"Days of Deception" begins with peace and happiness. No conflict, no sadness, no angst.
On a quest to find the Knights of Cybertron, the starship Lost Light has been through the wringer. After coming into contact with a quantum-duplicate of itself, a "new" Rewind joins, and the crew finds a traitor among their group.
This storyline marked an end of sorts; a lot of the longstanding mysteries from the early days of the series: the sparkeater, the origin of quantum engines, Rung playing with a Lost Light model four million years before the Autobots acquired the vessels and probably a few more I missed. This was anothe exemplary time travel tale that brought to full circle these lingering mysteries.
This is a welcome return to the heights of storytelling; it has been flirting with silliness in some odd few issues. Returning to pre-war Cybertron always brings out the best of this book. The consequences of this story would probably curtail future time travel tales, but it could always have a flashback issue or two.
When I reviewed early volumes of More than Meets the Eye, I said it was like all your childhood friends getting on a spaceship and going off to have adventures. But it’s actually quite a lot better than that, because the imaginary adventures I had with my childhood friends seldom made much sense or had any sort of narrative cohesion. Another analogy I’ve used for this series is that it’s like the best of Transformers meets the best of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That’s a bit of a better analogy, as it gets at what makes both of these series tick: a great crew exploring some amazing science fiction scenarios. But it’s not a perfect analogy either, as The Next Generation had no extended narrative arch. There was nothing in later seasons or episodes that suddenly made earlier clues fall into place, which is one of the most satisfying (and challenging) aspects of the type of story-telling that television has been doing since Babylon 5 and comics have been doing forever. MTMTE knows this game, revels in it, and plays it to the hilt.
Volume 7 has everything you’ve come to know and love about MTMTE, now with extra time travel. We pick up with a few second-string characters in a stand-alone at the volume’s beginning that effectively reminds us (as if we needed a reminder in the wake of what has come before) to fear and dread-- to keep checking under our beds for-- the Decepticon Justice Division and dangles some clues about the past of Megatron’s ever-deepening character. Then we launch into a time-travel arch that lets Roberts give us more Cybertronian history without feeling as much of a tangent as some initial forays like this did earlier in the series. It’s clear Roberts want to firmly tie events in this series into Cybertron’s past. The result is character development that takes place in both directions, which is no mean feat if you think about it. (Megatron is a prime example of this. Pun only 65% intended.)
Milne continues to draw the contours of my imagination. His work is at once exceedingly detailed and exceedingly crisp. His backgrounds never seem secondary, which is remarkable when you consider that every vista or wide-angle in this series is a mechanical landscape. There’s no room for organic laziness. Everything has to show signs of exactness and engineering. This is a universe of clean lines and details-- even in the midst of chaos and battle. There’s no way around it: Milne’s work is perfect for the series.
And Roberts’ writing continues to impress. He strikes an ideal balance in this volume of appearing to wrap things up (or at least give a satisfying measure of narrative closure) while creating new plot points to follow up later. Indeed, it was only on a second reading (and you know a comic has narrative heft if you need to read it at least twice to catch everything) that I realized how many new nooks and crannies to the story had been presented. Leaving aside the time loop and splinter universe, some of these included things like the identity, fate, and machinations of Terminus, Megatron’s early mentor; the disappearance of Roller; and just who exactly was experimenting on sparks in Cybertron’s past. My single complaint in this installment was Brainstorm’s explanation of his motivations. For all the talk of him being a genius, I wanted more. Apparently he’s the tinkering-with-devices kind of genius, not the nefarious schemes genius.
Kind of a crazy story. The art is busy and cluttered such that it is hard to make things out at times. And while I get why the author is trying to make Megatron a deep character by making him a good guy, for me it doesn't work. The reason is because it comes at Optimus Prime's expense. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings", remember? That's Optimus. But if Megatron is fighting for the exact same thing, then what is the point of Optimus Prime? He becomes a meaningless character.
So I don't like Megatron as a misguided good guy. It stinks. Also, in this story it's like they throw everything but the kitchen sink in and hope something sticks. Class warfare, privacy concerns, totalitarian government, religion... None of this smorgasbord really comes together in a meaningful way, except to make Megatron look good and make Optimus look like a tool. I didn't care for it.
