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Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye #8
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 8
The Decepticon Justice Division discovers that Megatron has joined the Autobots as the crew of the Lost Light start to think that the universe holds no more surprises for them. Of course, they are wrong! Collects issues #39–44.
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 3, 2015
7 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
James Roberts
531 books129 followersJames Roberts is a British comic book writer best known for his contributions to the Transformers franchise.
Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 10, 2017
Overall, this was another strong volume of Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye; I had some issues with it but it mostly overcome by an excellent Ratchet-centric chapter. It is a trade in between two major story-lines so its a hodgepodge of single issues and two-parters to serve as a 'breather'. Still, it has its merits.
The Bad
1. The series is start to border on the silly. Really, "personality ticks"? MTMTE is a series that didn't take itself as seriously as Robots in Disguise, the lighter tone made it an easier read, but the silliness needs to be in check.
2. Not enough Decepticon Justice Division (D.J.D.). Tarn's crew had another chapter to themselves and its building up to a major arc pitting them against the Lost Light, but for this volume, the reader will have to satisfied with one chapter.
3. Combiner Wars throwing its weight and stripping the Lost Light of some of its crew; Ratchet, First Aid (who was finally chief medical officer, if only for a few issues) and others.
4. Brainstorm becoming sillier. The character may jut have been involved in the last arc in a big way, but now that he's chastened, he's lost his edge and fast becoming an afterthought. I used to love this character, he had a Doctor Nemesis vibe that the reader comes to expect from super-geniuses too good for ordinary folk. I even bought his toy. I guess I'll have that to remember the good old days when Brainstorm was cooler.
The Good
1. The aforementioned Ratchet story, where the longtime medic bade farewell to the crew and gave Ultra Magnus a friend is easily the best single issue Transformer story I've read in recent memory. It concludes Ratchet's story (for now) and tied up some loose ends from the earliest issues. It's great issue to reread. I'll probably get it as single for the ease of reading it again. This single story carried this trade collection for me and it's appropriately the cover.
2. More fembots. Nautica gets to resolve her differences with her Amica Endura.
The Ratchet issue (issue 40) was so good that it could carried this trade on its shoulder for 5-stars. Too bad, it has a few bad apples for eye-rolling moments. This is another great volume and I can't wait for the next one.
The Bad
1. The series is start to border on the silly. Really, "personality ticks"? MTMTE is a series that didn't take itself as seriously as Robots in Disguise, the lighter tone made it an easier read, but the silliness needs to be in check.
2. Not enough Decepticon Justice Division (D.J.D.). Tarn's crew had another chapter to themselves and its building up to a major arc pitting them against the Lost Light, but for this volume, the reader will have to satisfied with one chapter.
3. Combiner Wars throwing its weight and stripping the Lost Light of some of its crew; Ratchet, First Aid (who was finally chief medical officer, if only for a few issues) and others.
4. Brainstorm becoming sillier. The character may jut have been involved in the last arc in a big way, but now that he's chastened, he's lost his edge and fast becoming an afterthought. I used to love this character, he had a Doctor Nemesis vibe that the reader comes to expect from super-geniuses too good for ordinary folk. I even bought his toy. I guess I'll have that to remember the good old days when Brainstorm was cooler.
The Good
1. The aforementioned Ratchet story, where the longtime medic bade farewell to the crew and gave Ultra Magnus a friend is easily the best single issue Transformer story I've read in recent memory. It concludes Ratchet's story (for now) and tied up some loose ends from the earliest issues. It's great issue to reread. I'll probably get it as single for the ease of reading it again. This single story carried this trade collection for me and it's appropriately the cover.
2. More fembots. Nautica gets to resolve her differences with her Amica Endura.
The Ratchet issue (issue 40) was so good that it could carried this trade on its shoulder for 5-stars. Too bad, it has a few bad apples for eye-rolling moments. This is another great volume and I can't wait for the next one.
November 10, 2015
With great excellence comes great expectations. If you’ve followed my book reviews for long, you know that I’m a huge fan of the work of James Roberts and Alex Milne on the ongoing IDW Transformers: More than Meets the Eye series. The release of each trade paperback is a Pretty Big Deal in my world, a world that is usually more or less cut off from What’s Cool Right Now. (I still haven’t seen either Interstellar or The Martian, for example, and I have no idea how many superheroes are currently appearing on network television series.) I’ve had huge expectations for each of these installments, which have consistently been setting the bar higher and higher. Great art, fantastic story-telling, compelling science fiction, and giant transforming robots. What’s not to love?
