Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye Ongoing #15 Creator Commentary with James Roberts
Thursday, March 21st, 2013 12:10AM CDT
Category: Comic Book NewsPosted by: El Duque Views: 25,968
Topic Options: View Discussion · Sign in or Join to reply
PAGE 1: After being sealed inside the cell by Overlord, Chromedome quickly gets out, knowing of the chaos that’s about to ensue. Recently you’ve been testing the Chromedome/Rewind relationship. Has everything been leading to this?
JAMES ROBERTS: In several respects, yes. If I may resort to some old-school comics hype, issue #15 is a no-holds-barred, pull-no-punches finale that will change everything! It marks conclusively the end of a certain era of MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, and it does so with drama, action and death. Overlord leaves his mark.
Incidentally, the first 14 issues of MTMTE—and the annual—have set up three very significant overarching plots (well, technically four, but we’re keeping the last one below the radar for the time being), and one of them was the Overlord plot; and yes, issue #15 definitely wraps that one up.
Overlord’s had a presence in the series since way back in issue #1, when Prowl referred to him as “the cargo” in a secret conversation with two of his agents aboard the Lost Light, the Duobots Shock and Ore. The fact that Ore tried to plant a tracer on the Lost Light’s quantum engines (so that Prowl could keep tabs on the whereabouts of Overlord) led to the ship nearly blowing up, which in turn released a hidden sparkeater. It was while sealing off the sparkeater’s “den” that Red Alert first heard noises from Overlord’s secret cell. He told Rung about the noises in issue #5, then drilled a hole through the roof of the cell in issue #6 (in a story which was all about Overlord thanks to Fortress Maximus and his post-traumatic stress). Red Alert shared his secret with a comatose Rung in issue #7, only for all evidence of the conversation to be stolen by Drift (as it turned out) in the same issue. In issue #13, Rung shared his concerns with Rodimus, and in issue #14 we learned about Overlord’s origins. So yeah, we’ve threaded the idea of Overlord being on board throughout much of the series so far. In that respect, everything comes to a very definite climax in issue #15.
As for Chromedome and Rewind, or more specifically Chromedome, I consciously made issues #12 to #15 a sort of Chromedome arc (there are a lot of “Chromedome”s in that sentence). Nearly every character in MTMTE has had an issue or two devoted to them.
PAGES 2 and 3: The entire Lost Light crew engages Overlord. Utter chaos and carnage ensues. How do you get to grips with a seemingly unstoppable character like Overlord? Was any of this an afterthought from LAST STAND OF THE WRECKERS?
JAMES ROBERTS: Overlord is one of the most powerful Decepticons, yes, but key to his character is that he’s not a mindless thug or someone with a ten-million-year plan or someone who wants to usurp Megatron. He wants to BEAT Megatron, yes, but he harbors no dreams of ruling the Decepticons. He’s his own ’bot and has been every since going AWOL after Megatron tried to use him as a portable apocalypse. Given that he’s not on the Decepticons’ payroll, so to speak, he’s not going to fight Autobots just because they’re Autobots. In this case, he’s attacking the crew of the Lost Light because (as far as he’s concerned) they’ve tried to contain him. And don’t get me wrong: he’s not above some rage-fuelled revenge. And sometimes—often— he likes destroying people for the fun of it.
Was any of this an afterthought from WRECKERS? Well, the story ended with Overlord alive and captured, and between WRECKERS and MTMTE nothing had been seen of heard of him, and I thought the crew of the Lost Light needed a big name villain to fight, even if everything’s post-war now. I had for some time—since before MTMTE—wondered why “Phase Sixers” like Overlord and Six Shot were so much more powerful than everyone else, so as much as anything else the Overlord arc in MTMTE was my attempt at explaining that. We’ll be returning to the subject—and answering some more questions—in upcoming issues.
