More Than Meets the Eye #52 — The DJD Once Again Prove to Be an HR Nightmare
Ratchet and Drift, looking fresh as hell in their matching paint jobs, stand on the cliff they made their cool entrance on last issue, as they snipe at each other over whether or not Drift personally knows the DJD. Considering how Tarn and Friends had a space-cocaine induced freakout over seeing Drift on the quantum duplicate Lost Light, they may want to talk a little quieter, especially with the face Helex is making.
You better watch out, Ratchet— this man's going to do Sakamoto-got-all-the-way-to-pencils shit to you!
The Pet takes the opportunity presented by our recently returned newlyweds being too busy flirting to pay attention to the fight at hand, leaping to chew on Ratchet's head. Luckily, Ten is an ally, even when he’s been beat to shit, and punches the shitty little Pomeranian into the air. Kaon, card-carrying freak and dog dad, takes this abject display of animal abuse about as well as he can.
Ratchet, having his gun eaten by the mouth pervert, is beginning to worry that he, his rich boytoy, and a mostly out of commission Ten might be sliiiiiiiiightly outnumbered against a dozen Decepticons, two of whom belong to the Super Murder Death Squad. Drift, after a bit of needling, heelies a dude’s face off, jumps into the air, does a bunch of sick flips, blocks a laser with a sword in such a way that it looks like he got shot in the dick, and then lands, like, 70 feet away to scoop up the Pet and threaten to chop its head off if Helex doesn’t stop trying to vore his boyfriend.
Kaon, #1 dog dad, orders everyone to fall back. Helex, who has Ratchet like 70% inside his smelting chamber by this point, can’t believe that Kaon’s ruining the fun. Helex releases Ratchet, letting him crowd onto Drama Point with Drift and most of Ten, as the Decepticons circle them. Drift, unfortunately, didn’t think past doing sweet flips to show off after his sabbatical from the comic run, and they’re back in the same situation they arrived to, but now one of them is holding a crusty little dog.
Then a platform descends from the sky, and we see what Ravage has been up to.
Grand theft auto!
Yes, it turns out that this cat can drive, and well enough to get the boys up and out of danger, though Ten’s size means that the lovebirds have to dangle off of his remaining arm. Drift still hasn’t put down the Pet. Sure hope that thing’s been socialized to cats.
Oh, who am I kidding? Kaon wouldn’t have bothered.
Speaking of Kaon, he looks like he’s about to cry, because someone’s kidnapped his princess baby angel, and Helex doesn’t even CARE, the heartless bastard, as he orders the other Decepticons to fire on the shuttle. They, of course, hit it, as there’s at least ten of these guys firing, and they’re all decently tall. The shuttle begins to lose altitude, and Ravage, who does not have traditional hands and is currently using his tail to man the control stick, attempts to crash as close to the “fortress” as possible.
Meanwhile, over at Megatron’s plinth, we get back to that whole thing where he surrendered himself to Tarn. Tarn, feeling an excuse to monologue coming on, says that he’s well aware of Megatron’s new schtick, and he’s not a huge fan of it. Megatron clarifies that he wishes to give himself up so that the rest of the Lost Light crew stranded on this planet might live, because this is his fault to begin with. Tarn agrees, reminding him that he paid for Tarn’s plastic surgery. Megatron states that he only brought Tarn to his side to hurt “someone”.
Three guesses who Megatron could have possibly hurting by bringing Tarn over to the Decepticons, and the first two don’t count.
Megatron thinks that by bumming around space on a borderline vacation, he’s returned to who he used to be (maybe he got his teaching license, who knows) and that the war was a waste of time. Tarn gets kind of intense here, because if Megatron wasted his life, what does that make Tarn? Tarn, who has decorated his home with nothing but Decepticon symbols? Tarn, who has had corpses nailed to his wall for the last couple million years? Tarn, who wears a fuckoff stupid mask every single day of his life, even while eating and trying to kill himself with space meth cut with time travel and gas station dick pills? Also, what about all the other guys who died trying to realize Megatron's ideals? What about the little guys, the cogs that made the machine run? What about Steve from accounting, whose husband left him, because he was too busy trying to balance the budget on Megatron's body remodels and Optimus Prime punching bags that also doubled as body pillows to come home? What about Steve, huh?
Megatron basically regrets everything he’s ever done, not that Tarn cares. Megatron then reveals that whole thing where Rewind tried to retroactively kill him as an infant, and how he sort of wished it had worked.
Tarn starts beating the shit out of Megatron before the guy can start going on about how his parents are Brainstorm and Whirl, though Tarn promises that this is just a healthy dose of tough love, as surely the wimp before him isn’t actually who Megatron is. Megatron doesn’t fight back, instead just staring sadly at the Autobot badge Tarn slapped off of him. This is really starting to piss Tarn off, as he was really hoping to beat some of the fire back into his former mentor and idol. This is when he starts trying to choke Megatron, even though their species doesn’t breathe. Still, I’m sure Tarn’s stiletto nails hurt something fierce.
Megatron then recalls his conversation with Velocity, and states that if the fool’s energon DID alter his personality, it was probably for the best, and he wouldn’t want to go back. Tarn, who has based his entire selfhood on the thing that Megatron threw away to live out his probation on a cruise ship, takes this statement with all the tact and level-headedness we’ve come to know him for.
Tarn is just one more double fusion cannon blast to the chest away from smiting Megatron utterly, and he’s fully committed to doing so. However, he gets distracted by the sound of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” coming from across the field.
WHO LET THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT OF HELL
Anyway, it looks like Ravage can, in fact, drive pretty well, as the shuttle did crash pretty close to the “fortress”. Swerve, who still really wants to make up for his shitty boss behaviors and also accidentally dragging Ten into a microcosm of hell, lets Ten know that they saw his floor graffiti, and that it might actually work. Magnus, who still has his arm off, does his best to not kick Swerve across the room as he scurries underfoot, as he drags Ten inside the building.
Skids intercepts Ratchet to welcome him back, and also ask how the hell he knew to come to Necroworld. Apparently he and Drift had received a call from the handy dandy phone that he had given First Aid, who First Aid had then regifted to Velocity, just in case some bullshit happened. Velocity’s introduction to Ratchet is rough, as she manages to call him grumpy, old, and stubborn as a mule in the span of about fifteen seconds. Ratchet is mostly concerned with the fact that the Lost Light replaced him so soon after his return. Nobody tell him about Velocity’s track record with the medical exams, he might just shoot off into space to beat First Aid to a pulp for leaving her by herself.
Over in what might be a closet, Rodimus runs across Drift sitting in the dark and sharpening one of his swords. Drift seems to have used his exile to remember that he does, in fact, have some semblance of self-respect, as he doesn’t immediately forgive Rodimus for throwing him off the ship that he paid for, only to have given himself up as the real culprit behind the Overlordening, like, a week later, thus negating Drift’s sacrifice, and then never coming to find him, despite the fact that they’re supposedly friends, and, again, the ship is in Drift’s name, as was the crew’s allowance money. How the Lost Light has survived financially without Drift is unknown.
Rodimus knows that he sucks and is the worst, but he was really worried that Drift wouldn’t like him anymore, so he’d sort of been kicking the issue of “finding my ex-TIC to tell him he got publicly humiliated for nothing” down the road, to the point where Ratchet had gotten sick of it and went to solve the problem himself.
Of course, the meta reason for Drift not being found was so that Shane McCarthy could have his OC back, as well as Ratchet, for the miniseries Transformers: Drift— Empire of Stone, well known for being sort of silly and introducing the phrase “be shoosh” to Drift’s lexicon. In it, Ratchet found Drift traipsing around the edge of the galaxy being a neutral (in terms of war) hero to organic species affected by Decepticon aggressions, before crashing on a planet where Drift, back when he was “Deadlock”, had found a mystical stone army, one that Gigatron (a dude who totally isn’t anime Megatron) wanted to harness the power of, so that the Decepticons might claim victory over their enemies. Hellbat, Gigatron’s second in command, had gone mad doing nothing but killing over millions of years, and had been modifying the stone army in secret to do his bidding so he could "kill everything". Then the stone army woke up, Hellbat died, Gigatron died, and Ratchet went to take Drift to get detailed, because he looked like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet.
Also, if you think about it, having two former high-ranking Decepticons turning to the Autobot side being on the Lost Light’s high command might have been too many redundancies to make Megatron’s arc stand out. Perhaps, had Megatron not been added to MTMTE’s roster so late in the game, Rodimus WOULD have gone looking for Drift, finding him just in time for the DJD to catch wind that they hadn’t actually super nightmare death murdered Deadlock after all.
Drift, who can’t say no to Rodimus's puppydog face, lets Rodimus sit with him on the floor, as he apologizes for the fact that by coming here, Drift and Ratchet have unwittingly signed up for Tarn’s Political Theory and Dismemberment Slam Poetry Night, but he mega-promises that they’ll come up with something together to get through this. Drift appreciates the sentiment, but knows that Rodimus is just saying this to make him feel better.
Back at the worst fan club meetup in the galaxy, Tarn elbows Overlord in the throat and tells him to fuck off. Overlord tells him that he knows Tarn never finished his degree and only acts like an academic for the aesthetic. Tarn transforms to shoot him while reminding Overlord that at least Megatron’s spoken to him in the last few thousand years. The two duke it out with their tank modes, Overlord KRUMPing all over Tarn, before the theatre kid kicks him off and questions why exactly Overlord is even alive, given that he chainsawed his head off last year. No word on if he’s bothered to ask this same question about 75% of the people he’s here to super murder.
Overlord simply states that someone found him floating out in space and fixed him up, because it turns out that they both wanted to go after Megatron and kill his ass dead, because Overlord is sort of sick of not getting the attention he so obviously deserves. When Tarn, ever the opportunist, attempts to make a team up deal, Overlord tells him to shut up.
And then they realize they lost the old man they were fighting over.
Great work, fellas.
Over with the Autobots (and Cyclonus), Rewind’s outside, looking at that memorial to the disappeared and trying to figure out why the Necrobot laid out the names in the way that he did. He’s currently near the top, where you can see most of Roller’s name, someone whose name ends in “gator”, and Dreamwave Production’s smoldering corpse, which makes me wonder if Alex Milne ever did get all the money he was owed from his work with them. Rewind, who last dealt with the DJD not even a year ago, is trying really, really hard to not think about how many needles they’re going to jam into Chromedome’s eyes this go around.
Of course, Nautica, who has come out to find Rewind, doesn’t give a shit about Rewind’s PTSD. She wants relationship advice! She’d ask Chromedome, but apparently he’s taking a nap, still worn out from stabbing Tailgate in the brain after he rainbow-exploded all over the ship. Which happened months ago.
You know, at the rate he’s been going, Chromedome probably wouldn’t have lived too far past sunset anyhow.
Anyway, Nautica wants to know if, on Cybertron, you have to be besties before you can get hitched, because that’s how it works on some of the other colonies. She specifies that this ISN'T how it works on Caminus, which is good, given how problematic that would be, considering you need to be best friends with someone by the time you're five weeks old, and there's no telling if they're cool with platonic polyamory. Rewind informs her that it’s either one or the other on Cybertron, no double-dipping, and god help you if it’s a situationship. Nautica is asking this because she’s realized that she can’t waffle about on committing anymore, seeing as she’s probably going to die in the next hour or so, and she’d rather use that time to enter a queer-platonic partnership than get her face fixed.
Back at the Peaceful Tyranny, Tarn has, in fact, managed to bring Overlord to reason, much to Deathsaurus’s confusion and derision, if his squiggle face is anything to go by. Overlord, smug as fuck, informs Deathsaurus that in exchange for his compliance, Tarn has agreed to let him personally murder Megatron while everyone watches, because surely Tarn couldn’t actually kill his idealogical idol, because he’s a pussy. Tarn is being very brave about this, only letting the spot blacking on his linework show on his face, as his fists shake with rage.
Then Kaon shows up, begging they pull back their forces until the Pet has been returned, and the spot blacking gets a little heavier.
Tarn, who has had a very long day of tactical meetings, phone calls, facing his fallen idol, having a very unsatisfying beatdown with said idol, and dealing with known freak Overlord, handles Kaon’s inability to be a big boy about misplacing his shitty little dog with all of the tact and decorum we’ve come to know him for— he gives Kaon a big, beefy hug, acknowledges just how much Kaon loves that shitty little dog, and then makes sure that Kaon never has to worry about a thing ever again.
That’s a series wrap on Kaon! Let’s give him a hand, folks!
Tarn, who has had just about enough of Overlord in the last half hour, smashes Kaon’s head onto Overlord’s tits, covering him in viscera, as he demands he be treated with respect, because this is HIS house, where HE’S paying the bills and calling the shots, so help him god. Nickel is very displeased that Tarn’s killed one of the Twinksome Twosome. No word on how Deathsaurus feels about this, considering that a big reason he’s working with Tarn is because he refused to kill the rest of the DJD when demanded to do so, thus showing his dedication to his men. Also no word on how the rest of the DJD are going to handle Tarn decapitating their weed man.
Tarn tells everyone to pony up, as they’re about to go over and handle all the silly little bastards hiding out in the Necrobot’s “fortress”.
Speaking of which, it looks like Megatron made it home, despite Tarn blowing his tits clean off with that cannon blast. Rodimus and Ratchet carry him inside, as Magnus is probably too busy not getting his arm put back on to help, and Megatron is using the last of his energy to hold the Autobot badge Tarn slapped off his chest earlier.
Sure hope Ratchet didn’t forget to tell Drift about his old boss being co-captain of the ship, or else this is going to be a very nasty surprise for both of them— we've already seen that Drift loves to freak out and kill sick people.
Transformers Holiday Special (2015) — Wishing You and Yours a Delightfully Secular Wintertime, Containing Absolutely Zero References to the Birth of Christ
Despite what some might like to think, Christmas isn’t for everyone; even with all the commercialization, at its heart, it’s still about the Baby Jesus. You can tell that we haven’t shaken the Christian connection, because the cover for this special issue has the father, the son, and the holy spirit, which is hidden behind the company logo.
And if Rodimus doesn’t stop screwing around, his resurrection’s gonna have to happen a lot sooner than Easter.
Because this is a comic special, things are going to be a little different. Instead of one standard-size issue, we’re getting three mini-stories, each with their own writer (from each of the comic runs that were publishing at the time) and artist. Our stories are listed here:
Don’t worry about what Ultra Magnus is up to behind that text.