I say all that to say that the expectations were ratcheted up (no pun intended regarding the cover) pretty high for Volume 8, and it was the first volume that disappointed. I usually read each volume twice before posting a review. With Roberts’ writing this is important, as the narrative flow can at times be very dense. This one though only merited a quick re-skim to see if my initial dissatisfaction was justified. I think it was.
So here’s my list of tongue-in-cheek suggestions as to why this volume for the very first time in the run of TF:MTMTE trades left a bad taste in my mouth. And I say tongue-in-cheek because I realize it’s easy to criticize. So while I stand by these complaints, I still say Roberts is doing great work and can keep doing whatever he wants. I’ll be reading Volume 9, no worries. These are also tongue-in-cheek because they’re also to some extent an acknowledgement of what Roberts is doing continually, which is turning some common expectations on their heads.
But anyway, here they are:
1. Don’t humanize the sociopaths. The Decepticon Justice Division since nearly the very beginning of the series have been the bogeymen, the horror, the real Bad Guys now that the Decepticons themselves are ambiguous. (I’m not sure who the Bad Guys are in the other IDW Transformer title.) They were the worst of the worst of what the Decepticon cause could become. So don’t humanize them now. Don’t pull their teeth. We’ve already had sociopaths getting humanized: Megatron. So please keep Tarn and company easy to hate. Don’t introduce us to the humor and social dynamics of their crew. Don’t confuse our loyalties. And please, please don’t give the DJD a Tailgate. We don’t need another cute sidekick to show us the softer side of our mechanical killing machines.
2. Don’t dial back the body count. This series immediately found its legs by introducing us to the second-stringers of the Transformers universe and not being afraid to kill them. We learned that the secondary characters were themselves heroes, and then we learned that heroes died. The early issues-- especially those with Overlord-- were gritty and felt real. Things have lightened up significantly in this volume, which is fine, but now we’ve got another wave of second-second-stringers to keep track of. We’ve got a second replacement medic. We’ve got a bunch of new faces. Fine, but remind us why this all matters. I’m with Rodimus on this one: please let Thunderclash die, for goodness’ sake. I guess I’m as twisted as the DJD: I want dead Autobots or the game just stops feeling real.
3. Don’t get sappy. I get it, and I appreciate it: we’re playing with romantic relationships among non-biologically gendered robots. That’s pretty cool, and it was pretty effective when it was Rewind and Chromedome. But I feel like this volume has a lot of drama, a lot of weird tensions, and a lot of goofy crushing. Please, please, please don’t give me an Autobot love triangle (unless Dominus Ambus turns about to be Tarn). And please don’t give me any more pictures of Rewind and Chromedome on a flowered backdrop with the words “my love” written anywhere, ever.
4. Don’t get cute. Besides the two-issue throwaway story arch about the charisma parasites (which I think was a low point for the series so far), this is my major complaint about this volume. It felt too cute. Ten is cute. He draws cute pictures and makes cute toys. Swerve is very meta and cute, creating an entire sitcom planet in which our heroes can cut cute figures and be cute and snarky. I’ve already complained about the DJD’s cute sidekick. Even Megatron’s cuteness in this volume, as he bickers with both Rodimus and Magnus, shows perhaps more than anything else his integration into the Lost Light crew. One or two issues of heavy cuteness I think I could have taken, but the whole volume was full of it. (A major theme of this volume was Autobot dance parties, for Cybertron’s sake.)
Again though, it’s quite likely that Roberts knows exactly what he’s doing. He probably has some of this series’ darkest developments up his sleeve, and he knows we need some time sit back and relax, project our holomatter avatars and just be silly for a while. Or perhaps he’ll explain away the whole thing in another few issues with a wonderfully detailed explanation involving metabombs, time loops, and quantum cuteness paradoxes. Maybe while all this was happening in our universe, another crew of the Lost Light completed their quest only to realize Cyberutopia was long ago consumed by the Chaos-Bringer, Overlord returned, and Pharma had an epic battle over a smelting pool with Ratchet (as opposed to our universe, where Ratchet gets a Drift action figure).
But to tell the truth (Primus help me), I would have rather read a comic about that universe.
I say all that to say that the expectations were ratcheted up (no pun intended regarding the cover) pretty high for Volume 8, and it was the first volume that disappointed. I usually read each volume twice before posting a review. With Roberts’ writing this is important, as the narrative flow can at times be very dense. This one though only merited a quick re-skim to see if my initial dissatisfaction was justified. I think it was.
