This Book Will Change Your Life.
The print versions front cover.
Addendum 15: Eugenesis by James Roberts. 2001.
He thought he had known the future—as if dabbling in time had given him some unique understanding of how things would work out.
Now he knew differently.
Fanfiction is nothing new of course. As with so much of what we consider modern fandom, Sherlock Holmes fans were probably the first to go for it in a big way, but as ever it took Star Trek for the idea to really take off, and it’s there that most of the popular terms (“Mary Sue”) were coined.
Though it might seem to outsiders to be a self indulgent and pointless activity, fanfic actually has many positive benefits beyond simply letting you express your long held firm believe that Kirk and Spock should shag like bunnies. As well as the sense of community sharing fanfic creates and the building of confidence and writing skills, it’s often a key stepping stone in an aspiring writer’s career, especially in licensed properties (though if you’re really lucky you can turn your Twilight novel into an erotic bestseller). Famously many, many Doctor Who writers—even the ones who’ve written for the telly—got their start on the local fanzine and more than one Big Finish audio has been an adaptation of an unofficial Audio Visual adventure. But equally just about every comic book writer today made their first stumbling step into the trade with a story where Batman and Spider-Man team up to stop Wolf from Gladiators blowing up Beanotown.
There has of course been no shortage of Transformers fan fiction, and it made the move from the back of exercise books to a more concentrated effort surprisingly early, especially in Britain (as we’ll talk about when we reach the end of the UK Generation 2 comic), probably because the local book was such a fire to young imaginations. And of all the many Transformers fanfics over the years, Eugenesis from 2001 is by far and away the best known, and was so even before its author James Roberts went on to be the most successful Transformers comic writer of the modern era.
The reason for this is that Eugenesis is not a short story, or even a novella. It’s a great big chunky novel (I’ve only seen an in-hand copy once, it could kill a large cat), from the days when self publishing was difficult rather than something any idiot with a PDF can achieve. In theory the sheer hubris involved in self-publishing your own fan fiction should make the entire venture a massive disaster, but here’s where being part of a wider community helps. Roberts didn’t just jump feet first into his Magnus Opus, he’d been part of the TMUK fan community, contributing to their shared continuation of the Marvel continuity for several years. This effectively becomes self policing, having a group of peers all working together acts as an effective editing team and—as friendly and welcoming as they are—anyone who doesn’t have basic literary and the ability to listen to feedback and develop isn’t going to last very long.
Before we go further on, if you haven’t read the book fear not, though the original very limited print run is very hard to find a copy of, an author approved PDF that’s perfect for Kindle is available HERE. It may take you some time to get through, but we’ll wait.
In interviews at the time, Roberts compares the book to the X-Files film. This is a fair comparison, even though this might seem a great insult on the surface (as all wise people know, the only thing worse than the first X-Files film is the second X-Files film) it’s true on a structural level. Fight the Future was designed to payoff and feed into the ongoing X-Files story whilst being made before episodes that were aired prior to its release. Eugenesis does similar for TMUK, and because of its long lead in time had to be coordinated to still fit in with shorter stories that would appear beforehand.
The key difference is, The X-Files film was made for a wider audience than just fans of the series but still made no concessions for them. Eugenesis was printed for a convention (sadly it’s the only positive thing one can look back on associated with the Transforce events these days) and never intended to be read by anyone other than people already deeply familiar with the mythology. As such the approach it takes made sense, no one could have predicted Roberts would develop enough of a following of his own that people who had never read the British comic—let alone the other fanfics—would become interested.
The other main intent with the book was to write a definitive final statement from Roberts on Transformers. This sounds amusing in the context of his later career, but in 2001 in that strange period between Beast Machines and the first ever proper “reboot” of the franchise in the original Robots in Disguise, Generation One must have seemed finally over (this was even before Dreamwave), thus the time was right to do a great big grand end of an era story. Roberts here doesn’t just put all his eggs in the basket, he goes out and buys extra baskets to cope with all the new eggs his chickens keep laying. This is a book full of enough subplots and sub-subplots to make Game of Thrones look linear. To talk about them all in depth would make this longer than the issue 200 piece (this is just slightly shorter), and I can’t do that to you again dear reader. So this overview is only going to touch upon the key points whilst generalising on the rest.