Now, you may ask, why on earth am I covering this issue, which is a specifically Christmassy one, now, when it’s not currently Christmas? Well, according to Roberts, the story “Silent Light” takes place after MTMTE #49, and #50 is when the crew manifest for the Lost Light gets shaved down some, so realistically, this is when “Silent Light” happens in continuity. So I want you to keep in mind that Getaway’s Christmas isn’t going so great.
I won’t be going back to catch up on the other runs’ plots, as the Christmas stories are stand-alone.
Getting into it, our first story is:
Penned by Mairghread Scott and drawn by Corin Howell. We open up on a cityscape featuring a happy sun and some eye-searing narration boxes.
I went to Howell’s Twitter to see what her deal was, and was greeted with a banner consisting of a sexy succubus lady with her boobies out, so I’m going to assume she simplified her style for this issue, since mecha are hella difficult to draw.
Also, I hope you like the structure of How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, because that’s what we’re getting for the next little while, complete with chunky, white text on painful-to-view red.
Our story opens with all the transformers from the colonies visiting Cybertron and making friends with each other. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, which pisses off President-King Starscream to no end. Being the drama queen that he is, Starscream feels that everyone should be paying attention to him 24/7 and feed him grapes as he reclines on a sofa, because hasn’t he done enough for all these sorry sacks of shit? He hasn’t even caused a war, unlike the last guy who was in charge. Bumblebee (who is a ghost) tells him to just be fucking nice for once in his miserable life, but Starscream wouldn’t be Starscream if he could settle down like that.
Our god-king of the planet calls for his aide, Rattrap, who is going to be in his alt mode for the entirety of this story, to help him set up for a public broadcast addressing his need for attention and adoration.
He sends Rattrap off to deliver the tape to the news, which seems to consist of two very sleep-deprived individuals. Because they’re apparently the only two robots stupid enough to attempt to cover the nightmare hellscape that is Cybertronian current events, the last bit of Starscream’s tape is cut off when one of them falls asleep on the switchboard. This turns Starscream’s personal worship holiday into “For the Love of God Be Nice to Each Other” Day. Everyone takes to it beautifully, getting BFF tattoos, going on vacation with their husbands, hugging in the straightest gay way possible, holding parades, giving each other bombs, and getting absolutely shitfaced.
Starscream, distraught that nobody is giving him the emperor treatment like he had wanted, sulks in his twin bed, then moves to his dinky little throne as the night wears on, making the most miserable faces he can the whole time. Eventually, Chosen One Day ends, and he’s been completely ignored. Very sad.
Then, there’s a knock on his door, and Starscream creeps over to the peephole just in time to be smashed flat by Wheeljack slamming the door open. Last time we saw Wheeljack he was assumed dead by most, and floating in a tank at Starscream’s behest. He’s gotten better since then, clearly.
Wheeljack came with friends— the entirety of the main cast for Windblade/Til All Are One, to be exact— and they’re here to make sure that Starscream isn’t completely alone on this friendship holiday he accidentally invented. Everyone toasts to his good, totally intentional idea, and Starscream decides against killing all of them for at least the next 24 hours.
Now pay attention to this next story, because it’s actually canon-relevant, because of course Roberts would write a holiday special mini-comic that ties into his overarching plot. Fucking nerd.
Our artist for “Silent Light” is Kotteri (or Kotteri!, as it’s been written on some of their other publications) the pen name for Ikumi Fukuda. Kotteri is primarily a manga artist, having created their own works and well as working on other projects. I admittedly can’t find much on this person, not even their preferred pronouns, TFWiki itself using “they”, which I will default to. All of the info they’ve provided themself is, of course, written in Japanese, but even running things through a translator only proves that information to be purely professional. Their personal Twitter is protected, and my follow request was never answered, as far as I know. There’s a fan Twitter account for their art that claims “she”, but I have no way to verify, and I don’t want to assume anything based on art style, because that’s sort of shitty. Let it never be said that I didn’t do my due diligence here— I fucking hate using Twitter.
We open with Rodimus having just returned from Meteorfest, a festival where you surf on meteors and avoid your co-captain and SIC’s calls like the putz you are. He’s greeted by said co-captain and SIC decorating assembling a Christmas tree cloaking machine and finishing each other’s sentences like an old married couple. Rodimus tries to deny the existence of Minimegs, then we get our heavy-handed and lampshaded explanation for the crux of the issue. Megatron handles Minimus like a baby doll as the two of them explain that the Lost Light is about to hit Mauler territory.
Maulers are notorious for wanting the Cybertronians dead, but Megatron is too much of a macho man to pussy out and go around them. So instead, the crew will be hiding in special sleeping pods that will mask their spark signatures, and pray to their pantheon of gods that no one notices the ship the size of Manhattan. Brainstorm has like fifteen new inventions, despite being on house arrest from his lab. Megatron’s autobot badge is wearing a hat. Merry fucking Christmas.
Over at Swerve’s, it would appear that everyone’s favorite television junkie is closed for business, as it’s just him, Nautica, and Whirl, sitting on the floor getting absolutely shit-faced on subspace-filtered engex. This might’ve been an issue, as folks are supposed to be bedding down in their B.E.D.s for the next leg of the trip, but Swerve slipped Magnus some Bing Crosby earlier so they’re cool right now.
There’s a banging at the door, and Whirl decides to answer, even though it’s not his bar, because if it’s trouble come a-knocking, it was probably looking for Whirl anyhow.
When Whirl answers, however, it’s not Magnus having caught wind of Nautica disrespecting the Autobot code, but an entirely different flavor of problem.
Now, I know that thing Whirl’s holding looks like a fucked up Hitachi Wand, but it is, in fact, an entire-ass baby robot. It seems that when Cerebros (Fortress Maximus’s friend, if you’ll recall) sent the engex through the subspace, this infant Cybertronian (Luna One-ian?) got mixed in with the other supplies.
We learn a bit about how baby Cybertronians work before we remember, oh right, this kid is gonna get everyone killed if they catch wind of her spark, since there isn’t a B.E.D. for her. Yes, it’s a girl! Congrats to our three idiots on their Cybertronian gender non-conforming little princess.
They gang decides to shunt her back through the subspace hatch, so they head over to where it’s currently being housed— the office of Ultra Magnus. Nautica, using her wits and all the tools in her arsenal, smashes the window to the office and they break in. The empty Magnus Armor sits in the dark like a grim monument to being married to your job. Whirl informs Nautica how to comfort the baby that he super for-sure doesn’t care about, handing her off while he uses his titty glass to replace the window in the door. Swerve tries to bite through iron chains holding the subspace hatch hostage, only to be stopped by the sound of justice coming down the hall.
The gang, of course, looks suspicious as hell standing stock straight immediately in front of Magnus’s office, but Minimus rather likes the change of pace out of these goofy morons, and is maybe also trying to deflect his embarrassment at being caught performing his own personal karaoke. He sends them off to their B.E.D.s, and it looks like all’s well that ends well until Whirl asks where Sparky is.
Yes, he named the baby.
Don’t worry though, he’s totally not attached or whatever.
Nautica, in her panic to not be caught stealing/vandalizing/using equipment she doesn’t have the clearance for, stuffed Sparky in the Magnus Armor. And also put the helmet portion back on the body, for some reason. Anyway, it looks like our little princess is gonna be a load-bearer when she grows up, because Magnus is up and looking for hugs. Nautica, a paragon of level-headed thinking in times of crisis, handles this in the best way she can.
And that’s a wrap on Minimus Ambus! Let’s give him a hand, folks! And let’s also give a hand to the new Ultra Magnus, Miss Sparky Whirldòttir! Where did that little scamp get to, anyhow?
Swerve nominates himself to be the one to drag Minimus to a B.E.D. to sleep off his concussion, leaving Whirl and Nautica to track down the baby.
The scene changes to Megatron announcing a last call for beddy-bye time on the intercom, just as Ultra Sparky enters the room. She looms over Megatron, putting him in a very compromising position as he hits the intercom button with his arm. Rodimus, climbing into his own B.E.D., wishes that his co-captain and SIC would stop being gay for, like, five minutes, or at least wouldn’t do it where it can be broadcasted throughout the whole ship in audio format.
Whirl and Nautica come save Megatron from the onslaught of physical affection, stating that “Magnus” has had a bit too much to drink. Megatron orders them to bed from his fetal position on the countertop.
It’s bedtime, but we still haven’t figured out how to get the kid back to Luna 1 so the Maulers don’t super-murder the whole crew. Nautica leaves Whirl to figure it out, getting into B.E.D. and wondering who the fuck knocked on the door in the first place. Whirl tells her not to worry about it and to go to sleep, so he can be the one to deal with this mess.
Whirl, notorious for doing all the nastiest jobs— former Wrecker, intended bullet sponge for the time travel situation, attempting suicide via Megatron— is going to add another tally to the list labeled “Reasons My Peers Don’t Really Like Me All That Much”, by throwing an entire baby out the air lock.
However, Whirl is being written by Roberts, who would never allow the number of robot babies to go down, so Sparky’s adorable assimilation of Whirl’s signature physical features gets him right in the soft underbelly he swears doesn’t exist.
Wow, Roberts put a baby in that robot. Surely this is as overt as we’re going to get with this imagery, since we’re in a major publication and not some fan-fiction!
ANYWAY
Whirl wakes up in the Medibay, emptied of infant and freaked the hell out about it. Velocity— who I will remind you is basically the only medical doctor on the Lost Light, since everyone else is too busy getting railed by weeaboos and joining unethical polycules to do their actual jobs—informs him that his daughter is, in actuality, a massive colony of scraplets that combined to look like a newborn.
It turns out that Nautica is a bit of a snitch, having spilled the beans after she woke up. Whether or not she thought Whirl had thrown the baby out the air lock isn’t really addressed, but thank god he didn’t, because then we would have had to send everyone’s favorite gun-addled dipshit to jail for the rest of forever. Checking security footage revealed who the mystery knocker was— it was the scraplets, forming the shape of an arm.
When Nautica asks how the hell they all survived this, seeing as Whirl kept the murder baby, Whirl informs her that he cut off power to his own spark to allow everyone else to live, including his sweet baby princess, winning him a #1 Dad mug, and also several emails from Rung to please make an appointment with him.
Whirl’s miracle Christmas baby lied and stole with the intent to murder everyone on board, and that makes her the ultimate daddy’s girl.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed this canon-important holiday special story about Whirl becoming a father.
In our third and final story, it appears we’ve been transported to Whoville, by the talent of our MTMTE Season 1 colorist, Josh Burcham. Within Whoville resides Anna Log, a human woman who owns two turbofoxes and sleeps in full military body armor on her couch. The wall in her living room suddenly explodes, revealing a late-night visitor.
Motherfucker, you are supposed to be on the ship right now.
Mega-Claus fusion-cannons Anna Log, and we cut to a film noir office where none other than Thundercracker has his feet up on the desk. The art grayscales for this section, as he narrates that he’s a detective. He’s wearing a fedora. It’s January 7th. He has a mysterious past and probably thinks that makes him very sexy.
The phone rings, cueing Buster, Thundercracker’s puggle, to put on her own fedora, and the two go to see the crime scene, where Thundercracker is the same size as a normal human man and wears a trench coat.
It turns out that Anna Log is the director of security for the entirety of planet Earth, which is sort of a big deal. When Thundercracker and the cops look at the security footage, they see who did it— Santa Claus, played by Megatron himself. Fucked up.
Sure, pal.
Thundercracker must now fly to the North Pole and kill Santa, because that’s how the law works. He transforms, flies by Club Penguin and a Coke commercial, reflects on his job, and then gets ready for a fight with Santa’s security measures, as Busters glowing nose warns him of incoming danger. She’s very talented, Buster.
Thundercracker makes quick work of the cybernetic security reindeer with his twin energy katanas and Buster’s jetpack. He kicks down Santa’s door to find the jolly elf himself standing in the dark, potentially rabid. The two start kung-fu beating the shit out of each other. It should be noted that this Santa isn’t the Megatron Santa, who shows up behind the two as they brawl, but rather original-flavor fat man Santa. How Thundercracker didn’t notice this isn’t addressed.
Thundercracker demands to know why Megatron dressed up as Santa Claus to commit a murder— the murder part made sense, Director Log and Megatron would be diametrically opposed— and Megatron reveals the greatest slight against himself he’s ever known.
Framing Santa for murder ain’t exactly gonna turn that coal into a diamond, Meggy baby.
Thundercracker clocks Megatron, he becomes besties with Santa Claus, and they ride a flying tank into the sunset. Thus ends Thundercracker’s most brilliant writing project yet, which he was reading to Marissa Faireborn this entire time.
Marissa isn’t terribly impressed, poking holes in all the little nonsense bits, while also not feeling thrilled about having been killed off in the first two pages of Thundercracker’s book. While the two argue, Buster and Ayana Jones make a Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! reference together, and the issue closes out with a big ol’ Autobot symbol, even though Thundercracker was a Decepticon, Ayana and Marissa are humans, and Buster is a goddamned dog.
Thus ends the Holiday Special. Up next, more direct story progression!
More Than Meets the Eye #51 — Ten Has Done So Much for All of You, and for What? You Don't Deserve Him.
So, obviously, last issue ended rather poorly for Team Rodimus and Pals. It doesn’t look like the start of this one going much better, as a mass of baddies bombard the late Necrobot’s “Fortress”. Whirl, being Whirl, wants to go out and face his certain death head-on. Everyone else is more than fine to wait for death to come to them.
Rewind, showing off the skills he’s picked up as a videographer over the last several thousand years, gets the security cameras up. I’m assuming that Censere had these installed to keep an eye out for bored space teens who might have wanted to graffiti his millions of plinths. Too bad it didn’t save him, or his property, as outside, Tarn is shooting the ground with his twin fusion cannons. He’s having to hold his arm in place with his other hand, as I’m sure the kickback of firing two lasers at once must be something fierce. He finishes and commands his troops to cease firing, everyone withdrawing.
The Lost Lost Lighters are super jazzed about this, Brainstorm stating that they must have heard about Tailgate’s Power Punch, an attack with a name so banal, it surely must kill anyone who faces it, if only so they don’t talk shit about it after the fact.
Megatron, however, knows what Tarn’s pulling, as he’s a theatre kid, and everyone knows that the really intense theatre kids follow their scripts to a T, and will murder you for trying to ad lib like some filthy fucking improv performer.
By doing this, he’s honoring Shakespeare.