So here’s my list of tongue-in-cheek suggestions as to why this volume for the very first time in the run of TF:MTMTE trades left a bad taste in my mouth. And I say tongue-in-cheek because I realize it’s easy to criticize. So while I stand by these complaints, I still say Roberts is doing great work and can keep doing whatever he wants. I’ll be reading Volume 9, no worries. These are also tongue-in-cheek because they’re also to some extent an acknowledgement of what Roberts is doing continually, which is turning some common expectations on their heads.
But anyway, here they are:
1. Don’t humanize the sociopaths. The Decepticon Justice Division since nearly the very beginning of the series have been the bogeymen, the horror, the real Bad Guys now that the Decepticons themselves are ambiguous. (I’m not sure who the Bad Guys are in the other IDW Transformer title.) They were the worst of the worst of what the Decepticon cause could become. So don’t humanize them now. Don’t pull their teeth. We’ve already had sociopaths getting humanized: Megatron. So please keep Tarn and company easy to hate. Don’t introduce us to the humor and social dynamics of their crew. Don’t confuse our loyalties. And please, please don’t give the DJD a Tailgate. We don’t need another cute sidekick to show us the softer side of our mechanical killing machines.
2. Don’t dial back the body count. This series immediately found its legs by introducing us to the second-stringers of the Transformers universe and not being afraid to kill them. We learned that the secondary characters were themselves heroes, and then we learned that heroes died. The early issues-- especially those with Overlord-- were gritty and felt real. Things have lightened up significantly in this volume, which is fine, but now we’ve got another wave of second-second-stringers to keep track of. We’ve got a second replacement medic. We’ve got a bunch of new faces. Fine, but remind us why this all matters. I’m with Rodimus on this one: please let Thunderclash die, for goodness’ sake. I guess I’m as twisted as the DJD: I want dead Autobots or the game just stops feeling real.
3. Don’t get sappy. I get it, and I appreciate it: we’re playing with romantic relationships among non-biologically gendered robots. That’s pretty cool, and it was pretty effective when it was Rewind and Chromedome. But I feel like this volume has a lot of drama, a lot of weird tensions, and a lot of goofy crushing. Please, please, please don’t give me an Autobot love triangle (unless Dominus Ambus turns about to be Tarn). And please don’t give me any more pictures of Rewind and Chromedome on a flowered backdrop with the words “my love” written anywhere, ever.
4. Don’t get cute. Besides the two-issue throwaway story arch about the charisma parasites (which I think was a low point for the series so far), this is my major complaint about this volume. It felt too cute. Ten is cute. He draws cute pictures and makes cute toys. Swerve is very meta and cute, creating an entire sitcom planet in which our heroes can cut cute figures and be cute and snarky. I’ve already complained about the DJD’s cute sidekick. Even Megatron’s cuteness in this volume, as he bickers with both Rodimus and Magnus, shows perhaps more than anything else his integration into the Lost Light crew. One or two issues of heavy cuteness I think I could have taken, but the whole volume was full of it. (A major theme of this volume was Autobot dance parties, for Cybertron’s sake.)
Again though, it’s quite likely that Roberts knows exactly what he’s doing. He probably has some of this series’ darkest developments up his sleeve, and he knows we need some time sit back and relax, project our holomatter avatars and just be silly for a while. Or perhaps he’ll explain away the whole thing in another few issues with a wonderfully detailed explanation involving metabombs, time loops, and quantum cuteness paradoxes. Maybe while all this was happening in our universe, another crew of the Lost Light completed their quest only to realize Cyberutopia was long ago consumed by the Chaos-Bringer, Overlord returned, and Pharma had an epic battle over a smelting pool with Ratchet (as opposed to our universe, where Ratchet gets a Drift action figure).
But to tell the truth (Primus help me), I would have rather read a comic about that universe.
March 12, 2016
I don't know if it was me but this volume and its issues were sort of confusing and everywhere. I did however like the issue where the crew were searching for the Transformers universe's version of the grim reaper.
June 16, 2025
This volume offers satisfying, although odd plots and, I don't know, the artstyle in the necrobot world looks weirdly like a manga...
The issue with Brainstorm's trial, Ten being properly accepted and Ratchet leaving is absolutely the best one.
The issue with Brainstorm's trial, Ten being properly accepted and Ratchet leaving is absolutely the best one.
