSIBLE Megatron one, they suspect it was the autobots since the message wasn't "HEY BITCHES PARTY AT MEGATRONS!" and none of them know what to feel about that. These were just the guys at the bottom of things. Just like our reguarlly scheduled heroes ther'es a sense of what do we do now? This was our lives. Krok decides shoot the torture victim from earlier who they used as a camp fire without realizing it.

So after the aformentiond data slug scene our heroes try to find enough fuel to power the Weak Anthropic Principal aka the W.A.P. a name that has aged gloriously. Flywheels finds something badass though

They explore it and suprise suprise.. the ship's pretty fucke dup with brains on the ceiling, half mangled protoforms in jars, usual horror shit. Only Fulcrum's excited by this and only because of the unknown, the idea their lives are there's now. He's let the post war reality set in.. and unlike the others he's happy his life's finally his… and then the DJD call saying one of them is on the list and they have 15 minutes to kiss their asses goodbye.

The issue ends with our heroes finding something that JUST might turn the tide: Him, Grimlock.

Yup i'm a huge grimlock fan. The first G1 work I saw was Transformers the Movie, which had him and the others a hilarious idiots tagging along with everyone else. I"ve loved the big dumb asshole ever since so I'm happy he's part of this run… even if he's not quite himself

After a flashback to fulcrum doing a heli jump that also implies HE'S the one their after, our heroes discuss it over and Krok points out the hard truth: none of them is going to admit to being the DJD's target for obvious reasons and even if they did, given how draconian and unstable the DJD is, they could easily just decide on the spur of the moment "Hey your all on the list now! Pray for death but death won't come!" So their options are

And shockingly despite the jokey nature of these guys.. all but Fulcrum choose Option C. Honestly when reading this story again for this it didn't really do much for me.. but rereading it.. this moment really sells it> These guys may be even MORE of a ragtag bunch of misfits than our main heroes, which is somehow possible, but they have some noblility in them. As Crankcase puts it "This badge belongs to us, not them". SO their going to do what they do best: use what they have on hand.

Our ragamuffins set a trap, leaving Grimlock's cryo pod there so theyc an open it, saying it's the traitor.. and Tarn just outs Fulcrum as his target. Tarn.. also isn't stupid. Given that decpticons already punish deserition with brutal torture if most of them target them, it'd take a lot to both escape and to stay escaped as is, let alone with the threat of Tarn himself over their heads. He still opens the trap, but it's more out of villanous curosity as to just WHAT the trap is than actually thinking they could escape him. He gets shorukened for it, but it quickly becomes clear Grimlock isn't at 100% percent and instead i just getting his ass kicked like a sad puppy, and our heroes can't even take advantage of tha to escape as one of the DJD finds them. Things go badly and we get an upclose look at how horriying the DJD are, with Kaon keeping a "pet" a deranged wolf like "sparkeater", Tesarus who just shoves people into his chest to be ground up , which poor flywheels gets a taste of, Vos who puts an iron maiden like mask on his targets. OUr heroes try their best.. but it's clear their just not up to this. As Tarn puts it these guys are at the literal bottom of the Deciptcon's rankings, he checks them because of course he does. Even some powered armor does NOTHIGN to these monsters.

What saves them is Fulcrum who decides to come clean and to jump, but not before giving a speech citing that these guys gave him faith in the cause again.. and that their worth TEN of the DJD any day. He then jumps revealing he's a LITERAL suicide bomber with an alt bomb mode… that goes off with a dud because that's just the kind of day these guys are having.

Thankfully they get a repreive: the DJD has found overlord… the overlord whose in the bowels of our heroes ship

Tarn leaves, and tells them all their ALL on his list now… but he has bigger fish to fry.

Fulcrum explains his backstory: he was a deserter, got caught and was remodeled into an unwilling sucicide bomber, his bomb removed by the others when they thought he was a lootable corpse. The rest of the gang.. is busy with Grimlock, worried about him till Misfire approaches him slowly and realizes he's brain damaged. He's not himself.. and thus comes up with a plan since Krok is a bit too unconcious and in need of repairs to come up with one and it's actually brilliant: they take Grimlock with them and use him as leverage. If the autobots won, taking care of one fo their own and bringing him home with them makes for one hell of a peace offering and gets them amnesty. If the decipticons won, bringing back one of the biggest baddest autobots is an instant promotion. Theya ll agree, loot krok for parts then take off… while a mysterious bot far in teh future shows up marking him dead…and on his data pad are also Ultra Magnus and Drift.

Scavengers is a decent story, one showing just what the other side of the war was. Really my only problem with these guys is we only see them three times in the main story and once with a b plot, making it easy to forget about them despite being important to the plot, as their intro both properly introduces the DJD.. and sets up events for later. Their not bad characters by any means but they often don't feel as developed. The story tries it's best and Krok certainly does but they feel a tad more one note due to not getting nearly as much time and being played mostly for laughs. It's not a terrible story but i'ts a shockinglyf orgetable one given how much happens and how decent it is. The next story.. is a bit bigger though

Chaos Theory:

So now we go to BEFORE MTMTE happened to a prequel.. an intentional one to the storyline "Chaos" that wrapped up the previous era of transformers, and loose one to both MTMTE as a whole and next month's arc shadowplay. This arc was James Roberts first work post wreckers and given how things tend to move in comics his first knowing MTMTE was coming. As such while it works well as a two part standalone story and isn't 100% necessary for MTMTE , it still sets things up for it and sets up how Cybertron was in the past, why megatron started the decipticons.. all important stuff for MTMTE's future. It's this arc where Roberts first gets to write megatron and while it wasn't intetional as his addition to the cast wasn't roberts idea, it sets up a lot of what Roberts would do with him and explore once we get to him.

Chaos Theory opens in a diner, with Megatron tallking to his pal impactor. Since their don talking about what they call a quarter pounder on luna 1, their onto Megatron's latest work: a manefesto of sorts but suprisingly it's built on non violent resitance.. on building a movement not through violence but through protest. It's chilling as it is sad: we knwo what Megatron becomes.. but right now alll he once is a better life. A life where a few drinks above ground between shifts is not all they have and where what your built to be dosen't mean your station in life. It makes you questoin just what made THIS GUY into well.. this guy

The two are interputped by some assholes hassling Rung, who makes his first apperance here, if as a bit of a cameo. Said assholes work for the Senate, which as you can probably guess by the need for systemic change.. is horribly corrupt, not only encouraging a caste based system where what one does determines how valuable they are that will later be refered to as "functionism", so naturally like any jackbooted thugs their bullying rung and wanting him to clean up after he knocks over some drinks before throwing him at Megs table, with Impactor getting up to teach them some street justice.

While he does that in the past in the present Megatron has surrendered.. and it has everyone uneasy. Ratchet is checking him for traps, the other autobots are all watching from a distance and optimus.. naturally wants to know WHY. And despite trying to put off the conversatoin.. he knows he has to have it.

While he steels himself back in the past megatron is interviewed in a cell: apparently he and impactor really got into it with those guys and they and impactor are all in med bay… and Megatron is soon starring down a familiar lack of a face who shadily decides to take over his interigation…..

Yup! While Rung is a neat cameo to stash away for later, Whirl is full on setup for the character and his apperance and connections here will be important later. As he mentioned in issue 6 he worked for the senate.. and we see what that means here… and none of it is good. What follows.. is one of the best scenes in transformers period. The symbol of each side, simply sitting in a room, talking it over, as Optimus DESPERATLEY tries to figure out why megatron is like this. There is a LOT of good stuff in this conversatoin, a masterclass in how to do a character conversation. Such as Megatron talking about hate

Optimus counters by why he's tired: generations of fighting and all it's gotten is every other race to turn their back on them, millions dead, their races decimated… and it just won't stop. You can see now why he's tired: Roberts really taps into something that dosen't get refrenced enough in transformers: this war hasn't just been going on a few years.. it's been going on millinea and as mtemte has proven they remember all of it. All the losses, all the trauma, all the pain, what was it for?

He asks Megatron a simple question: pretend for a moment he's won, optimus dead the autobots no more what does he do?

Well minus the rest part, but he basically rebuilds the universe into true peace through tyranny: a new golden age where free will is gone but os is wanting for anythimng.. something that naturally disgusts optimus. The two then trade stories about the times they've nearly killed each other before breaking

Back with autobots high command, they argue what to do wtih him: some, including Ultra Magnus want him dead, while Bumblebee worries it'llmake him a martyr. Optimus..says i'ts not up for debate and he's instead going to someone else who will be important in MTMTE, Chief Justice Tyrest, the guy who apointed magnus and who oversaw the Aquetus trials that were at the center of Last Stand of the Wreckers andwho naturally we'll see later. For now he's who Optimus trusts but to try this and to do so in a way other races will accept, though some worry Optimus is getting a bit chummy.. and by some I mean hot rod whose lack of tact gets everyone thrown out, though Optimus is clearly still rattled.

Back to the past, Whirl is beating the shit out of Megatron who isn't fighting back. This police brutality is interputed by Springarm, the officer he reliefed earlier as Megatron has been let off, thankfully before Whirl could blame his death as him "slipping his bonds". It's a shockinglyf rank show of the police: some may mean well.. but many are just selfish brutalizing assholes who don't want change as their power would go away.. and we're only going to see more of that in these past segments.. and any time Prowls around. Seriously the bot is a walking defund the polcie advertisment. Optimus not only shows he talked to the bartneder and found Megs didn't participate, but read his manefesto: he dosen't agree entirley but he feels he's in the right direction.. and that itself says a lot.. as did the fact Megatron tried to act like this wasn't their first meeting. To Megatron their first meeting was a battle between two sides, a glorious war on a bridge. For Optimus.. it was two idealists, one working outside the system one working simply having a talk… and likely the regret Megatron didn't speak to peace. That so many died because Megatron strayed so far from who he was.