Swerve has begun to bawl like a baby over how bad the situation has gotten, likely recalling all the awful shit he witnessed the last time he crossed paths with the DJD. Magnus, who still has his arm off, because Velocity is all about uplifting her fellow women, demands that they try to call for assistance, then apologizes for swearing, even though he’s absolutely at the very least said “damn” in the past. Maybe he’s confusing the total inability to curse with the IDW publication law that you’re not allowed to say “bitch” until your series has been truncated by 50%. Or maybe he only allows himself to swear in the presence of poor snack management. Anyway, it’s not like it matters— Megatron’s just informed everyone that Tarn also likes to cut the phone lines in situations like this.
All of this, because you wanted middle management for your faction.
Because Megatron never baked any sort of loophole into the DJD’s way of handling shit, because how the fuck could he have possibly known he’d one day have to denounce his entire reason for existing to satisfy the commercial whims of Hasbro, the gang is going to have to figure out some way to defend themselves or escape in the next eight hours. Rodimus orders everyone to split up and look for clues, blowing off Ten in the process.
Velocity calls Swerve, the closest thing to a doctor besides her, to come look at the Necrobot’s corpse, which appears to have turned into a pile of ash. Swerve informs her that this is what happens when someone who’s old as balls kicks it. Now, it may concern you that Velocity, who was the only doctor for a ship of over 200 until this morning, doesn’t know what a dead old man looks like. However, we must recall that age-related spark burnout hasn’t been a thing until very recently for Cybertronians, and Caminus, the colony Velocity is from, is marginally younger as a society. It probably just hasn’t happened in her circles yet.
Velocity and Swerve play around in the pile of old man dust, until she pulls a key out, with “1/001” written on it. Her search party will be focusing on finding what this key goes to, as it was surely important, given that it was on Censere’s person at the time of his death.
Over on the DJD’s ship, The Peaceful Tyranny, Deathsaurus stares at the corpses Tarn’s nailed to the wall of his room. The nails have Decepticon insignias on the heads, because of course they do. These are the same corpses Tarn had on the wall of his office in Grindcore. Tarn asks if Deathsaurus is impressed with his first editions, and when Deathsaurus is understandably bewildered by this question, Tarn explains that these are corpses that were sent home after dying in the mines of Messatine, who had Megatron’s writing etched into their organs by Terminus, so that said writing would reach the outside world. Tarn thinks it’s pretty fucking cool, but Deathsaurus is, again, bewildered by this interior design choice. In general, Deathsaurus is bewildered by a vast majority of the ways Tarn chooses to live his life.
Tarn, opening the mouth section of his mask to drink a shot’s worth of energon, likely totally unable to see as he does so, since the eye holes don’t line up anymore, says that if Deathsaurus was a true intellectual like Tarn was, he’d understand that trying to chase down a ship with quantum jump capabilities is really difficult when you no longer have a sneaky little double agent to give you exact coordinates, so grounding their targets was the best option. No word on how Tarn feels about the ship he super-nightmare-death-murdered being perfectly fine now.
Deathsaurus really just wants to know why they backed off after having their targets cornered, because he hates Tarn and his stupid little games, having been working with him for at least a couple months by this point. Tarn, however, has the audacity to be smug about how all the Autobots are probably tearing each other apart out of fear, as the sun makes its way across the sky.
Back with Velocity’s search party, Nautica’s joined the one-and-a-half doctors in the Key Quest. Velocity asks Swerve about why Ten came down with the rest of the group, and in Swerve’s defense, it’s not like anyone knew this was a murder trip until after they’d arrived. When the brain attack happened last issue, Swerve hadn’t disclosed what exactly he’d heard— now, however, he admits that he’d gotten an earful from Ten about the Ambus Test, and how just because he’s made up of the corpses of multiple religious hermits doesn’t mean he isn’t a person too, and also once that union gets going, he’s gonna sic lawyer-mode Magnus on him.
Anyway, they found the door that key went to.
Back with Rodimus in the main room, he’s collecting the notes of all the other search teams. Rung’s face has been shaded to look like he got lip fillers. Rodimus isn’t pleased, but it isn’t because of Rung’s gotten work done.
Nightbeat, however, DOES have good news to pair off with the bad. News so good he starts using metaphors, which confuses and frightens Magnus. Nightbeat has found the quantum travel device the Necrobot used to travel to the deaths he recorded, and what do you know? It’s got just enough juice to get everyone out of dodge and into the loving embrace of safety. Hooray! Time to form an orderly queue, going from most to least obnoxious paint job.
Then Team Killjoy shows up, Velocity and Nautica letting everyone know what’s behind door #1: it’s a bunch of organics in stasis.
I will say, the inverse of Transformers fans collecting robot toys mint in package is decidedly more disturbing.
Whirl isn’t horribly keen to die over a bunch of squishy nobodies. Nautica states that the organics are vulnerable and need protection. Skids, really wanting to be in that straight-passing relationship, agrees that the DJD will totally kill these guys, because they learned their technoism from SOMEONE MEGATRON. Chromedome, who has had his husband back for maybe six months at this point, really doesn’t want to stick around for the sun to set. Cyclonus asks just why the fuck there’s a bunch of dudes in the basement. Tailgate wonders if it really matters, considering the situation at hand. Magnus, needing direction in his life, makes sure that Rodimus hasn’t decided to take a nap standing up like a horse. Brainstorm, who has been oh-so-subtly trying to edge the door to the quantum tube shut, makes the point that they could do a lot of good after the fact, if they left now and then vowed to protect a slew of organics afterwards, which would eventually even out their sins, probably.
Rodimus feels pretty good about this proposal, but he loves looking like the most appealing, middle-of-the-road choice, and says that they have some time to talk this out. However, we’ve forgotten that we’re riding with Mr. Ex-Peace Through Tyranny, who does nothing in half-measures and loves to be contrarian to Rodimus at every given opportunity.
This turn of events is such a shock to Rodimus, he shouts at Ten for trying to show him something. Poor Ten.
Rodimus reminds Megatron just what exactly they’re up against and what he’s signing himself up for and for what variety of living creature, but Megatron is aware of all of these things. Looks like the talking to Skids gave him on the duplicate Lost Light finally sank through his thick skull, and he’s ready to be a big boy about this whole Autobot thing. He then informs everyone that he’s not doing this to make a point, and that anyone who wants to dip is welcome to do so, as long as they’re doing it for themselves.
Of course, it’ll be a cold day in hell before any Autobot lets Megatron out-Autobot them, and it’ll be an even colder day before Cyclonus leaves his not-boyfriend alone on Murder Planet. Oh, and the fact that organic life is just as valuable as mechanical. Totally. Everyone defaults to stay, Rodimus closing the door to the quantum tube.
Swerve then offers a real heel-clicker of an alternate escape plan: what if… we just stole the DJD’s ship, stuffed it full of the organics, and flew away before anyone noticed? Now, this is, of course, an immaculate plan, which no man could ever find fault in, but Whirl is not a man, but rather a machine, and does question where exactly they’d be getting the keys to such a ship. Cyclonus is trying to be a bit more of a supportive friend to Swerve, since the last time the guy felt left out, they all had to project their consciousnesses 400 miles out and pay NYC rent, asks if there is more to this perfect, perfect plan, crafted in one of the finest minds of any generation.
There is not.
So, we’re gonna steal a ship.
Ravage offers to track the smell of unwashed bachelors and Megatron body pillows to see where the DJD parked. Rodimus gives him his blessing, marveling at the skillset at his disposal, as Magnus makes a fucking wild face of incredulousness and Ten sulks in the corner.
Before he runs off, Ravage brings Megatron a phone and asks that he talk to Tarn, because surely if anyone can get him off the warpath, it would be his old boss.
Back at the Peaceful Tyranny, Tarn, Deathsaurus, Nickel, Tesarus, and Vos are going over the plan for the day. Sure hope Deathsaurus can parse Primal Vernacular. Tesarus reminds Tarn of the time they went after Heretech and he turned a storm shield into a forcefield that held them off for days, but this band of Autobot nerds aren’t Heretech, now are they? Even if they do have an ex-Wrecker, a Skids, and the power of love on their side.
Then Tarn tells everyone to shut the fuck up, because he’s getting a call on his electric razor.
Back at the “Fortress”, Megatron stands astride the space scooter, looking horribly depressed, as he prepares to have a little chat with his most murderous fanboy. Rodimus questions this decision, having clocked that even on his best day, Megatron wouldn’t just whole-heartedly decide to effectively kill himself for the sake of 50-60 organics he doesn’t even know.
Of course, we’ve seen that at least one planet in the Magisterian system still has life, as the Scavengers had to use holomatter avatars at some point, as seen in issue #45. Perhaps if Megatron knew about this, he wouldn’t be so keen to go on a suicide mission.
Over with Ravage, he passes by Skids’s plinth, which I’m sure isn’t an omen of any kind, and discovers that the smell of B.O. and hot pockets he was following wasn’t attached to the Peaceful Tyranny, but rather a base the DJD and Deathsaurus’s boys threw together. Also, Ten’s been crawling after him in an attempt to keep hidden this whole time, over what was likely multiple miles. He didn’t do a good job in the slightest, but points for tenacity, buddy. Ravage understands that Ten’s just trying to help in some form or fashion, so Ravage gives him a special job: bullet sponge.
Deathsaurus’s men, Helex, Kaon, and the Pet all see Ten up on the hill. Kaon in particular looks very excited at the promise of a plaything, so much so that he lets his rabid little chihuahua off-leash.
Meanwhile, Megatron races across his personal field of spark flowers, on his way to rendezvous at his plinth with Tarn. I wonder who suggested this meeting spot? When Megatron arrives, he demands that Tarn at least face him with his, well, face, but Tarn says that his mask IS his face, even though we know it isn’t, because Tarn couldn’t commit to the bit hard enough on this particular front for some reason.
Megatron offers himself up for surrender. But enough about his crisis of morality, let’s get back to Ten.
Ten, former Legislator that he is, fights valiantly, throwing four guys in the air at once, even as the Pet scratches his collar bone and Helex punches him in the head, his face telling me that he’s gonna do horny mouth shit with Ten’s brain if he manages to get ahold of it. Kaon’s in the background, shooting electricity into the sky. I think he’s just happy to be here. This nonsense up on the hill allows Ravage to sneak over to the base to check for a ship that DOESN’T smell like wine, jockstraps, and viscera.
Back with the Autobots, someone finally remembers that Ten’s a person, and asks where the hell he’s gotten to. Magnus isn’t sure, though he knows where he HAD been. I expect better from you, Magnus. Ten is your little buddy! Your brother in artistic arms! He even left something for your enjoyment, while he went out to help Ravage!
After having solved the issue of their defense system, Ten went out and got his ass shredded for multiple pages, where he was repeatedly shot and set on fire and torn limb from limb and electrocuted (I guess someone finally pointed Kaon in the right direction). It seems like the end for Ten, but his assailants are suddenly shot and dealt with, blanketing the hill in silence.
Silent enough to hear the equivalent of twenty USD in Australian dollaridoos, having been converted into English pounds, rustling around in a British guy’s wallet.
More Than Meets the Eye #50 — The Midlife Crisis Cruise Comes to an End
Our issue begins on Earth— not Swearth, but honest-to-god Earth— where Optimus Prime and Jetfire are watching a broadcast. It’s not syndicated television like I Love Lucy or The Transformers (1984), however. No, this broadcast is coming from some of our favorite Lost Lighters, detailing their last will and testament.
Nautica wants to be buried on her home planet, and doesn’t give a hot gay fuck what they engrave on her sparkcase. Also she’s missing a good chunk of her face, but don’t worry about that too much.
Chromedome’s just happy that he’s dying WITH his husband this go around. I’m sure Brainstorm’s also thrilled to not have the “please please please stop stabbing yourself in the brain to avoid the pain of being a widower Jesus Christ we can’t keep doing this” conversation for the fifth time in a row.
Rewind takes the opportunity to poke Chromedome in the inferiority complex one last time, making his message out to Dominus Ambus. Our resident lovebirds want to “enter the afterspark simultaneously”, though that seems more like something to address with whoever’s killing them.
Over on Cybertron, in Metroplex’s titties, it would seem this broadcast is VERY wideband, as Starscream and Scoop (we’ll go over whatever the fuck’s going on there in another post) witness Nightbeat’s will and testament, though considering Nightbeat’s technically undead, I’m not sure how much legal weight it holds. Having done the whole “dying” thing before, I’m sure he’s spent many a long, sleepless night thinking about how it would happen next time. Ikea Johnson wants a “Neoprimalist” funeral, where they preserve only the head. Interesting that Nightbeat's religious sect is the same as Flywheels, the Scavenger who only existed to be a stand-in for the word "fuck".
Over on Luna 1, Red Alert is convinced that Megatron is using his gun mode to threaten Nightbeat. Fort Max isn’t so sure.
Minimus shows off the most recent trick he’s learned, saying the word “fun” with only stuttering twice. He wants to be buried on the moon, next to all of Rodimus’s failed pregnancies, and wearing the skin of a man who’s been dead for thousands of years.
Whirl doesn’t want a funeral, though you’d think he’d at least want his corpse thrown in the general direction of the Wreckers’ base, where every member gets a slot in the Zone of Remembrance as part of the onboarding. I know he got kicked out, but being shot out of a rail gun at Debris sounds roughly his speed.
Rung only requests that, should he die in his vape pen form, that he be dismantled. He’s very committed to preventing underage smoking, and for that I commend him.
Rung’s request greatly disturbs the Scavengers, who seem to have forgone fixing the Krok-shaped hole in the wall and buying a couch more than two of them can sit on at a time, in order to afford a replacement TV, after Krok fastball-specialed a golden disc through the last one.
On another part of Cybertron, Windblade and Wheeljack watch Velocity state that she doesn’t regret a single thing that’s happened while she’s been a part of the Lost Light. To recap, in the few months Velocity’s been aboard: Thunderclash almost died of being too perfect, Velocity’s first boss ran off to go bang a billionaire with a sword collection, Swerve almost died from too much television, her second boss ran off to get roped into the Polycule Wars, Tailgate exploded, Rung was revealed to be practicing without a license by way of a weird gibbon with a ball gag and his serial killer boyfriend, and she became the only practicing medical professional aboard a ship of over 200, after failing to pass her medical exams ten times. Oh, and she wants to be recycled.
Optimus wants to go save them, thinking that there’s still time. However, the Lost Light isn’t responding, and it doesn’t actually matter anyhow— these recording were sent out weeks ago.