January 18, 2018
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 8 is a cracking continuation on from the previous book with events being portrayed from all over that really helps to show other things that are effected the characters! :D Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 8 also provides more insight into how the Decepticons are taking Megatrons changing of sides to boot! :D
At the same time this allows for the characters to grow and change! :D The storylines are frenetic with organic creatures who thrive on virtue and other high emotions which lead to crazy chase scenes as well as humour as certain characters are totally unaffected but the arrival of Rodimus and Megatron tops it! :D The book while it covers different parts of space really though is till action character driven! :D This of course allows for more world building which really set things up for later books brilliantly! :D
The art style as ever is clean as ever with characters expressions and the action clearly illustrated really serving the script brilliantly! :D The layout really aides the script's smoothness as well with scenes seeming to naturally flow together making for excellent pacing throughout! :D Plus there is a brilliant cover gallery that really shows the work off brilliantly! :D
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 8 is a roller coaster ride. full of adventure, daring-do, humour, heroics and is action packed! :D Brilliant and highly recommended! :D
At the same time this allows for the characters to grow and change! :D The storylines are frenetic with organic creatures who thrive on virtue and other high emotions which lead to crazy chase scenes as well as humour as certain characters are totally unaffected but the arrival of Rodimus and Megatron tops it! :D The book while it covers different parts of space really though is till action character driven! :D This of course allows for more world building which really set things up for later books brilliantly! :D
The art style as ever is clean as ever with characters expressions and the action clearly illustrated really serving the script brilliantly! :D The layout really aides the script's smoothness as well with scenes seeming to naturally flow together making for excellent pacing throughout! :D Plus there is a brilliant cover gallery that really shows the work off brilliantly! :D
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 8 is a roller coaster ride. full of adventure, daring-do, humour, heroics and is action packed! :D Brilliant and highly recommended! :D
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 25, 2019
What did I just read? Decepticons giving each other annual performance reviews. Tailgate flying a hoverboard around the ship like a little kid, for some reason. A story involving literal “personality ticks”? (Really?) Cyclonus identifying as a woman from the 1800’s. Sitcom laugh tracks. Extended scenes about married robot romance. And worst of all, Megatron continuing to be completely mischaracterized as a good guy.
Who is all this written for? It’s certainly not written for guys like me who grew up loving Transformers in the 80’s. If I wanted to read some romantic love story, then that’s what I’d be buying, not a Transformers comic. It’s like a bait and switch.
The nonstop goofy jokes in the story start to grate on my nerves after a while, too. It’s like no character in the story takes anything seriously, and half the time I don’t even know what they’re joking about. Humor is great and all but it seems like nearly the sole focus of this series.
Overall I’d say this series has taken a real turn for the dumb. It’s disappointing because I like a lot of the IDW Transformers comics before this. But I don’t understand what the writer is doing here. Maybe I’m too unintelligent to “get it”, I don’t know. I just wish I had not bought the rest of the series. I guess I’ll stick it out since I already own them but it’s not looking good. Not recommended, unfortunately.
Who is all this written for? It’s certainly not written for guys like me who grew up loving Transformers in the 80’s. If I wanted to read some romantic love story, then that’s what I’d be buying, not a Transformers comic. It’s like a bait and switch.
The nonstop goofy jokes in the story start to grate on my nerves after a while, too. It’s like no character in the story takes anything seriously, and half the time I don’t even know what they’re joking about. Humor is great and all but it seems like nearly the sole focus of this series.
Overall I’d say this series has taken a real turn for the dumb. It’s disappointing because I like a lot of the IDW Transformers comics before this. But I don’t understand what the writer is doing here. Maybe I’m too unintelligent to “get it”, I don’t know. I just wish I had not bought the rest of the series. I guess I’ll stick it out since I already own them but it’s not looking good. Not recommended, unfortunately.
June 25, 2016
A tad disjointed, perhaps, but this is another extremely enjoyable More Than Meets the Eye volume from James Roberts and company. Tonally, the book runs from one extreme to the next and some of the characterizations seem a trifle off. However, these quibbles are counterbalanced by the almost-overwhelming displays of creativity that now seem commonplace for this series. It makes me genuinely sad how many people will miss out on this book because their notions of anything having to do with Transformers are limited only to the eighties' cartoon or Marvel comic. If they only knew. Nevertheless, I'll keep banging the drum for this title, though it usually falls on deaf ears.
One quick aside: this volume seemed to read exceptionally, well, ... British to me. Has this always been the case and I'm just now noticing or is James Roberts simply injecting more of himself into the text? Some rereading may be in order.
One quick aside: this volume seemed to read exceptionally, well, ... British to me. Has this always been the case and I'm just now noticing or is James Roberts simply injecting more of himself into the text? Some rereading may be in order.
