#hi-queue

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*Taking notes* So Megatron is not a "weird angel," but Galvatron is a "fallen angel..." got it

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From IDW's Transformers: Bumblebee - Win If You Dare

It's pretty bad if I want Blastbee so much I'd look here XD I think Blaster was playing "Bust a Move" by Young MC based on an earlier panel.

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So we can all agree that as soon as Jawbreaker comes home from Cybertron what’s going to happen is that Aftermath’s going to see that war hammer and try to take that shit, and Jawbreaker will be like, “Sure, you can borrow it! I don’t mind :)” which will make Aftermath so disgusted he won’t want it anymore, right?

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Pathetic li'l Slipstream doodle

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From "Games of Deception" published by Fun Publications, part of Classics, an extension of the US Marvel comics stories

Bring back Elita-1's color-changing reflective armor! I'd be just as happy with that and it producing the disco lights-like effect as I would be with her time-stopping ability.

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Now that Earthspark is over I'm really impressed looking back at how all the main characters were markedly different at the beginning vs. the end! Like Twitch and Thrash seemed to have these really contrasting personalities with the siblings they had that special bond with, Robby and Mo, but in the end the philosophies and roles of each set of them were kinda the same, with Robby and Twitch having these hero complexes and Mo and Thrash being the perceptive ones. The newer Terrans—Hashtag, Nightshade, and Jawbreaker—started out being these figures to show kids how they can be themselves and be different, but then after that spent the rest of the series maturing. I especially like how Nightshade used to feel like a loner who knew everything, then became this supporter and proponent of family, but then just kept learning and growing. It's also so cool how the show decided to explore so many different marginalized identities all in one place and show how they intersect (for example, how Jawbreaker isn't queer-coded in a blatant way like Hashtag was and it's more his being neurodivergent that's shown, but his stories are also relatable to all kinds of people). And it's surprising to remember that initially, the kids could barely defeat one arachnamech on their own!!!

"The Great Escape" (the episode mainly set in an escape room) is one of my favorite Earthspark episodes even though it's so silly XD I think it's the kind of episode that would be called filler, but after season 1, I remember expressing that I'd watch an entire arc of the Maltos simply going on vacation and having fun or something with no major villains or anything just because I love the characters and their interactions so much. I'm glad that there was time for at least one episode with the kids that was somewhat like that. But at the same time, the episode was actually pretty meaningful foreshadowing for how the arcs were going to go. I know I've said before that it was mainly about the kids seeing that they were relying too much on Twitch and that they need to make sure to be there for her, which was obviously setting up how at the end of season 3 she'd be taken out of the fight and need repairs while everyone else worked together to win. But now that the finale specials are out, I see that I never thought about Twitch probably wouldn't like that and wouldn't want to accept this because that conflicts with her self-image (I'm shocked I didn't realize things would go that way). The episode was a pretty important step in Nightshade's arc too.

It's also just a gag, but Earthspark having the villain be hoisted be their own petard while the heroes defeat them with the power of cooperation was this theme the show kept returning to until the very end... like it's poetic, I think, how at the close of season 1 of Earthspark Starscream saved Twitch from a mind-controlled Megatron and then at the close of season 4 (really season 2) Megatron and Twitch were helping each other fight mind-controlled Starscream. Earlier, Starscream had violated Terratronus's mind and killed her, which ended up getting himself trapped inside her corpse's head, and Megatron had seen that and sadly remarked that he was trapped in a prison of his own making. And I remember being like "woah" when I watched the finale because despite Megatron's personality being as awful and recognizable as ever, he really did reflect and change since he didn't harm Starscream any more than necessary when freeing him from Mandroid... I'm still really surprised that Earthspark managed to have Megatron gradually become a good person, make me believe he'd want to do that, all without destroying his iconic characterization. And it's so cool how Thrash is much more like Megatron than Optimus Prime, but Thrash never liked Megatron whereas Twitch was his mentee! And now Twitch will get to save her former mentor with her family and friends by her side!

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Is it strange that I kind of want to see G1 Prowl be plopped into IDW to contrast how different he is to his counterpart and how others react to it?? The whole thing with G1 Prowl and IDW Prowl is fascinating

I think you can basically just look at the IDW comics themselves to have this experience! I think Shane McCarthy's Prowl is basically G1 Prowl:

He's 1) trying to be logical, 2) stressed out and saying rude things but with good intentions, and 3) the rude statements are hilarious. I love that he's literally like, we're the transformers, by definition we change LMAO I also love that he's clearly trying to explain to Ironhide that they shouldn't be jumping to conclusions about who betrayed the Autobots (Ironhide here is convinced it's Mirage, who is innocent) but Prowl does this in such an ill-conceived way by pointing out it could've been Ironhide himself XD

When not angry, we could see this version of Prowl trying to be kind and supportive... awkwardly:

Looking at All Hail Megatron is a really effective way to see the difference between the Prowl characterizations because in the story written by Nick Roche and James Roberts, we see the start of the IDW Phase 2 characterization. So like, the moment I put above in which Prowl is trying to make this a smooth transition reads very very differently once JRo and Roche establish that actually, before this, Prowl had Kup mentally violated and turned into a mouthpiece to use. In fact, the cy-gars he smokes were intended to keep him dependent on the substance to keep him mentally stable enough for Prowl to use when he wanted to:

I think the readers are supposed to believe that were we to have seen Prowl's inner monologue in other issues, he would've been as clearly manipulative the whole time, but I just don't buy it. Later, in Sins of the Wreckers, Roche would try to paper over how drastically different the different characterizations of Prowl were by having Tarantulas say Prowl goes through phases in which he tries to be more morally scrupulous and then fails again:

I know a lot of fans love this, but as an IDW Prowl hater who thinks he is a terribly written character, my personal perspective on this is that it's an embarrassingly transparent ploy on the part of the writer to be like, "No, trust me guys, actually my vision made total sense the whole time."

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Elita-1: says she "knows no fear" when she needs to bravely protect her team and base from the Decepticons

Megatron: says he "knows no fear" as Starscream goads him into the most obvious trap ever... in a sewer

GIFs taken from the episodes "The Search for Alpha Trion" and "Triple Takeover" in the G1 cartoon