Looks like that’s a series wrap on Nautica, Chromedome, Rewind, Nightbeat, Minimus, Whirl, Rung, and Velocity! Let’s give ‘em a hand, folks!
Three weeks prior, on the planet of Miliarium, action is happening:
Being on your headset in the middle of a battle seems rather rude, but I suppose sacrifices to politeness have to be made, when one of your co-captains is effectively forbidden from stepping foot on any planet that’s aware of Cybertron’s existence, given that he, y’know, is the face of a cause that slaughtered billions over the course of millions of years.
(No, don’t ask Optimus how relations with Earth are going.)
Megatron, continuing to command from orbit, tells Whirl to go help Cyclonus and Crossblades with the Rust Giants’ longship, asking for no casualties. Which is sort of like asking a horse on cocaine to not freak out and kick someone in the head, if that horse also had guns tied to 30% of its body.
Rodimus asks Megatron if he’s enjoying himself, playing a pacifist run of a wartime strategy game with their lives, and Megatron says that he’s “rumbled”; which I’m not sure if I’m search-engining wrong, but I don’t know that even the British are saying that to mean they’re right chuffed or tallywackered about a situation, or whatever. Rodimus is suddenly faced with a Rust Giant that he doesn’t even come up to the knee of, but luckily we have a new superhero to save the day, by way of incredible violence.
Looks like we’re still workshopping the battle-cries.
Tailgate punched this guy so hard it caused a jump-cut to the post-battle celebration, where Rodimus shows off his multi-typefacial abilities, Megatron perpetrates his bigotry towards organics, the Cybertronians make galactic news for a not-awful reason for once, and Swerve is also here! For some reason! It looks like it’s gonna be all peaches and cream from here on, so long as we ignore the first three pages of this issue!
Hey, Cyclonus, you have to wait for him to call you, you're not an Autobot. Just because the little white guy you're Sufjan Stevens-level attached to is going, doesn't mean— Cyclonus, hey. Hey, Cyclonus. Cyclonus. Cycl—
Later, back on the Lost Light, class is in session. We finally get a look at those course Megatron’s been teaching, only briefly mentioned by Riptide in issue #29. The current course track is on the Knights of Cybertron, Megatron having assigned those in attendance to write essays tackling “pre-Functionist folklore and contested heritage”.
Today’s class consists of:
Minimus (old as balls, former high society)
Skids (the best at everything)
Brainstorm (literal genius)
Perceptor (slightly-less-literal genius)
Nautica (jack-of-all-trades brainiac and bibliophile)
Crosscut (former senator, current playwright, therefore probably has at least some sort of degree)
Nightbeat (nosy as fuck, loves to figure shit out)
Hound (former Primal Vanguard)
Thunderclash (perfect student, researcher, friend, confidante, and maybe even lover)
Grapple (not much to say here, other than he’s fucking jacked in IDW)
Xaaron (chief legal advisor for the Autobots)
And Riptide (created during the war and therefore has the least connection to Cybertron's folklore, canonically not a good test-taker)
Poor Riptide's grades don’t stand a snowball's chance in hell against his peers', but good on him for sticking with the classes regardless.
This essay was assigned to help students establish context for the Knights within a world where they have not existed for millions of years, having disappeared since they embarked on their quest to Cyberutopia; a world where information creep, the slow degradation of memory as time passes, has made them into mythological figures. Megatron posits that the only thing we really know about the Knights is that they failed to do what they set out to do, as the universe is not a peaceful place, himself arguably being exhibit A of that failure. Still, he intends to use this course to help the Lost Light’s crew understand the Knights to the best of their current, modernity-biased ability, prior to potentially meeting them. Considering that the Knights will be deciding Megatron’s fate, perhaps this is also for him to grapple with understanding his own end.
Anyway, let’s look at a plot device.
The last time we saw this symbol was during issue #46, both drawn by Grimlock on his walls, paired with the words “prepare confront repel”, and then on some mysterious fellows who were working with Krok’s nasty little friend Demus and someone called "The Grand Architect". However, the first time we saw it was with Skids in #21, after he went through Tyrest’s space bridge and talked to a giant technicolor ball of light.
Seeing this image kickstarts Skids’s memory, enough so that he interrupts class over it. Nautica has also seen this symbol, at an exhibit on Troja Major (a planet that Roberts will use as a dumping ground for many plot points in the sequel series to MTMTE) where it was claimed to be some sort of coat of arms. Thunderclash also knows this symbol, having seen it with his beautiful mind and kind heart in his visions, the same visions that were leading him to the Knights and allowing him to create a map to Cyberutopia. Nautica asks Skids to write out the symbol that he “heard” phonetically into her space phone, in a move that will prove HIGHLY useful later on. Perceptor adds in his two cents, showing off that he’s wearing the “feminine” nose-type today, stating that he had talked to one of the Circle of Light members back in Season 1, who had theorized that the Knights of Cybertron was either originally made up of OR broke down into clans, and that the symbol/map Rodimus and Thunderclash were drawing is merely connected to part of the Knights, and that there could be others floating around.
Nightbeat thinks that all this brainstorming (which hasn’t involved Brainstorm, oddly enough) is super cool and great, showing off his anime thumb in approval. When Minimus tries to give Megatron props for bringing everyone together to figure this out, he finds that Megatron is having some troubles, hunched over his podium as far as his fucked up old man toy articulation will allow. When Minimus approaches to see what’s wrong, he gets punched clear across the room for his troubles. Then this happens:
Look, I don’t care if 99.9% of the Cybertronian population can reclaim, you shouldn’t just limp your wrist at your first officer in the middle of class.
No, what Megatron is actually doing is pointing the fusion cannon he doesn’t have anymore, but had attached to his arm for roughly 4 million years, directly at Minimus’s tiny little skull. Quickly coming back to himself, Megatron is both horrified and mortified by what he’s done, offering nothing more but a quick apology before he dismisses the class and bolts, not even helping Minimus off of the floor.
The following day, Velocity’s paying a visit to Megatron’s room, which is STILL as barren as the most dire of single male living spaces. Velocity’s here because Megatron missed his appointment yesterday, after whatever happened in the classroom. Megatron reminds her that the weekly appointment is for him receiving his ration of “fool’s energon” which is meant to keep him in a weakened state, which arguably shouldn’t make it medicine in the traditional sense. Velocity reminds him that he nearly knocked Minimus Ambus’s (yeah, she uses his full name, guess she’s not been around long enough to get “just Minimus” privileges) block off, and that if Megatron had been at full strength, we might be dealing with a murder situation instead.
Though Minimus IS a load bearer, who regularly slings around a body three times his size, on top of weapons, so maybe not. Also, there’s an even smaller guy inside the first mustached guy, so honestly it’d probably be fine.
Does Velocity even know about the irreducible Minimus? Is that in his medical history? Does she even know that Ultra Magnus and Minimus Ambus are the same person? Because Megatron didn’t even know until they found that corpse on the quantum duplicate Lost Light, and Magnus was his lawyer for the trial as well as being his SIC. Really, what are the legal ramifications of Minimus having assumed the identity of a dead man, now that Tyrest isn’t there to keep up the charade and the secret is a bit more open? Does Minimus have legal claim to Magnus’s identity, or at least ownership of the armor? Can Minimus lay claim to any property he purchased as Magnus, or that the previous Magnuses had purchased prior to their deaths? Was Minimus legally declared dead prior to undertaking the role of Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, if only to make things easier in terms of paperwork? Can Minimus sign off on things, and if so, does he use his own signature, or Magnus’s? If he signed something as Magnus, would any contract bearing it be rendered temporarily void whenever he’s not wearing his work pants? How much of Minimus’s existence makes him cry late into the night with how legally dubious it is? Does Delta Magnus know about Ultra Magnus being a skin suit? I feel like we don’t focus on how fucked up this whole situation is nearly enough.
Anyway, Velocity asks after Megatron’s medicine, probably because First Aid’s medical note-taking skills often get usurped by his need to write SpringerxReader fanfiction. She mentions that what they’ve been feeding Megatron over the last year have some side effects, which Megatron seems surprised by. Considering he’s felt sickly and crampy this whole time, the side effects are likely meant to be the intent of the medication.
Velocity then takes a gander at the dents Megatron put into his head when he had his little freakout, stating that “chemo-sedatives” can change one’s whole personality in extreme cases, as well as increased stress levels, as Megatron admits that the reason he crushed his head with his hands is that he heard voices screaming. However, Megatron doesn’t think stress caused such a thing.
To recap how the last year has gone for Megatron: he was forced to renounce the cause he had led for the last 4 million years, became co-captain of a fucking Carnival cruise ship, had 95% of his crew disappear from reality, found a bunch of corpses, got slapped in the face by Soundwave’s dad, had to lie to Rewind’s face to make him okay with killing himself so that everyone else might live, got shot as an infant, gaining anywhere from three-to-five fathers as a result, visited the most passive-aggressive garden in the galaxy, got stabbed in the chest and brained with a flat-screen television and then had to apologize for it, and was non-consensually hugged by a swarm of flesh-eating insects parading around in his SIC’s skin suit.
Velocity gets a call on her smart watch, Swerve on the other end demanding her presence at the medibay, seeing as she’s the only doctor on the ship now, and there are multiple people having a crisis.
Smash cut to Swerve, Cyclonus, Tailgate, Chromedome, Rewind, Rung, and Megatron standing on the bridge, their colors looking super fucked up and light bloomed out, because this is a 40-page issue with a shit-ton of detail and characters, so we’ve got three colorists, two artists, and an extra inker on for this one. They’re meeting with Rodimus, whose fingers have shrunk down to the size of shoestring potato fries, because Swerve, Tailgate, Rewind, Rung, and Megatron heard some sort of awful noise in their brains at the exact same time. Chromedome is here to support his husband, because he loves him so, so much, kissy-noise kissy-noise. Cyclonus is here mainly to clarify that he’s a badass who no one has ever heard cry, because emotional vulnerability and expressing pain are for pussies, unless you’re doing it by way of self-harming directly onto your face meat.
Only Tailgate and Rewind actually admit to what they heard, Tailgate hearing Cyclonus berate him for falling for Getaway’s tricks and Rewind hearing Dominus berate him for not doing enough to find him. I’d imagine both Rung and Swerve were hearing things relating to their professionalism, given that Rung fucking sucks at his job, and Swerve’s gonna fry the moment Ten gets a union sorted out. Megatron, is well, Megatron, so there’s a litany of awful things that he could have heard.
Rodimus has Blaster reveal that the ship received a signal at the exact same time that these people had their little brain event. Brainstorm hypothesizes that what happened was some sort of psychological assault, perhaps of Galactic Council origin, as a means of testing a new brain weapon. Magnus, who has been up on an upper level with a clipboard up to this point, notes that they could trace the signal. Mainframe informs him that they have, but the origin doesn’t seem to correspond to any known location in the navigation, and they’d have to physically go there to see what’s up. Which isn’t sketchy in the slightest.
Rodimus wants to load up on his big, beautiful Rodpod with everyone, so they can find who did this and make them stop. When Magnus questions if this is a wise course of action, Rodimus uses American grammar to trip up Magnus’s British-based spellcheck, so he gets to do whatever he wants. This is a trick he’s picked up since Drift left, as the old game of “pitting my people-pleaser hippy dippy boytoy and my no-nonsense stick-up-the-ass sentient rulebook against one another, so whatever I wanted to do from the start can seem like a pleasantly centralized option” doesn’t work very well when you replace the boytoy with a grumpy old man who tried to murder everything with a heartbeat.
Velocity wants to join the trip alongside Team Rodimus, but Mainframe has his reservations. I don’t blame him, considering she is, again, the only medical doctor currently on board this ship. He suggests she take along some personal protection, just in case.
…I mean, he’ll definitely make sure any bad guys who come her way will die horribly, if nothing else. Also, apparently the Rodpod's artificial gravity goes all the way around.
Nautica’s spent the last few weeks tricking out the Rodpod with a fancy schmancy new teleport drive, because Rodimus was annoying her to the point where if she didn’t give him what he was moaning about she might have had to kill him. Megatron is hesitant to use the drive, but after being informed that there are safety perimeters in place that’ll keep the ol’ Rodimus Podimus from teleporting inside a asteroid or whatever, he pulls the level and they end up in the dark.
No, not space dark, don’t be funny. That’s my job, and they don’t pay me for it, which should tell you how dire the situation is. This is a special sort of dark. The sort of dark that leads to panic and lethal levels of quipping. Rodimus cuts the lights on, but it does very little to offset the absolutely suffocating darkness outside. Rewind notes that there aren’t any stars, and Tailgate admits that he doesn’t know how space works. That’s alright Tailgate, neither do any of the people who draw or color this comic. You’re amongst (created by?) friends here.
The scanners reveal that there’s something 3000 miles in front of them. And behind them. And to the left, to the right, 12 o'clock, three o'clock, six o'clock, nine o'clock, rock around the clock tonight— that is to say, they’re surrounded by something the size of a planet. After disabling the safety protocols on the Rodimus Podimus, the gang find themselves on the surface of Necroworld, where the Necrobot Censere lives and operates his many plinths to the living and dead. Megatron isn’t exactly thrilled to be back here. Nightbeat on the other hand, is overdosing on mystery, and he couldn’t be happier. Nobody’s sure what the fuck is going on. There’s no time to theorize, however, as half the gang just got blown sky high.
Everyone books it back to the Rodpod to escape the dozen attack craft coming after them, but there’s more trouble here— the teleport drive is dead. Which is weird, because they should have had enough juice to get to and from their little trip. When Rodimus tries to contact the Lost Light, there’s no response. They’re not responding. Megatron tells him that those are two different things, mirroring the same thing Optimus said about trying to contact the Lost Light after he and Jetfire viewed the will tapes. Everyone else is busy trying to figure out who the hell could be firing on them, all of them roughly coming to the same conclusion that Cybertronians as a whole aren’t terribly well liked, and the Lost Lighters have made a bit of a name (derogatory) for themselves, since they insulted the Galactic Council, caused the end of the 16-million year Stentarian war, and have ruined at least one bar with physical violence over home movies.
Rodimus tells Megatron to park the Rodpod at the Necrobot’s citadel, just in time for a missile to hit the ass-end of the shuttle, blowing off Magnus’s arm, shredding off roughly half of Nautica’s face, and giving Cyclonus an excuse to hold Tailgate in his arms. Everyone bolts to get inside, Nautica being carried by Skids so we can further solidify the straightest pairing in the series. Once they’re all inside, their attackers retreat, and we see where Censere’s gotten to in all this.
