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.
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”.
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 after spark 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 so 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!
Anonymous asked:
When will you be back?
I took a break, after piecemealing posts for a year. It wasn't that I wasn't enjoying doing this, just that I wasn't enjoying it ENOUGH. My litmus for doing these is roughly that if I'm not actively smiling thinking about these comics, it's borderline impossible to keep up with, especially when the next issue was #50, an absolute monster of 40 pages, AND I had to get a new art program, as Adobe had finally taken away my pirated copy of Photoshop.
So I did some other stuff. Listened to some podcasts. Came out to some friends. Had my roommate move out. Bought a couch. Quit my godawful retail job, got a couple museum positions that are significantly more fulfilling. Started the Skybound comics (pretty good in terms of action, ready to see where DWJ is gonna take the thing with Optimus losing parts of himself to the war, both literally and figuratively). Wrote some stuff for myself. Did some IRL work for Palestine.
Now that I've actually taken a rest, my appreciation for the series has renewed, and I'm ready to come back and finish what I've started. I've always wanted to reach the end, if only so I can say that I did. At this point, it's overdue.
I've got the drive, I've got the time, I've got fun ideas for shit to draw, and I'm ready to be back!
Thanks for sticking around! You'll see me soon.
Hey uh, the Underbase webste is back up. I think Martin McVay or some other TMUK person did it.
Holy FUCK you're right. Merry fucking Christmas to me.
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.
thanksjro reblogged
Anonymous asked:
that was a great explanation of the Brainstorm being dead nonsense, but I’m pretty sure he was supposed to be dead from the beginning. it was hinted at in issue 2 (the bit where the sparkeater completely ignores him in the elevator and there’s a closeup on him with a narration box saying “he’s already dead”)
See, I’d always read the scene with the sparkeater as more alluding to the fact that Rung is a very special man indeed, since sparkeaters always go for the brightest sparks they can find first, and it would make sense that Robot God has a brighter spark than a common jet MTO.
Prior to that, I thought it was simply foreshadowing the fact Brainstorm’s briefcase had attention deflectors built into it, and when he held it up to shield himself, the sparkeater lost track of him for long enough to move on.
It just seems to me that Brainstorm being dead, and far more importantly having been planned that way from the start, doesn’t really gel with his time-travel plan, since his time case is dependent on certain sparktypes, and I’d imagine it’s a little difficult for a device to read your spark if you’re dead.
If it was intentional from the very start, I’d be curious to know when and where it would have been addressed.
Returning to this, I found this snippet in The MTMTE Notebooks Vol. 1
So it looks like you were right!
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.
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.
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!
thanksjro reblogged
James Roberts is taking Pre-orders now for his MTMTE notebooks!
JRO: "These unofficial but professionally-designed and -printed, perfect-bound A5 soft backs contain transcripts of my handwritten ‘ideas bible’ that formed the basis of MTMTE and LL.
"You’ll also find my Season 1 pitch, my note to IDW on TF creation methods, the original character/crew breakdown, and more. Basically, lots of behind-the-scenes process stuff"
Prices:
UK - £38
Europe - £42
Rest of World - £47
Send your order to mtmte.books@gmail.com with your name, address, and how many sets you want. He says he will then provide payment details. He also mentions that he won't fulfill orders until the books are in.
For more information please check it out HERE or see the screenshots below the readmore
Hey! I remember a while back you covered some of JRo's non-Eugenesis TMUK work. I recently found (90% of, anyway, I have 26/30 pages) a strip he wrote for "The Continued Generation 2", Kingdom of the Blind. I dunno if you're still doing his unofficial work- but if you are, do you want it? I double checked and I don't think you had that one on here? If not, just ignore me, but if you do let me know! Love the blog, btw :)
Hi yes, I would LOVE to see it! Thank you so much for thinking of me, and I'm glad you enjoy this fun little thing I'm doing.
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 💛
Anonymous asked:
First of all, I just binged your MTMTE reading so thank you for that!! However, I have one question as a bit of a transformers newbie. You mention Ravage as Soundwave's dad a couple of times. Is this just a joke or is there some canon background to this?
It's sort of both, honestly.
While parents obviously aren't actually a thing in IDW1, Soundwave was taken care of by Ravage and a couple of the other Cassettes.
Early on in his existence, Soundwave's powers of mind-reading were very strong and completely out of control, to the point where he couldn't function and was living on the streets. He was found by Ravage, Laserbeak, and Buzzsaw, who took care of him and eventually helped to get him in a place where his powers could actually be used, as opposed to just hurting him. Ravage specifically gave him coping mechanisms with which to focus.
So yeah. Ravage #1 father figure.
Sorry if this is posted somewhere and I'm just not seeing it, but do you happen to have a reading order for the whole MTMTE shebang?
I'll be real, I more or less pulled my list from here:
zandergb.tumblr.com/idw-g1-tf-guide---idw1
(yes, I did have to write that out by hand, Tumblr's new link option is stupid and refused to give me the specific post.)
Here's an image that I have just on-hand, if you don't want to read through all that. I unfortunately don't recall where exactly I found this.
And screenshots of my personal list, complete with notes. This list is out of order, and includes non-IDW Transformers things.
TFWiki also has a timeline available, which is good for knowing when events happen in-universe.
Hope these help!
More Than Meets the Eye #45 — The Scavengers Have a Nasty Gap in Their Employment History and Will Have to Settle for Entry Level Positions
Guys, this isn’t friggin’ Playbot magazine. Stop trying to look suave on the issue where you all treat each other like shit and Grimlock pisses himself.
Anyway, it’s Scavengers Time.
Oh, and don’t worry about that crotch— it’s friendly, I swear.
A very big thank you to my commissioner, who requested 2 pieces, one with Luna 1 looming in the foreground, to go with their original commission of the Lost Light exploring the vastness of space!
(These images are screenshot from the original file, meaning that they are of a lower quality. Full high-quality images are for commissioners only. Detail shots are for better visibility.)