Me tardé más en leer este "volumen" (porque yo nomas los tengo sueltos y me baso en la descripción de qué entregas comprende); no me pareció tan interesante como los anteriores porque no hay tanta exploración de la relación entre los personajes. Más disuelto que las entregas anteriores, como si este arco no fuera autoconclusivo y quizá más adelante las ideas que se introdujeron de totalitarismo tengan más peso además de dar a entender el contexto que llevó a megatron a empezar a escribir su tratado y la revolución. A mucha gente le caga que se volviera "buena persona" pero para mí que ni siquiera lo es -PUEDE que sea porque yo no creo en dicotomías de bueno y malo-, y también creo que me falta leer volúmenes anteriores a MTMTE para saber cómo megatron cambió de rumbo y si sí está justificado, pero a mí él see hace BIEN TIERNO, no lo voy a negar. Que una persona se dé cuenta de sus errores y decida cambiar aunque le cueste mucho mientras que sigue mostrando rasgos de su antigua forma de vida me encantan... y también que la mayoría de personajes no lo soporten lol
More Than Meets the Eye tackles time travel. Things start off strong, with the sad and unexpected fate of a character I rather liked and a chilling alternate Cybertron... but despite some interesting sequences in Cybertron's past, something's off about the whole thing in the end. Also, while they're certainly trying to do something worthwhile with Megatron, it feels like they haven't thought it out as thoroughly as they should have. Complaints aside, this is still an interesting volume. (B+)
[About time travel the Lost Light chosen crew are about to take up and parallel universes] Perceptor: - I'm sorry, Rodimus, but "parallel universes" were dismissed years ago as a false construct. They don't exist. Sadly, the concept encourages second-rate scientists to avoid the more complicated implications of time travel.
Well written dialogue, layered characters, almost like real humans...hang on, they're form changing mechanoids from a metal planet. Neatly done as a commentary, almost a satire of our own Western society and it's arbitrary "rules" and classism. However, these are Transformers and I just can't get into this particular series. It's not bad, I'm just an old Dinobot.
I am actually not sure how I feel about that one. Largely because I don't buy that the removal of Megatron from the timeline would have stopped a civil war. So I don't see Brainstorm seeing the situation as that simple either.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
If would have gotten a five star review, as this story is top notch. But, It would be hard to say this story doesn't feel rather tacked on to the story as a whole. A sub plot.
Took a break from the series because I could feel myself getting tired of it. Way into it now that I'm back in. This is likely my favourite volume yet.
The story just digs deeper and deeper into a hole full of things we could never have expected. This continues to be one of my favorite series not only in Transformers, but in comic books in general.
I am not sure that I have ever felt as satisfied with any narrative moment as I did when Brainstorm’s briefcase was open. This is what they mean when they say set up and pay off. Holy shit.
Poor Alex Milne. He draws many a beautiful future city-scape, gives consistent character detail and dimension to a large cast of multi-form machines and manages to imbue them with the human-like expressionism the writer requires. All anyone wants to talk about is James Roberts, placing into the toy bot narrative discussions on society and sexuality, conflict and religion, and in this volume, well, probably the most carefully advance-planned time travel stories in comics since Watchmen. Oh fricking yeah. This has been seeded delicately, gently, across most of the last thirty stories and in keeping, the culmination avoids some prime opportunities to grand-stand in favour of a thoroughly riveting piece of escapism confidently garbed in tuneful tones. MTMTE gives me the kick that I got from Transformers and superheroes comics when I was younger, with a spirit level smack of intelligence and depth that I imagine leaves most other mainstream comics far behind. Try it if you dare. (Disclaimer: This is not a satire. This MTMTE book really is near 5-star good.)
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Vol. 7 continues the quest of the Lost Light crew as they adventure round the galaxy on their noble questing! :D The book is full of action and humour as with the previous books in the series this time with some Time Travel thrown in which explains a lot of the series ongoing plot lines and at the same time explaining a lot of the anomalies that have not been explained earlier and even this is given a humorous! :D The Message they received back along warning of doom is given so straight faced that will have it stitches! :D
The art style is brilliant and sharp and really conveys the story brilliantly both in the past and the future with both periods being shown in great detail and enhancing the scrip that really expands on what we know about the characters and really makes this stand as a great example of Sci FI in general as well! :D
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Vol. 7 is a breakneck ride full of action and adventure and humour and dramatic scenes at every moment! :D Brilliant and highly recommended! :D
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
The astonishing loopiness of the new Transformers dives into time travel, aptly titled 'Elegant Chaos'. This series continues to do what it does best - give us real characters in the Transformers universe, packed with jokes (Ofsted as the name of a lecture world?) and lovely artwork. There is every reason to keep reading this.
Seven volumes in and I'm still in awe of how effortlessly Roberts makes this ship full of robots feel like people, albeit complete buffoons and nutjobs, but still people. MTMTE continues to be one of my favorite ongoing titles and the best Transformers comic I have ever read.
As much as I enjoy this series, think that it is good, and plan to continue reading it, I don't know if I will ever be able to rate it higher than a 3, or recommend it to anyone else because I still can't recognize these robots half the time that they show up on the page.
This was outrageously good, if you love time travel shenanigans, this hits all the right spots. Good tangled adventure with many sweet and bittersweet moments