Let’s give him a hand, folks!
While Velocity looks over the body, Nightbeat deals with his personal Santa Claus being dead by way of trying to figure out what happened. Megatron, meanwhile, noticed that the craft that attacked them were of Decepticon design, and he tells Ravage to go check it out. Honestly, I doubt he was the only one to notice, given that all but three of the people on this trip were dealing with the Decepticons in some form or fashion all throughout the war, and could therefore identify the make of the crafts, if not the model, so I’m not sure what the deal is with this secrecy.
Brainstorm is brought over to Nightbeat to help solve this mystery, and he promptly identifies that some of Censere’s equipment is very similar to the stuff Tyrest used for the Aequitas trials, likely used to figure out what sparkflowers to plant where. Rewind, having popped his sparkliest nipple pasties on, because he hates Censere and wants to get glitter all over his house, asks the boys to scootch on over so he can try to call the Lost Light. Nightbeat thinks that Censere tried to sabotage a signal someone else had sent in an attempt to lure Team Rodimus (and friends) to the planet, and that resulted in the brain attack that had happened earlier in the day. Unfortunately, Censere didn’t spend any time with Rodimus the last time the Lost Light visited, so he didn’t get a taste of the ridiculous way Rodimus likes to live his life, and why the psychic attack wouldn’t work.
Rewind gets the phone working, calling Rodimus over to get on the horn. Magnus stands in the background, showing off his grievous amputation. After a bit of fiddling with the settings on their end, the Lost Light makes official contact with Team Rodimus.
Getaway, last we saw him, was very much in prison, but Rodimus isn’t going to focus on that niggling little detail right now, as he asks for the Lost Light to swing by to pick up the team so they don’t all die. Getaway sort of DOES want to focus on that detail, however, as he very much didn’t appreciate being fetish fuel throughout the holiday season, and, despite his name, didn’t actually escape that setup. No, Getaway had help.
Man, guess Megatron should’ve reconsidered failing Riptide on his essay.
Speaking of Megatron, he walks up about now to see what all the hubbub’s about. Rodimus, looking like he’s about to cry, realizes that Mainframe lied to them about not being able to track the signal. Getaway gives him points for getting that right, but really, he wants to drive home the point that the entirety of the crew wanted Megatron’s little pals off the ship. And that’s what it’s really about, at the end of the day. Getaway hates that high command gave Megatron a party cruise to live out his last days on, last days that might not even happen, with the track record of this goddamned quest. He’s sick of Rodimus and pals acting like this whole arrangement isn’t an affront to every single life that’s been snuffed out because of Megatron’s actions.
Everyone other than Whirl seems pretty bummed out by these accusations. Swerve pipes up, enraged that he’s been doomed to die alongside everyone else— he doesn’t even LIKE Megatron. Getaway reveals that at some point or another, he and Atomizer (the interior designer turned bowman, you’ll recall) approached every single crew member and asked if they thought Megatron deserved to have a second chance and also, completely unrelated, but what would you do in the event of a coup? Anyone who didn’t provide a desirable answer got visited by the nudge gun fairy— that gun that can fire thought into your brain, or just erase memories if fired dry. The collection of headaches main cast have been experiencing over the last several issues? The side effect of being shot. Skids especially does not like this reveal.
Of course, Getaway isn’t just upset with Megatron’s leadership— he’s also mad as hell what’s supposed to be a trip to find their ancestors, who will guide them back onto the straight and narrow, has, in actuality, been Rodimus’s midlife crisis road trip. Getaway wasn’t even here for Rodimus and Drift’s ass-slapping contests and insulting galactic officials who want the Cybertronians dead, but he didn’t need to be. He took one look at the Rodpod and decided he needed to kill Rodimus right then and there.
Rodimus, at this point, remembers the list Atomizer had offered him back during the trial. Magnus, biting his lip at the idea of a list existing, asks what that’s all about, and Rodimus explains. Getaway really was hoping that Rodimus would take the bait, so he could’ve blackmailed Rodimus into stepping down and letting literally anyone else take over. Probably Magnus, at that point in the timeline, given that he hadn’t gotten buddy-buddy with Megatron yet. Unless Getaway considers acting as someone’s lawyer under order of the space pope as being too close to an individual.
Getaway decides that this conversation has reached its natural conclusion, as he’s got questing to get done, and it should be moving at a pretty even clip now, since he’s excised all the distractions. Rodimus swears to come after him, but Getaway doubts it’ll happen, given what’s happening next.
While this debacle has been happening, Ravage has been busy searching a crash site, trying to uncover the identity of who the hell’s decided to attack them. Tarn commits a microagression at him, before firing his twin fusion cannons.
The call ends, Getaway cutting off the comm to all contact.
Ravage shows back up at this point, to give everyone the bad news.
Nightbeat, honey, the tragedy is in the opposite direction.
Now, that’s technically the finale of the main story, but there’s a little bonus comic attached to the end, acting as a sort of sideways epilogue to hint at what Getaway and his merry band of mutineers will be getting up to, since we aren’t seeing them again for a bit.
Our little backup strip begins right before the original launch of the Lost Light, where we see some guys we haven’t seen since the 2012 Annual issue. Shock and Ore wander around what will one day become Swerve’s, Shock convinced that this ship is actually the ship they lost 5 million years prior, the Unitrex-1. Ore isn’t so sure, but as the readers, we saw the exact moment that Unitrex-1 disappeared in issue #38, after Rodimus forgot to wash his hands while putting the quantum engine together. Shock, wanting to prove that he’s right, fumbles around in the dark, looking for the graffiti he carved into the underside of a table. Ore gets a call on his space Blackberry while he’s doing this, and we finally get the other half of that call Prowl made in issue #1, after he failed to get Chromedome to stay on Cybertron. The Duobots have 20 minutes to get Overlord’s massive, lippy ass on the ship. Knowing that that isn’t a ton of time, the two quickly book it out of the bar, leaving the spectral form of Skids to look really bummed out.
Later, at Swerve’s grand (secret) opening, we see some more old faces.
Whoa now, Drift, you’re not supposed to be back until next issue!
Pipes thinks he’s been cursed to not have friends, since Hubcap is still at his dead-end job with the Wreckers, and Riptide was too busy being in a coma to come say goodbye. How rude!
Drift doesn’t seem to particularly want Pipes around more than necessary, pushing him to be friends with Rewind, who he describes as having kind eyes. Whether Drift is doing this to keep Pipes safe from overhearing any Overlord-related secrets, keeping his ass-slapping and sexually-tense sword training time with Rodimus safe, or just because he finds Pipes to be mildly annoying isn’t clear. Pipes, however, is looking for more than friendship— he’s looking to bone down.
Pipes’s ideal partner is wide as they are tall, with tits to match and at least one alt-mode that he can use as a yacht. Drift tells him he can introduce him to Tailgate, though something tells me Pipes isn’t really Tailgate’s type, given that he can actually say what he means and doesn’t have some fucked-up facial situation.
It’s really too bad that Pipes died, because I bet he would have loved Nautica, and he would have REALLY loved Nickel.
Later still, we see all of our doctors together— even Ambulon is there! In one piece, even! Ambulon wants to tell First Aid something, and First Aid automatically tries to make it a cosmetic thing, because of COURSE Ambulon would be insecure about his bad skin, and what he really needs is a better cleanser. What Ambulon actually wants to talk about, though, is his alt mode, and the fact that the puns involved with being part of a Combiner make him want to die. First Aid understands, but Swerve, known menace to society, might not be so compassionate, as he throws a grenade into the back of Ambulon’s head, triggering his transformation. Ambulon is mortified, and Swerve does the thing that Ambulon literally just said he hates. First Aid continues to rip flakes of paint off of Ambulon, as the specter of Velocity watches, looking pretty bummed about the fact that she never got to be part of banter like this.
Later on than that, Rewind and a wheelchair-bound Rung are in the currently-empty Swerve’s, as Rewind calls Chromedome to gather up one of the groups for those storytelling circles Rewind organized to try to fix Rung’s brain. He hangs up, then tells Rung that once his brain works again, they’re going to have a goddamned chat about Dominus Ambus, which is only mildly hampered in its threat by the fact that Rewind standing is barely the same height as Rung sitting down.
Rewind then gets to work writing out the story map for when the “Shadowplay” group gets there, as the specter of Chromedome reaches out longingly for the dead version of his husband. He laments that this Rewind died without closure, but the ghostly specter of Rung reminds him that there are rules to this, and they have to leave now. Not sure why Rung’s here to watch himself be threatened by Pipsqueak McGee. Is he actually doing his job for once, helping guide someone through their grief? I doubt it, since Chromedome isn’t a hottie bo-body like Skids, and his problems haven’t (directly, at least) caused the sort of trouble that make entire star systems hate you like Megatron.
Later, during the Overlord disaster, Perceptor sprints into Swerve’s, shouting for a medic, as the rest of the battered and beaten watch. Hoist, himself hooked up to the wall by some sort of cable, while wearing his extra-special Rodimus Star, offers to help, though he’s technically an engineer, and whatever he’s gonna do probably won’t have any consideration for the soul or ability to feel pain. Perceptor was using Tripodeca— sweet, beloved, friend to all, who was the star of the post-Overlord mass funeral Tripodeca— as a, uh, tripod for his rifle, when Overlord probably noticed that the ol’ science sniper looked sort of familiar and did a lil’ grabbing with his big nasty hands. Hoist asks if Perceptor is going to stop Overlord, and considering how things went the last time Overlord was the star of the show, I doubt Perceptor thought he was gonna get lucky twice in terms of survival, especially when Overlord is riGHT BEHIND HIM OH GOD LORDY JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH
How Perceptor survived this isn't clear, but we know he did, as he continued to show up in the story past issue #15 in a decidedly alive, non-paste form. His specter watches this scene unfold, expression unreadable.
Post-Luna 1, Swerve stands in his ruined bar dejectedly, when he realizes that quite a few people have shown up to help him clean up the mess, as long as he promises to reward their hard work with reopening once it’s done. As everyone works to get things back in order, Swerve tells them to keep an eye out for a non-trashed Legislator that he could use as a bouncer, once he fucks around with its head enough to make it do what he wants. Ten’s specter watches as his shitty boss and arguable father is gifted the body that would become him, making a note to get his union going with a bit more urgency.
Later, on the day of the “Fuck Off Megatron 2-for-1 Drink Deal”, Crosscut leads Riptide, Mirage, and Nautica on a tour of the ship. Mirage notes that Swerve’s is a bit of a dive, not suited to his refined tastes in the slightest. In a booth, Getaway and Atomizer have boxed Mainframe in on either side to have a little chat. Swerve and Bluestreak talk television, Bluestreak making a little jab at MTMTE’s second season not being quite as well-received by fans as the first. Over at the bar, Highbrow and Perceptor talk about Quark, while Brainstorm watches while having his briefcase, which he is NOT supposed to have in here.
Crosscut goes on about this bar being where all things happen and where bittersweet is the most often-felt emotion, then calls Trailcutter/blazer an alcoholic as he dances on the ceiling. The specters of just about everyone on the ship watch their fallen friend, enjoying the moment and missing him terribly, as Perceptor brings them back to the here and now of the story, which turns out to be just after the holiday special, judging by the Christmas lights.
Minimus asks if this is safe, and Perceptor says that it is, as nobody can actually interact with the past, because Brainstorm is the only one who’s ever actually perfected that tech, not that this isn’t his fault either. It turns out that when you try to fly against the stream of time as it naturally occurs, you tear a few thousand itty bitty holes on the way to perfecting the process. Perceptor’s found a way to let others view the past, at least for a little while. Minimus is fine with it, as long as everyone continues to behave, and it seems like they are, as everyone mingles in Swerve’s.
The two of them sit down, Megatron handing Minimus what I’m sure is a mocktail, and Perceptor explains that while the window into the past is closing for now, it may open back up in the future. When Rodimus asks when that might be, he then immediately decides that he doesn’t want to know, instead wanting to have a fun little surprise for later. They don’t get very many of those, fun surprises.
As everyone toasts to the dead and to future adventures, the specter of Getaway watches on, smug as hell.
That’s the end of “No Guns, No Swords, No Briefcases” but that is STILL not the end of the issue! It never ends, this thing! Because the number 50 is very big and impressive, obviously this is a double-sized spectacular, and has to cap off with a note from the man himself— James Roberts.
And then after that we get a new notes from fans, but this is already obscenely long and I think I can show you the crux of what they’re all saying right here: MTMTE (2012) is fucking good. It’s a good series. Make your goddamn family, friends, coworkers, librarians, and goldfish read it. Share it with people you’ve never met. Get a long-term personal project out of it. Get long-term friends out of it. Get a long-term romantic partner out of it. If I can do it, so can you!
More Than Meets the Eye #49 — Guys, This One Was Kinda Fucked Up
Sunder’s got his magic eyes in and is currently eating Skids’s brain. Not to worry though, because Dr. Rung of the Pious Pools, PhD, psy-op specialist and master of stick-fu, who goads people into shooting infants and also himself, is handling the situation.
Well, thank god we’re minding our Ps and Qs with the literal serial killer.
Sunder, of course, doesn’t see why Rung’s so upset, as he believes himself to be doing Skids a favor by unearthing his repressed memories. Honestly, I think if he’d asked first, Skids would’ve been all for it. Maybe not the cannibalism aspect of this activity, but the unearthing for sure.
Hopping back into those memories, we skip forward a bit, as Tarn comes in to check on Skids’s progress for fixing the teleport machine. He transforms, because we need to reiterate that he really fucking loves transforming. Snare is also here. You remember Snare? The man who’s never seen his feet? He’s here too. Weird that he keeps finding himself dealing with the worst of the Decepticon upper command.
Anyway, Skids and Tarn have worked out a little deal, where Skids fixes Grindcore’s teleporters, in exchange for the release of fifty Autobot prisoners. If Skids doesn’t manage to do it, Tarn will kill 500 prisoners as punishment. Which is sort of like decimation, with deci- times the slaughter. Luckily, Skids is god’s favorite little man, and Tarn seems aware of it, as he congratulates him on a job well done. Then he throws him back in his cell, where Quark is waiting to make fun of him for smiling like a doofus over having gotten in Tarn’s good graces.
