More McCarthy thoughts on AHM

Again this was answered in the interview (and actually in just about every interview I've given) but AHM was always supposed to tie into main continuity. Always. It does tie in completely.

he might not have joined the Autobots if he hadn't run into Kup and his crew after all and I doubt it's what he was after, really.

Spot on.

I have one question. Can we confrim the status of the following as dead or alive? Dirge, Deluge, Turmoil? Or will this spoil #12?

MIA.

When Sunstreaker made the deal with Starscream, which from his point of view comes down to "the Autobots defeat Megatron, then leave the Earth to Starscream"... how did he expect the other Autobots to agree to that last part? (seeing as it was a solo act, the others would be under no obligation to honor that) Or was he so anxious to get rid of all the nastybad humans that he simply did not think that far?

A bit of both and in my mind I also think he was in such a state he really thought that, once he'd done it, the others would see it from this point of view.

"They might not see I'm right now but once I do this they'll see."

More McCarthy

On basing Megatron on historical tyrants:

Well, apart from the similarities that you mention (which, whilst they may be broad, they're still deliberate and still similarities) there's vision, method and belief. His rise from obscurity was something I tied in with Hitler. His 'warrior king' mentality I tied in with Khan. His 'might makes right' vision belongs to Hitler, Khan, Alexander. His experimentation to create the 'super soldier' at the cost of his moralities I tied in with Hitler.

The biggest and most specific link to history, being one to communism/Nazism is a feature of my next series.

On story revelations:

Omega was deliberate. When Hotrod made his comment in #4(?) I knew full well that OS would come in 'out of the blue'. I can get why people don't like it, I love it. But again, it was a deliberate out of the blue.

As for Streaker, it depends on how you class 'out of the blue'. Almost ever time he appears there's deliberate subtext going on that, when you reread the issues after the reveal in #8 they should be glaringly obvious. Right back to #1 where there's a split in the room because of Mirage and Streaker is looking at Sideswipe in the way he does because he's finding him particularly annoying. Why is Streaker looking so down in #4? Why is he "going crazy just sitting here"? Why is he so eager to get out and away from the others?

I'll admit for first time readers it'll be a bit of a jump (evidence has shown not too much of one...and it's encouraged people to buy the previous trades) but for long time readers you have to take into account everything that happened before.

I've been criticised time and again for ignoring Simon's work but this particular story point, more than any other, was written with the knowledge that long time fans would be asking a lot of questions concerning Sunstreaker and would be expecting something from him considering what he'd gone through.

I really don't see Streaker as out of the blue at all.

On the 'old' Perceptor:

The way I see it is, the intellect and 'old Perceptor' is still in there, buried for the moment. He didn't refuse and the assumption can be made that Ratchet would be able to handle it fine. But for now Perceptor has 'gone walkabout'. Does that mean he's a 'dick'? Maybe. It's not unheard of for people to be 'dicks'. However I don't think we can be judgmental until we're all shot in the face and chest, take a walk in his shoes Wink

Again this plays into the knowledge that I'm writing for a shared universe. I made the changes to Perceptor in response to the themes I was dealing with. Could I have spent more time on Perceptor? For sure, I could have easily written a six issue mini series on that alone. However the series is dealing with 30+ characters each vying for screen time. I gave Perceptor the amount I thought he was due knowing full well someone else would take up the journey after me.

Could I have explained more? Maybe. However I wanted readers to meet me halfway, I hate works that spoon feed and I wanted the readers to think, argue and debate.

There's plenty of works out there where the audience continues to wonder what the writer meant with any particular character. I'm not saying that makes it 'right' but that I thoroughly enjoy any work that causes an audience to have to think beyond the page.

Might not work for everyone, I know, but that's my thought process.

On Sunstreaker's death:

If it facilitates story then do it. In this instance it was the path the character (I felt) had to take. I don't force my characters into situations or decisions that only serve 'plot' (and my feelings on 'plot' are a whole other subject) I try to follow them 'organically' to their conclusion. Sunstreaker was on a abusive downward spiral that, in his mind, only had one possible outcome. Could there have been another? Maybe. But not from his point of view. We can all find alternatives from our comfortable positions but for him that was the way 'out'. Right or wrong, it was his decision.

Deluge and Dirge:

He sent them ahead to check the area and keep the Bots in check. What if the Swarm were there? Well there's a reason those two were chosen.

And yes, Megs was planning on following them through. Nothing like some good old fashioned gloating.

They're out there, somewhere. Think Castaway meets Thelma and Louise...

on foreshadowing about Sunstreaker:

This is where I'll stop you to point out that readers did. I've seen it posted online and I've received mail from people that called it and called it well. Hell, Hutch made a joke, "quick! change it!" when it was called early by someone.

I know not everyone did but I'm not writing Murder She Wrote where we need to keep it oh so simple so those at home can solve the murder before Jessica does.

Let me quote you from earlier: "but the build-up still has to be there on first read through, so that when the dramatic reveal happens, even if the reader doesn't see it coming, he gets the sense that the clues were all there."

And now I'll make a point of readers responding to the reveal with "argh! of course!" reactions to 'answer'.

There's plenty of times I'll watch movies with friends that didn't notice something was 'up' with a certain character whilst it was obvious to me. Does that mean it was bad 'mechanics'? No.

There's a difference between foreshadowing and beating someone over the head, "Hey kids, don't tell anyone but does anyone think something is up with THAT guy? Shhh."

Did I play it close to the vest? Yes. Too close? Debatable. I don't think so.

Again, it's all on the page.

On not picking up every plot thread from Furman's work:

And the "almost" is the clincher here. Why didn't I focus on every single thread? Because AHM is set beyond what Simon did. Why didn't I answer every question posed by the jump? Because that would take a series in itself, one that Simon went on to write.

The clincher is that there were definitely signs to show this was in continuity (apart from us saying it time and again in interviews and being called liars for it), signs that should lead readers to know that what happened before is still in play and, indeed, what happened to Sunstreaker is still a factor.

I should also point out those points weren't 'dropped', I focused on what was relevant to AHM. The lack of phases? Considering what the story is about I think it's very clear why he's moved on from phased infiltration; the move to do so is even seen as bad choice by Starscream. The change in tactics is referenced and plays a major part in the story.

On Prime's sudden return:

Nothing was cut.

We're told the operation won't be easy and that Kup should prepare himself for the eventuality that Prime might not make it, yes. It's established Ratchet and Wheeljack are hard at work on fixing him but the real point of the scene is the low morale and how important Prime will be to the outcome.

Several scenes later, after he'd been undergoing repairs off camera, Prime makes his 'triumphant' return at the moment he's needed most, when the morale is at its lowest.

I hate to be pedantic but it's not just a few pages later, it's one page off the final page in the book. It's half the comic later.

On the inclusion of Dropshot:

Hasbro sent us the new line of toys and asked if there were any in there we thought we could include for them. From that I thought came up with the idea of slotting them in in the background.

Drift's function in the story:

To represent another facet of the war and also to play into the themes of forgiveness (or lack there of). Even the heroes of the story (well, some of them) don't accept him or his place in their ranks. Regardless of how often he proves his worth (which he risks a great deal and goes to great lengths in order to do) he still isn't accepted by all (the reason he was asked to stay outside after carrying Ironhide to safety).

on continuity with the rest of IDW:

And the winner is...

DecepticonsRule wrote:
And just my two cents, but self-contained does not = out of continuity. I think that's where some confusion is coming from. I think of self-contained as meaning you don't have to have read previous series to understand what's going on in AHM. Everything you need to know about AHM is explained within the pages of AHM which = self-contained. That doesn't mean AHM is not supposed to tie into the overall continuity. Shane and IDW have always said from day 1 that AHM was a continuation of the overall continuity. For me, I've had no problem following it as such.

more McCarthy comments

http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=6022&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's relationship:

That was definitely a conscious decision. He'd been under Streaker's shadow for quite a long time and the events of AHM caused him to mature in his mindset considerably.

Alternatively it caused Sunstreaker to go the other way which had them in a position during AHM for the teacher to become the pupil as it were.

Both reacted differently to the situation (clearly Streaker had more going on though) but Sideswipe, initially, took the higher ground and realised they had to see the big picture due to what had happened.

Sadly Streaker had already fallen too far and, when he made the sacrifice on the bridge it forced Sideswipe to become somewhat bitter about their prospects and what their actions had brought about.

Sideswipe's connection to Streaker and his having almost become the conscience of this war factors into #12. Stay tuned...