The backbone of the novel is basically Space Pirates 2, as the Quintessons (who have regrouped and built a new army on the acidic water world Aquaria) once again launch a two pronged attack against Cybertron and Autobot City Earth. The Quintesson characters themselves are probably the least interesting part of the book, with their overall leader Xenon being the most memorable because he genuinely seems to want to build a new peaceful society on Cybertron once the population have been either killed or turned into low sentience table lamps. The others serve their purpose (which is basically to allow the good guys to win despite the sheer weight of numbers of Sharkticon forces by descending into infighting and overconfidence), but apart from a gloriously random twist involving three who have had their brains put into mysterious unknown Decepticon bodies they don’t especially stand out as characters.
He thought he had known the future—as if dabbling in time had given him some unique understanding of how things would work out.
Now he knew differently.
Fanfiction is nothing new of course. As with so much of what we consider modern fandom, Sherlock Holmes fans were probably the first to go for it in a big way, but as ever it took Star Trek for the idea to really take off, and it’s there that most of the popular terms (“Mary Sue”) were coined.
Though it might seem to outsiders to be a self indulgent and pointless activity, fanfic actually has many positive benefits beyond simply letting you express your long held firm believe that Kirk and Spock should shag like bunnies. As well as the sense of community sharing fanfic creates and the building of confidence and writing skills, it’s often a key stepping stone in an aspiring writer’s career, especially in licensed properties (though if you’re really lucky you can turn your Twilight novel into an erotic bestseller). Famously many, many Doctor Who writers—even the ones who’ve written for the telly—got their start on the local fanzine and more than one Big Finish audio has been an adaptation of an unofficial Audio Visual adventure. But equally just about every comic book writer today made their first stumbling step into the trade with a story where Batman and Spider-Man team up to stop Wolf from Gladiators blowing up Beanotown.
There has of course been no shortage of Transformers fan fiction, and it made the move from the back of exercise books to a more concentrated effort surprisingly early, especially in Britain (as we’ll talk about when we reach the end of the UK Generation 2 comic), probably because the local book was such a fire to young imaginations. And of all the many Transformers fanfics over the years, Eugenesis from 2001 is by far and away the best known, and was so even before its author James Roberts went on to be the most successful Transformers comic writer of the modern era.
The reason for this is that Eugenesis is not a short story, or even a novella. It’s a great big chunky novel (I’ve only seen an in-hand copy once, it could kill a large cat), from the days when self publishing was difficult rather than something any idiot with a PDF can achieve. In theory the sheer hubris involved in self-publishing your own fan fiction should make the entire venture a massive disaster, but here’s where being part of a wider community helps. Roberts didn’t just jump feet first into his Magnus Opus, he’d been part of the TMUK fan community, contributing to their shared continuation of the Marvel continuity for several years. This effectively becomes self policing, having a group of peers all working together acts as an effective editing team and—as friendly and welcoming as they are—anyone who doesn’t have basic literary and the ability to listen to feedback and develop isn’t going to last very long.
Before we go further on, if you haven’t read the book fear not, though the original very limited print run is very hard to find a copy of, an author approved PDF that’s perfect for Kindle is available HERE. It may take you some time to get through, but we’ll wait.
In interviews at the time, Roberts compares the book to the X-Files film. This is a fair comparison, even though this might seem a great insult on the surface (as all wise people know, the only thing worse than the first X-Files film is the second X-Files film) it’s true on a structural level. Fight the Future was designed to payoff and feed into the ongoing X-Files story whilst being made before episodes that were aired prior to its release. Eugenesis does similar for TMUK, and because of its long lead in time had to be coordinated to still fit in with shorter stories that would appear beforehand.
The key difference is, The X-Files film was made for a wider audience than just fans of the series but still made no concessions for them. Eugenesis was printed for a convention (sadly it’s the only positive thing one can look back on associated with the Transforce events these days) and never intended to be read by anyone other than people already deeply familiar with the mythology. As such the approach it takes made sense, no one could have predicted Roberts would develop enough of a following of his own that people who had never read the British comic—let alone the other fanfics—would become interested.