PAGE 4: Whirl blows things up (he does that a lot) and Pipes wants to send a message to Cybertron. Was Pipes a character you’d always wanted to explore more and give depth too, since all we really had was the Sunbow cartoon and the original comics series?
JAMES ROBERTS: It’s always fun to give Whirl some page-time, yeah, and I got a chance to make a joke about depth perception, but I wanted to use this scene to remind people that the Lost Light is still unable to make contact with Cybertron. Blaster thought he’d cracked it in issue #13’s main story, but the prose story in the same issue established that he’d failed. Pipes’ conversation with him in the latest issues reinforces that for those who skipped the prose story (shame on you).
As for Pipes… he was another one of those G1 also-rans that was overlooked both as a toy and a character. I think he was in a Season 3 episode of the original TV show, and he cropped up in only one UK story, so yes, not much had been done with him. I find it hard to resist characters like that.
But you know what? He made it into MTMTE only because I knew that in issue #6 I needed Fortress Maximus to shoot a load of Autobots who, because of their color schemes, reminded him of Overlord, and he fitted the bill. Then I decided he’d be a good foil to Ratchet and Drift in the Delphi two-parter (issues #4 and #5). After that, his positive outlook on life and general eagerness made him a good fit with other diminutive ‘bots like Rewind, Tailgate and Swerve.
PAGE 5: Pipes accidently runs into Overlord and gets stamped, and stamped and stamped! Poor Pipes. Having brought the character into the series, why’d he have to be the one who gets squished like this? He’s been through a few traumatic events during his life aboard the Lost Light.
JAMES ROBERTS: He dies to show that this is serious. And ironically, the fact that he’d already survived so many near-death experiences pretty much sealed his fate. And you know what? He’s not the only one who doesn’t last the issue…
News Search
Got Transformers News? Let us know here!
Most Popular Transformers News
Most Recent Transformers News
Posted by sabrigami on March 21st, 2013 @ 8:34am CDT
Posted by ebonyleopard on March 21st, 2013 @ 7:06pm CDT
Posted by ebonyleopard on March 21st, 2013 @ 7:09pm CDT
The Collecter wrote:Nemesis Maximo wrote:Swerve pushed the button. Epic fourth-wall breaking foreshadowing? I think so.
Sorry to disapoint, but the fourth wall breaking already happened when Swerve said, "I did it off-panel"
Swerve has become the Transformers equivalent to Deadpool.
Posted by Va'al on March 22nd, 2013 @ 7:20am CDT
Posted by sabrigami on March 22nd, 2013 @ 8:23am CDT
Posted by NemesisMonkeySupreme on March 22nd, 2013 @ 8:35am CDT
Blaster thought he’d cracked it in issue #13’s main story, but the prose story in the same issue established that he’d failed. Pipes’ conversation with him in the latest issues reinforces that for those who skipped the prose story (shame on you).
Um, am I missing something? Apparently so because my digital #13 has no prose story (presumably at the end).
Posted by sabrigami on March 22nd, 2013 @ 8:46am CDT
NemesisMonkeySupreme wrote:
Um, am I missing something? Apparently so because my digital #13 has no prose story (presumably at the end).
Did you buy it from comixology? when it was initially released they forgot to include the prose story. I think by the next day they fixed it though because when I went to read it again it was there. It was updated automatically. If you didn't go through them I suggest contacting the customer support. It's a neat story.
Posted by NemesisMonkeySupreme on March 22nd, 2013 @ 10:02am CDT
Posted by Va'al on March 22nd, 2013 @ 10:09am CDT
Ebonyleopard wrote:The Collecter wrote:Nemesis Maximo wrote:Swerve pushed the button. Epic fourth-wall breaking foreshadowing? I think so.
Sorry to disapoint, but the fourth wall breaking already happened when Swerve said, "I did it off-panel"
Swerve has become the Transformers equivalent to Deadpool.