Quark doesn’t trust Tarn to keep his word, and thinks that Skids is a fucking moron for having faith in the guy with all this power over their lives. Skids admits that while Tarn probably isn’t going to keep his word, it’s still better that their mass teleportation machine is working again, so that prisoners can at least be transported to do slave labor on other planets, where they’ll need to be fed and kept alive, unlike Grindcore.
That’s when the radio cuts on, playing a song that would one day become infamous for its implications— The Empyrean Suite.
...But I’m sure it’s fiiiiiiine!
Back in the present, Froid’s unlocking Sunder’s cell and taking off his handcuffs, just in time for the flamebots to show back up and tell him to cut that shit out. Sunder, of course, does his thing, and Rung and Skids watch in horror as something super gross happens off-panel, complete with wet, squishy SFX. Rung also transmits something via his recorder thumb, likely a warning to the others on the ship. But we won’t know for sure for a bit, because now we’re jumping forward in time.
Over in the maximum security section of the Lost Light’s brig, we finally see Mr. Pugface Charisma himself, strung up and restrained in a way reminiscent of how Alternate Rung was in the epilogue of the “Elegant Chaos” storyline, but decidedly hornier. Tailgate zips by on his hoverboard, apparently having woken up at some point. Seems like he’s doing fine, though, so I’m not too worried about how long he slept.
Tailgate isn’t thrilled to have run into Getaway, and is even more displeased when Getaway refuses to speak to him about what exactly is happening; everything is dark, everyone else has disappeared, someone’s graffitied the walls, and there’s a bunch of greebled orbs laying around.
Tailgate shows Getaway Cyclonus’s vial of innermost energon that he left by his bedside (aw, he does love him!), then tells Getaway to go fuck himself, punching the steel plate door to his cell and shattering the windows as he does. Of course, Getaway genuinely does have a reason for not speaking to Tailgate, so it’s not like he’s being intentionally petty.
Now who was the sadistic little bastard who decided that he needed his limbs off and voice taken away? This is some freak shit right here, this is borderline fetish material.
Tailgate goes to investigate one of the weird greeble orbs, and Rung, Skids, and Froid show up just in time to warn him not to touch it, as it’s actually one of the crew members, having been turned inside out, thanks to Sunder making them think that’s what shape they need to be. It’s fucked up. This is a fucked up storyline. Tailgate’s most worried about Cyclonus though, as should be clear by his vial lanyard. He grabs Rung by the arm and demands to know where his not-boyfriend is.
It turns out that after Megatron heard that a guy with eyeballs that make you turn into a bowl of haggis was loose onboard the ship, he turned the lights out and had everyone lock themselves in their rooms. So Cyclonus is probably in habsuite 14, staring out the window, which he was probably going to do anyway. Very little about today is switching up his standard routine.
Rung and company aren’t locked up because they’re looking for Chromedome, so he can put Skids’s memories into the proper lockbox in his head, seeing as he’s gonna die if he recalls them too fast. Rung’s also out here to yell at Froid, because he can’t fucking believe he’d go and get close to a guy who’s got Megatron turning out the lights and hiding. Froid, however, swears his motives are purely professional.
Skids starts groaning again, which means that Sunder is nearby, and sure enough, the brain goblin comes ‘round the corner not a moment later.
In the flashback, Tarn is congratulating Skids on a job well done, then shows him proof of the fifty prisoners having been let out of Grindcore, now roaming around in the Manganese Mountains. Because the last time Roberts had robots holed up in the mountains, it worked out so very well for everyone.
Skids tries to sweeten the deal for next time, but Tarn says that he’s no longer useful to have around, since he’s an Autobot, and Snare watched him do all the stuff that fixed the teleporters. However, Tarn would be loathe to let Skids’s good deed go unpunished.
Don’t worry about the corpses in the background; they’re part of the decor.
Skids, however, is a selfless little man, and he has the bright idea to ask if he can give his free ride to someone else.
Back in the present, Froid is trying to run away from the monster he helped create, and it gets him about as far as you’d expect, as he explodes into a beautiful spaghetti flower and then orbs up. It looks like Rung, Skids, and Tailgate are next, but luckily there’s still a hero left to save the day.
Careful now, Tailgate, you’re a (possibly(accidentally)) married man!
Thunderclash and Megatron chase after Sunder, taking a moment to note that one of the balls in this corridor is Rodimus, while Chromedome sticks his fingers in the holes in Skids’s compartmentalization. Rung and Tailgate also run off to face Sunder, Rung claiming to have an ace up his sleeve.
Megatron and Thunderclash catch up to Sunder in the shuttle bay as he’s entering his ship, which makes Megatron remember something very important: Septre was a fucking ship.
Honestly, I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
Thunderclash isn’t concerned with Sunder now being the size of a McMansion, claiming that he must be scared, considering he’s stopped using his black speech bubbles. Apparently those were meant to convey a “Mortilus impersonation”. Why they know what their gods are supposed to sound like isn’t addressed.
Sunder makes a speech about being too hardcore to be afraid of death, because he’s a mnemosurgeon and eats memories and flies around in his brother’s corpse. Then he orbs Thunderclash, husband of millions, thus officially barring himself from the kingdom of heaven. This is the point where Rung attacks him with his fleet of model ships, which are apparently also RC planes. This plan only works for a moment, because, again, Sunder is currently the size of a house.
Megatron, having been knocked down in the direction of the fusion cannon Thunderclash had been wearing, is in the perfect position to strap it on and blow this giant hungry bitch away. However, he probably knows that if he resorts to violence, Rodimus will take away his Rodimus Star for abandoning his evil ways. Tailgate, no doubt frustrated by Megatron trying to talk down the guy who keeps haggising the crew, takes matters into his own hands.
No, he couldn’t do that before. Tailgate himself isn’t sure why exactly he can suddenly pick up midlife crisis purchases and hurl them with enough force to incapacitate serial killers. We’ll have to get Velocity on this, since she’s the only doctor left on the ship.
Because Rung is resigning.
When Rung sent that recording of Froid and his conversation, as a way to warn Megatron of the danger on the ship, it also included their little argument over being “too close” to patients, and Rung’s delicensing. Knowing that more than one other person is privy to his crimes, Rung’s decided to beat things to the punch and retire, as if the Lost Light could afford to lose their mental health specialist, even if he does suck absolute dick. Megatron seems to see it that way, anyhow, suggesting that Rung still tell his patients about not being licensed, but let them decide if they still want to see him anyway.
Rung calls him a stupid fuck in the most polite way possible, then leaves, just as Rodimus is arriving. Megatron makes a pun, then we get the skinny on what’s going on with Tailgate. As best as Velocity can figure, the background radiation caused by quantum travel, combined with being stressed the fuck out by Cyclonus being shot and seemingly killed in front of him, caused his spark to evolve. Which is a much better deal than what I’d assume that sort of thing would do for a human being. I figure that’d be a heart attack situation.
Rodimus wants to know what happened with Sunder in the shuttle bay, and why Megatron tried to talk him down instead of firing. Megatron’s figured that he’s tried the way of violence for the last several million years, and he’s really trying to be better than that now, even if it gets people hurt. He’s a pacifist now. Which sucks, because it’s probably going to bite both him and those around him in the ass later, and also he’ll never be Vash the Stampede, so he really shouldn’t even bother trying.
Getting back to the flashback (sort of, anyway; Skids isn’t remembering this next part, it’s more for us as the readers to get closure) Quark’s queued up for the teleporter, having been given Skids’s spot. He’s gonna be doing hard labor on “New Tarn”. Skids is also here, having apparently touched Tarn’s cold, dead heart with his kindness. Everyone loads up into the teleporter, and it looks like everything’s gonna be just fine!
I said EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE JUST FINE.
The music comes on, significantly louder in this chamber, and Skids is suddenly teleported out and away, Quark screaming for him as he disappears. He arrives in Tarn’s office, where he’s leaning on his desk and drinking out of his fancy little decanter, waiting for the show to start. Skids knows by this point that the machine he was sent to fix was in actuality a smelter, and Tarn explains that they need that fancy shmancy sentio metallico to build bodies for their upcoming MTO forces. Then he drags Skids over to the window and melts the belief in a loving god out of his head.
And that’s a series wrap on Quark! Let’s give him a hand, folks!
More Than Meets the Eye #48 — Froid and His Awful Boyfriend Come For a Visit
So you know how last issue Getaway manipulated Tailgate into going on a suicide mission, by telling him they’d get space-married if he did? And then Whirl got shot? And then Cyclonus had to stab a former warlord and brain him with a flatscreen to go save his crush? And then Cyclonus got shot? And then Tailgate exploded all gay-like?
Yeah, we’re not focusing on that right now. It’s time for Rung to do his goddamned job for once.
Our issue opens up in Rung’s office, where he’s having Skids talk through his memories. I should have known he’d bother doing his job for one of the hottest guys on the ship.
Skids, shortly after the nightmare hellscape that was the Simanzi Massacre, was employed as a bomb negotiator. Now, you may say, that doesn’t sound like quite the right pairing of words to use, but you have to understand that Cybertronians are robots, and also never had a Geneva Convention to work out what was and wasn’t a war crime, so they sort of just did whatever back in the day.
I bet whoever figured this shit out got a huge pay bump, and then was shot in the street for being an absolute monster.
The anti-personal mines were a head and other vital robo-organs locked in the galaxy’s worst pressure cooker, set to blow if the still-living robot got too stressed out. Skids’s job was talking these guys down so he could turn their brains off and disarm everything. Because Skids, as we know, is very good at talking people down.
Just an absolute ace at deescalation, this guy. Certainly doesn’t suffer from snark poisoning.
The flashback takes place during Skids’s religious phase, which also doesn’t help matters; he goes and drags the mercy of Primus into it, and when you’re a head in an IED, you’re not exactly feeling like god loves you all that much.
Our dear bomb boy explodes, sending Skids soaring straight into the custody of a Decepticon Hygiene Team, who drag him and a few other Autobots away in chains to the unhappiest place in the galaxy (that doesn’t contain Overlord).
Skids in the present takes a moment to collect himself, as these memories are related to the ones that Chromedome had refused to uncover for him with mnemosurgery way back in issue #8. When we get back into it, we see a friend that we haven’t visited in quite a while.
Maybe Mr. Flywheels Scavengers deserved to get super-blendered after all.
Flywheels is in charge of gluing inhibitor spikes to the roofs of all the prisoners’ mouths. If someone with one of these spikes attempts to transform, the spike deploys, turning their brain module into a donut.
“But what if someone doesn’t have a mouth?”, asks James Roberts’s canonized self-insert character Rev-Tone. Well, not to worry, you fucking moron, because you’re at Grindcore, the home of pain and suffering!
That’s a series wrap on Rev-Tone, folks! Let’s give him a hand!
Skids is assigned to room with another prisoner, though his name won’t be found out til it’s more devastating for the readers, as present-day Skids is starting to run out of steam with remembering the worst days of his life.
We cut back to modern day, where Skids and Rung have finished building one of Rung’s model ships— likely a tactile distraction while Skids was recounting what he could remember. Skids laments not being able to pull the ripcord on all this and just have it needled out, but Rung reminds him that Chromedome didn’t want to re-traumatize him with just slapping everything on the brain-table.
We then learn a little bit about Rung, as it’s revealed that he only purchases models of ships he’s been assigned to, and that he was scheduled to be on the fateful Ark-1 trip, before the Senate yanked him back planet side. He’s also a bit of a loser, his own theories on psychology being overshadowed by Froid’s. Must really hurt, being outshone by the guy with the ballgag mouth.
Rung asks Skids how he wants the thumb-recording of today’s session sent to him, and Skids says he wants it emailed directly into his brain, because you can do that shit when you’re a robot. They schedule their next appointment, Rung is revealed to have his entire ass out, and Riptide lets him know that he’s got a guest.
I’m sure that dramatic shadow over his face isn’t anything to worry about.
There’s a stunned silence, an awkward introduction, Froid confirms that he has not, in fact, been dead this entire time, and then he gives Rung the most horrifying hug in the universe with his terrible gibbon arms. Skids takes this as his cue to dip, remarking on Froid’s “primal beads”, some sort of religious paraphernalia on-par with the matrix tattoo he had on his cheek all those years ago.
Over in the medibay, we come to find that Cyclonus isn’t actually dead, because he was protected by the power of love, and also being the toughest motherfucker to ever exist in an undead capacity. Nobody’s super sure what the hell happened to Tailgate, but he’s still out cold.
The ship co-captains show up, Megatron being very, very defensive about how much he totally wouldn’t have hurt Tailgate, despite having been fully ready to crush his little head like an egg just a few hours ago. Cyclonus says that he should be the one to apologize, though his stance makes it look like he’s one misplaced glance away from throwing another television into Megatron’s teeth.
Thankfully, it looks like everyone’s up to speed on what a shitlord Getaway is, as Rodimus had Chromedome poke Tailgate in the brain while he was unconscious to figure out what the fuck happened.
Rodimus, shit like this is why 89 members of your crew voted “no confidence”.
Cyclonus, ever a romantic, is taken with the idea of someone setting up a fireworks show just for him surviving a hail of gunfire. Velocity bursts his bubble, however, as the light show is actually for Thunderclash, who was re-awoken by whatever that weird rainbow explosion was.
Back over in Rung’s office, Rung is waiting for an explanation as to why Froid has the audacity to be alive right now. Froid hasn’t been seen since the “Tetrahex Ripper” was caught, when he joined the prison ship taking him— Sunder— and his brother Septre to Garrus 6 for their crimes.
No word on if it’s any better than Garrus 9.
Froid became obsessed with Sunder, which worked out about as well as anyone could expect, when he was taken hostage by the brothers after they escaped their cells. There were some causalities, including Septre, but Froid managed to escape to the mechanical planet of Scarvix, where he continued his work as a psychiatrist. Rung has been cleaning his glasses this whole time, probably so he doesn’t have to look at Froid’s awful, awful body.
Froid starts fiddling around with Rung’s models, and Rung finally asks why the fuck Froid is here, considering Rung was under the impression he was dead until about five minutes ago. Froid drops the buddy-buddy act, asking for Rung’s patient notes. Rung refuses. He asks again, stating the importance of having them, though he doesn’t clarify why. Rung refuses again. Froid alludes to letting a very big secret of Rung’s slip if he doesn’t get what he’s oh so politely asking for, grabbing Rung’s arm to make his point extra clear.
Over in the oil reservoir of contemplation, Skids is having a think, trying to remember more of his worst memories. Like how he used to room with Quark.
