Xanatos Gambits: not for amateurs.

[thanekos.insanejournal.com]

illustrating this lesson today is the Decepticon Ramjet, in IDW continuity.



Ramjet first showed up in IDW in the New Avengers/Transformers crossover, as someone not to be trusted who cut and ran when things were going bad.

over in non-crossover continuity, though, he's pretty much just on Earth, spinning his plans (and not having learning one damned thing from what Starscream tried to pull, it seems) and trying to swing Skywarp to his side (because, hey, you can always use a teleporter):





how right you are, teleporting jackass. how right you are.

still, it intrigues him enough that he'll give ramjet twenty-four hours: if his supposedly great, in-motion plans bear some appreciable fruit, then they'll talk.

and so we see ramjet in action, dealing with his pawns:



making his moves:



and finally revealing his beautiful beautiful plan in full:



wow.

a plan that relies on the certainty of technological/scientific breakthroughs, everyone else up and willing to fall in line with you, inferior equipment performing as needed, and leaps in logic.

I can't see how this wouldn't fail at all!

luckily for the universe, though, Megatron gets around to tracking Ramjet down, and, well.....



(little bot's one of Ramjet's Constructicon drones, who were building his toys. He skragged two of them in a " Your usefulness has ended " way, and still expected to be able to have some tech he needed on hand when the time came. Yeah.)



and that's why, sometimes, straightforward planning is the best.

Comments

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

I loved this story so much, but that's just because Ramjet's one of my favorites. Gotta love a guy who's main battle strategy is to crash into things...especially when sees a knight on a horseback and decides to headbutt him.

He's also responsible for the wonderful Megatron quote
"I've got morons on my team!"

It's a rather different take on him that he's actually ambitious and planning to overthrow megatron in this, but the fact that his plan is so ridiculous makes up for it. It's too bad you couldn't have shown more of Ramjet's awful plan and how badly it turned out. This story illustrates one thing....everything...EVERYTHING falls to crap around Ramjet.

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

Ack, I meant to post a link to the wonderful "Ramjet headbutts a knight" .gif

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/6/6e/Ramjetinpast.gif


Later he participates in a jousting match!....and somehow loses....

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

Fucking win.

That said, I rather like the colorist's work in these IDW comics.

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

Ramjet actually first showed up in the Marvel comics, as a lacky of Straxus, the Decepticon leader on Cybertron.

He never really did anything, though, other than provide a body in the back of various scenes. He's actually the conehead I have the most trouble remembering, after Dirge and Thrust.

I've not really been a big fan of IDW's new continuity, bringing various characters, who were barely featured in the original G1 stories, to the fore.

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

I find that a little strange, as one of the most influential things about the original G1 comics was that it took characters that were extremely obscure and gave them rather large and memorable roles.

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

Well, the characters weren't characters, for me, until they appeared in the G1 comics.

I never really watched the cartoon, so it never felt odd to have Blaster and Goldbug given several big story lines, or to have Springer, Broadside and Sandstorm be part of an elite Autobot unit. And Simon Furman's writing of the other Dinobots, Swoop in particular, are some of my finest memories of reading comics as a kid.

It is, however, odd for me to see the likes of Ramjet and Sixshot given such prominence in IDW continuity. I guess it just comes down to what you're familiar with.

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

Well, none of the characters you mentioned are particularly obscure. They were all in the cartoon and a few of them are major characters.

You got the wrong impression. Ramjet isn't prominent at all in IDW. He only appears twice and never in the main story. He's always been an unimportant character in any continuity. Just a henchman. He's well known because he's one of the Seekers and Dirge and Thrust are never quite complete without him. Still a favorite character of mine though.

Sixshot is well known because he's freaking Sixshot. That toy is awesome. He only ever did anything in the Japanese cartoon.


But I'm just being nitpicky. I mean. The guy who's responsible for a majority of the G1 comics you're talking about is also the one responsible for the majority of the IDW comics (not anymore though *sigh*). He likes having obscure characters do things as much as he likes important ones doing things.

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

Well, I guess I can't really disagree with your point that Furman likes to use obscure characters.

One of my favourites from later in the Marvel run was Carnivac, the Decepticon who sided with the Autobots after joining forces with the Wreckers during Time Wars, and then meeting up again with the survivors. There was a great little run in the UK back & white stories. He was pretty obscure.

The only other appearance I know of was when he and Snarler were sent after Spike Witwicky whilst he was on a skiing holiday.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

"The guy who's responsible for a majority of the G1 comics you're talking about is also the one responsible for the majority of the IDW comics (not anymore though *sigh*)."

What happened?

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

They decided to do a "soft reboot" of the main storyline and start the All Hail Megatron series. Unfortunately that reboot forced Simon Furman to take the loose ends of his story (the first time the legendary Transformers author was allowed to build his own mythos instead of working on an ongoing story) and basically shove it all into the last few issues with some quick fixes. It was a real shame, since I absolutely loved the series and he was building up some really epic storylines. Alas.

All Hail Megatron was supposed to follow the continuity of Furman's series as well but it was obvious they weren't even trying.

He still writes quite a ton for IDW (the day Simon Furman stops writing Transformers will be a sad one indeed), he's just not responsible for the main storyline anymore.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Megatron looks quite pleased with himself in that last scan (Yay, I hurt somebody and now people are talking about me! Glee!')

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

It's the pleasure you feel when someone who's been calling you a moron makes a stupid mistake. And then you kill them. :)

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Must be a common feeling for ol' Megs.

[nagaoka.insanejournal.com]

I also forgot to mention something.


Ramjet likes toast.