Roberts has said that this will be the only issue in which Swerve's metahumour will feature, though. I'm kind of glad about that, to be honest.
https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/314884273230467074
Posted by Blurrz on March 22nd, 2013 @ 5:01pm CDT
Posted by sabrigami on March 22nd, 2013 @ 5:03pm CDT
Blurrz wrote:Ahhhhhhhhhhh RID #15
Is that a good fanboy explode or a bad fanboy explode? since it's RID I'm inclined to side with the latter
Posted by Blurrz on March 22nd, 2013 @ 5:06pm CDT
Posted by sabrigami on March 22nd, 2013 @ 5:10pm CDT
Blurrz wrote:Hahaha, RID is getting much better, have you caught up with all the issues?
Yeah. Dropping it though. Bought the last 2 issues because I thought they would have a bit of Prowl goodness. All the characters seem to be playing with the "stupid ball" imo. things just don't seem to have any idea of where they are going.
Posted by Blurrz on March 22nd, 2013 @ 5:14pm CDT
Posted by sabrigami on March 22nd, 2013 @ 5:17pm CDT
Blurrz wrote:You should keeping reading it, collectively the entire series builds up to what it is now! + Jazz is super cool in this issue..
Grr. I can't refuse your recommendations. Guess I'm on for this issue too. Better be good or you're going to get another fangirl explode
Posted by Super Megatron on April 14th, 2013 @ 11:41am CDT
Blurrz wrote:Super Megatron wrote:Overlord kicks so much ass that you can feel it in the pages of the X-Men.
That is so sig'd
(But it's the truth).
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 14th, 2013 @ 1:29pm CDT
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 14th, 2013 @ 1:30pm CDT
Posted by Va'al on April 14th, 2013 @ 2:03pm CDT
AltarofPlagues wrote:I know people were shocked that Magnus died etc..but they shouldnt have been. Issue 8 told you who was going to die when the necrobot went to tick off flywheels in the last panel. theres no spoiler if your reading this regular enough.
We're not sure he is dead, but it's likely to be the case.
And we're not even sure that is the/a necrobot or what the list means!
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 14th, 2013 @ 3:38pm CDT
Va'al wrote:AltarofPlagues wrote:I know people were shocked that Magnus died etc..but they shouldnt have been. Issue 8 told you who was going to die when the necrobot went to tick off flywheels in the last panel. theres no spoiler if your reading this regular enough.
We're not sure he is dead, but it's likely to be the case.
And we're not even sure that is the/a necrobot or what the list means!
Id say it was pretty cut and dry lol the list is Hound, Chromedome, Dipstick, Drift, Ultra magnus and flywheels.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Scavengers_(Part_2):_Who%27s_Afraid_of_the_DJD%3F
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 14th, 2013 @ 3:39pm CDT
Posted by Va'al on April 14th, 2013 @ 3:49pm CDT
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think there is still more development to come, that might prove or disprove out speculation so far!
Drift, Hound and Chromedome are still alive; plus the alleged necrobot looks like one of the scientists in the Institute. Coincidence? Maybe. But right now it's still all speculation!
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 14th, 2013 @ 3:58pm CDT
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 14th, 2013 @ 3:59pm CDT
Posted by Va'al on April 14th, 2013 @ 5:08pm CDT
AltarofPlagues wrote:http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/occams-razor.htm
Do you have evidence though? I'm curious!
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 15th, 2013 @ 3:57am CDT
Posted by Blurrz on April 15th, 2013 @ 4:11am CDT
<---------- Approved by this scholar with a minor in Psychology
Posted by Va'al on April 15th, 2013 @ 4:53am CDT
Blurrz wrote:^
<---------- Approved by this scholar with a minor in Psychology
I'm not entirely denying it, but again - what evidence do we have that it is a list of dead characters?
The preview for MTMTE 16 so far has shown Ultra Magnus in situation where he should not have survived.
Oh whatever, I think I'm just playing Devil's advocate anyway..
Posted by AltarofPlagues on April 15th, 2013 @ 5:05am CDT