TFs: DARE TO BE STUPID

And here's my second spotting guide, for characters who are introduced a few issues in! I forgot I'd split this up.

Spoiler: phase one

Okay, so! The initial premise is that there are giant alien robots (Cybertronians) hiding on earth. Two factions of them, decepticons and autobots. They're engaged in an intergalactic war that has spanned four million years and involves mmmmost of their species (there are neutral cybertronians, who show up more in exRiD, the parallel series to MTMTE that follows the people who stay on cybertron, but both sides have gone to extreme lengths to factionalize the cybertronian population and have kinda sorta murdered lots of neutrals).

Now, the decepticons and autobots have battled over lots of planets. Decepticons particularly don't see much value in organic life, so their leader, Megatron, has developed a protocol for invading and exterminating life on alien planets, and stripping them for resources and energy. Autobots are kind of opposed to that thing. There are other significant philosophical differences between the two sides, but that's a big one driving these early issues. MTMTE itself digs into the philosophical side more than phase one comics really did, so I'll let you read about those as they come up :D

The Decepticon leader is Megatron. He's a giant, very intelligent killing machine. He's made the Decepticons into something of a cult of personality, and he's very charismatic, very smart, and very dangerous. The Autobot leader is Optimus Prime. He's more quiet and less, hmm.. less self-centered? He's not perfect either, phase one and exRiD both do some poking at his flaws, but he does try to be a decent person. He's also the semi-religious Chosen One for the cybertronian race. There's this thing called the Matrix of Leadership that like, selects a person to lead Cybertron, based on ????????????? That's where the 'Prime' title comes from. He used to be Orion Pax, then after he was chosen, he became Optimus Prime. So even though it happened in a different way from the Decepticons, both these sides are VERY focused around their leader.

Okay, so on earth. The autobots are trying to be subtle, the decepticons are sorrrrtt of trying to be subtle, but then they're like 'WHOA, these energy resources are OFF THE HOOK. Dude. Dude. Let's just go nuts.' (this is a later plot point in the exRiD/MTMTE crossover, Dark Cybertron. a character named shockwave was playing silly buggers with science thousands of years ago and fiddled with earth in the process) So the conflict starts escalating and some humans start becoming aware that there are giant transforming robots lurking around. This eventually leads to one character (Sunstreaker, a minor character in MTMTE - look for someone mostly yellow with stripey blue finials and a giant pet bug) getting captured and experimented on. Also his human passenger too.

So when this happens, other events are starting to kick off too. One character called Nightbeat is sent to investigate this one planet where the natives kiiinda seem to have... disappeared? He tracks it down to a mysterious underground lake that seems to be a portal or something, but his brain is hacked/compromised/something by the person who's doing this all, and his companion is forced to shoot him in the face, and he falls back into the portal, nominally dead. At the same time, a mysteeeeeeeerious new character (Cyclonus) shows up in the ruins of Cybertron, trying to activate a mysteeeeeeeeeeeeeeerious device.

Spoilers: Cyclonus is a pseudo-zombie, and part of a crew that got sucked into the 'dead universe' six million years ago, and can only survive in the real world for limited periods of time (he eventually got better. that's the 'vector sigma' thing he references in mtmte). The dead universe is also what Nightbeat's portal leads to. This part is on a REALLY slow burn, but basically, people (mostly Galvatron, an old-timey barbarian warlord) are trying to merge the dead universe with the real universe. I'm sure that is a perfectly sane plan made by sane people and will only end well. And when I say slow burn, I mean a really slow burn. This plot thread is the eventual climax to all of phase one.

Okay, on earth, people are trying to track down what the fuck happened to Sunstreaker, without much luck. Turns out, his head has been separated from his body, and they've come up with a way for humans to control knockoff transformers. They've also done Experiments on the human that was captured with Sunstreaker and modified him the same way. He eventually escapes (without Sunstreaker, but with a shiny new psychic link to him that neither of them want) and goes on a quest to find where Sunstreaker actually is and set him free. This is the beginning of a lonnnng long set of plot threads where humans exploit cybertronians and reverse-engineer increasingly dangerous technologies from them. Eventually Sunstreaker is found, but like... the dude is in a bad way. A really bad way. Autobots have a momentary advantage over the Decepticons, kind of, but how long will that last? Also there are robot dinosaurs.

Annnnnnnnnnnd I'm probably missing things in here, this is just quick and dirty, but the big series that has plot after this is All Hail Megatron. Basically, Megatron and company exploit some information security hole to make a massive galaxy-wide strike against the Autobots, including very nearly murderizing Optimus Prime, ripping the Matrix from his chest, and stranding the Autobots who were on earth on the devastated, burnt-out remains of Cybertron, without a ship, without resources, and trying to hide from hordes of feral Insecticons. Meanwhile, the Decepticons are going apeshit bananas on New York City. It's... a pretty one-sided affair. Humanity does start trying to turn the tide, but it takes a while, they're still majorly outgunned, and they're having trouble getting anywhere.