April 9, 2019
Still has a sense of fun, still good at characterization, still pretty clever overall... but I wonder if I'm getting tired of fun, character-driven, and clever as the main selling points. I think I want to see some forward progress, a sense of this all actually going somewhere, and I'm not feeling it. Does that make this bad? Not at all. But I admit to being less entertained. (That said, that last story was more of the sort of thing I'd like to see.) (B+)
June 3, 2023
Great book! I absolutely loved it. It just had the things I loved the most:
-Character development on my fav character.
-Incredibly interesting.
-Great ending and immediately hooked on the start.
This was at my school library and it was just so interesting, I loved it so much, and just loved the way it portrayed the characters. There’s just nothing else I can say, it was interesting and I reassure you that you’ll get hooked on the first page.
Though, if you are under 13 please be careful around these topics:
-Blood/Gore.
-Self neglect.
-Trying to escape reality.
And
-Just overall not the most family friendly book.
The warnings may seem not very harsh, but I can assure you even the first page is just terrifying overall!
-Character development on my fav character.
-Incredibly interesting.
-Great ending and immediately hooked on the start.
This was at my school library and it was just so interesting, I loved it so much, and just loved the way it portrayed the characters. There’s just nothing else I can say, it was interesting and I reassure you that you’ll get hooked on the first page.
Though, if you are under 13 please be careful around these topics:
-Blood/Gore.
-Self neglect.
-Trying to escape reality.
And
-Just overall not the most family friendly book.
The warnings may seem not very harsh, but I can assure you even the first page is just terrifying overall!
December 15, 2022
Not even the issue focused on Ratchet can save this garbage.
This volume went from decent to great to cringingly bad so quick it is unbelievable. I’m literally dropping this series here. I don’t care what happens anymore, but I haven’t really liked the direction for a while. It doesn’t feel like it has any idea what it is doing and honestly the addition of Megatron wasn’t worth it. I think it was better before he joined the Lost Light.
I just have to say that the “personality ticks” made me literally cringe so hard I want to delete the memory of reading it. I can’t recover.
This volume went from decent to great to cringingly bad so quick it is unbelievable. I’m literally dropping this series here. I don’t care what happens anymore, but I haven’t really liked the direction for a while. It doesn’t feel like it has any idea what it is doing and honestly the addition of Megatron wasn’t worth it. I think it was better before he joined the Lost Light.
I just have to say that the “personality ticks” made me literally cringe so hard I want to delete the memory of reading it. I can’t recover.
February 13, 2018
Hmmm. Overall, 4 for most of the stories - they seem like fillers in between something bigger (though I loved Ratchet's; and personality ticks is one of those crack-like ideas typical to MTME which still surprise me). However, the dialogues are stellar like always and the one where they went to Earth deserves 10 stars. So, maybe 4,5?
September 12, 2022
A volume collecting several mini-storylines, or short-stories, if you will. A bit of a lull in the action of previous volumes, but it’s possible to get a glimpse of where this series is taking us next.
3/5
3/5
June 26, 2017
An interesting grab bag. Needed more Whirl though.
November 22, 2018
Okay... so the first ark is interesting, the second one is extremely weird, the third on is also weird, and the fourth one s WTF.
February 26, 2020
This volume was kind of all over the place. But it had zombies (sorta), so that's cool.
June 8, 2020
ratchet running off to find drift....megatron being confronted with the enormity of his war crimes....i’m so well fed
January 10, 2021
Outstanding
March 7, 2024
Amo este cómic y me gusta mucho como Megatron esta empezando a reflexionar
January 23, 2025
so that last issue's page actually made me feel sad
March 11, 2025
lowkey random asf volume
August 30, 2024
Standout issues: #40, #43, #44
November 25, 2015
I'm still in love with this series. Volume 8 is not as great as volume 7 (to be fair it's hard to beat volume 7), but it has genuinely awesome moments.
This volume deals with the DJD, mental illness, saying goodbye, coming to terms with your past, and dancing.
The weakest issues are 41 and 42. They verge on being too silly. Mediocre.
The rest range from good to great.
So far season 2 of MTMTE is super. Hopefully volume 9 (the season 2 finale) will end the season on a strong note.
This volume deals with the DJD, mental illness, saying goodbye, coming to terms with your past, and dancing.
The weakest issues are 41 and 42. They verge on being too silly. Mediocre.
The rest range from good to great.
So far season 2 of MTMTE is super. Hopefully volume 9 (the season 2 finale) will end the season on a strong note.
June 18, 2025
The best transformer show was 'Transformers Prime' yall Miko made that show
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews