Pretty sure it's either in Infiltration or Escalation! One of the very first miniseries. And the moment is DEFINITELY pretty ouch, buuuuut... Starscream was kind of asking for it that time.
Infiltration! Between this and the Spotlight Megatron beatdown, I seriously wonder how many times Megatron has beaten Starscream almost to death over the past few millennia. Starscream gets all juiced up for the fight, and it still barely leaves a dent in Megatron. By the time the spotlight rolls around, Starscream's just resigned to this cycle of abuse, basically, and I am Overflowing with Agony
-wince- Uh, bad choice of words considering later relationship maybe? (Sorry am a little oversensitive there probably. I realize from coldstars reply you probably mean it´s in context of a fight Starscream started but. Still.)
Starscream does pick this fight, and from Megatron's internal monologue in his spotlight, the two of them venting their frustrations on each other with the attempted-traitorous-coup-meets-an-immovable-dictator-object scenario is a very old, very familiar pattern. And then Megatron nearly always wins and finishes venting by shredding Starscream to prove a point and re-establish his hold over the other Decepticons, and Starscream nearly always ends up on the 'being beaten to within an inch of his life' side, and the other Decepticons who might or might not have supported him up to that point step aside to let it happen the second Megatron shows up Including his trine. Like TC, Skywarp, guys please ;-; Tracking Starscream's increasing terror whenever Megatron's in the room over the course of multiple issues hurts me further still
I might be biased but to be honest? I read that implication of it being a mututal thing as an abusers self justification. In the sense of yes, a few times Starscream did either pick a fight or try to usurp him, but specifically in the spotlight lets be real, Megatron just felt like beating him.
No, I literally meant that Starscream tries to have Megatron killed, and this is Megatron's immediate retaliation. This was meant to kill Starscream, without the cat-and-mouse shit. In the panels above, where Verity runs into Megatron? In the comic, without any (on-page) provocation, the next thing that happens is that Starscream blows shit up, trying to take Megatron out. And in return, Megatron executes (not quite) Starscream. Like, it's fucked up, especially when it turns out Starscream survives, and Megatron is like mmmhmmhmmmm, what shall I do with you, but like... DEFINITELY not mutual abuse, lord no, but Starscream was the one (in this case) who started things with a straight-up attempted murder. I'll be happy to explain better on for-reals keyboard, but I'm about to be on the road for an hour+, so, until then! Ooh, that is a good question! But it doesn't quite match for me. I want to say Tailgate is more of a Jake? Not positive, don't quote me on that :p Spinister is maybe the closest Mituna match I can think of, though Ten definitely has a lock on the brain damage side of things (also he's yellow! definitely a captor, it was meant to be)
You misunderstand me. I disagree that Starscream doing something fucked up justifies Megatron in doing something equally fucked up to him. I don´t think justice works that way. To make it clear I am NOT saying Starscream is a perfectly innocent woobie who can do no wrong. But I Am saying two wrongs don´t make a right.
Okay, I really hope that nobody in this thread thinks that I'm a Megatron apologist at this point in time, or that I have that kind of simplistic view of justice. I'm not saying that what Megatron did was right, I'm saying that in this particular incident, Starscream was the definite instigator and the consequences he suffered were pretty proportionate to what he tried to do. I have an analogy! So, I'm pretty solidly opposed to the death penalty. But if someone, say, goes and burglarizes a home and murders the family (assume for the purposes of this argument that they definitely are guilty) and they get tried and sentenced to death, then I'm not going to say that it's REALLY the American justice system who's done the wrong thing here, shame shame shame. I'm going to shrug and be like dude, you brought this on yourself. I can react like that while still being very opposed to the death penalty, and without taking a definite stance on Who Is Right in cases that are less cut-and-dried. And the fictional universe we're discussing here is a really violent one. So, okay. Skywarp and Blitzwing, acting on Starscream's orders, go to take down Megatron. When that attack fails, Megatron's literal first action is to shoot them good. The shot he gets into Skywarp seems pretty comparable to the one he gets into Starscream. It's more luck than anything that Skywarp survived. And this is a series of events outside the megastar cycle of abuse. Now, did Skywarp provoke that violent response? Yes. Would it be wrong of Megatron to kill Skywarp in retaliation? If we're sticking real hard to our morals, yes. Was Megatron's violent reaction to someone trying to kill him reasonable? I'd say so, they had just finished shooting the area in an attempt to kill him, and even if they're like oh no oh fuck I'm sorry when they see him alive, like... it might be the good thing to spare them, but it's not at all in line with Megatron's motives and characterization at this point in canon. It's practical to take them out before they can pull any more shit. From a perspective of Megatron's characterization here, it bugs me more that he didn't make sure Skywarp was dead than it does that he tried to kill him at all. And that extends out to Starscream pretty neatly. The very next thing Megatron does after pummeling Blitzwing and Skywarp is to go find Starscream. From his perspective: two of his soldiers have been ordered to kill him, four more of his soldiers at least begin to make a violent stand against him before they back down, and Starscream is definitely still interested in taking him out. Starscream does his very best to kill Megatron, it doesn't work, and Megatron (not quite) executes Starscream. I don't have to think Megatron was right to think that Starscream still provoked that response, that he must have known what kind of consequences he'd be facing if he failed in his murderplot, and that it's his own dang fault. This incident can be his fault without the other parts of the cycle of abuse being his fault. There isn't a word for you-initiated-this-and-even-if-the-response-is-disproportionate-you-still-did-the-thing. Starscream makes multiple separate attempts to have Megatron killed before Megatron finally executes him. From a character perspective, it was downright stupidly lenient of Megatron to leave Starscream alive at all. Or, another example. Getaway. The setup they had for him basically boiled down to solitary confinement and sensory deprivation (yes he could still see and hear, but he coulnd't talk or move). That is like, one of the fastest ways to break a person down completely. It's psychological torture. Did Getaway do an awful thing? Absolutely. Was the punishment still out of hand? Yes. But am I going to wag my finger at Rodimus for doing that to poor Getaway, who never deserved such a terrible fate? No, I'm going to shrug, because Getaway did something awful, and he's dealing with the consequences. Getaway and Starscream are both smart characters. I think they had a good idea of how bad the fallout would be if their plans didn't work out, and they went for it anyways. And then they dealt with that fallout. Even if I don't believe those consequences are right and just (I don't), I'm still allowed think that the instigators kind of bear responsibility for instigating.