On Cliffjumper:

Absolutely. I tend to see Cliffjumper as the weaponsmith of the Autobots. There's a reason he's the only Autobot with a gun in the original crew stranded on Cybertron. Take a closer look, he fashioned it out of spare parts. Face it, he's MacGyver.

That's also why he's chatting with Perceptor in one of the shots after the teams unite; the two gun guys are geeking out at what he'd built.

On Bombshell in Blaster's spotlight vs. his version:

The way I saw it was that the Bombshell we saw in the Spotlight was a prototype for the larger model we see later.

I think it's great and I think there should be more of it. Wherever possible I re-invented rather than reintroduced (Perceptor, Roadbuster, Blurr).

Who created the Insecticons?

That's open to any writer wanting to tackle that point. The current Insecticons were created by Megatron and Deluge, the previous ones? Hmmm...

[quote="Shane McCarthy"][quote="Mort"]Does that mean the praise Deluge gives out is directed at Megatron ('This was a stroke of genius [...] It's upsetting I didn't think of this myself' etc) or did I misunderstand you and the praise was for Soundwave's (or whoever else's) original creations?[/quote]

It was directed at Megs.

[quote="Mort"]Also, having had the time to listen to the interview now, I have found the relationship between Megatron & Starscream ambiguous all the way to #11, but you seem to be making it absolutely clear that Megatron is sincere in what he tells Starscream and Starscream is sincere in his change of heart. Would you just reconfirm that that's indeed what you meant for them and there are no additional layers to that conversation. [/quote]

I'm glad you found it ambiguous. People debating their motivations were exactly what I was hoping for. However, yes, to clear it up: Megatron is indeed sincere in what he tells Starscream (however he's also baiting him to 'trick' him into playing his hand) and Starscream's change of heart is...oh wait, #12 isn't out yet is it? Shhh then.

[quote="Mort"]And whilst on the subject, what was that final step that Megatron wanted Starscream to take to completely embrace the Decepticon ideal back in #3?[/quote]

To accept who he is and accept Megatron as leader...OR...to make his play for leadership and take Megatron out. That was basically Megatron saying "Sh*t or get off the pot."

[quote="Mort"]Regarding Kup as the traitor, I did think strongly it was him around the time of #6, particularly because of his speech to Prowl. Was any of it going to be part of his traitor persona had you gone down that route or was he going to be an entirely different personality altogether? The canvas must have been pretty blank after Nick's spotlight. Or did you never get that far at that stage?[/quote]

Let me be very, very clear on this (even though I have been but little things like this have a habit of running off to other boards and mutating into 'Shane changed his mind and blah blah!!', haha). My idea for having Kup as the traitor was something I threw out WELL before AHM #1 had gone to script. The Kup you see in AHM, all the way through, is a non traitor Kup.

As you say, I had a blank slate to play with and rebuilt him with 100% badass components, no shoddy workmanship there at all ;)

[quote="Mort"][PS: The cigar is brilliance - especially the scene where he picks it up in SL:Drift][/quote]

For all the cigar fans, it has two 'moments' in #12...other than that third moment where it takes on Megatron single handed and save the universe from evil and...stuff.[/quote]

Gleaned comments about All Hail Megatron by Shane McCarthy

With links!

Drift's comment was a lead into the reveal of Hunter on the next page. Hunter is the 'other' person.

Kup as the traitor was thrown out the door before I started scripting #1.

Regarding changes to Perceptor:

For the reasons I stated in the interview.

He fell in SP: Drift, was rebuilt and then appears in AHM. Not sure what Nick's doing but it was my theory that when these guys get rebuilt it's their chance to either remain the same or take on a new 'form' (kind of like the Doctor).

For the reasons I chatted to Dave about Perceptor alters his appearance.

[quote="Shane McCarthy"]You mentioned you didn't even know about Revelation until AHM was well under way, but I saw what seemed like a pretty clear reference to it in #10, when they discuss Sixshot 'bringing back' space bridge technology. This would seem to be a reference to him being Shanghaied by Galvatron to be a space bridge guard. Or it could something to do with his appearance in Spotlight: Metroplex, which came about even later than Revelation.

I don't recall exactly where I was in AHM when I heard about REV but it was definitely before #10. The story of AHM was never altered but it was great being able to slip in and change small things to allow it to fit in with what Simon was writing along the way.

So the question is, how much of the story was changed along the way to reflect other stories? Was Bombshell originally just going to build the space bridge from scratch?

You know, I'm not sure about that one. Maybe? I'd need to check my notes. The story wasn't changed in any significant ways, it was really more of a case of cosmetic changes to allow it all to fit in with what was happening elsewhere as I was writing it. Sometimes it made for some frantic changes, haha, but it's all part of working in a shared universe.

Also, could we get some clarification about what happened to Rumble in #9? People seem to think he was shot with the Shockwave gun thingy, but it looked like an ordinary rocket launcher to me.

Rumble was shot in the face by the rocket launcher, not the iShockwave. He was downed, Soundwave got pissed off and lost control of the radio waves for a short moment. Rumble was never supposed to be dead, however he was supposed to be damaged.

I'm extremely specific in my scripts about how I see a shot and how I'd like it done. I try to give my artists the clearest picture of how I'm imagining it to look so they're never at a loss for what I'm asking for. After that it's up to them to either follow it to the letter or improve on what I'm asking for with their superior knowledge of visual storytelling. The way I see it is, if they can see a way to improve what I'm asking for then they should go ahead and do it, it's only going to help the story.

The cinematic feel you mention was a deliberate attempt of mine to start the series off with a 'blockbuster' feel and to then slowly start to move in deeper. Scenes like Megs walking past the office windows and so on were all very clear in my head from the beginning.

Pacing:

Six issues won't change how I pace anything. The flaw in your logic here is to assume I'd 'filled' out the twelve issues rather than do it as a packed, six issue actionfest.

The pacing was exactly as I intended it to be and how I approach storytelling. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but others have enjoyed that side of it a lot.

Apples and oranges.

The scale of Devastator and Omega Supreme:

All of this was discussed at length. As I've said before, nothing happened in AHM as an accident. All of it was debated and talked about.

I wanted the giants to be bigger and so did Guido. And yes, it was for effect (and yes we threw in the cues for mass displacement to happen when they transformed in #2).

Yes they're made up of smaller pieces but when someone can change from a cassette player into a giant robot or a tape into a giant jaguar (not a dog Wink ) then I hardly think it's absurd for Devastator to be larger than the sum of his parts.

Again, we're having fun here, let's have a good time.

Shane, on the off chance you have a minute to answer- was there at any point a chance where you could've pitched a different story to Hasbro/IDW?

Well, I'm guessing the moment I pitched it it could have been a different story. AHM was the one I thought of and pitched though so...

Or was it always this exact plot?

This was always where I wanted to go, yes.

Did you have vaguer details from the off, or was it always set in stone that, say, Sunstreaker was going to be the traitor etc?

I knew how I wanted to approach it. I knew the Cons would take over, I knew there would be a traitor in the Autobots, I knew Starscream would become dissatisfied with Megatron but in doing so would learn Megatron's 'true purpose' and thusly regain faith in his leader.

Some specific moments were always in my head; Dropshot, Octane, Cliffjumper waiting for the red light...

Others came to me later; Megatron Vs Devastator, Sunstreaker being the traitor etc.

Did you, eg, hope to have more time spent with the Autobots etc?

No, I think we spent enough time seeing those guys depressed as it was ;)

review - Transformers #2

Nice. A definite improvement on the already good first issue. We’re moving away from the setup/establishment phase and into different stories as various characters choose the direction they want to go. I like where Costa is taking the characters.

With Prime gone, the Autobots have to choose a new leader. In a military unit, I’d have expected the second in command to step up and take the job, but I guess that’s not the way things work in the Autobot military. About half the group want to remain on Earth, while the other half, who follow Hot Rod’s example, want to blow the joint and go anywhere but Earth. Problem is, the only way they can leave is if Omega Supreme takes them, and he won’t go without Prime.

We get to see a few other Decepticons who are still on Earth, with Scrapper and Swindle among them. They attack the Autobots on sight, and the Autobots return fire, but ultimately the battle ends when Hot Rod and Swindle decide that with the war over, there’s no reason to fight. They all just want to leave Earth and go home, or whatever the equivalent is with Cybertron out of the picture. Plot wise, this could be a very interesting direction to go. I’ve often wondered just how certain militant Transformers could possibly adjust to peacetime, and if Costa actually takes some time to explore that type of situation, then I’m all for it. We’ve never really seen the Transformers post-war. There’s a lot of potential here.

