James Roberts (2) (1976–)

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Megatron has really been the focus of "season two" of More than Meets the Eye, and implausible as I found the idea of four-million-year-Hitler coming aboard the Lost Light as co-captain, his trajectory in these stories has really worked. By this point, the main cast has accepted him... and he has accepted the ways of the Autobots, even refusing to partake in combat.

But it all comes to a head here, when the show more non-main-characters decide they've had enough of Megatron leading them, and kick him and the main characters off the ship... and then they're promptly set upon by the Decepticon Justice Division, Overlord, and a whole army of Decepticons.

Once again, James Roberts does his thing, with some edge-of-your-seat writing that had me physically tense or tearing up or both. I've really come to love these characters and their adventures, and this volume is filled with both hero moments and dark ones. Particularly when Rewind reaches the goal of his own personal quest... wowza.

Plus Drift and Ratchet are back! It's the culmination of all sorts of stuff, but it also promises much more to come. More than Meets the Eye is still the best ongoing in comics. How is that possible?

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No actual tears this time, though I did feel my eyes misting up at one point.

I read a review that described volume 5 as the perfect jumping-off point for More than Meets the Eye, and though I haven't read what comes after yet (before we get to volume 6, there's a crossover with Robots in Disguise, Dark Cybertron), I can see why. Most of volume 5 is given over to "Remain in Light," a story about the Lost Light making it to show more Luna-1, the lost moon of Cybertron, and what they find there draws together a number of the ongoing character and plot threads of the series: Rodimus's often misguided brashness, Ultra Magnus's love of the rules, Ratchet's lack of confidence in his own abilities, Skids's inability to remember large chunks of his own past, the mysterious "legislator" robots from way back in volume 1, Tailgate learning about the importance of semicolons, the missing Circle of Light on Theophany, Fortress Maximus's postwar aimlessness, and so on. It's not quite as good as volume 4 (but it seems unlikely to me that anything could be), but it is a solid tying up on the main ideas of this series-- yet at the same time it sets up revelations for future issues.

The emotional core of this volume was Tailgate. Tailgate has been a wannabe and and outsider this entire series. He woke up from a four-million year deactivation in volume 1, having missed not only the Great War, but even its political context, and volume 4 revealed that he wasn't the bomb disposal expert and potential Ark-1 crewmember he had claimed to be, but a waste disposal expert who was supposed to prepare the Ark but not crew it. Tailgate is obviously in love with Cyclonus, who's from the same time period as Tailgate, but lived through that four million years, much of it as (if I understand correctly) a resident of the Dead Universe and sort of a zombie(?). Tailgate is excited to be on the Lost Light because he finally belongs somewhere doing something, but Cyclonus would rather be nowhere at all. He hates everyone else, and he hates himself, and he hates Tailgate for trying to get him to open up. Yet sometimes they bond (in one of the previous volumes, they sang songs of ancient Cybertron together).

Anyway, volume 4 ended with the revelation that Tailgate had a week left to live, as he's so old that he had contracted cybercrosis. Salt is rubbed in the wound by the extra revelation that Tailgate was only two weeks old when he began his four-million year nap... his body's millions of years old, but he's only had a year and a half of actual life experiences. Throughout the adventures in this volume, a countdown timer periodically appears, showing us how long Tailgate has left to live, and it is brutal.

Of course, things don't go quite predictably, and I won't spoil it here, but James Roberts includes two good fakeouts as regards Tailgate and Cyclonus, and got me both times. Chromedome and Rewind's love may have formed the the core of volume 4, but Tailgate and Cyclonus obviously share love too, and Roberts does a fantastic job with its intricacies here. Who'd ever thought I'd be effusing about robot love? (Well, anyone who ever heard me go on about Silverbolt/Blackarachnia when I watched Beast Wars, I suppose.) Tailgate gets a day-saving moment that's amazing.

This just scratches the surface: like in volume 4, a lot of characters get great hero moments (Ratchet is awesome!) and there's also a lot of intriguing Transformers mysticism (Skids may or may not go to Cyberutopia, but wherever he was, it's weird), and an extra bit of information is revealed about Overlord's presence on the Lost Light and Drift's departure (never thought I'd say it, but I miss Drift). And, of course, there's the usual assortment of jokes: Rodimus talking about how he has to live up to having flames on his chest, or Swerve defending his bar with a talking/singing blaster designed for kids.

The volume is wrapped up by a coda issue, where the Lost Light crew tries to recruit the Circle of Light to help on their quest by showing them the documentary film Rewind was working on before he died in volume 4. As you might imagine, hilarity ensues, especially as a large chunk of the documentary (it spans the Lost Light's whole voyage) is about Thunderclash, the Greatest Autobot of All Time, who knows as much about typefaces as Ultra Magnus, helped Ratchet pass his medical exams, was fatally injured saving orphans from a supernova, is capable of teaching Perceptor things he doesn't know about science, once bore the Matrix of Leadership while Optimus Prime was on sabbatical, and turns out to be on the exact same quest as the Lost Light.

The Circle of Light turns out not to be fans, summing up the whole approach of this series highly effectively, shouting comments at Skids like:
"Everyone on board the Lost Light is cracked in the head!"
"Yeah, dysfunctional isn't the word! There isn't a normal 'bot among you!"
"And that wouldn't be so bad if you actually made progress-- but as far as I can make out, all you do is argue, crack jokes, and get sidetracked doing pointless, silly things that only you find amusing!"

Skids struggles to defend it, saying, "'Silly?' I guess you don't see it if you're part of it..." But the reader is part of it, and the last page of this volume warmed this reader's heart. No matter what comes next in More than Meets the Eye, these five volumes will have been a work to treasure.