In the present Optimus finally asks Megatron the real question, the one he REALLY wanted to ask.

This speech is one of the main reasons I covered this one: while the events of it are a direct prelude to shadowplay, this line.. comes back later. And we see as you can probably guess.. that Megatron wasn't being honest. No not honest megatron. But Megatron got what he wanted while in the past.. he throws his datapad away, a sign that he's starting to slip from who he was .. and into something else. And what I like is while the story paints present megatron as a villian.. i'ts hard to argue entirely with his past self, especially after part 2: the system is broken and while sometimes peaceful protest and showing you have the higher ground works.. sometimes the only answer is in action. Sometimes i'ts okay to get pissed off and riot. The question is how far you take it. Megatron is wrong because he took it from "the'se corrupt assholes need to be replaced" to "peace through tyranny". He had an understandable starting point, wanting to raise the working class to equality.. it's about how you achive it.

As we'll see as we open part 2 though, while Optimus is trying to work in the system.. he will not BEND to that system. It allows the other side to florish: Optimus was a cop which can be one of the worst thigns you can be and usually is in a facist system. But for Optimus.. he's trying his best to be an honest person. He lets Megatron go and likely saved his life with it.. and as we open part 2, we see a bunch of senate thugs confront him. It's clear from the outset that while they put on a lair of civility.. it's all an act Optimus sees thorugh it and while theyt ry to SUBTLY imply Whirl should be let go, that dosen't take and outright saying he has friends in high and low places who'd be pissed… Optimus dosen't bend. Whirl broke the law. It shows who Optimus is: he's a cop yes.. but he puts his morals first: he went out of his way to get Megs exonerated because he did nothing wrong. But he refuses to let Whirl free because he tried to murder someone in custody. He broke the law. It dosen't matter who his friends are or who comes for him, Orion Pax or Optimus Prime, he won't let someone trying to murder an innocent person go. In the present Optimus graples with his morals, as at the end of their verbal joust.. Optimus shocked megatron with his restraints and wonders what he's becoming… and if he's beecome too reliant on the matrix, with their bonding being painful.. not helped by Hot Rod's having been "wonderfuL' and trancendant.

The bulk of the rest of the issue.. is an action fest. But a well done one. Optimus brings a bunch of criminals in, and is also clouded in his thinking, tonight's ecnounter only having made it worsed: he read what Megatron wrote.. and realizes the system.. is really brokena nd he can't "countance" that.

He comes back.. and finds springarm and another guy we just met decapitated, and the three senate thugs from earlier escorting whirl out who shockingly DIDN'T approve of this, showing that the Whirl we will know. .is in there. Optimus gets hit from behind and we get a tense standoff as a result if an epic one. He uses his own comednations as fucking shuriken, and then , regretfully as you'd expect, hotwirse springarms corpse so he can use hsi bhike alt mode to ram into them, then reads the main thug his miranda rights. But Whirl makes a point: touch him and there's more bloodshed.. and asks what Optimus will do.

This being Optimus what he do.. is storm into the senate chambers, his faceplate cracked and whirl slung over his shoulder and mkae a speech> this is despite the senate security trying ot murder him.

I'ts one hell of a speech and it stillf eels relevant today when , in the US where I live at least, a lot of senators are, just like the cybertronain senate, self entitled jackasses who make choice sfor other people based on self intrest or some corrupt dogma instead of what the people actually want or need.. yeah it feels all too right. Of course they have Optimus dragged off.. by we see soon after a mysterious senator had him saved, being the only one actually agreeing with optimus and using the right argument they woul'dve made him a martyr, warning Optimus dark times are coming and to decdie wh he wants to be.. while a young optimus looks at his chest cavity.. and ponders the matrix.

Oh and as for present day optimus he simply went ot megatron, sans matrix.. and told him he's taking him to tyrest, with Ratchet telling optimus his moral compas is his own.

Chaos THeory just rocks as a character showcase for Optimus, showing both his inante noblity as a rising star cop and his tortured conflict in present day, while also nicely contrasting megatron's start as a good intentioned revolutionary… with his finish as a tyranical monster. It sets up both how bad the past of cybertron was and how much of a monster megs sees himself is, while raising the question of how much does he really buy he likes hurting people and how much is an act? We won't get any answers on that for a LONG time, but I felt it was worth raising them now… as they won't get any easier when Megs does come back.

Next Time: MORE FLASHBACKS. It's time for a bit of shadowplay as our heroes take turns narrating a tale of the past to hopefully help rung join them in the future. Thanks for reading.

#optimus prime #megatron #transformers #more than meets the eye #transformers more than meets the eye #john roberts #comics #idw #whirl #cybertron

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