(Massive great big spoilers below.)
Kathryn
…how the heck do we start a conversation about this one?
Elizabeth
Probably with what you told me when you finished it. “Siiigh. All the feels.”
And then I’ll say “Man oh man.”
Kathryn
Yes, and I’ll add “I had no idea what to expect from this issue. Never thought that we would get an ending like that, but I’m so glad that’s how it turned out.”
Elizabeth
And before we go any further I’ll add a line about “Of course we are GOING TO SPOIL EVERYTHING.”
Kathryn
“Yes! Good plan!”
Elizabeth
Now that I’ve read it, I can’t imagine it happening any other way. If it hadn’t been sad it wouldn’t have been right.
But if it’d been ALL sad, that wouldn’t have been right either.
Kathryn
And honestly? This is the sort of thing I would dream of happening.
Elizabeth
Yes!
Send the very best of them to a place where they can be happy forever and no one can ever mess with them ever again.
Kathryn
“Yes the characters all go and live their lives. Or they die peacefully. Or they still have to deal with the mess of real life and losing touch with their friends and everything.
And in another world they get to stay together on the ship they love, and have adventures foreverTHE END.’
Elizabeth
It’s like James Roberts read the minds of the fans and said “I know what you want. Here.”
Mind you, it’s still James Roberts, so he had to rip our hearts out a little too.
Kathryn
I was a little worried at the start of the issue.
Elizabeth
It looked pretty grim.
Kathryn
Everyone attending a funeral, and the person who died is…RATCHET?
WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL, ROBERTS.
Elizabeth
I was thinking “You mean you finally made them Conjunx Endura and we didn’t get to see any of it NO SIR I CALL SHENANIGANS.”
Kathryn
But then it turns out it’s way in the future and it’s fine. MOSTLY.
Elizabeth
MOSTLY.
Kathryn
I mean, Ratchet’s story in the fourth and fifth issues of MTMTE was what cemented my love for this series.
Elizabeth
The story of Ratchet’s HANDS, to be specific, which…siiigh.
Kathryn
I know, comes right back to the beginning.
Elizabeth
Man alive does it ever.
Kathryn
And Whirl decides he doesn’t need them, which, okay Whirl, you still have to find a way to be difficult even when I like you.
Elizabeth
Everything came back around to the beginning with Megatron too.
That’s probably another thing James Roberts saw in the minds of the fans: that we wanted everything to be okay with Megatron, and he went “Okay, I hear you, but that’s just not going to happen.”
Kathryn
Okay, so they never said what exactly the sentence was going to be for Megatron.
Elizabeth
NO THEY DID NOT.
Kathryn
Infinite imprisonment or execution.
Elizabeth
God, the Mobius Generator.
Prowl’s idea.
Kathryn
TF Wiki seems to think that if Rodimus has Megatron’s Star, that means it was execution.
Elizabeth
Hm.
I don’t know if that’s locked, but I kind of hope it is.
Scratch that, I REALLY hope that’s right. I didn’t like the sound of the infinite imprisonment.
Kathryn
I…I think I’d prefer execution to anything Prowl had cooked up, but Roberts really wanted everyone to face, multiple times, that redemption from all the deaths Megatron caused was not something that was going to happen nicely.
Elizabeth
I mean, I understand that.
Millions of years and probably millions of millions of deaths.
Kathryn
And again, alternate universe Megatron gets to be happy and all…
Elizabeth
I know but…
Kathryn
And also Megatron had almost a thousand years in the Functionist universe.
Elizabeth
I KNOW but…
I think it was the one thing I was unhappy about in the issue, more so than Ratchet dying.
Kathryn
I still can’t believe I’m sad that THIS universe’s Megatron is either dead or imprisoned forever.
What a transformation Roberts did with that character.
Elizabeth
That’s Roberts for you, took the biggest bad of the entire Transformers genre and made us root for him.
Kathryn
I’ll tell you what also made me sad: RUNG BEING FORGOTTEN.
Elizabeth
I KNOW.
Kathryn
WHYYYYYYYY?
Elizabeth
How the hell does THAT work?
How can they possibly explain everything that happened at the end without Rung??
Kathryn
Seriously, what was the reasoning for that? I mean, I could understand Rung not being able to stick around and be pals with everyone, due to him being the progenitor of the entire RACE and all.
But why forgotten?
Elizabeth
They’d established that that was part of his nature, to be forgotten, they set that up when we found out who he was.
It’s why no one could ever remember his name.
Kathryn
I would have thought the forgetting wouldn’t happen again once everyone knew he was Primus.