Eventually, stuff happens with the stranded Autobots, more allies come around (allies who have an actual functioning ship), and they get to make a break for it. Minus one massively remorseful, psychologically traumatized traitor who sacrificed himself to hold off the hordes of Insecticons so everyone else could get away. To make a long story short (I'm sorry, my attention span is starting to slip), they make it back to earth just as humanity is trying to make a big counterstrike against the decepticons, and the decepticons get an ass-whooping. They make it out into space riding Astrotrain (he turns into a spaceship! and a train!), with Megatron looking pretty dead and Starscream (Megatron's kinda backstabby second-in-command) as the new leader. Also Starscream yoinked the Matrix, but it hasn't chosen him, so he wears it on a chain around his neck.

Autobots stay on earth, but humanity kind of doesn't trust the giant alien robots for some reason, so things don't go great. Humans continue to learn new ways to exploit their giant robot friends. Lynch mobs are killing and stranded, injured Decepticons they find. Scientists continue to develop new technology using this exciting alien tech. The Autobots gradually start getting reallllllllll sick of this and want out, but there's a lot of infighting and arguing, etc. Optimus Prime steps down as leader, and kinda turns himself in as a prisoner to the humans, for reasons I'm... sure made sense at the time? Bumblebee gets elected to be their new leader, even though he didn't really want the job, but he tries to do the best he can.

Eventually, intergalactic space cop Ultra Magnus shows up to be like '...what the fuck are you guys doing.' Rodimus, who has been one of the most discontent autobots, finally reaches his breaking point and steals Ultra Magnus's spaceship and makes a break for it. He eventually decides heyyyyyyy yolo, Ima make a crazy assault on this barren asteroid where the decepticons who fled earth are holed up! This can only end well! So he crashes Ultra Magnus's ship onto the asteroid (he survives by hiding in a safe) and goes skulking around. He yoinks the matrix of leadership, and then stumbles onto surprise!alive!Megatron, who shoots him right the fuck in the chest, because Megatron don't dick around. Rodimus goes floating off into space, looking slightly dead, still wearing the Matrix.

So hey! Megatron is alive! That's fun, right? Time to go attack those pesky Autobots, I guess! I kind of forget how it goes on, because I read these books so fast, it all blurs together. But Megatron eventually gives himself over to Optimus Prime as a prisoner. Everyone is very very suspicious that he's up to something, but he and Optimus can't stay away from each other, and he spends some of his time hurting Optimus. Hurting him in his heart.

Ummmm, meanwhile, a mysterious old coot named Alpha Trion has been fixing up Cybertron. The destruction from the war is still a thing, but he's been detoxifying the atmosphere and eliminating the piles of feral Insecticons. Eventually the Dead Universe stuff comes to a head, and hm, let me see. Rodimus is slightly less dead than expected, and eventually winds up on a trip back to Cybertron. He's like whoa whoa we need to not do that please, but then the planet... looks fine? Huh. Well, except for the hordes of mind-controlled dead universe zombie clones. That's a bit of a problem.

So in the end, Autobots and Decepticons team up against the Dead Universe people. There's a big battle, etc., etc., but Galvatron eventually makes his way deep into the planet to... I think he wants to mess with Vector Sigma, which is kiiiiiiiiiind of like... I don't know a good parallel, and some of the later issues for Galvatron and company have really bad art, and I just couldn't process. But if they corrupted Vector Sigma, it would like, strike at the heart of Cybertron and the Cybertronian people (the Cybertronian people are already pretty fucked. their natural reproduction has been broken for millions of years and they keep killing each other off, they don't need any more setbacks). Something something mumbo jumbo, merge the dead universe with ours. Meanwhile, Cyclonus, it seems, has been semi-mind-controlled. He's a bit of an ass, but he does love cybertron dearly. So he wakes up, like 'you want to... destroy... cybertron. what did you make me do, what did you make me do??' Him turning on Galvatron was what gave everyone else the opportunity to press their advantage and kick his ass. Also Megatron totally died in the battle. He's super dead. Yep. Mmhmm

And after that, Vector Sigma sends out, like, a message to all living Cybertronians. 'The war is over. Come home.' Which is what starts happening between phase one and phase two. But the autobots and decepticons are super hostile towards each other. The neutral cybertronians don't trust either of them. The planet is still in shambles, and there's only one city that's been made even semi-habitable. There's no clear leader, everything is still a complete mess. Which is when Rodimus is like 'fuck this shiiiiiiiit, who wants to go on a road trip?'

That is probably less coherent than I meant it to be when I started, but I forgot how much plot got packed into that first set of comics. Some parts were shaky, a lot of it was solid, some parts were really good. But phase two is much, much more fun, both in MTMTE and in exRiD (though MTMTE is better).

 

Basically, those were zombie clones of this one dude, and he was a normal person, but the clones were only kiiiiiinda sorta barely sentient? It's not too clear, but they were part of a big epic battle for Cybertron (on the losing side), and were probably just a bunch of identical dead bodies by the time Whirl came around.

Also, I'm sorry, but is there any chance you might be able to condense the liveblogs into like, a post per issue or so? I enjoy reading the stuff, but it's kind of blowing up my alerts this way.