Continuity looks good to me, though I’m sure the nitpickers will find plenty of faults somewhere. They always do. Cybertron is still uninhabitable so it’s not an option as a place to settle, Omega Supreme is still on Earth, Scavenger wants revenge on Omega Supreme (presumably after the events of AHM #12), Ultra Magnus still considers himself the enforcer of the Tyrest Accords… though with the war over, should the accords still apply? Prowl gives a bit of a justification for his defense of Breakdown last issue. And so on. A number of little details like that jumped out at me during my initial reading of the issue. I get so tired of reading “AHM isn’t in continuity” complaints, so I hope we don’t go through that all over again with the ongoing. It seems very apparent to me that attempts are being made to very visibly remain true to all that’s come before this story, so I have to applaud Costa for that.

And in the end, who gets voted leader of the group remaining on Earth? In any other continuity, it wouldn’t be believable, but here it’s entirely possible that Bumblebee is known and trusted to the point that he’d win such a contest. Hey, the US elected a senator with a paper thin record and no executive experience to the Presidency last November, so why wouldn't the Autobots elect a spy to be their leader? The Autobots at least know Bumblebee and know what he’s capable of, so he’s not entirely a shot in the dark. That being the case, it’s yet another interesting twist to throw at the reader. It’s not just a cliffhanger, it’s potentially a major bit of development for the character of Bumblebee, and that’s always welcome.

I have to end with Spike, the major who knows there are good and bad Transformers out there but doesn’t care. The guy who expects a counterattack after the capture of Prowl, and yet leaves his troops to deal with it on their own while he’s picking up chicks with his alien car. The guy who looks like he is indeed going to suffer some consequences for his irresponsible actions.

Making the main human character in a Transformers comic the very opposite of likable and heroic is an unusual choice. This is not good old familiar Spike; this is a jerk who I really don’t like. He’s also potentially far more interesting and has plenty of room for growth, if Costa chooses to take the character somewhere.

In the end, this issue leaves me wanting to know what happens next. That’s the type of feeling I’d like to have after just about any issue that I read. I’m calling it a success.

review - Megatron: Origin

If any of IDW’s Transformers fiction had to be described as having the look and feel of a comic published by Dreamwave, it would have to be the “Megatron: Origin” mini-series. Written by Eric Holmes and drawn by Alex Milne, the story is visually dense, with a narrative consisting of what feel like vignettes in Megatron’s early life rather than a deliberately paced, flowing narrative. The series is crammed with visual cameos by familiar characters, and action sequences are not always drawn in a way that conveys the events depicted in a clear manner.

The plot takes an interesting tack right off the bat by portraying the government that rules Cybertron as a corrupt one. When a senator attempts to shut down an Energon mine, the miners resist, and one particularly vocal miner is attacked and killed by the Senator’s Autobot bodyguards. And here’s where Megatron enters the picture. He fights back during the ensuing riot, and kills a guard with his bare hands, causing him to freak out at the having taken a life. Shot down by the guards quelling the riot, he later awakens in the prison shuttle, captures it, and goes underground in the city of Kaon.

Personally, I find the very idea of a young, essentially innocent Megatron a fascinating depiction of the character, because it’s so different than the present-day Decepticon leader. The idea that he’s appalled at having killed someone is just so off the wall, and yet it makes sense. Most world tyrants don’t start out as killers, and some of them probably start out with good intentions. On the other hand, I’m not sure how I feel about portraying the Autobots as corrupt murderers. I despise the trend of tearing down fictional heroes and casting them as morally equivalent to the villains. Not that I want everything to be black and white morally, but the Autobots in this story are every bit as bad as the Decepticons will later be. So why would we root for them? What makes them any better than the Decepticons? I suppose it could be argued that not all Autobots are as bad as those in the Senate and the brutal guards who put down the prison riot, but still, the story paints them in a very bad light.

Moving on, Megatron begins to participate in the illegal underground gladiatorial games in Kaon. The story never specifies just why he makes this choice, and the reader is left to infer that it’s a matter of survival in the corrupt Kaon. Over time he becomes quite numb to taking lives, and eventually revels in it as he grows to be quite proficient in the ring. This is shown to be how he begins to recruit his army, particularly with Soundwave’s help. And this too makes sense, since the Decepticon army is largely composed of thugs and killers and psychopaths. Megatron draws from the criminal elements on Cybertron and rallies them to his cause as his reputation grows. It’s a believable route for the character to take.

Ultimately, by the time the Autobots move in to arrest Megatron and break up the gladiatorial movement, it’s too late to stop it. Picture a small group of police going up against a gang of heavily armed terrorists, and you’ve got the picture here. We finally get a good look at Sentinel Prime, and he’s beaten to within an inch of his life by Megatron.

Now, when summarized like this, the story makes good sense. However, the narrative of the four-issue mini-series jumps around in Megatron’s early life. Character choices are not always explained, and one event doesn’t always follow the previous event in step-by-step fashion. That’s not to say that the story doesn’t make sense, but we aren’t given all the thought behind Megatron’s choices, or his philosophy, and it’s a wasted opportunity to get inside the character’s head. We see what lead to his rebellion and rise to power, but only bits and pieces with no narrative or motive to connect them. We don’t really get to know Megatron. We get to know facts about his rise to power, but not him.

The art is very detailed and fairly good, all things considered. Characters look more or less on model and are recognizable. My problem with the art lies with the sequential and action storytelling. It’s necessary to read most issues two or three times to work out just what is going on in some scenes. The fight between Sentinel Prime and Megatron is a good example of this, as it is difficult to tell who is getting trashed at any given moment. Sometimes the colors are a bit too shadowy and muted to really make the characters distinct from one another. And then there’s “character cameo syndrome” where characters pop up in crowd scenes and the appearance conflicts with fiction set at a later time, or characters from another continuity turn up in crowd scenes. This makes for fun Easter eggs until whiny fanboys start complaining that so and so’s appearance in story x makes the story crap because said character was seen in a crowd in Megatron Origin.

So what’s the bottom line? I think overall the story has some good ideas and Megatron’s rise to power is sound enough in concept. In practice, the story feels like it rushes through some important moments, and it turns the Autobots into corrupt and ineffective police in order to give Megatron a sympathetic origin. With some clearer art and a couple more issues to allow the story to breathe and unfold a little more naturally, the series would have been considerably improved. This isn’t IDW’s best effort, but it’s not terrible. It’s not worth knocking yourself out to collect either.

The Transformers - review of first issue

Issue #1

Where to begin? Just about half the book has been made available online in the past few weeks, including the death of Ironhide, so there’s very little that’s unexpected in this first issue. Even the ending is one of those “I saw it coming” type twists. Not that it isn’t effective, and where the story goes from here is hard to predict, so in that sense it’s successful as a cliffhanger. But I wonder if IDW let too much of the story out before the issue itself was available, reducing anticipation and limiting the surprise factor. Enough pieces of the puzzle were made available that it became possible to guess how the rest of the issue would play out, and indeed it wasn’t all that different from what I had imagined would happen.

After a brief summary of events, the issue begins at a point two years after the finale of “All Hail Megatron”, which leaves time for much of the destruction caused by the Decepticons in that story to be cleaned up and repaired. For reasons that are still not entirely clear, the Autobots have not only remained in hiding on Earth during that time, but have built up their forces. The humans don’t want them, and have developed very effective weaponry to combat any Transformer they find, Autobot or Decepticon. Prime apparently believes that the Autobot presence is necessary in case the Decepticons return, a point of view with which Hot Rod disagrees vehemently. Given what happens during the story, I’d have to agree with Hot Rod’s point of view. There’s no real reason for the Autobots to be on Earth at this point. Meaning that everything that happens during this issue was unnecessary, rendering Prime’s poor judgment doubly tragic.

One of the things I don’t care for is the return of the old doubtful Optimus Prime, who is unsure of himself and his decisions. This characterization hearkens back to the old Marvel comics days where Prime constantly questioned his decisions and seemed at times unwilling to take decisive action. It may be that Hot Rod’s accusations hit home, and that the death of Ironhide hits really hard, but I’ve always preferred to see Prime portrayed as a confident leader, one who could realistically and believably inspire his troops. However, his decision to resign and to surrender to the humans is very interesting, and potentially very unwise given what happened to Sunstreaker at the hands of the Machination, and given how the humans have clearly been reverse-engineering Transformer technology for their own defense. Prime could turn out to be the latest resource in the human war against Transformers.

But resigning may well have been exactly the right thing to do. Clearly while Prime badly underestimates his human opponents, Spike has the measure of his. He’s either aware or gambles that the threat of death to Breakdown would draw out any hidden Transformers in the area. Spike outmaneuvers Prime and captures Prowl, who is then used as bait to draw in a rescue team. And incidentally, I’ve defended Prowl’s laudable respect for life that leads him to defend even a Decepticon, but as the logical tactician of the group he really should have seen this coming. His response is not typical of Prowl at all, and I may be forced to concede that it is indeed a case of bad characterization. However, the reveal that Streetwise was there with him is a nice surprise.

The art is excellent, as I’ve come to expect from Don Figeroa. There has been a lot of complaining about the new style, particularly the faces, but I’ve decided that I prefer the new look even to Don’s work from Dreamwave and earlier IDW stories. I really like the detail he’s put into the faces and joints of the robots. The colors are bright and almost cartoony in some cases, which is quite a contrast with the tone of the story itself.

So what’s the bottom line? Prime and Prowl mess up, Ironhide is killed during the rescue attempt, and Prime resigns as leader and surrenders to the humans. One would be hard pressed to argue that the pace of this issue is decompressed in any way. A lot happens and happens quickly, and that may be just what the series needs. I don’t entirely agree with the portrayal of some of the characters, or agree that they should even be where they are, but despite that the story successfully depicts a group of Autobots who don’t really know what to do now that the war is over and they are on the losing end. In searching for a purpose, they end up making things worse for themselves. I’m curious to see where things go from here. I can’t say I’m 100% enthused about the new direction, but I did enjoy it and I am interested in the story, so that’s enough to keep me reading.

Why I oppose Obamacare, part 1

I am absolutely against the health care "reform" bills going through Congress right now. We're looking at a massive expansion of government power and taxation that will put the private insurance companies out of business and leave all of us with nowhere to go except rationed public care. This is a terrible plan that's being forced on us, and about as far from genuine reform as one can get.

So, reasons to be against Obamacare, one at a time:

1. The Cost
With our federal deficit already at record levels, this bill would spend even more money that we don't have. According to this and other articles, "the legislation is estimated to cost $1.2 trillion in the first 10 years".

Where will the money to pay for this come from, particularly when we're in a recession? Does anyone seriously believe it won't add to the deficit, as Nancy Pelosi and President Obama have claimed? I don't. Find me a federal program that didn't end up costing many, many times more than the authors of the bill originally claimed. You can't do it.

The money will come from two sources: cuts to Medicare, and higher taxes and fees. The taxes will supposedly be levied only on "the rich", but the country can only go to that particular well so often. The truth of the matter is, the cost will be passed on to us in the middle class, as it always is. We'll be paying for this trillion dollar government program.

2. Taxes

Just for starters, how about a 69% increase in capital gains taxes?

House Democrats are funding their new entitlement with a 5.4% surtax on incomes above $500,000 for individuals and above $1 million for joint filers. The surcharge is intended to snag the greatest number of taxpayers to raise some $460.5 billion, and so the House has written it to apply to modified adjusted gross income. That means it includes both capital gains and dividends.

That surtax takes effect on January 1, 2011, or the day the Bush tax rates of 2001 and 2003 expire. Today’s capital gains tax rate of 15% would bounce back to 20% because of the Bush repeal and then to 25.4% with the surtax. That’s a 69% increase, overnight. The last time investors were hit with anything comparable was 1986, when the capital gains rate jumped to 28% from 20%, a 40% increase, as part of the Reagan tax reform that lowered incometax rates.

There's more. Much more.

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

Even if you're a big government, soak the rich kind of person, can you possibly justify this level of new taxation and penalties in the midst of a recession? Can we afford to have business hit this hard when they're already struggling?

Oh, and just today, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid(D) announced a possible Medicare payroll tax increase. One more cost for businesses.

Part 2 to follow soon.

An odd mix, isn't it?

The blog, I mean. I switch back and forth between comic reviews, Doctor Who and political topics. It's a strange mix. But all of the above interest me at the moment. I like to review the various comics I read, and I like to comment on the insane people running our government right now.

I always figure that after a day of immersing myself in the news that my hobbies should be my outlet, my bit of escapism to let my mind rest from serious issues. I like entertainment that's about as far from reality as one can get, hence Doctor Who and Transformers.

So yeah, odd mix. But I enjoy it, and it's my blog, so it works for me.

Transformers Continuum review

Given that IDW is about to start a new ongoing monthly Transformers series, and given that they’ve published a good number of Transformers comics in the past four years, it makes sense to offer readers a book like Continuum. This one-shot comic does two things. It sums up “the story so far…” including events from the various mini-series and spotlights, as well as All Hail Megatron. It also contains a list of all the various mini-series and spotlights in chronological order according, so the new reader (or long time reader for that matter) can accurately place any given story within the fictional history of the Transformers since IDW took over the property.

The book itself is comprised of art from all the various series combined with summaries of events. The art is recycled, but there’s nothing wrong with that given the context of the book as a “historical document” and story summary. The copy itself is new, and it’s here that the book starts to stumble a bit, given that some of the ‘facts’ presented within the summaries conflict with what was seen in the actual comics.

I haven't read every comic published by IDW, but I've read enough to know when some facts have been changed or left out, and it's puzzling. It's not just one or two things, but multiple contradictions with past stories, such as saying that the final battle with Thunderwing took place on Nebulon, when it was actually on Cybertron. There's no mention of Jimmy Pink at all, just Hunter and Verity (though Jimmy makes a cameo in one panel, unidentified). Skywatch and the Machination are confused to the point that the Machination is never even mentioned, and Skywatch is blamed for the kidnapping of Hunter and Sunstreaker. The Autobots are said to believe that both are dead. The book is riddled with errors like this, and it's hard to understand.

I want to be kind here, but I have to be blunt: either author Andy Schmidt made a ton of mistakes while doing his research, or else we're getting some blantant history revisionism here. Either way, I don't really care for the end result.

In short, I appreciate what’s been attempted with Continuum. IDW have built up a lot of continuity and story in a few short years, and it’s bound to be daunting to the new reader. This brief summary of major story points and characters is a good idea, which will hopefully draw in some new readers. On the other hand, it’s a disappointment to the long-time reader like myself when so much of what's in Continuum is wrong. It doesn’t jibe with what’s already been published. IDW gets credit for a good idea, but it looks like they botched the execution. I hate to say that, but sadly it's the case.

All Hail Megatron volume 2 TPB

Volume 2 trade paperback, originally issues 7-12

“All Hail Megatron” volume 2 collects the second half of the series into a single book. Like the first collection, this greatly improves the pacing of the story by avoiding a month’s break between chapters. The book collects covers in the back along with a few character sketches. I’m very quickly becoming a fan of the trade paperback format, though I doubt it will lead me to abandon monthly books. Without the monthly books succeeding, there won’t be any trade paperbacks.

It’s difficult to review these comics without falling back on the “this happens and then that happens” type of plot summary. There’s not much point in a recap like that, since someone could simply read the wiki summary or the books themselves if they want to know what happened. Some discussion of events is inevitable, but I’m going to try and stick with broader ideas and themes.

But so much of the story hinges on the actions of one character and what’s happened to him that I have to focus on his story at first. That character is, of course, Sunstreaker. As the story reveals early in volume 2, it was he who was both directly and indirectly responsible for the Decepticons winning the war. For all the talk of “All Hail Megatron” ignoring or contradicting some of what came before it, so much of what happens in the story does so because Sunstreaker was captured along with Hunter O’Nion and forcibly converted into a Headmaster by Scorponok and the Machination. Sunstreaker was tortured, humiliated and taken apart to be used as a weapon against his fellow Autobots. For an individual as proud and vain as he was, it was a deeply disturbing experience. And though his body was restored, the events continued to haunt him, causing him to turn his back on Hunter.

Enter Bombshell, created by Megatron to take advantage of the captured Hunter and the Headmaster components integrated into the human. Had Sunstreaker not abandoned him, it’s possible that Hunter would not have been captured and used against the Autobots. Had Sunstreaker been able to heal and come to terms with his experiences, he might not have made the stupid mistake of trusting Starscream. The Autobots’ entire defense network is compromised thanks to Hunter’s unique nature, and the Autobot group under Prime is defeated thanks to Sunstreaker’s desire to lash out and gain revenge on humanity for what one small group of them did to him. Had Sunstreaker been able to stand firm on principle, much of what happened would not have happened, and the Decepticons would not have won. It’s little wonder that Sunstreaker is essentially driven to suicide by Insecticon, telling Ironhide that he wants to die. Watching Ironhide beat up Mirage when he was the guilty party seems to have been the final straw.

What brought down the Autobots? It can essentially be boiled down to one individual who chose revenge over a higher moral principle and couldn’t rise above the admittedly terrible events he had lived through. It’s been made clear that the Autobots in IDW’s continuity are not the noble characters that we’ve seen in the past, and that there isn’t a lot of difference between them and the Decepticons when it comes to the way the two groups fight the war. The Autobots are willing to endure “acceptable losses” for the purpose of fighting the greater war. Even Optimus Prime has been shown as less than concerned with individual life up to this point. All of that begins to change as the Autobots debate whether or not they are worthy of surviving at all, and Optimus Prime begins to “grow a conscience” as Megatron later terms it. It very much seems that the break from the war and the enforced period of inactivity has caused at least some of the Autobots to rethink who they are and what methods they should be employing. Had Prime or any of the other Autobots thought Hunter worthy of protection, they might have been able to prevent what happened, so in that sense they all share the blame with Sunstreaker. It’s good to see Prime beginning to grow beyond that at the end of the story, and his leadership is certain to influence the others under his command.

It goes without saying that the lack of concern for individual life is a flaw that most, if not all Decepticons share. This is most apparent in their treatment of humanity as they kill tens of thousands in their assault on New York and other areas around the Earth. But it’s also apparent with the creation of the Swarm. Megatron knew beforehand that the experiment designed to produce a genius like Bombshell was likely to produce thousands of failures before any success was achieved, and yet he proceeded anyway, much to Thundercracker’s displeasure. “Our own kind!” he shouts at Megatron, before walking away in disgust. This lack of regard for even fellow Decepticon life leads the Decepticons to turn on each other far more easily than the Autobots do, which is why Ironhide’s attack on Mirage is so shocking. We expect fratricidal behavior from Decepticons, but not from Autobots. It’s realistic but at the same time disappointing to see that under the right circumstances, even a stalwart like Ironhide can crack.

The contrast with fellow Decepticons’ behavior is also why Thundercracker’s anger at the treatment of the failed Insecticon experiments stands out, since he appears to be the only one to aspire to a higher standard of treatment when it comes to the others who follow the same cause that he follows. The fact that even Megatron as leader and standard-bearer cannot live up to Thundercracker’s ideals is a great disappointment to him, setting up his actions in the middle and end of the story as he quickly grows dissatisfied with the casual slaughter of humans and as he prevents the mass destruction of many more with the nuclear bomb. “All Hail Megatron” presents the reader with possibly the best use of Thundercracker we’ve seen, as he goes from being the other half of the “Thundercracker and Skywarp” pair to an idealistic individual who is perfectly willing to commit immoral actions, but only up to a point and for certain reasons. He’s still a villain, but a villain with standards, which makes him far more interesting than he’s been in the past. The potential was always there, and it’s good to finally see it tapped.

The other major plot thread running through the story, which comes to a head in volume 2, concerns the plans and actions of the post-war, victorious Megatron. Having finally obtained the long-sought victory over the Autobots, Megatron rather suddenly finds himself faced with having to tame the monster he’s created in the form of the Decepticon army. As that army had formed and as the war had dragged on, Megatron had led them more and more in the direction of doing anything to win. In theory, all Decepticons should have been much more like Thundercracker in terms of outlook, rather than brutal, bloodthirsty murdering thugs. Megatron is fully aware that without a common enemy in the form of the Autobots that they will turn on him and each other at some point, and he rightly knows that Starscream will be the leader of that coup attempt, as usual. The attack on Earth is a delaying action for the most part, giving his army something to keep them occupied while he waits for the inevitable uprising, so he can cull the Decepticons who don’t meet his ideals. Interestingly, he spends no small amount of time trying to convince Starscream to live up to his supposed higher ideals, and even telling him that he will one day succeed in taking leadership from Megatron. Starscream, interestingly, claims to act because of what he sees as the failed leadership of Megatron, who was able to win the war but had no clear plan for victory after that.

That leads to the themes of leadership and focus that pervade the story, and the contrast between Optimus Prime and Megatron. For most of the story, the Autobots are falling apart despite the capable presence of Prowl and Jazz, and later Kup. It’s only when Optimus Prime is finally repaired and among them again that the Autobots rally. He is able to inspire and motivate them even in the most hopeless of situations. Megatron on the other hand had offered the Decepticons a philosophy to aspire to, but in the end it turns out to be hollow, and Megatron has to lead as he always has, by being powerful enough to fend off all challengers to his position. He simply is incapable of inspiring his followers in the same way that Optimus Prime does. Megatron needs an enemy to focus his troops against, to force them to band together against the common foe. When that foe is the clearly inferior humanity, it’s not enough. The hollowness of the Decepticon cause is readily apparent for all with the intelligence to see it, like Thundercracker. The Autobots recognize their flaws and begin the process to change, led by Prime’s example. The Decepticons fragment and turn on each other as their flaws are exposed, and the one guy who tries to live up to his ideals is punished for it.

The basic story and premise are good, but as detailed above, what makes this story so strong are the underlying moral and philosophical dilemmas. Taken together with volume 1, “All Hail Megatron” is one of the stronger Transformers stories I’ve read. It has something to say, and it makes very good use of the characters, including some whose potential has never really been exploited before. It’s well worth a read.

So, the health care 'reform' bill passed the House...

... but will it pass the Senate? Especially a bill that passed with such a close margin? Several pundits I've read say no, the bill is dead in its current form. Let's hope so.

Even if not, where do we go from here?
- The bill could die in the Senate
- Something could pass in the Senate, and not get out of reconciliation in a form that would attract enough votes
- if something did get out, the President would certainly sign it

If things go that far, there are going to be legal challenges on the constitutionality of the new law, in particular the purchase mandates. If the public really is as against this bill as they seem to be, the Democrats will hopefully pay a price in the midterms next fall, and a Republican majority could repeal the law.

The fight's not over. Not by a long shot. I feel like I did after Obama got elected. My first thought was "Ok, time to fight this."

Robert Gibbs is clueless

From this article about today's healthcare debate:

"And a summer of angry town hall confrontations and tea party demonstrations, the White House says, is poisoning the debate on the issues.

"Imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11," Gibbs said. "Imagine just a few years ago, had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.""

Uh... they did. Guess he missed all the "Bushitler" signs.

They're killing Ironhide? In the first issue?

This bites. Big time. So much for being enthusiastic about the series. Now I'm just hoping the rest of the stories justify killing off one of my favorite characters.

I doubt it.

All Hail Megatron TPB vol. 1

originally issues 1-6

“All Hail Megatron” begins with a simple premise, as detailed in the forward by author Shane McCarthy. The Decepticons have finally won the war. There’s no one to stop them from running rampant throughout the galaxy and doing whatever they want. It’s like the old cartoon episode “Megatron’s Master Plan” part 2, only without the sanitized nature of the old cartoon that made sure that no one died and nothing was permanently destroyed. AHM contains plenty of destruction and death, though a lot of it still happens off panel or is implied rather than shown, so it’s no R-rated bloodbath.

The story remains in continuity with Simon Furman’s earlier storylines, and yet it consciously goes back to long-standing character groupings and reverts many characters to their original G1 designs. It’s a “back to basics” appeal to nostalgia, apparently in an attempt to halt the downward slope of comic sales throughout the “-ation” series of stories. The Transformers alter appearance and alternate mode often enough that the change is not implausible, but it is certainly jarring to have read three years of comics that were trying to bring Transformers into the present day, only to go all the way back to the 80s with many of the designs. A few characters retain their IDW designs, and a few adopt the Classics/Universe designs, so it’s not all retro. But it’s clear that the overall approach came from a mindset that believed that IDW’s problems stemmed from straying too far from what the nostalgia crowd wanted. I don’t agree with that, but that’s obviously what dictated the approach.

So the story presents the reader with more familiar and traditional character designs and character groupings. Starscream, Soundwave and the rest of the usual cast of characters surround Megatron. Many of the Autobots are who we would expect to find together from the 84-85 cast, such as Ironhide, Prowl and Jazz. The Constructicons and Insecticons are thrown into the mix for the first time as well. That’s fine, and I can accept that the characters have gathered together as they have and altered their forms as well, given that a year has passed since “Devastation”. The Decepticons have set a wide ranging attack in motion both on Earth and elsewhere in the galaxy, and according to Megatron have broken the back of the Autobot “resistance” as he terms it. They openly reveal themselves and attack New York, killing thousands and trashing the city. They cut it off from the outside and establish it as a base of operations from which they attack other areas around the Earth. But in an interesting turn of events, they find victory less than satisfactory. The forces of Earth are not a challenge to the Decepticons, who slaughter them en masse without much of an effort. Cracks begin to show in the unity of the Decepticons, and Starscream openly asks Megatron “What’s next?”

The Autobots are trapped on Cybertron, and Optimus Prime is near-death with Ratchet trying to keep him alive and repair him. Many of the Autobots are in an obviously damaged state, with missing limbs and holes in their armor. Morale is terrible, and there is a traitor in the mix who sold them out to the Decepticons. Jazz and Prowl keep the secret of the loss of the Matrix from the rest of the Autobots. Like the Decepticons, the Autobots are slowly going stir-crazy, though in their case apart from low morale it’s simply because there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Cybertron is not a hospitable environment, though in keeping with the end of Stormbringer the environment is recovering from the damage that the planet had taken. The Autobots are able to survive unprotected on the surface when a year ago the Technobots had all sorts of problems.

The plot unfolds very deliberately and naturally. We don’t see all the destruction and attempts to fight back in a single issue. Rather, it is ongoing throughout three or four chapters. The characters gradually go downhill rather than take sudden left turns, which feels much more natural. Ironhide takes a swing at Prowl, setting up his eventual beatdown of Mirage as his frustrations grow. Starscream abandons the battle and banters with Megatron about what’s next now that they’ve won. I’ve read numerous complaints about the slow pace of the story from those who read it month to month, but in compiled form everything feels just about right.

Characterization is the key to this story’s success. I doubt we’ve ever seen the Decepticons interacting in quite the same way that they interact here, and the same is true of the Autobots. They react to the situations they’re placed in according to their individual temperaments and beliefs, meaning that the characters drive the plot as much as they’re carried along by it. Some characters are changed beyond recognition, like Perceptor. The story takes a few risks with the characters and they pay off. The characters that get lines and express opinions become more three-dimensional as a result. We get characters just standing around “chewing the fat” as well as discussing the overall situation.

The human side of the story works better than I expected it to. I held off for a long time on buying the trade paperback because it seemed like there was a lot of human-centered story there that I just wasn’t interested in. But those portions of the plot are quite gripping at times as the military are rapidly outmaneuvered and beaten by the Decepticons, and General Witwicky takes hit after hit to his plans and morale. Yes, the Witwickys are introduced as a military family, with Spike apparently a commando or black ops type of soldier. There’s no sign of Hunter, Jimmy or Verity, though I know Hunter turns up later on and plays a key role in the story.

The art is strong, as is to be expected from Guido Guidi, who’s been drawing these characters for some time now. Many of the characters are very reminiscent of the old cartoon, but that’s probably deliberate as well.

It’s only the first half of the story, but I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit, and that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? It may not mesh perfectly with all of Furman’s stories, but it does work with them and build on them in most areas, while at the same time going off in its own direction and trying to appeal to nostalgia. “All Hail Megatron” is a solid effort at a direction change for IDW and a good story that uses the characters well.

Rush Limbaugh on Fox News Sunday

See the video of the entire interview here.

He might as well have said it...

Original image and article found here, on the excellent Newsbusters site. Well worth a daily visit!

new ongoing Transformers comic

This is what I'm looking forward to next month... and it's drawn by Don Figeroa, one of my favorite artists. He has a very detailed style, but at the same time it's very clean and readable and easy to follow. I'm not familiar with the writer of the new series, but I'm willing to give him a chance and see how he does.

All Falling Down...

I've become a big fan of Victor Davis Hanson's commentary over the last few months. Mr. Hanson, to quote his homepage, is "the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture."

Mr. Davis' latest column can be found at Pajamas Media, and it is an excellent summation of the problems our nation is facing thanks to the overspending by both the Bush administration and Congress, and now the Obama administration and Congress.

A few quotes that jumped out at me follow, but the entire column is well worth reading.

When Obama talks of a trillion here for health care, a trillion there for cap-and-trade, it has a chilling effect. Does he include the cost of interest? Where will the money came from? Who will pay the interest? Has he ever experienced the wages of such borrowing in his own life? Did he cut back and save for his college or law school tuition, with part-time jobs? Did he ever run a business and see how hard it was to be $200 ahead at day’s end?

What destroys individuals, ruins families, and fells nations is debt—or rather the inability to service debt, and the cultural ramifications that follow. When farming, I used to see the futility in haggling over diesel prices, trying to buy fertilizer in bulk, or using used vineyard wire—when each day we were paying hundreds in dollars in interest on a “cut-rate” 14% crop loan.

The difference between the 5th century BC and late 4th century BC at Athens is debt–and not caused just by military expenditures or war; the claims on Athenian entitlements grew by the 350s, even as forced liturgies on the productive classes increased, even as the treasury emptied. At Rome by the mid-3rd century AD the state was essentially bribing its own citizens to behave by expanding the bread and circuses dole, while tax avoidance became an art form, while the Roman state tried everything from price controls to inflating the coinage to meet services and pay public debts.

Integral to public debt are two eternal truths: a public demands of the state ever more subsidies, and those who pay for them shrink in number as they seek to avoid the increased burden.

Why the pessimism? I think there are a few truths that transcend politics and remain eternal. In life as a general rule, debt has to be paid back, and with greater pain and anger than it was to borrow it. Bullies do not respect magnanimity, but tragically interpret it as weakness to be exploited rather than to be admired.

My Doctor Who "Top 200" episode rankings

Doctor Who magazine ran the top 200 episodes this month, culled from fan surveys. Needless to say, my results are somewhat different, though until I sat down and organized the stories from favorite to least favorite, I'm not sure I could have told you just exactly what order everything was in.

Top 200 Doctor Who

1. Warrior’s Gate
2. Inferno
3. The Deadly Assassin
4. Horror of Fang Rock
5. The Caves of Androzani
6. The Ark in Space
7. The Power of the Daleks
8. Genesis of the Daleks
9. The Seeds of Doom
10. The Talons of Weng-Chiang

11. The Web of Fear
12. Terror of the Zygons
13. Pyramids of Mars
14. Planet of Evil
15. Fury From the Deep
16. The Aztecs
17. Marco Polo
18. The Crusades
19. The Massacre
20. The Daleks

21. An Unearthly Child
22. The Reign of Terror
23. The Dalek Master Plan
24. The Robots of Death
25. The Sea Devils
26. The Evil of the Daleks
27. The Time Warrior
28. Full Circle
29. City of Death
30. The Mind Robber

31. Tomb of the Cybermen
32. Earthshock
33. Carnival of Monsters
34. The Green Death
35. Invasion of the Dinosaurs
36. The Ambassadors of Death
37. The Silurians
38. The Dalek Invasion of Earth
39. The Time Meddler
40. The Three Doctors

41. The Invasion
42. The War Games
43. Day of the Daleks
44. The Face of Evil
45. The Five Doctors
46. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
47. State of Decay
48. Logopolis
49. The Leisure Hive
50. The Ribos Operation

51. The Visitation
52. The Sunmakers
53. The Androids of Tara
54. Death to the Daleks
55. Enlightenment
56. The Horns of Nimon
57. The Mind of Evil
58. Terror of the Autons
59. The Hand of Fear
60. The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit

61. Robot
62. Spearhead from Space
63. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
64. Dalek
65. Doctor Who (the TV movie)
66. The Brain of Morbius
67. The Masque of Mandragora
68. The Sontaran Experiment
69. The Ice Warriors
70. Blink

71. The Girl in the Fireplace
72. Father’s Day
73. Mark of the Rani
74. Vengeance on Varos
75. The Trial of a Time Lord
76. The Two Doctors
77. Mawdryn Undead
78. Attack of the Cybermen
79. The Highlanders
80. The Gunfighters

81. Warriors of the Deep
82. Bad Wolf / Journey’s End
83. The End of the World
84. Frontios
85. Castrovalva
86. The Keeper of Traken
87. The Armageddon Factor
88. The Pirate Planet
89. The Stones of Blood
90. The Smugglers

91. The Tenth Planet
92. The Curse of Peladon
93. The Claws of Axos
94. The Invasion of Time
95. The Faceless Ones
96. The Romans
97. The War Machines
98. The Next Doctor
99. Planet of the Daleks
100. The Macra Terror

101. Planet of Giants
102. Survival
103. The Curse of Fenric
104. Planet of the Dead
105. Planet of Fire
106. Partners in Crime
107. The Unquiet Dead
108. The Christmas Invasion
109. Human Nature / The Family of Blood
110. Smith and Jones

111. Shada
112. The Creature from the Pit
113. Nightmare of Eden
114. The Monster of Peladon
115. The Abominable Snowmen
116. Planet of the Ood
117. Turn Left
118. The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky
119. Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks
120. The Power of Kroll

121. Destiny of the Daleks
122. Frontier in Space
123. Colony in Space
124. School Reunion
125. Ghost Light
126. The Awakening
127. The Seeds of Death
128. The Krotons
129. The Doctor’s Daughter
130. Underworld

131. Revenge of the Cybermen
132. Midnight
133. Utopia / The Sound of Drums / The Last of the Time Lords
134. The Myth Makers
135. The Rescue
136. Arc of Infinity
137. Snakedance
138. Galaxy Four
139. The Savages
140. The Moonbase

141. The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End
142. The Fires of Pompeii
143. Tooth and Claw
144. The Keys of Marinus
145. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
146. Meglos
147. The Enemy of the World
148. The Celestial Toymaker
149. The Web Planet
150. Army of Ghosts / Doomsday

151. 42
152. Remembrance of the Daleks
153. Gridlock
154. The Long Game
155. Four to Doomsday
156. The Time Monster
157. The Ark
158. The Space Museum
159. The King’s Demons
160. The Mutants

161. Rose
162. Resurrection of the Daleks
163. The Invisible Enemy
164. The Android Invasion
165. The Sensorites
166. The Edge of Destruction
167. The Chase
168. The Underwater Menace
169. The Space Pirates
170. Image of the Fendahl

171. The Dominators
172. Fear Her
173. The Idiot’s Lantern
174. Timelash
175. Paradise Towers
176. Black Orchid
177. Terminus
178. The Wheel in Space
179. Mission to the Unknown

180. The Daemons
181. The Twin Dilemma
182. Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel
183. The Unicorn and the Wasp
184. The Shakespeare Code
185. Aliens of London / World War 3
186. Battlefield
187. Delta and the Bannermen
188. Revelation of the Daleks
189. Silver Nemesis
190. The Runaway Bride

191. The Lazarus Experiment
192. New Earth
193. Boom Town
194. Time-Flight
195. Time and the Rani
196. Kinda
197. The Happiness Patrol
198. Dragonfire
199. Voyage of the Damned
200. Love and Monsters

Review: Transformers Spotlight - Revelation

As far as I know, “Revelation” was originally slated to be the next six-part mini-series following “Devastation”, until falling sales forced IDW to rethink their plans for the Transformers comics. But loose story threads were hanging out there that had to be resolved, and so thankfully long-time readers got the answers in four Spotlight comics, namely Cyclonus, Hardhead, Doubledealer and Sideswipe, now collected together as a trade paperback. These four spotlights vary in the amount of focus actually given to the title character, which was probably inevitable given the need to focus more on plot than character, even within the character-focuses “Spotlight” format.

Cyclonus: Quite a bit is revealed about the title character. In this continuity, Cyclonus was one of the crew of the first Ark who went into the Dead Universe with Nova Prime. He is on a specific mission in the normal universe, but takes time to pay a visit to Cybertron where he laments the destruction of Cybertron’s ‘perfection’. Much of Cyclonus’ inner dialogue reveals him to be someone who believes strongly in the superiority of Cybertronian life, which ties in with Nova Prime’s goal to remake the universe in its image. His desire for revenge draws attention to himself, leading Ultra Magnus and Hound’s group to the nega-core, and the reason that Thunderwing was taken is finally revealed.

Hardhead: The events of Nightbeat’s spotlight are finally resolved, all because Nightbeat himself figures out that his memories have been tampered with. This particular story could have worked just as well without Hardhead in it, making it a case of fitting his character into the plot rather than vice versa, but the narrative still works well. I find it very interesting that micromasters are apparently the inhabitants of Gorlam Prime who have been modified to take on Cybertronian bodies, and the fact that they were originally humanoid in size explains the small size of the Micromasters. Nice idea.

Hardhead himself is a character I’ve never paid much attention to, and I imagine his use in IDW’s comics has given him more development than he’s had in any other TF continuity. I like the guy and his stoic, no-nonsense approach to life. He realizes he’s a grunt who is given dirty jobs because he’s tough and capable, and that sooner or later his number will be up.

Doubledealer: Here’s another relatively undeveloped character, and one I’m mainly familiar with due to the toy, which my brother had when we were kids. Not exactly a triple changer, but a figure with a robot mode and two alt-modes, a truck and a bird. This particular story was set up back in Hot Rod’s spotlight, and the events of that story are finally resolved. It’s interesting mainly to watch Doubledealer try to play his con-game on Hot Rod, who in a nice bit of logic not usually associated with the character, has worked it all out. This chapter fits the least comfortably into the Revelation storyline since the events with Hot Rod and Doubledealer only play only a small role. The main story is really the attack on Thunderwing and the creation of the Autobot pretenders so they can enter the dead universe.

Sideswipe: This particular spotlight really isn’t about Sideswipe, even if he does get some focus in a few key scenes. All the dead universe plotlines are tied up here, and all those plot threads set up earlier on with the first Ark, Nova Prime, etc. are explained and resolved. For once, the character of Nemesis Prime actually makes sense, given what happened to Nova. Optimus gets to prove that he is indeed the noblest of the Primes, despite his doubts back in his own spotlight.

So, having read all the “–ation” storylines, or most of them anyway, how does Simon Furman’s grand storyline look? Unfortunately it was the victim of pacing, being too slow at the beginning for most readers, and wrapping up too quickly in “Revelation” and “Maximum Dinobots”. But there’s a lot to appreciate about his ideas, including the use of characters from all across the G1 era, rather than just the 84-85 years. The threats on multiple fronts, including the war, the Dead Universe characters and the Machination all allowed for layers to the plot that kept things interesting. There’s a definite ‘galaxy-spanning’ feel to the story, with groups of Transformers scattered on many planets. It doesn’t feel like there’s just a small war on Earth and Cybertron, with nothing happening anywhere else. I think the storylines have been well worth my time to read and enjoy, and I think the payoff for all the ‘slow burn’ stories early on was worth the wait. All of this was probably more interesting to me than All Hail Megatron in the long run, though I enjoyed that story as well.

Comic reviews? What happened to politics?

Yeah, I decided that this blog had sat idle long enough. I'd rather add some variety and post comic and tv reviews than just stick to politics, which just irritate me too much to write about at the moment. Which is not to say that I won't get political again...



Yeah. That picture pretty much sums it up.

Onwards and upwards.

All Hail Megatron #14 review

Story 1 is about Sunstreaker, and his experiences during the Furman-written run of comics. I'm assuming a lot of what happened to him took place during "Devastation", which I missed entirely. I remember that he was captured at the start of Escalation and was apparently going to be turned into a Headmaster. The title of the story is "Replay" so I assume we're watching Sunstreaker relive his most recent memories, from winning a battle before being transferred to Earth, to being disassembled by the group who were developing the Headmasters, to what is either a memory or a fantasy about being restored and made whole. The last two pages show him lying in a pile of scrap at the bottom of a chasm beneath a broken bridge.

Here's where coming in late to a story does me no favors, since I don't really know what happened. I assume he died fighting, or else is in very bad shape and is expiring as we watch, and this story is the equivalent of his life flashing before his eyes. Either way, it's a grim storyline for a character I'd rather have seen more of. I get the feeling we won't be seeing Sunstreaker again any time soon.

Story 2 is about Galvatron, and shows him recruiting Cyclonus and Scourge, and creating the sweeps as his own private army. I guess these three characters are bound to be associated with each other from now on, ever since the 86 animated movie. At least Galvatron and Megatron are two different characters in this continuity, and that's a good thing.

Not as good as issue 15, but interesting all the same.

All Hail Megatron #13 review

Continuing my hopping around in the AHM storyline, I picked up issue #13 today. And once again, I found it a very enjoyable set of stories, based around two of my favorite G1 characters.

Ironhide - This particular story reminds us that Ironhide's been around a long time, and seen some ugly things. And at the beginning of the story it's finally gotten to be too much, thanks to his beatdown of Mirage. He and Optimus Prime sit down, have a drink or three and discuss their friendship from where it started to where it is now. That's a nice angle for the writer to take, because Optimus Prime doesn't have that many friends. He's in charge, and by necessity has to be somewhat distant from those under his command. Ironhide's one of the exceptions, and it's good to see that demonstrated, both via the conversation between the two and via flashback.

I've been a fan of Don Figeroa's art for several years now, and despite a poor first impression of his new style a few months ago when I first saw the art preview from the ongoing series, I find here that I like the new art quite a bit more than I thought I would. Don's art has always been detailed and expressive, and that trend continues here. The Transformers' eyes resemble the movie designs, but a lot of the new art is just altered facial styles and added layers of detail. It works for me.