Guess not.
Sigh.
Elizabeth
But it’s pretty neat that all the new Lunarians look like him.
Kathryn
Indeed, a very nice memorial, even if no one notices.
We’re complaining an awful lot for an issue we REALLY REALLY LIKED.
Elizabeth
Hee, right?
Kathryn
ON TO THE THINGS WE LIKED.
Elizabeth
I love that we got one more party scene!
Kathryn
“Story So Far” “You’re joking, right?”
Elizabeth
“…a tribute to your crew.”
“The Crusadercons.”
“The who?”
“It’s a joke.”
“I see. I suppose you had to be there.”
“…thank god you weren’t…”
“I heard that.”
Kathryn
Roller flirting with Nickel!
Elizabeth
(Also, Prowl? You’re a jerk. Go fix your frigging eye.)
Kathryn
God yes, he’s such a popular character and this series has made him into SUCH a jerk.
Have you read the TF Wiki article for this one yet?
Elizabeth
Oooh yes. God bless the TF Wiki now and forever amen.
Kathryn
They actually listed out all the items on the cover. We got a bunch, but we missed a TON.
Elizabeth
Boy howdy.
I can’t believe it took the TF Wiki pointing it out for me to realize: Rodimus, talking about how he’d rather see the ship decommissioned than have it be vandalized and ruined by someone else (cheap and small and wrong) …Roberts was talking about the series and all the characters. “A proper ending. No going back.”
Kathryn
Yep, very on the nose.
The mention of the storyline about the Improbability Police that would have been part of the third season if IDW hadn’t cancelled the series also made me sad. OKAY I’LL STOP NOW.
Elizabeth
Also the ending too. “What do you think this new universe will be like.” The TF wiki pointed out that’s got to be the new Transformers series to come.
Kathryn
TF Wiki also seems to think it was a wink and a nod and Roberts’s blessing to fan-fiction.
Elizabeth
Oh very, he wants these characters to live on.
Kathryn
There must be fan art. LOTS OF FAN ART.
Elizabeth
ALL THE FAN ART. We must track Milne and Lawrence down at conventions and pay them to draw our favorites.
Sara Pitre-Durocher too!
Kathryn
I intend to have a folder full of commissions from my favorite artists one day.
Elizabeth
Lawrence really nailed the whole issue, every expression.
I loved the shot of Rodimus talking to Megatron in the cell, and Megatron and Ultra Magnus looking back at Rodimus when they were leaving, and the panel of Drift at the gravesite, and the shot of everybody looking at the monitors when they realized the quantum jump trick worked.
Kathryn
Very classy move on Roberts’s part to name all the artists in his afterword, and then say what he loved about each of them.
Elizabeth
Absolutely. And hee. Chromedome and Rewind were headed to Milnex (Alex Milne.)
And Rodimus was late getting back from the Acklaw System (Jack Lawrence.)
Kathryn
Love it!
Elizabeth
I’d kill to read Nautica’s book “There is a Light That Never Goes out.”
Swerve said she made a glaring omission at the end, do you know what that was?
Kathryn
Hmm.
How many bots do you suppose knew that Megatron hadn’t been able to open his Matrix?
I saw that Rodimus lied to the court and said that Megatron opened it when Rodimus lost an arm.
Elizabeth
Hm.
I wondered if it was Rung, because if you don’t remember Rung then there’s going to be a hell of a blank spot in the story.
Kathryn
Or, wait, was this at the funeral where this was mentioned?
Elizabeth
Yep, so by “end” I’m not sure what they mean.
Kathryn
Maybe, possibly, she left out the part where they deliberately tweaked with the engines during a Quantum jump so a version of themselves would end up in another universe?
Elizabeth
That’s likely too.
Did you see that tweet from Roberts about what Swerve meant at the end of last issue when he said “not quite”?
Kathryn
No, what did he say?
Elizabeth
Swerve had been hit by the Metabomb, so in the very last panel where he was looking down, he could actually see the words that said “to be concluded.”
Kathryn
Eee!
Elizabeth
Hahaha
Kathryn
Love how the metabomb creeps back every once in a while.
Elizabeth
So Swerve probably knows every single bit of the story and could be commenting on any of it.
Kathryn
Swerve’s the one yelling about how it can’t be over, even if there are other adventures, they won’t be THESE adventures.
Speaking for the audience, Swerve is.
Elizabeth
We’re going to need that fanfiction of the Swerve and Misfire Recap Adventures.
Kathryn
Hee. Set a course for hijinks and mild peril.
Elizabeth
That’s the best order that’s ever been given.