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The post-Chaos era of IDW's Transformers comics used to be very easy to follow, alternating between collections of More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise. Since Dark Cybertron, though, it's gotten much more complicated, with a proliferation of limited series and one-shots and crossovers and even a new ongoing in Windblade. The gap between volumes 8 and 9 of More than Meets the Eye was the longest yet, with a full show more six different collections stuffed into it, taking four months at my own personal Transformers pace.

It's almost like he knew I was away, because James Roberts brought me back with the More than Meets the Eyeest bit of More than Meets the Eye thus far on the very first page, a recap of what the group of Decepticons called the Scavengers have been up to since we last saw them way back in volume 2, which features an increasingly bizarre series of missing adventures (kind of like flashbacks in Community).

This launches us into a story of the Scavengers meeting Fortress Maximus, who became the duly appointed enforcer of the Tyrest Accords in volume 5. I do really like the Scavengers in principle, and the story is a good one, but in practice I struggle with reading about this many unfamiliar robot characters. I just can't keep five guys I haven't seen in literally a year straight, and this undermines a lot of the story's effectiveness. Heck, I didn't recognize Fortress Maximus at first, and he used to be a main character in MtMtE!

Thankfully, we're back on more familiar ground with the volume's second story, a big development in the lives of Cyclonus and Tailgate, who have perhaps faded into the background in the Megatron-focused post-Dark Cybertron era of More than Meets the Eye. Well, this story more than makes up for it, as it's another heartrender from the pen of James Roberts, as you plead and plead with Tailgate not to do something that seems like a grand romantic gesture from the naïve Transformer's perspective, but will in fact lead to ruination, and plead with Cyclonus to not bottle himself up so much-- and to not finally let out his feelings to the exact wrong person. It's a perfect demonstration of how much Roberts has succeeded in making the reader emotionally connected to these robots.

The only complaint I have is in how its intense cliffhanger is resolved, almost off-handedly in the book's final story, one which delves into the past of Rung, everyone's favorite nondescript psychiatrist. It's a clever, well-plotted story, with a lot of cool twists and clever reveals, punctuated by a last-page revelation that promises a lot for the next... and final... volume of this still-excellent series. Would be that all ongoing comics could move me as often as this one does.

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I don't normally do this, but it seems warranted here: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. That said, I went into this volume knowing some of what I'm going to talk about, and if anything, I think it made the book more effective.

BUT ANYWAY

I don't often cry at works of fiction. It happens on occasion, though, perhaps more as I get older. The death of the Tachikomas at the end of season one of Ghost in the Shell: show more Stand Alone Complex. Penelope Wilton chaining herself to the bus at the end of episode 4 of Bob & Rose. Moira taking her suicide pill in the last chapter of On the Beach. Evelyn Smythe's contemplative last moments in Doctor Who: A Death in the Family.

But I don't think I've ever cried at a comic book.

I cried three times reading this one.

The first time came in the first issue collected here. The Lost Light crew assaults a rogue Decepticon stronghold. James Roberts tells the story in two parallel tracks, switching back and forth between the attack and its aftermath. Rewind is injured, and his conjunx endura Chromedome is freaking out about it. Now, I was spoiled a while ago on the fact that Rewind would die, so as the book came to a climax, I started tearing up. Rewind doesn't die here, but the end is still fraught with emotion, as we learn how Rewind and Chromedome first met, and then the last thing we see is the moment of Rewind's near-fatal injury. It wasn't a Decepticon who injured him; rather, Whirl purposely locked him in a room with an exploding bomb because Cyclonus was also in that room. Plus, misanthropic Cyclonus actually threw himself on the bomb to save Rewind. Oh wow so many feelings as everything that's happened throughout the issue slots into place.

I didn't cry at the second issue here, but it was good fun: the Lost Light arrives at a pleasure planet, and everyone goes out drinking. Jokes are had, we get to see the crew's humanoid holomatter avatars, Ultra Magnus tries to lighten up (and fails), and Tailgate reveals his dark secret to Cyclonus. If you love when a tv show does the wacky side episode where the crew lets loose, you'll love this.

The fourth issue is where I lost it for real, not just tearing up, but genuine crying. Decepticon phase-sixer Overlord (late of Last Stand of the Wreckers) is let loose on the Lost Light, and Rewind dies for real-- but even aside from that the thing is filled with amazing character moments, paying off all sorts of character details from throughout the series so far. It's not the climax of the whole series, but it does feel like one for the first fifteen issues. Ratchet, despite being a medical officer, throws himself into battle one last time; Pipes, the ship's punching bag, is punched (to death) one last time, but using his dying moments to save the ship; Rodimus shouting "'till all are one!" saves the lives of everyone on board. That last one is a brilliant bit of writing, transforming a running gag into a key plot point and clever bit of trickery.

But worst/best of all is the climax: not only does Rewind sacrifice himself to save Chromedome/the ship, Chromedome is forced to kill Rewind in order to save Rewind from an eternity of torture at the hands of Rewind. It's horrifying and beautiful, the greatest moment in an issue of great moments, and across those last three pages, I wasn't just tearing up, I was genuinely crying.

Finally, you get the aftermath issue: funerals and mourning and all that. We learn more about Chromedome's relationship with Rewind, and what we learn is all even more tragic, culminating in Chromedome watching Rewind's last message to him, expressed in the form of a montage of clips of other people speaking. Well, I teared up again. Some of it being laid over Drift's exile from the ship (and the way Ratchet stands up for him) makes it even better.

I can't believe it's a Transformers comic that made me tear up, but really, this might be one of the very best comic books I've ever read, full stop. It has jokes, complex characterization, well-organized long-running plots, tragedy, emotions, and giant robots. It's impossible for me to imagine what else I might want out of a comic. And really, I'm just scratching the surface of what it has to offer.

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