The other main intent with the book was to write a definitive final statement from Roberts on Transformers. This sounds amusing in the context of his later career, but in 2001 in that strange period between Beast Machines and the first ever proper “reboot” of the franchise in the original Robots in Disguise, Generation One must have seemed finally over (this was even before Dreamwave), thus the time was right to do a great big grand end of an era story. Roberts here doesn’t just put all his eggs in the basket, he goes out and buys extra baskets to cope with all the new eggs his chickens keep laying. This is a book full of enough subplots and sub-subplots to make Game of Thrones look linear. To talk about them all in depth would make this longer than the issue 200 piece (this is just slightly shorter), and I can’t do that to you again dear reader. So this overview is only going to touch upon the key points whilst generalising on the rest.
The backbone of the novel is basically Space Pirates 2, as the Quintessons (who have regrouped and built a new army on the acidic water world Aquaria) once again launch a two pronged attack against Cybertron and Autobot City Earth. The Quintesson characters themselves are probably the least interesting part of the book, with their overall leader Xenon being the most memorable because he genuinely seems to want to build a new peaceful society on Cybertron once the population have been either killed or turned into low sentience table lamps. The others serve their purpose (which is basically to allow the good guys to win despite the sheer weight of numbers of Sharkticon forces by descending into infighting and overconfidence), but apart from a gloriously random twist involving three who have had their brains put into mysterious unknown Decepticon bodies they don’t especially stand out as characters.
The original back cover. This piece is really struggling for illustrations...
What they are is a catalyst for the main thing people remember about the book: The violence and torture. From their first blow against Autobot City this is a book that is unflinching in its brutality. Named characters are cut down with gay abandon and the prose delights in describing every broken limb and spurt of fuel. It’s not just gratuitous violence though, it’s very much part of the books theme about the sheer brutality of a war that never ends. There is much memorable imagery of death and near death and the psychological impact on the characters. From First Aid being crucified as the patients in an Autobot medical ward are brutally slaughtered, to Kup’s heroic yet doomed last stand, this is a war story that stares unflinchingly into the face of what war crimes actually are.
And that’s the cheerful side of the Quintesson plot. Once they take out the main Decepticon base of Polyhex and effectively claim the planet (Prowl is in command of the Autobots at this time due to a botched assassination on Rodimus Prime from deep cover Decepticon agent Doubleheader and his failure to step up makes them stall badly) they immediately start building concentration camps for the survivors. The description of bashed and beaten troops being taken, stripped down to their frames, painted red (to remove traces of individuality and psychologically subdue them) and injecting them with a new Inhibitor Chip that not only prevents transformation—unless you’re the Unicron created Galvatron—but saps strength and willpower are incredibly evocative and will linger long in the memory. Roberts is also smart enough to give us a sequence showing Sunstreaker, who is of course insanely vain, being put through this experience that even manages to get some very black comedy of out the horror whilst still showing that beneath it all Sunstreaker is a lot tougher than many of his contemporaries sat weeping in corners as he remains defiant until the point there’s basically nothing left of him.
One thing to note though—as people often talk in awe about the tone and violence being too dark for any official Transformers fiction—that in terms of basic content the book is not that much more extreme than what has gone before, and especially what has come since. In the Marvel comic proper we had concentration camps and horrific violence, with only the fact that a book can get properly into the heads of the tormented characters (seeing Scrounge having his arm ripped off his one thing, learning what Blitzwing thinks and feels as he is stripped is quite another) making it more affecting. And the modern era—unsurprisingly in James Roberts work with issue 49 of More Than Meets the Eye in particular covering a lot of the same ground—can be just as dark and harrowing as anything here. With the just released issue 50 of More Than Meets the Eye breaking the swearing barrier (which is one aspect of Eugenesis that doesn’t quite work as it feels silly coming out of the mouths of the Marvel characters. Especially Rodimus using the phrase “Byzantine bastards”) it’s only really the presence of Death’s Head that would stop this receiving a hypothetical “Official” reprint. Certainly it wouldn’t need edits more extreme than the BBC have made to their reprints of the 1990’s Doctor Who books.