Starscream - I've always had a disagreement with Starscream's portrayal as an incompetent coward. It doesn't match his original bio, and it doesn't make sense that he'd rise to be Megatron's lieutenant if he wasn't capable of doing the job. I think the "whiny coward" is a relic of the old cartoon, and one that needs to be disposed of. This issue does a good job of portraying Starscream as ambitious and egotistical, but not so much that it overwhelms his good sense. He knows that even with Megatron out of the way that his position isn't assured. Razorclaw is sure to challenge him, and there's always the possibility that Megatron will recover as well. When Shrapnel offers to finish him off, Starscream is unwilling to do that because he knows those loyal to Megatron will take revenge.

And then there's the Matrix, something Decepticons apparently can't use, and which Starscream sees no value in having, since it sits there and looks pretty and nothing else. But he's quick to figure out that the reputation may be enough to solidify his hold on the leadership based on Shrapnel's reaction. In the end, his body language suggests that he knows he's stepped in it, and that his lie is bound to come back and haunt him. I'd like to see some follow-up to this. I'd enjoy reading a plot where Starscream finally got what he always wanted and found that he hated it.

I didn't care for this artistic style as much. It got the job done and illustrated the story, but it's just not to my liking.

Overall, the second best issue of the "coda" issues.

All Hail Megatron volume 2 TPB

I take it from reading the discussion that the story didn't work for some of you. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and perhaps having six issues in one volume improves the pacing and ties things together more effectively. I can't say, having not read individual issues. I enjoyed the story very much.

The volume begins with the creation of the Insecticons and the Swarm, and I was happy to see some art by EJ Su, whose art I liked quite a bit in Infiltration and Escalation. Thundercracker is not happy about the experiments used to create the Insecticons and the way the cast-offs are treated. "Our own kind!" he keeps insisting. It's little scenes are reactions like this that make him and others more than just background filler characters. And there are other similar scenes here and there.

The Autobots are on the run, and the way in which they were defeated and sent to Cybertron is explained by Jazz to Kup in a flashback. Devastator is the ace in the hole that he was back in the early G1 days, when he was the only combiner. It's odd that Megatron doesn't just have the Autobots all killed rather than sending them to Cybertron to be eaten by the Swarm though. I'm not sure I buy that, unless he thought they might be needed later. It's an odd choice. Regardless, Prime manages to close the portal, leaving the Autobots alive but trapped. So they're on the run, leaderless and pursued by crazy mutant Insecticons.

It's a rough scene when Ironhide beats up Mirage, convinced that he's the traitor and unwilling to hear him out. Sunstreaker, the actual traitor, stands there and watches, and it's clear this later plays into his decision to confess and end it all, as his consicence gets the better of him. As an aside, it's nice to see the Universe versions of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe used in the story, and also Mirage I believe. I'm not sure if there were others, though I did see Dropshot and Tankor/Octane near the end, which was a nice touch. Sunstreaker's apparent death is the end of a downward spiral for a proud Autobot who was violated badly by humans and who couldn't get past that. His agreement with Starscream sealed the deal, since the dire situation the Autobots find themselves trapped in can be laid directly at his feet. I'm not convinced that he's dead, since he survived the explosion and the fall as shown in issue #14, even if he is in bad shape, but that's neither here nor there. Death is meaningless in comics.

Starscream goes around gathering support for a coup, fully aware that Megatron knows what he's up to. I find the portrayal of Starscream very interesting here. He's ambitious as always, but he also genuinely seems disenchanted with Megatron's leadership and lack of goals, and he seems genuinely to believe in the Decepticon cause rather than simply being out for power. Megatron tells him at one point that he sees Starscream ultimately succeeding in wresting leadership from him one day, and that's enough to rally Starscream behind Megatron against the Autobots. And he refuses to use the opportunity to simply kill Megatron when he's helpless and take his place, saying that leadership must be earned. This seems to be a Starscream that isn't stupid, but recognizes that he's got to have the respect of the troops in order to lead them, and killing an already helpless Megatron isn't likely to get him that respect.

Omega Supreme is one of my favorite figures and characters, so having him show up and save the day was great. His explanation of how he survived the attack sent to finish him off ("I am Omega Supreme") says it all.

One of the themes of this series is the way in which various characters pay for deals with the other side. Sunstreaker is the obvious example, but Thundercracker strays from prevailing dogma and gets shot in the head by Skywarp. Drift is rejected by Thundercracker as a traitor. Ironhide beats Mirage badly because he believes Mirage is a traitor. Both sides are so locked into their causes and beliefs that there's no room for compromise. And considering how long they've been fighting, it's not surprising. But it makes one wonder how peace would ever be possible, assuming the war was ever decisively won by either side. The overall theme of this story seems to explore this idea to some extent, as the Decepticons stagnate without a challenging enemy to fight, and the Autobots fall apart without Prime to rally them, though they are in a terminal situation admittedly.

There's a lot more, but I won't regurgitate the entire plot. Suffice it to say, I'm sorry I missed the issues the first time around. I like the ideas behind the story, and the way in which the characters were used. I'm glad I've been drawn back into reading the comics. Looks like I've missed out on some good stuff.

Review - Maximum Dinobots TPB

Maximum Dinobots - Trade Paperback

I started reading the Transformer comics by IDW when they first began publishing, and for various reasons I dropped out about the time that Devastation began. So it’s been enjoyable to go back and fill in the gaps and catch up on a year and a half of missed stories. “Maximum Dinobots” fills in a lot of those gaps. The slow burn really does pay off quite well when that payoff is finally reached. “Maximum Dinobots” deals with story threads from not only the main series, but also Spotlights Shockwave, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave and Grimlock.

After a flashback to the “glory days” of the Dynobot team, the story starts out with Grimlock on his own, trying to get their spacecraft functioning again. He sends for help and then is located by Scorponok, who has been after him since the events of Spotlight: Grimlock, briefly summarized here. The story follows this conflict between Grimlock and Scorponok, mixed with Sunstreaker and Hunter’s search for Sunstreaker’s original head. Hot Rod and Shockwave are thrown into the mix, along with Soundwave, Ravage and Laserbeak. Given all the characters and loose ends, it should be apparent that the plot is very busy, and thick with characters, and yet it works and works well.

Grimlock also gets some character development, finally. He lost his speech impediment in the IDW series (though we get two “me, Grimlocks” in his internal dialogue as in-jokes) but retained his traditional belligerent attitude. Grimlock is and has been a character who acted based on his own beliefs and goals, while not always taking into account what those around him want, and it comes back to haunt him here. The Dinobots come into conflict with Grimlock, and Swoop briefly abandons the group, before they pull together against the headmaster attack. But it’s Sludge’s near-death that really seems to get through to Grimlock. At the end of the story, he takes responsibility for going awol with the rest of the Dynobot unit, and has seemingly begun to rethink the way he’s lived his life up to this point. He submits to imprisonment by Ultra Magnus without protest, which is something I can’t imagine Grimlock doing in the past.

I loved Shockwave’s part in the story. With a bomb implanted in his chest by Skywatch and with full knowledge that it will be detonated within a certain time if not shut off, he goes to free Soundwave and essentially does as much harm to Skywatch as he can. In one story, Skywatch loses all of their controlled Transformers and is left with nothing except a damaged reputation, just in time for Spike to help run the group in the ongoing series. I loved Shockwave’s exchange with the guy who sent him to stop Grimlock. “Do you know how much damage I could do in 24 hours?” Ha. He’s not too impressed with the humans.

Scorponok’s real head turns up, and is key to defeating his plans. I remember Magnus taking a shot at him in the Ultra Magnus spotlight, and it was nice to finally see that incident and its implications revealed. Sunstreaker gets his head back and goes in for repair, the whole experience having left him very scarred and damaged, leading to his actions in All Hail Megatron. Scorponok, Shockwave and Grimlock are arrested by Ultra Magnus, and Soundwave is free to rejoin Megatron, having been freed by Shockwave from his alt mode imprisonment. All very satisfactory.

About the only unsatisfactory thing about the story is how incompetent Scorponok is. From constantly underestimating the Dynobots, to sending Hot Rod out to be shot rather than doing it himself, the whole situation goes out of his control because Scorponok is way too overconfident. Or rather, the human in the headmaster unit is too overconfident. He did very well in setting up the whole situation with the Machinations and the headmasters, but blew it big time by throwing caution to the wind and openly trying to expose and destroy Skywatch.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed the story. It’s great to see so many of the storylines set up back when I was first reading regularly finally get tied up, though I doubt the original plan was to do so in only five issues. After lots of slow, steady buildup, it all comes to a head in five short issues. And for the most part, the story is successful and interesting, and the characters are used well. “Maximum Dinobots” is well worth reading.