Skids: We’re on some sort of Quest?
Swerve: Uh-huh. We’ve got to find the 12 fragments of the Primal Key, unlock the Infinity Gate, travel sideways in time, defeat the Agents of Chaos and restore order to the Multiverse.
Skids:…
Swerve: Nah, I’m just messing with you. We’re actually looking for the Knights of Cybertron, a mythical group of supremely powerful do-gooders who left our homeworld 10 million years ago to civilize the galaxy, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in the form of a star map hidden inside a dead Matrix.
Skids: Yeah…I kinda liked the first one better?
I’m dating myself here, but I’ve been a fan of Transformers since the first cartoon aired in 1984. I started reading the comic books a few years later, and have stuck with it off and on through the first 80 issues, the strange little Generation 2 title in the 90’s, the now-defunct (and never finished) Dreamwave series, and finally to IDW in 2005. More Than Meets The Eye is one of the latest titles in the decades-long story
The 4 million year war is over, but Cybertron is in ruins. The citizens of the planet who originally fled the war are returning, and they’ve made it clear neither Decepticons nor Autobots are welcome anymore. There are now two choices; stay and try to rebuild the planet, or set off to find the fabled Knights of Cybertron. More Than Meets The Eye follows the group who made the second choice, and I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a Transformers story this much in years.
Writer James Roberts is a big reason why I love this series. Roberts has been slowly but steadily adding backstory, not just to individual characters, but to the entire race of Transformers. The simplistic history of a Golden Age of Cybertron being destroyed by the violent Decepticons is long gone; writers like Roberts, John Barber, Eric Holmes and Nick Roche have peeled back that glittering image and shown us how rotten everything was underneath. The wealthy ruled and did exactly what they liked; everyone else was categorized by their alt-modes. If you transformed into a bulldozer, then you worked as a bulldozer, period. And if you were part of the race that was “constructed cold” (as opposed to being “forged”) you’d be in an even lower segment of society. Citizens who even suggested that any of this was unfair could be legally arrested, sentenced to either hard labor, “shadowplay” (brainwashing) or “empurata” (hands and head removed, and replaced with tongs and a faceless eye-stalk). Even the legacy of Primes is being looked at in a new light, and every other character has their own story, and their own lies about what their story actually is. The history of the Transformers has gotten dark, and with Roberts in charge it’s getting darker all the time.
Which makes it that much more surprising that MTMTE is so damn fun most of the time. Rodimus (not Hot Rod, as he’s always quick to point out) is in charge of the expedition. He’s just as attention-seeking, just as much of a thrill-junkie, and just as unqualified to actually lead as he’s always been. The rest of the crew is filled out with the secondary characters who have never gotten enough face-time, all with their own quirks and obsessions: Brainstorm with his briefcase, Rung and his collection of Ark models, Swerve (“My nickname at the Academy was “Shut The Hell Up”.), and Whirl (described in his character sheet as “best avoided”) among others. At this point I think my two favorites are Ratchet (grumpy, and surprisingly kick-ass) and Skids (all-around kick-ass, and probably the best-looking of the crew). Roberts also takes a look at relationships, and explores how different characters might interact in a species that has no mating, no actual gender in any kind of reproductive sense, but who can have friendships that last millions of years.
The stories themselves range from straight-out action, slapstick, adventure, and a few instances of horror. The series starts with a fairly entertaining monster-in-the-corridor episode, but finds its pace in issues 4 and 5 with a medical mystery story at a distant outpost in enemy territory. Roberts is especially good at dropping tantalizing details throughout a story, and leaving the full explanations for later: NAILS (Non-Alligned Indigenous Lifeforms), DJD (Decepticon Justice Division), Triple M (Militant Monoform Movement), the Tyrest Accord, The Simanzi Massacre. He also likes playing with the timelines, telling a story in flashbacks, or dream-sequences (sort of), or random scenes that are timestamped based on how far they are before – or after – an un-named event. Oddly enough, the issues that are played for comedy were the ones I found the least entertaining, but not one of them was ever boring.
I couldn’t talk about this series without raving about the artwork. There have been many Transformers artists who’s work I’ve loved: Geoff Senior in the original series, Guido Guidi’s stunning work in All Hail Megatron, and Nick Roche are all great examples. But MTMTE’s main artist Alex Milne is my all-time favorite. His work is so clean and easy to follow, and at the same time many of the panels will have a little something going on in the background, like characters getting into an argument, or somebody at Swerve’s bar drinking energon with a silly-straw. It’s usually worthwhile to read the comics a second time to catch everything. Milne’s also one of the best I’ve seen at expressions and emotions; not always easy to do with robots. Just look at the character descriptions at the end of each issue; sometimes half of the characters don’t have actual faces, just visors and faceplates. And yet Milne can do things like convey a menacing glare from a faceless character on the other side of the room. And the death scenes…gah, I can’t get into the death scenes without spoilers. All I can say is that characters can die in this series, many times it’s permanent, it’s always powerful and Alex Milne is a big reason way.
The question I’ve probably heard the most about this series is, “Which issues before MTMTE do I have to read for this to make sense?” Answer: all of them. Kidding! Mostly. I haven’t read all of the 125 legacy issues that were published first, so there have been a few times that I’ve had to hunt up an explanation on the Transformers Wiki. If you’re not going to start at Transformers: Infiltration and then read every mini-series, maxi-series, and spotlight, then there are some storylines that might be helpful. Issues 22 and 23 of the ongoing Transformers series are origin stories for Megatron and Optimus, written by Roberts and drawn by Milne; MTMTE goes back to the same time period for a 4-issue mini-series, so you definitely need to know a little about what went on. Roberts co-wrote Last Stand of the Wreckers with Nick Roche, and he refers back to the events in that story all the time. And then there’s 125, “The Death of Optimus Prime“, which closes out the old series and kick-starts the new one.
Of course if you want to read the recent Dark Cybertron cross-over story you’ll also need to have read the sister publication Robots In Disguise. And for that you’ll want to have read Megatron: Origin, Revelation (contains four Spotlight issues that deal with the Dead Universe, which you really need to know about), and probably most of the Transformers ongoing series before that, just to be sure.
So, did you get all that? Don’t worry if you didn’t; with the Dark Cybertron storyline wrapped up, More Than Meets The Eye starts Part 2 this month. No spoilers, but I’m pretty sure everything’s going to change…