Liars, A to D

[arbre_rieur]

Three and four pages from THE TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE 1 and 2, respectively...









The blast is the work of the legless Tailgate, finally freeing himself from underground after six million years. He kept passing out, so it took him a long time.

Comments

[akodo_rokku]

Considering he's blaming Cyclonus for "desecrating corpses", we can assume he has at *least* been playing with them and talking to them like they're still alive for quite a while.

[drmcninja]

Huh. Just noticed he's poured a lot of gasoline on the ground right there. Immolation perhaps as well?

[q99]

Ok, so "found and messed with," seems most likely.

Still an intensely creepy bot.

[terrykun]

Those are all the Sweeps that died during the conflict with the D-Void. Scourge's whereabouts are still unknown.

[q99]

Ah, Sweeps. Sweeps are drones anyway, right?

[kamino_neko]

Sortakinda, though Primus knows the definition of 'drone' in the Transformers multiverse is pretty expansive. The Prime Vehicons are occasionally suggested to be drones, but are clearly sapient, and possessed of personalities.

[wyze2099]

The Vehicons in TF Prime seem to be drones more in the "working stiff" usage of the term. In fact, I get the feeling they were given the term "drones" just to get past the censors. "Don't worry, this isn't mindless graphic violence. They're just soulless drone robots. They're not alive. They didn't feel a thing. That scene with Bulkhead pulling out one's innards? Just wiring. Yeah, I know, Breakdown's talking to one, but he's just bored. Really."

And they cross their fingers and hope the censors don't notice the personality quirks that point to the Vehicons being low-level flunkies like Stormtroopers. The fans have certainly noticed, and it's led to running gags on review podcasts. "Whoops, there goes Steve from Accounting!" "Phil from Human Resources gets slaughtered." And so on.

[kamino_neko]

I suspect a money saving thing, personally - they want a lot of Decepticons, both for the 'the Autobots are insanely outnumbered' thing, and so they can kill them off frequently without seriously depleting the cast. So, they create 1 body type (with two known alt-modes) and give them all the same deco, to save time and money, then call them drones to explain it.

Cliffjumper, Skyquake, Makeshift, and Breakdown argue against their being all that shy about killing off 'real' characters. (Even if Breakdown did get his after a fairly long Decepticon Death Drought.)

[wyze2099]

Yeah, you do have a point.

[spacebetween]

Well in the movie half of the Insecticons become the Sweeps so they weren't drones there, just more a subgroup without the -con suffix. One can assume it is the same here, just a subgroup for 'expendable cannon fodder troopers'. Which would explain Cyclonus reaction then if they were drones.

[icon_uk]

Given their ability to replicate countless clones of themselves it could be argued that the three prime Insecticons were mostly drones.

[spacebetween]

The original three Insecticons (Kickback, Shrapnel and Bombshell) were normal Transformers. In "Plague of Insecticons" the clones acted liked the originals so I don't think that they were drones.

The Insecticons in Armada were drones

[icon_uk]

Not drones perhaps, but copies which could be destroyed with no harm to the original.

Once you retcon in the uniqueness of "Sparks" as a concept the difference is clearer I think.

And there does seem to be a long history of Decepticons having generals in charge of multiple versions of themselves; Starscream and co were supposed to be the leaders of a larger flight, Scourge and the Sweeps, Cyclonus and his duplicates, then we have Tankor, Thrust, Jetstorm, Obsidian and Strika

etc