Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye #16: "The Gloaming"

[arbre_rieur]

To complement terrykun's post, here are three and 1/3 more pages from the issue.

The crew of the Lost Light tries to cope with the recent death and destruction brought into their midst.

In the wake of last issue, Ultra Magnus lies dying and Rewind is dead. The various members of the cast do their best to come to grips.





Brainstorm has a talk with Chromedome about Rewind's death:





That 'slikt' would be the tell-tale sound effect of Chromedome unsheathing his fingers' mnemo-surgery needles, which he does in preparation for re-writing someone's memories. In this case, his own. Uh-oh.

Elsewhere, Drift has confessed to being the one who smuggled Overlord aboard, thereby making the latter's deadly rampage through the ship possible in the first place. Everyone is most displeased.



Now head on over to terrykun's post to see the conclusion, including whether Chromedome goes through with giving himself the Eternal Sunshine treatment...

Comments

Ultra Magnus

[sir_razorback]

Off the Chromedome-topic, we have a couple interesting things going on here. Ultra Magnus is missing from his surgery bed, and it's hinted at that he got up himself, without anyone being the wiser. With 10 days left on his spark-clock.

He's also featured on the next month's cover art in battle, there's some kind of big arc about to kick off. It looks like he's only 'Mostly Dead'.

Re: Ultra Magnus

[the_phantom]

Not only that but Tailgate has 3 days left on his spark-clock!!!

Re: Ultra Magnus

[kamino_neko]

I'm more impressed by the earlier survivals we saw. Dude's survived some pretty significant asskickings...

I'm half wondering if he's got an indestructable spark.

Re: Ultra Magnus

[q99]

Ultra Magnus is a tank among bots. More-so than the actual tanks!

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

That Brainstorm scene felt like a gut punch reading it, that Chromedome might do that to himself. And so very sad, because he'd done it so many times before.

[sir_razorback]

This time he was somewhat responsible for what happened though, so that makes his choice in the end NOT to go through with it that much harder.

[kamino_neko]

We don't know, of course, that Scattergun, Mach, and Pivot's deaths didn't happen because of one of Chromedome's mistakes, or require him to mercy-kill them, or both.

[bizarrohulk]

I have to ask - is this the only Transformers continuity that portrays Ultra Magnus as such a ... well, dick, for want of a better word? In most continuities he's basically the giant robot equivalent of Captain America.

[caeliluminar]

Ultra Magnus? Do you mean Rodimus? Because you're the first one I've ever heard calling MTMTE UM a dick, when most think he's one of the most humane characters in the series.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Well, he is kinda anal. Dipstick's misspellings got him thrown in the Brig by Magnus, after all.

[the_phantom]

"Dick"?... what the hell are you talking about?

[kamino_neko]

Prime Magnus is pretty much the same as Magnus here - only more of a jerk than a perfectionist.

[bj_l]

Magnus isn't a dick in this series. He's passionately inflexible. He's just been worn down over the millenia by constant battles, into this by-the-book, can't smile rule guy.

[biod]

I wouldn't say he's a dick here, but IIRC he's a real a-hole in the Robots in Disguise cartoon.

[kamino_neko]

I noticed something.

We don't see Rewind's body at the funeral. (Despite the fake out with Tripodica.)

When we see Overlord floating in space, there's no sign of him.

One of the last things we see is Drift leaving the ship. With the message Rewind left playing over him.

Pipes may have been the only named (before death) 'Bot to actually buy it.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I doubt it. They wouldn't have gone back for Rewind's body because 1) That would mean getting close to Overlord and 2) the explosion clearly injured Overlord, meaning Rewind (who is far less sturdy) would likely have been turned into free floating particles.

[terrykun]

I'm at my posting limit for this issue, but there's a panel that shows the wreckage of the jettisoned cell, including a severely injured Overlord and... smaller pieces, including Rewind's head-mounted camera. :(

[kamino_neko]

I've looked at that panel repeatedly - mostly immediately after reading the funeral, trying to find Rewind - there is no identifiable debris, other than Overlord himself - and Rewind's camera is too small to BE identifiable debris on the scale of that picture. Rewind barely comes up to Chromedome's waist. Chromedome is about even to Overlord's chest. Rewind's camera is about the size of his own finger. The camera would be about the size of one of Overlord's optics, thus on this kind of scale, not identifiable.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Rewind (and Overlord) got hit with three torpedoes. There wouldn't be anything left of Rewind but bits

[kamino_neko]

There wouldn't be anything left of Rewind but bits

And there are no bits.