The book’s secondary major plot is the return of Optimus Prime. Just before things kick off on Cybertron, a mysterious space time portal has been found beneath a temple that allows the traveller to go to any point in history they’re thinking of (it’s flimsy and as a concept makes no real sense, but it works in the context of a handy McGuffin), and High Command want Nightbeat to go back to the Ark in 1984 and bring Optimus Prime back to the present. Presumably with the original intent that he’d end the stalemate with the Decepticons, though he ultimately has to lead the Decepticon/Autobot alliance against the invaders.
Before I go into my problems with this plot, I should mention it creates what may well be my favourite sequence in the book. After returning to the present (the book is set over new year between 2012 and 2013) Nightbeat and Optimus become separated from their support team and have to hide underground. The conversation that follows should in theory be quite hard to follow as in involves Nightbeat unburdening himself over traumas related to the TMUK universe, in particular the death of his human Headmaster partner. Instead it’s riveting, simple stuff as these two characters share their private pains in a sequence that is just talking.
My issue though is a simple one I’ve discussed before on this blog: The entire premise of the return of Optimus Prime is based around the fact he really died in 1987 and every version between that and 2005 (despite what Aspects of Evil will tell us, TMUK acts on the assumption there is just one Marvel timeline and everything all happened) was a poor man’s fake based on a flawed copy on floppy disc.
This concept just doesn’t work for me. At no point in any of the stories featuring Powermaster Optimus Prime (or HiQ Prime, who oddly isn’t mentioned despite the fact that should in theory be a third distinct version) is there even the slightest hint anyone regards him as less than authentic, making the way every single Autobot who gets to spend some time with him and who has met both versions goes out of their way to think how much of a cheap copy that version was just galling. It’s a retcon that feels forced, especially as at one point we’re reminded the Autobots have no issues of making copies of minds and sticking them in new bodies when Hoist goes to check the crystal with the copy of his own mind on it is OK when helping on the mission to the 1984 Ark (when I mention this people usually point out the difference is 1984 floppy disc technology isn’t at the same level. But anyone who claims Afterdeath! has any basis in the realities of ‘80’s computer technology is automatically on a false premise).
It’s also hard to see why anyone would be so down on the post-87 Prime, for all his introspection and worrying his track record is still impressive, arguably more so than anything we saw the original Prime do. He stopped the Underbase. He stopped Unicron. He rehabilitated the Swarm. This is the Prime who carried out the iconic Optimus moment with his charge in the film. In a choice between that and the guy who got lost for four million years and isn’t good at computer games, I know which one I’d be saving from past.
The way this is constantly, jarringly, brought up is a shame because—as he’s repeatedly shown again in his current comics work—Roberts writes a magnificent Optimus Prime. He bleeds charisma, is heroic without being clichéd and on a world where both armies are falling into disarray through ineffective leadership (though Soundwave does a good job for the Decepticons before Galvatron’s return) you don’t doubt for a second that this character alone could make the difference and lead them to victory against the Quintesson occupation.
He’s also used to make a commentary on what the war has done to his troops. This is a Prime who is four million years behind the times and he is horrified by just how bloodthirsty and numbed to violence the Autobots of 2013 are, culminating in an amazing sequence where he uses his big “Now we go kill the Quintessons” speech to openly criticise what they are now and can’t quite believe how enthusiastically they’re still cheering him on.
This is a Prime who so despises what’s to come he actually wants Nightbeat to use the memory wiping device designed by Perceptor to preserve causality upon his return to 1984 even though that will remove any chance of preventing his own death; he’d rather not know and that’s a magnificently damning statement on the war. Though it’s unfortunate and amusing that—having made such a fuss of the need to prevent future knowledge—when Thundercracker is also grabbed from the past so that his sonic boom can be used (TMUK regard him as having become Scourge, who is unconscious with an injury before the book starts) he winds up going back with his memory intact and, when Scourge wakes up at the end, it turns out he just had enough sense not to talk about it for three decades.
And that’s the cheerful side of the Quintesson plot. Once they take out the main Decepticon base of Polyhex and effectively claim the planet (Prowl is in command of the Autobots at this time due to a botched assassination on Rodimus Prime from deep cover Decepticon agent Doubleheader and his failure to step up makes them stall badly) they immediately start building concentration camps for the survivors. The description of bashed and beaten troops being taken, stripped down to their frames, painted red (to remove traces of individuality and psychologically subdue them) and injecting them with a new Inhibitor Chip that not only prevents transformation—unless you’re the Unicron created Galvatron—but saps strength and willpower are incredibly evocative and will linger long in the memory. Roberts is also smart enough to give us a sequence showing Sunstreaker, who is of course insanely vain, being put through this experience that even manages to get some very black comedy of out the horror whilst still showing that beneath it all Sunstreaker is a lot tougher than many of his contemporaries sat weeping in corners as he remains defiant until the point there’s basically nothing left of him.
One thing to note though—as people often talk in awe about the tone and violence being too dark for any official Transformers fiction—that in terms of basic content the book is not that much more extreme than what has gone before, and especially what has come since. In the Marvel comic proper we had concentration camps and horrific violence, with only the fact that a book can get properly into the heads of the tormented characters (seeing Scrounge having his arm ripped off his one thing, learning what Blitzwing thinks and feels as he is stripped is quite another) making it more affecting. And the modern era—unsurprisingly in James Roberts work with issue 49 of More Than Meets the Eye in particular covering a lot of the same ground—can be just as dark and harrowing as anything here. With the just released issue 50 of More Than Meets the Eye breaking the swearing barrier (which is one aspect of Eugenesis that doesn’t quite work as it feels silly coming out of the mouths of the Marvel characters. Especially Rodimus using the phrase “Byzantine bastards”) it’s only really the presence of Death’s Head that would stop this receiving a hypothetical “Official” reprint. Certainly it wouldn’t need edits more extreme than the BBC have made to their reprints of the 1990’s Doctor Who books.
The book’s secondary major plot is the return of Optimus Prime. Just before things kick off on Cybertron, a mysterious space time portal has been found beneath a temple that allows the traveller to go to any point in history they’re thinking of (it’s flimsy and as a concept makes no real sense, but it works in the context of a handy McGuffin), and High Command want Nightbeat to go back to the Ark in 1984 and bring Optimus Prime back to the present. Presumably with the original intent that he’d end the stalemate with the Decepticons, though he ultimately has to lead the Decepticon/Autobot alliance against the invaders.
Before I go into my problems with this plot, I should mention it creates what may well be my favourite sequence in the book. After returning to the present (the book is set over new year between 2012 and 2013) Nightbeat and Optimus become separated from their support team and have to hide underground. The conversation that follows should in theory be quite hard to follow as in involves Nightbeat unburdening himself over traumas related to the TMUK universe, in particular the death of his human Headmaster partner. Instead it’s riveting, simple stuff as these two characters share their private pains in a sequence that is just talking.
My issue though is a simple one I’ve discussed before on this blog: The entire premise of the return of Optimus Prime is based around the fact he really died in 1987 and every version between that and 2005 (despite what Aspects of Evil will tell us, TMUK acts on the assumption there is just one Marvel timeline and everything all happened) was a poor man’s fake based on a flawed copy on floppy disc.
This concept just doesn’t work for me. At no point in any of the stories featuring Powermaster Optimus Prime (or HiQ Prime, who oddly isn’t mentioned despite the fact that should in theory be a third distinct version) is there even the slightest hint anyone regards him as less than authentic, making the way every single Autobot who gets to spend some time with him and who has met both versions goes out of their way to think how much of a cheap copy that version was just galling. It’s a retcon that feels forced, especially as at one point we’re reminded the Autobots have no issues of making copies of minds and sticking them in new bodies when Hoist goes to check the crystal with the copy of his own mind on it is OK when helping on the mission to the 1984 Ark (when I mention this people usually point out the difference is 1984 floppy disc technology isn’t at the same level. But anyone who claims Afterdeath! has any basis in the realities of ‘80’s computer technology is automatically on a false premise).
It’s also hard to see why anyone would be so down on the post-87 Prime, for all his introspection and worrying his track record is still impressive, arguably more so than anything we saw the original Prime do. He stopped the Underbase. He stopped Unicron. He rehabilitated the Swarm. This is the Prime who carried out the iconic Optimus moment with his charge in the film. In a choice between that and the guy who got lost for four million years and isn’t good at computer games, I know which one I’d be saving from past.
The way this is constantly, jarringly, brought up is a shame because—as he’s repeatedly shown again in his current comics work—Roberts writes a magnificent Optimus Prime. He bleeds charisma, is heroic without being clichéd and on a world where both armies are falling into disarray through ineffective leadership (though Soundwave does a good job for the Decepticons before Galvatron’s return) you don’t doubt for a second that this character alone could make the difference and lead them to victory against the Quintesson occupation.
He’s also used to make a commentary on what the war has done to his troops. This is a Prime who is four million years behind the times and he is horrified by just how bloodthirsty and numbed to violence the Autobots of 2013 are, culminating in an amazing sequence where he uses his big “Now we go kill the Quintessons” speech to openly criticise what they are now and can’t quite believe how enthusiastically they’re still cheering him on.
This is a Prime who so despises what’s to come he actually wants Nightbeat to use the memory wiping device designed by Perceptor to preserve causality upon his return to 1984 even though that will remove any chance of preventing his own death; he’d rather not know and that’s a magnificently damning statement on the war. Though it’s unfortunate and amusing that—having made such a fuss of the need to prevent future knowledge—when Thundercracker is also grabbed from the past so that his sonic boom can be used (TMUK regard him as having become Scourge, who is unconscious with an injury before the book starts) he winds up going back with his memory intact and, when Scourge wakes up at the end, it turns out he just had enough sense not to talk about it for three decades.
This picture was taken only 18 months after the one in the Classics UK interview. How have I aged that much?
Prime’s despair adds to the melancholy feel of the final. The Quintessons are driven off the planet (in an amazingly realised epic battle), but thousands of Transformers are traumatised and can no longer change shape, both sides have lost their bases and there’s the general feeling the war proper will kick off again at any moment. It takes Nightbeat—who is arguably the character with a proper througline across the entire story—to add some hope to proceedings as he not only survives certain death as the time portal collapses around him when returning Optimus to 1984 (he does so by copying he personality onto floppy disc. The fact he too is now a copy but has come to be OK with it as he moves on from his Muzzle related trauma almost justifies the treatment of Prime) but is one of the few characters to come out of the book in a better place than where he started, his final scene on the closed down Autobot City Earth ends the book on a high.
In terms of general weaknesses, the poorest areas of the book are the opening and the finale on Aquaria. The book has to move a lot of pieces into place and the beginning bringing back Death’s Head (who is brilliant throughout but basically contributes little to the plot that other characters couldn’t have done), Centurion and establishing the various states of play does struggle to gain momentum. It also suffers from one of the few signs the book is a fan work (alongside a gratuitous Wheelie torture scene): Everyone is incredibly precise about dates in relation to past events in a way that nobody really talks like. Not for these characters to just go “No one has used the Deception base in ages”, it’s moments that verge on “These mysterious Decepticon jets were captured on the first Tuesday in January in 1986, just after Optimus Prime got his head back and just before the Dinobot Hunt. Around lunchtime”. It’s all part of the fan need to Make Things Fit and does occur throughout the book, but it’s really knocks you over the head at the start.
The ending is something of a bigger problem though. On the one hand its ahead of the curve—this is before Dreamwave and the Unicron Trilogy over used the Primus backstory to the point everyone was sick of it and a subversive new take would have been more than welcome—and on that score it’s impressive. But what we’re told here doesn’t quite work on several levels.
The idea is simple enough: Primus and Unicron are actually mad super computers built by the Quintessons and everything we’ve been told up to now is a lie. The problem for me though, is that it’s basically the cartoon origin and frankly “The Transformers were made by glowing bits of God” is much more interesting and original, even now, than “They’re machines that got above their station”, which as I noted back when I covered The Legacy of Unicron! is the origin anyone other than Simon Furman would have given them. It doesn’t help that P.R.I.M.U.S. turns out to be a silly acronym.
The context doesn’t help either. Galvatron and Ultra Magnus have led a team to the water planet in order to retrieve the Matrix (stolen to give life to the new post-war generation of Quintessons), and as a world is exploding around them the action suddenly stops so Xenon can deliver a lengthy exposition speech at them. Again, as the planet is about to explode. It kills the momentum and as Magnus doesn’t believe the what he’s hearing and Galvatron doesn’t care it makes it even harder to become invested in what we’re being told. It doesn’t help that—as Roberts didn’t definitively want to change to origin story as TMUK wasn’t his sole preserve—there’s nothing to suggest any of this is true. What aims to be a franchise shattering revelation just winds up being a mad man ranting about something even the characters listening don’t put any stock in.
Of the many subplots that flow in and out of the book, some are stronger than others. The best for me is Prowl’s slow breakdown as he finds being leader is much harder than it looks, culminating in a suicide attempt. The weakest is a random handful of scenes devoted to the dimension hopping Autobot Throwback that go completely nowhere despite the obvious advantages in sending a character with experience of traversing Universes through a time window.
However, throughout all these plots the character work is excellent, on both the established and new Transformers. From Decepticon scientist and Wheeljack’s former best friend Sygnet through even the small role of the Micromaster sniper tasked with assassinating Galvatron this is a book packed with memorable characters you care about even if some of their plots are dead ends.
If there’s a weakness to the structure is that it sometimes feels as if Roberts has run out of ideas of how to resolve a tertiary storyline, so he just kills everyone involved. Sixshot’s holding up his troops because he’s terrified of the Quintessons? Soundwave just kills him. Rev Tone and Quark disobeying orders and the fear they might be found out? They die. Centurion (who is probably the most pointless character in the book, a lot of time is devoted to him and his resurrection and he contributes nothing) and his attempts to fit in as an Autobot and his growing desire to return to Earth? Killed at the last hurdle. It’s frustrating, especially when Kup’s death as the resolution to his conflict with Prowl is actually extremely well played.
This is a big, insanely big, book by an author who had never attempted anything like it before so it’s not surprising that it doesn’t all work. But enough of it does work, and work brilliantly, to be one of the greatest moments of the entire franchise, official or not. It will take you time to get through, and if you’re unfamiliar with the rest of Marvel/TMUK you will have to let certain references just wash over you. But this is a proper Science Fiction novel with a big S and a big F and is more than worth the time you’ll invest in it.
It’s also, unsurprisingly, massively influential on Roberts official work. From characters (Rung, Fulcrum, Quark), to minor moments (one of the first moments of the book is Rewind failing to throw some rubbish in a bin, a joke that was recycled into him failing to turn over a table in More Than Meets the Eye) to great huge reuse of ideas (Chaos Theory is effectively a more sophisticated reworking of the Galvatron/Megatron conversation in the former’s cell here). Even in the gap between my last reading of the book to coincide with when it was set and now I’ve spotted influences on the last two years worth of issues, most notably in 49. Roberts has even toyed with subverting and reinventing the origin story (in conjunction with John Barber) in a smoother and more interesting way than he has managed here. For any fans of the current comics this is a completely essential read, an author’s blueprint for what was to come.
Plus, it’s just bloody good.
Next week, back to 1989 as all the Autobots decide Rodimus Prime is a dick and turn against him. Though why I'd mention that after a paragraph talking about influences on More Than Meets the Eye, I've no idea.