Quark, as thanks for having removed the death spike from his throat, gives Skids a piece of advice to help him survive Grindcore: don’t do anything to stand out. Of course, this is Skids we’re talking about, who is both supremely talented and in-canon hot, so that might be a bit of an ask. Quark then comments on the lack of a soundtrack these days, which gives someone outside the cell a perfect entry into the conversation. This is someone Skids recognizes in the past, but present-day Skids just can’t get any further with the memory.
Back at the Psych Rumble Power Hour, Rung is holding firm to his morals, once again refusing Froid’s request. Froid folds, saying that he’ll just take his sorry ass back home then. Rung goes to see him off, and finds that Froid’s ship is being guarded. Rung questions why Magnus would have folks stationed at the shuttle bay, since they typically don’t do that. Other than the fact that Tailgate and Cyclonus violently assaulted a superior officer and then bolted, it would appear that Froid is also being a naughty little bastard.
Rung put some goddamned pants on, you’re ruining the dramatic reveal!
It turns out that Froid and Sunder have been living together since their escape, and Froid’s taken quite the liking to Sunder, completely hand-waving his obsession with Cybertron’s god of death, and the concept of sin, and his history of being a serial killer. Rung is horrified by this, stating that Froid’s become codependent and is way too close to Sunder to be doing his job correctly.
Of course, Froid throws that right back in his face, because, as we’re all quite familiar with by this point, Rung is super buddy-buddy with everyone on the ship, especially the hot guy who’s one of his most involved patients. That’s when we get the real kicker— Rung’s secret, that Froid’s been helping keep all these years? Rung’s been delicensed since well before the end of the war.
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: nobody on the Lost Light can do their goddamned job.
That begs the question of how Rung could have gotten away with such a thing, given that half the ship’s crew is cops, with Ultra Magnus having once held the title of King Big Dick of Policeland. It turns out that the ship Rung was serving on at the time, the Fateful Archetype, had been shot down shortly after his hearing, with him being the only survivor, and all the paperwork burning up in the crash. Awfully convenient, that. Considering how scary Rung has proven to be in the past, I’m not completely sure he didn’t set some shit up, but anyway! It’s time to meet Sunder.
Well, hello to you too, sunshine!
Sunder’s lack of eyeballs does serve a purpose beyond shock value; in order to have a modicum of control over his buff as hell serial killer boyfriend, Froid’s convinced Sunder that he needs to be able to see his victims in order to remotely mnemosurgery them. Because that’s a thing he can do. He also says that traumatic memories are delicious. Because that’s a thing he does, eating memories. With his remote mnemosurgery skills.
James, what the fuck.
Anyway, this is why Froid wanted Rung’s patient files; he was gonna find the guys who were repressing memories and feed them to Sunder.
Then Skids shows up and shoots Froid with a grappling hook.
Rung tells Skids to run, but it’s too late, because Froid just broke his primal beads and is bowling them at Sunder as he yells for his fucked up boytoy to hit the deck. And boy howdy, does he get a strike. Let’s see what Sunder’s all about.
Okay Mr. Tumblr Poetry, let’s calm down now.
Sunder, now knowing that Rung’s the guy in charge of the ship’s mental health, give him the evil eye and riffles through his brain like a phonebook, picking out all the tastiest treats, which makes Rung’s glasses explode for dramatic effect.
Then why the FUCK did you take him to the Lost Light, you malpracticing buffoon? This ship’s basically a twinkie with a trauma cream filling!
Sunder, of course, notices that Skids and his delicious brain are right there, so he goes for that first, dragging us back to where we left off in the flashback, where a level 5 theatre kid moment is happening.
More Than Meets the Eye #47 — Cyclonus Cries Alone in His Room Because He Wants to Hold Hands With Tailgate
Oh wow, a literal love triangle! I’m certain this will resolve in a way that’s satisfying for all parties involved, without any underhanded bullshit whatsoever!
The funny thing is, we don’t really know all that much about Getaway. We know he’s cold constructed, that he used to work for Prowl and alongside Skids, that he’s got an interest in Tailgate that he expresses in… dubious fashion, and that he’s got an unfortunate habit of standing in lighting that makes him look like a murderer.
But who is Getaway, really? What made him the man he is today?
Well, you see, it all started the day he was born.
Getaway of the Corcapsia Incursion is an MTO, who had his frozen spark ripped out of a cooler and stuffed into the lifeless husk that would become his body a few minutes before he got tossed out of the plane that was his birthplace. He didn’t want to fight, or do any of the shit he’d been told to do, so he high-tailed it out of there.
I suppose this is certainly a topic of discussion for a date. If you wanted the date to suck, anyhow.
Getaway and Tailgate are once again hanging out and drinking, because apparently they can’t have fun without being inebriated and talking trash about people who aren’t there to defend themselves. This little moment of vulnerability was in the middle of Getaway teaching Tailgate to speak chirolinguistics, because Tailgate is “disarming” and “easy to talk to” and “so much nicer and sweeter than his shitty roommate Cyclonus, who totally eats babies and no that’s not a euphemism”. Tailgate’s a little weirded out by the random diversion in conversation, but lets it go, since he is getting free sign language lessons out of this deal.
Tailgate tells Getaway about how Cyclonus held his hand and sang to him while he was dying, which reminds him how he never got those Old Cybertronian lessons from the big purple space jet. Getaway doesn’t seem to enjoy being compared to Cyclonus, or perhaps even the mention of him at all.
Then things get a little disjointed, as Getaway is revealed to have Nautica’s wrench, which he uses to uncover a hiding Ravage— except Ravage isn’t hiding, because this is a public venue and he’s a fucking adult who can drink if he wants to. Getaway asks Tailgate to come with him, so he can give him something. Most of these panels have the backgrounds blacked out. I’m sure it’s fine, and not symbolic of some shitfuckery going on.
Over in habitation suite 14, Cyclonus wakes up from his nap to find that Tailgate isn’t there. It is presumably late in the evening, though I’m guessing at this, since space is dark no matter what. Cyclonus heads over to Swerve’s, where he catches the grave sin of PDA.
Yeah, I know, you wanna hold hands too, you emotionally-constipated sap.
Cyclonus sits down at the bar, where Swerve seems to know exactly what’s on his mind. Letting Cyclonus know that Tailgate’s with another man, our barkeep gives him a free drink to nurse his wounds with. Cyclonus takes a shot, then goes to do something that appears to make him nervous.
Over in Getaway’s room, it would appear that Tailgate’s gift was a pair of clip-on mnemo-needles. Tailgate, while not wanting to seem ungrateful, is utterly baffled as to why Getaway would think he wanted surgical equipment, not even remembering the conversation they had about how cool Chromedome’s needles are. But I’m sure that’s fine, and certainly not something to worry about.
Getaway’s gift comes with strings attached, however, as the man stumbles through asking Tailgate a very important question. See, in order to become Conjunx Endura, you have to go through the Conjunx Ritus, which is broken down into four parts, which take place in a location that holds fond memories for all parties involved:
The Act of Intimacy — usually physical contact. Yes, getting your dick wet probably counts.
The Act of Disclosure — the initiator of the ritual reveals a secret or deeply personal information, which doesn’t exactly make them look good, showing trust in all other involved parties.
The Act of Profference — a present. Pretty straight-forward, despite the fancy name.
The Act of Devotion — I’ll let Getaway explain this one.
So where exactly does the consent come into the ritual, Getaway? Because it sort of seems like you’ve sprung a massive life change on Tailgate without any sort of input from him! Hell, you literally just told him what the ritual is! You two haven’t even lived together you absolute goon.
Tailgate, who seems to be feeling a lot of pressure to say “yes” to all this immediately, asks what exactly Getaway wants him to do.
While this sketchy shit is going down, we see where Cyclonus has gotten to. He knocks on a door, and is greeted by Whirl and a gun. Whirl lets him in, showing off his surprisingly nice room and collection of alarm clocks. When Cyclonus asks why he’s got roughly 300 clocks, Whirl tells him to fuck off and get to the point.
Cyclonus takes a seat and admits that he misses spending time with Tailgate. Well, “admits” in his own, Cyclonus-y way. He worries that Getaway is eating up all of Tailgate’s time, and also treating him in ways that maybe aren’t very good for him. Which he would be correct about, but it’s not like Cyclonus would ever stoop so low as to actually voice his concerns to Tailgate himself. That would be too close to admitting that he’s got feelings that can be hurt.
Whirl lets Cyclonus finish before laughing in his face at his audacity to think that Tailgate gives a shit about him or owes him any of his time, just because they share a room and did a spark transfusion. Which while harsh, is true. Cyclonus sort of talks around the real point of the matter, going so far as to say he cares about Tailgate, which for Cyclonus is equivalent to saying he’s madly in love and can’t live without him. But again, Tailgate doesn’t actually owe Cyclonus anything, especially since Cyclonus has refused to voice any actual concern about their relationship status, or Getaway’s whole deal.
That, and Getaway’s apparently hot. I don’t see it, but maybe Tailgate does. He’s allowed to want to fool around with a hot guy.
Cyclonus seems to have gotten what he came for, and decides to leave, thanking Whirl as he does. When Whirl asks why the hell he’s being thanked, or why Cyclonus sought him out in the first place, Cyclonus tells him that Whirl was the only one he trusted to give him the truth and not coddle him. With that, he leaves, leaving Whirl to think. Whirl, who has never had a positive relationship with anyone for more than two minutes without it all going to shit, is starting to feel something for Cyclonus.
The feeling is friendship. And maybe a little pity.
As such, he holds a meeting with his co-conspirators.
Oh, this can only mean good things, surely!
Whirl thinks that using Tailgate as a weapon is a bad idea, and Atomizer blames this whole situation on Whirl not dying at the hands of Megatron back in issue #28. So that confirms that Whirl didn’t steal that bow, but was rather loaned it for the purposes of suicide for the greater good. How does Getaway feel about Whirl’s sudden change of heart?
Well, considering he’s been literally grooming Tailgate for the role of sacrificial lamb, so they could get Megatron sent back to Cybertron/killed, I’d say his opinion doesn’t really matter all that much.
Yes, the entire relationship has been a farce, meant to get Tailgate to do whatever Getaway needs him to do.
We get a flashback to complete their conversation from earlier, where Getaway explained that Tailgate’s mnemo-needles would inject Megatron with an “anti-villain” virus, removing his bad thoughts and keeping him from ever returning to his evil ways! Wow! How convenient!
When Tailgate didn’t seem totally on-board with this plan, Getaway laid it on thick, appealing to Tailgate’s desire to protect the people he cares about. He also gave Tailgate the wrench to detect Ravage with, for the sake of protection. Tailgate is (quite reasonably) terrified by the idea of going to defile a former warlord’s brain all by himself, but Getaway understands! And if Tailgate is too much of a crybaby bitch to keep everyone he’s ever loved from being murdered, that fine! They just won’t get space married. Oh, but wouldn’t this stunt be just the thing to finally earn Cyclonus’s approval, at long, long last?
That last point is what finally cinches it for Tailgate, as Getaway knew it would. Given what he’s about to put Tailgate through, I hope it burns him up all even after all that work, he had to lean on Tailgate’s desire for Cyclonus to be proud of him than any love he might hold for Getaway himself.
Getaway explains to Whirl that the Ravage-detector on the wrench has been disabled, and Tailgate being beat to death by Megatron in a needle-induced panic will be a small price to pay for a genocidal maniac to finally be brought to justice. Atomizer stands in the foreground wearing some highly fashionable ominous shadows on his gun-toting arm. Whirl messes with his clocks while they converse, as if he knows what’s about to happen to him. Atomizer blasts him in the back of the head with the nudge gun while Getaway makes a bad joke, and the two leave Whirl on the floor to pass out.
Whirl, however, is much smarter than most give him credit for, and prior to succumbing to memory erasure, he pops on his holoform program, bouncing his avatar around the ship until he reaches the one guy who can and will go absolutely berserk to keep Tailgate safe.
With only a moment before she fades out of existence, Cyclonus gets the idea that something’s wrong and bolts for Whirl’s room. He passes by Getaway and Atomizer as he does, and Getaway has the gall to be cheeky about it. When he gets to Whirl’s room, Cyclonus finds the guy on the floor with a killer headache, and roughly twenty clocks that all read the same, incorrect time— 1:13.
Tailgate enters Megatron’s room at this point, not seeing Ravage on the floor by the recharge slab. Cyclonus sprints down, sword in hand, as Megatron is woken by Ravage and panics when he finds a guy with needles trying to poke him in the brain. Cyclonus rushes in before too much murder can happen, however, javelin-tossing his sword into Megatron’s chest and spin kicking Ravage into oblivion, before beating Megatron into unconsciousness with a flat screen television.
When will YOUR man do this much for you and look good doing it?
Tailgate takes Cyclonus’s hand and they book it from the scene of the crime. As they do, Tailgate realizes that Getaway’s gift and the anti-villain virus were both bullshit. However, we can’t fix the past, so now Cyclonus is taking them to the shuttles to run away from their problems, which is sad, because this is their home. As they’re running down the hall, the alarms sound, and Tailgate realizes something about his and Cyclonus’s relationship.
Tailgate, I know this is very poignant and sweet, but, again, marriage is a mutually agreed-upon decision, that happens after you two can actually have conversations about feelings that don’t require one of you dying.
The pair reach the shuttle bay, but Cyclonus is given a warning shot in the back by the security team, one of which has a machine gun. Typical wannabe cops. Cyclonus reaches for his sword, and this is all it takes for the entire team to fire on him, as well as Tailgate. Hey fuckers, swords are waaaaaay slower than gunfire!
Cyclonus scoops Tailgate up to his chest to protect him from the guns, his back getting blasted to pieces as he does. He tells Tailgate goodbye, then falls to the ground, presumably dead. The security team ceases fire, giving Tailgate time to cry over his dead not-boyfriend. Then this happens.
Just a typical Friday night in the sad, gay space comic.
More Than Meets the Eye #46 — Krok Realizes That Being Traumatized is Not an Excuse for Participating in Trafficking
Last issue ended with Fortress Maximus, the new Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord— which is a position they should consider renaming, if only for the sake of optics— blowing up Demus’s head and looming in a doorway that I fucking KNOW was significantly smaller earlier in the issue. This issue takes us back in time a smidge, showing just what exactly lead to Fort Max being on the planet of Tebris VII.