(psst, @pixels, do it for the robot tiddy) (so much tiddy. it is the noblest reason to read these comics) (mostly whirl tiddy, but it is a fine flavor of tiddy indeed)
Spoiler: :T In Infiltration, Starscream attempted a coup, trying to seize power and bury Megatron in a pile of rubble and then attacking personally when Megatron survived that. Megatron reacted with a(n incredibly painful to watch) 1HKO to win the ensuing fight, after taking everything Starscream could dish out. Those are the events that happened. Megatron reacted to Starscream. Actions tend to have consequences, even if those consequences are still objectively shitty from our perspective. It was a fight, which in this particular instance Starscream initiated while knowing the risks and still thinking he was strong enough to kill Megatron pretty dead, and in which both parties were shooting to kill. Both of them probably thought they were in the right, with however many millions of years of arguments and past conflict tangled up between them, but in that particular comic at the start of the IDW run we have no context for how they got to that point or who has been shittier to the other. They're both assholes. I came here to wince because I oversympathize with Starscream on a regular basis, but both of them are giant robots neck-deep in a vicious war where they've lost any sense of moral perspective on how trying to kill someone in retaliation might be a little bit fucked up. By the point of Spotlight: Megatron, it's more clear that Megatron takes their past mutual fuckery as a given in their working relationship and uses it to justify the toxic interactions because he always comes out on top, anyway, while Starscream increasingly shows signs of being a battered abuse victim, because, as I already said: You say this like you're the only one in the room who thinks Megatron abused Starscream and blatantly used him for target practice/stress relief when Starscream was at his lowest and that it was a terrible thing for him to do. Starscream and Megatron have a history of betraying/mistreating/attacking/trying to kill each other in a millennia-spanning clusterfuck. There is a "very old, very familiar pattern" of conflict there, a staple of the TF franchise, which Megatron is aware of both in Infiltration and in the Spotlight. At some point, Megatron incorporated this pattern into a twisted reason to keep Starscream around, despite the constant threat of betrayal from someone clearly angry and discontented with Megatron's leadership (as opposed to ending the relationship and dealing with Starscream more permanently), and this allowed the constant buildup of conflict and hate to fester and become increasingly abusive and heavily weighted in Megatron's favor. Yes, Megatron is clearly using it as a justification to excuse further abuse toward Starscream in the Spotlight issue. No, you're not the only one who sees it False dichotomy. Starscream tried to kill Megatron, Megatron tried to kill Starscream in response. That is both entirely to be expected, considering who Megatron is as a character, and also awful at the same time Yes, basically. You're making pretty significant assumptions here and trying to 'gotcha' us isn't cool
Do you want me to spoiler my reply? I deleted my post because the functioning half of my brain realized it was probably a dumb idea, but I copied it so i can put it back up for the records as well.
Fuckit, here´s what I posted since it was replied to before I removed it. Reason for removal was me realizing I´m not thinking straight. (And no one but me is to pblame for me posting when I´m not thinking straight, just that be clear.) Spoiler: For The Records
No, I say that because I am still somewhat aware of just How Much I oversympathize with Starscream, so I doubt my own judgement of things. I´m not trying to "gotcha" you. I´m waaay to deep in the land of brainweasels to gotcha anyone, which is why I had deleted that last post, hoping no one had seen it yet and I could step away.
...entirely off-topic and possibly weird af 5am thoughts Spoiler: when did we find out how cold construction works? That far, that's the spoiler okay but if the Allspark/Well of All Sparks is, in fact, Primus's spark (as certain religions and certain continuities claim)... does that make every single TF forged on Cybertron also technically cold-con, just without the freezy stockpiling? It's a natural split instead of an artificially-induced one, and the "parent spark" would be Primus/Well/Allspark/whatever instead of the Matrix, but like Congrats, jhiaxus (was it jhiaxus who did the sciencey bits? I don't remember and I can't be assed to wikidive), you've managed to reproduce natural reproduction? Good job? ...does this make cc the robot equivalent of IVF/assisted reproduction someone scream about weird alien biology with me
Thawed sparks are put in pre-built frames iirc, but we... don't actually know how forged sparks go from protoform to full frame, either, so it might just be "we put baby spark in an adult frame instead of letting them decide through a course of upgrades what they want to look like" Which is more on the end of "society is fucked up" than "actual biological difference" imo, except where it might affect robot neurology? unfortunately we cannot put a baby brain in an adult body For Science yet
Spoiler: Last little resolution thing This is it exactly! And I did say I do also think these punishments you disagree with are excessive and unjust. I think we are mostly in agreement, once we take words out of the picture, and our biggest disconnect is that this phrase doesn't have the 'you deserved everything you got' connotations for me that it does for you.