1) If Rewind was blown to such small smithereens that his head, or his shoulder armour, or one of his arms wouldn't be identifiable, Overlord would have had more than his right arm stripped down to the indestructible core. He may be small, but he IS made of the same stuff as every other Cybertronian.

2) This is a comic book. They had at least 2 - scenes where they could have shown his body - the shot of Overlord, the funeral (where they did the fake-out of describing this Tripodeca fellow in a way that suggested it was Rewind) - and in neither case did they. The chances of this not being deliberate - especially in light of the Tripodeca gag - is very low, and if deliberate, the chances of it not being significant are damn near nil, since they haven't shied away from showing corpses, or the mangled bodies of the injured before.

[dragontail]

The scary thing? In the panel of Overlord floating in the void, his left hand is balled into a fist... which is partially obscured by passing debris. Which means we can't tell whether it's a fist or Overlord gripping something.

Scary thing #2? Overlord's Godmaster partners (in the Japanese cartoon which was, until IDW, his only in-fiction appearance) share Rewind's colour scheme. And you know James Roberts is enough of a TF historian to realise that.

I've a bad Patty Hearst feeling... :(

[kamino_neko]

Hmm. I could see it. (Though Mega and Giga's decos don't actually match Rewind's that well. They both have light blue bodies and heads, as opposed to Rewind's black body and white head. The SIZE is right, though.)

[dragontail]

D'oh! Yes, you're totally right about the decos (shows what happens when you post by memory, rather than checking your theories first... arrgh).

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Except that we do see bits. We see Rewind's camera floating in the debris.

And while Rewind is made of the same material as other cybertronians, they have expressly stated time and time again that not all Transformers are created equal. An explosion that didn't even directly hit Rewind would have killed him if Whirl hadn't given him a spark-jump, while the Cyclonus was able to take the bomb blast head on and still walk away later.

Rewind's gone. Anything that could hurt Overlord would leave Rewind as scrap.

[kamino_neko]

We do not, and can not, see Rewind's camera in the debris. Rewind's camera is TINY. It would be a couple mm long, and barely thicker than the ink lines on Overlord.

An explosion that didn't even directly hit Rewind would have killed him if Whirl hadn't given him a spark-jump

This though is a valid argument.

Of course, it's not a strong one in the face of the fact that they repeatedly refused to actually show the corpse, or even an identifiable bit of it, even teasing about it.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Heh, that's not just a river in Egypt you're swimming in there. Judging size in a comic book is kinda hard without the exact perspective.

If an explosion was powerful enough to hurt Overlord, all that would have been left of Rewind was his camera.

[sindra]

Okay, sooo.....

Why did Drift smuggle goddamn OVERLORD onto the Lost Light? (and, honestly...how?!)

[kamino_neko]

Because he, Prowl, Brainstorm, Chromedome, and the Duobots were part of a conspiracy to try to figure out how the Warriors Elite/Phase Sixers were created, so they can make their own. Drift confessed, but kept everybody else's name out of it, so they didn't get in trouble (well...Brainstorm and Chromedome, anyway - the Duobots are already dead, and Prowl's out of Rodimus's reach).

Chromedome was basically blackmailed into it by Prowl.

As to how...a lot of misdirection and sneakiness.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Actually, Chromedome wasn't blackmailed into it, he joined willingly.

Prowl was totally gonna blackmail him, mind, but Chromedome put a stop to that and removed the information/idea from Prowl's mind.

Later, when Rewind was seriously hurt, Drift convinced Chromedome to look into Overlord's mind like Prowl wanted.

...and holy shit, that's some dramatic irony there, I just realized. Chromedome agreeing to do it because Rewind was hurt, and in the end directly causes his death.

This series is like a non stinky onion...

[victory_or_death]

Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Cakes also have layers! Everyone likes cake. And speaking of things everyone likes, Parfaits!

[terrykun]

Parfaits! Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "Hell no, I don't like no parfait"? Parfaits are delicious!

[sindra]

It figures that Prowl was the dick that got that started......

[bj_l]

I really want to take this series back through time, because this is how Transformers should be and it really deserves the attention and sales it would have gotten in the 80's/90's.

[kd_the_movie]

Damn it, Drift

I thought you were cool :(

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

In his defense, Drift was acting under Prowl's orders and working towards a a very valid goal.

The problem came in that Chromedome was careless, and Drift was naive enough to think that a Phase Sixer (one of which killed an entire battalion worth of autobots) could be be contained by roster of the Lost Light (numbering around 200)

[biod]

The New Transformers: So God Damn Good it puts other comics to shame, much more other Transformers series.