As Max had flown a spacecraft through the airspace of the planet, he chatted with Red Alert on the radio, who was established as sticking with Fort Max on Luna 1 after he was brought back online in "The Sound of Breaking Glass”. Red Alert has been busying himself with finding conspiracies where there likely aren’t any, having combed through the entirety of Wreckers: Declassified looking for ciphers in the typos Fisitron made in each entry.
Red, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but any conspiracy involved with the Wreckers fandom blog already happened, and it resulted in at least five deaths. Most folks just don’t have proofreaders for their blogs, especially when they’re not getting paid for the posts.
Sidenote: if you see any typos in this write-up, no you didn’t 💛
Of course, we’ll see that there are other conspiracies going on that involve Red Alert, but that will have to wait for the "Titans Return” comic to reveal itself. In the meantime, it would seem that Fort Max has seen the WAP crushed into the side of that mountain from last issue. Red Alert informs him that the ship, while originally an Autobot vessel, currently belongs to the Scavengers, labeling them as “deserters”. Fort Max resolves to deal with them after Demus, even though, as Red Alert points out, they haven’t actually done anything, as far as either of them know. However, it would seem that Max is throwing due process to the wind today, as he’s going off of the name “Scavengers” as an admission of guilt to selling Cybertronian tech to lesser beings. Which they haven’t done, and there’s no proof that they have, but they might! And Fort Max is going to preemptively arrest them for this crime, because they’re Decepticons.
Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that this guy used to be a prison warden.
Fort Max wants the rundown on the Scavengers, since he’s now committed to making their lives hell. Red Alert provides him with the skinny via Autopedia.
Hmmm, Autopedia might want to look into employing some moderators.
Going off of this absolutely bonkers information, Fort Max enters the fray, armed to the teeth for what might be the battle of a lifetime, as far as he’s concerned. Oh, and he’s got Red Alert on speaker for this, so I sure hope the guy likes hearing police brutality over the phone.
With that, we’re back in the present, reestablishing the fact that Fort Max murdered Demus instead of walking slightly faster to catch the guy who was at most literally half his size, or even just shooting him in his tiny legs so he could have been captured alive.
Spinister, stop staring at the issue title, the fourth wall is barely holding up as is.
Fort Max waves his stupidly large gun at the Scavengers, stating that Demus was the lowest of the low, and pretending otherwise isn’t going to win them any points with him. Fort Max tells them that they’re being arrested for trafficking Cybertronian tech, and Misfire informs him that Cybertronian tech sucks, because they spent the last 4 million years killing each other, which left very little room for innovation. Which, uh, nobody tell him about Kimia. Or Brainstorm’s whole deal, who the Scavengers were literally providing parts for.
I guess because the Scavengers are stupid, they didn’t really consider how wartime is the best time for innovating ways to murder people. Killmaster gets name dropped, blueprints under his name having contributed to something called a geobomb, which can vaporize planets despite its small size.
We’re getting away from the point though, as is par for the course with the Scavengers. Krok steers things back on track, asking what exactly Fort Max plans on doing with them. Misfire doesn’t like the sound of Fort Max’s plan, however, and pulls the double distraction trick, ending with Crankcase blasting Max with his backpack laser guns. The Scavengers split up and book it out of Demus’s office, Crankcase and Spinister bickering like an old married couple as they run.
Things quickly turn into the galaxy’s shittiest game of Marco Polo, as Fort Max stalks through the scrapyard hunting for the Scavengers. Krok seems on the verge of a panic attack, clicking his communicator until Misfire snaps and dumps Krok’s baggage for him.
The two then struggle, as Misfire attempts to wrest the communicator out of Krok’s grasp, while Fulcrum tells them to shut the fuck up so they don’t get Tyrest Enforced. Fort Max, who I suppose can’t quite hear this nonsense going on, tries to get a rise out of his prey, saying he’ll let them in on Demus’s whole deal if they come out.
Then Misfire finally gets ahold of Krok’s communicator.
I’m not gonna lie, Krokky-baby, this is a little hard to defend
This is the catalyst for finally, finally learning why the fuck Krok is the way he is. Before he was a Scavenger, Krok headed a squad of Decepticons who had the rotten fucking luck of running into the Wreckers. Everyone but Krok died horribly, including his beloved pet (Gatoraider, though the name isn’t stated) and Radar, a guy who turned into a portable telecoms system. After the carnage, Krok took what was left, which was apparently a single finger and the concept of being named after the crocodilia order of reptiles.
Clicking Radar’s finger lets Krok know if there are other Decepticons nearby, by detecting spark signatures that carry Decepticon markers. Clicking the finger morphed into a way of soothing himself when anxious, as it would allow him to call for help if needed. Because he’s pretty anxious right now— being chased by the cops tends to do that— he checks the counter, not hoping for much, as they usually don’t run into their peers while out scavenging.
However, it would appear that today is a rather atypical day, because Radar tells him that he’s absolutely surrounded by ‘Cons.
It’s quickly revealed that this isn’t actually a good thing, as it turns out that Demus was a fucking vile little man— his Roboids™ were made out of Cybertronians.
Horrifying, thank you Max!
Krok, who really hasn’t endeared himself to his crew today, is questioned on whether he was aware of this questionable business practice. He was not. Fort Max then makes a lot of claims on Demus’s character, which, while I don’t exactly doubt them, can’t really be corroborated by the man, as his head was turned into chunky salsa a couple minutes ago.
Crankcase picks this moment in time to call Misfire on their unsecured network, saying that he’s worried Fort Max will find out about Grimlock. Red Alert immediately picks this up, and tells Max exactly where to find everyone’s favorite Dinobot. Fort Max shifts gears, leaving the Scavengers unfound so he can go arrest Grimlock.
With Fort Max having high-tailed it out of the scrapyard, we can now return to the shamble that is Krok’s mental health. Fulcrum’s a little put off about Krok not telling him about his tragic backstory until Misfire quite literally ripped it out of his hands. Why Fulcrum never asked about the communicator, even after being directly told that he probably should, isn’t addressed. Krok doesn’t find this easy to talk about, traumatized to the point that previously he’d convinced himself that his squad hadn’t in fact died horribly, and were somewhere out in the universe, safe and sound. This is why he told Fulcrum just as much back in issue #7, and told Misfire that his old squad would come to save them when the DJD were on their way in issue #8.
Of course, Krok’s species has been at war for millions of years and everyone is awful to each other, so being mentally ill hasn’t been terribly fun, Crankcase having labeled him as cuckoo bananas over this literal delusion in the past. Krok himself thinks that just because his mental illness is more visible than some, doesn’t mean that other folks are actually better off than he is. Crankcase himself will prove this later in the More Than Meets the Eye: Revolution issue, when he’s inadvertently exposed to something that triggers his PTSD over the event of the Stormbringer miniseries.
Oh my god, is Cybertron about to get a third mental health specialist? Also, I would like to point out that since the reveal of Krok’s communicator actually being a finger, Radar has slowly been changing in color, going from green to gray, as if to signify Krok’s acceptance of his squad being dead.
Of course, the green comes back later, so this might just be a coloring error, but you’ll have to pull the symbolism from my cold, dead hands.
Fulcrum calls Krok out on being a massive fucking hypocrite, considering he was going to sell Grimlock, who is mentally unwell to the point of near-complete aphasia and extreme reactive violence, for the half-billion that would pay for that clinic he wants so badly. Krok at least has the good sense to feel gross with himself over his behavior.
Crankcase and Spinister show up at this point, Crankcase patting himself on the back for having gotten Fort Max off their back with that call to Misfire earlier. It would appear that Misfire is the only one who bothered to do his homework however, ragefully reminding Crankcase that Grimlock was a prisoner at Garrus 9, and Fort Max was his literal warden and a current cop on the prowl for people to arrest. If he gets his hands on Grimlock, Grimlock isn’t going to just take it, and then things are going to go south very quickly.
Krok agrees with Misfire that they need to go help Grimlock, admitting that he’s been a shithead the last couple hours, and that he’s putting together a plan. Unfortunately, affiliating with Demus has bitten them in the ass once again, as their inhibitor chips haven’t yet worn off, and there doesn’t seem to be a vehicle around that can carry all of them. However, Crankcase gets an idea, pointing at something off-panel.
We cut over to the WAP, where Grimlock is in his alt-mode, holding a marker with his dinky little t-rex arm. He hears Fort Max rolling through the halls on his hovercraft, looking for someone to crump with. Luckily, Grimlock is happy to oblige.
Fort Max and Grimlock get into it, and it interferes with Max’s call with Red Alert, as Grimlock headbutts him. It’s getting nasty very quickly, to the point where Red Alert reminds Fort Max to not kill Grimlock so he can be brought in. Fort Max, however, seems to be channeling some hurt over how Grimlock got out of being Overlord’s plaything for years while Max got turned into a blind doorstop, stating that Grimlock is a ‘Con now, and certainly isn’t going to give Max the courtesy of letting him live.
Guys, I’m beginning to think that maybe Fort Max is a bit biased against Decepticons.
The Scavengers manage to get to the WAP by this point, having opened the boxes of several Roboids™ and ridden the horsies inside back to the ship. While I do wonder about the ethics of this, it does give us this sick-ass panel of Krok riding a horse while it kicks a gun out of Fortress Maximus’s hand.
Friendship is magic, bitch!
Having disarmed Fort Max, Krok demands parley. Unfortunately, he’s talking to Fortress “Guns in His Legs” Maximus, who was at Simanzi and did a rootin’-tootin’ good job there, who laughs at the Scavengers trying to work out a deal. Krok clarifies their relation to Grimlock, and how he came into their fray. Fort Max is doubtful of this, as he— as has been made painfully clear by this point— has trust issues when it comes to Decepticons. He tells Misfire that he wants to take Grimlock so Cerebros can take a look at him.
Cerebros is a very rare type of Cybertronian, as he’s a mental health specialist. That’s right, there’s another one! This is actually his foray into the IDW run, though he’s been in other Transformers media. Currently, he works on Luna 1 with Red Alert and Fort Max— whether he’s working with them is unstated, but it seems likely, given their collective past needing psychiatric help.
Misfire is willing to let Grimlock go, if it might help him, though it clearly looks like it kills him to do so. This is when Spinister, in a rare moment of brilliance, says that they’ve completely forgotten Grimlock’s opinion in all this. He asks Grimlock if he wants to stay with the guys who resort to cannibalism regularly, or go with his former jailer. Grimlock answers, in his own fashion.
Misfire, who looks like he’s about to friggin’ cry, says that it’s settled, but Fort Max was gonna just take all of them into custody anyway, so this doesn’t really change much on his end. This is when Krok reveals that the Scavengers have a bomb.
No, not Fulcrum.
Well, yes Fulcrum, but also another, different bomb, that actually works. He’s talking about that one.
Fort Max is dubious about this, but Krok stands his ground, arming the detonator with a click.
The neon green detonator, that totally isn’t a severed finger. Honest.
Fort Max has thirty minutes to go disarm the bomb that’s planted in the late Demus’s office, surrounded by loads of helpless domesticated Cybertronians. When Fort Max asks them where the hell they got a bomb, Krok says that Fulcrum made it, because that’s his thing. Autopedia backs this up, calling Fulcrum the bravest, sexiest explosives expert in the universe, whose meat is huge and whose supply of bitches is never-ending.
Fort Max tries to grab the detonator from Krok, but Krok tosses it over to Crankcase, who can and will set the damn thing off now if Fort Max doesn’t buzz off. He then death-stares Max until he decides that maybe this isn’t a bluff, and asks if he can borrow a pony to get back to the scrapyard.
I haven’t mentioned it, but the Scavengers have been extremely British these past issues. Like, real tea and crumpets-sounding sons of guns.
Later, in the WAP, Crankcase is commended for his steely visage, only for it to be revealed that his face had stopped working at some point during the ride over. Fulcrum starts passing out compliments, just like a good project manager should, while Krok starts futzing around with the ship’s navigation. Plugging Radar into the terminal, the finger’s ability to locate Decepticon sparks is amplified, going to a galactic scale.
Wow, the real success was the friends he made along the way! That’s beautiful, Krok.
Crankcase asks if this means that they’re going to actually be doing shit now, which Krok thinks that yeah, they are. They’re going to help folks, and they might even be good at it. Of course, "helping people” is a really nebulous goal, and this is the Scavengers we’re talking about, so Misfire almost immediately derails the moment by pulling out his SNERF (space NERF) gun, so they can complete their game from earlier.
Misfire, he’s the sole survivor of an attack by the Wreckers. He went toe to toe with Springer, you will show some goddamned respect!
Misfire, remembering that Grimlock’s room was completely totaled a few hours ago, promises to get the behemoth a new door, one that only locks from the inside. Grimlock tells him that he appreciates it, which stops Misfire in his tracks, as that’s the most Grimlock’s said since they found him. When Misfire tries to get him to repeat it, however, Grimlock stays quiet. Misfire compares him to Spinister, in that sometimes he’ll do some shit that’ll remind everyone that he’s far more capable than they think he is.
Like this ominous symbol Grimlock’s drawn on his whiteboard!
Wow, I’m sure that won’t be plot-relevant later on!
Later, we check in on Fort Max, flying back to Luna 1 while on another call. Fucking hell, this guy just loves to talk. This time, his conversational partner is none other than Rung. They’re talking about how the Scavengers weren’t what Fort Max was expecting, and how he’s reconsidering his approach to being the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord. Rung agrees that this might be a good idea, as the approach of “murder any Decepticon who so much as voices displeasure at being shot and chased” is a little yikes!
Obviously, when Fort Max went back to the scrapyard, there was no bomb. At least, not in the traditional sense.
Spinister, please don’t blow kisses at the cop who tried to arrest you, especially on the instructions for how to fix horrific forced body modification.
Of course, because it turned out that the Roboids™ are, in fact, mutilated Cybertronians, Fort Max had to bring them back to Luna 1, so that they could try out Spinister’s instructions. Everyone’s favorite current Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord is absolutely plastered in fluffy little animals as he flies back to base, and it looks like all’s well that ends well!
Oh, goddammit.
So this ship is connected to the folks who were working with Demus, who were supposed to be protecting him from the law and whatnot. Obviously, that didn’t happen, so these guys are down a guy to hide their weird bullet-tubes full of green fluid and alien lifeforms in the basement. Or well, not theirs, precisely, but rather the Grand Architect.
Whoever the fuck that is.
As it currently stands, the moving of the bullet-tubes risks contamination of the contents, so these two guys are going to have to abort this whole collection and focus on the others that reside on other planets.
Oh, Grimlock, honey, you got some explaining to do.