ISSUE 200
1989
COMMENT
In terms of general weaknesses, the poorest areas of the book are the opening and the finale on Aquaria. The book has to move a lot of pieces into place and the beginning bringing back Death’s Head (who is brilliant throughout but basically contributes little to the plot that other characters couldn’t have done), Centurion and establishing the various states of play does struggle to gain momentum. It also suffers from one of the few signs the book is a fan work (alongside a gratuitous Wheelie torture scene): Everyone is incredibly precise about dates in relation to past events in a way that nobody really talks like. Not for these characters to just go “No one has used the Deception base in ages”, it’s moments that verge on “These mysterious Decepticon jets were captured on the first Tuesday in January in 1986, just after Optimus Prime got his head back and just before the Dinobot Hunt. Around lunchtime”. It’s all part of the fan need to Make Things Fit and does occur throughout the book, but it’s really knocks you over the head at the start.
The ending is something of a bigger problem though. On the one hand its ahead of the curve—this is before Dreamwave and the Unicron Trilogy over used the Primus backstory to the point everyone was sick of it and a subversive new take would have been more than welcome—and on that score it’s impressive. But what we’re told here doesn’t quite work on several levels.
The idea is simple enough: Primus and Unicron are actually mad super computers built by the Quintessons and everything we’ve been told up to now is a lie. The problem for me though, is that it’s basically the cartoon origin and frankly “The Transformers were made by glowing bits of God” is much more interesting and original, even now, than “They’re machines that got above their station”, which as I noted back when I covered The Legacy of Unicron! is the origin anyone other than Simon Furman would have given them. It doesn’t help that P.R.I.M.U.S. turns out to be a silly acronym.
The context doesn’t help either. Galvatron and Ultra Magnus have led a team to the water planet in order to retrieve the Matrix (stolen to give life to the new post-war generation of Quintessons), and as a world is exploding around them the action suddenly stops so Xenon can deliver a lengthy exposition speech at them. Again, as the planet is about to explode. It kills the momentum and as Magnus doesn’t believe the what he’s hearing and Galvatron doesn’t care it makes it even harder to become invested in what we’re being told. It doesn’t help that—as Roberts didn’t definitively want to change to origin story as TMUK wasn’t his sole preserve—there’s nothing to suggest any of this is true. What aims to be a franchise shattering revelation just winds up being a mad man ranting about something even the characters listening don’t put any stock in.
Of the many subplots that flow in and out of the book, some are stronger than others. The best for me is Prowl’s slow breakdown as he finds being leader is much harder than it looks, culminating in a suicide attempt. The weakest is a random handful of scenes devoted to the dimension hopping Autobot Throwback that go completely nowhere despite the obvious advantages in sending a character with experience of traversing Universes through a time window.
However, throughout all these plots the character work is excellent, on both the established and new Transformers. From Decepticon scientist and Wheeljack’s former best friend Sygnet through even the small role of the Micromaster sniper tasked with assassinating Galvatron this is a book packed with memorable characters you care about even if some of their plots are dead ends.
If there’s a weakness to the structure is that it sometimes feels as if Roberts has run out of ideas of how to resolve a tertiary storyline, so he just kills everyone involved. Sixshot’s holding up his troops because he’s terrified of the Quintessons? Soundwave just kills him. Rev Tone and Quark disobeying orders and the fear they might be found out? They die. Centurion (who is probably the most pointless character in the book, a lot of time is devoted to him and his resurrection and he contributes nothing) and his attempts to fit in as an Autobot and his growing desire to return to Earth? Killed at the last hurdle. It’s frustrating, especially when Kup’s death as the resolution to his conflict with Prowl is actually extremely well played.
This is a big, insanely big, book by an author who had never attempted anything like it before so it’s not surprising that it doesn’t all work. But enough of it does work, and work brilliantly, to be one of the greatest moments of the entire franchise, official or not. It will take you time to get through, and if you’re unfamiliar with the rest of Marvel/TMUK you will have to let certain references just wash over you. But this is a proper Science Fiction novel with a big S and a big F and is more than worth the time you’ll invest in it.
It’s also, unsurprisingly, massively influential on Roberts official work. From characters (Rung, Fulcrum, Quark), to minor moments (one of the first moments of the book is Rewind failing to throw some rubbish in a bin, a joke that was recycled into him failing to turn over a table in More Than Meets the Eye) to great huge reuse of ideas (Chaos Theory is effectively a more sophisticated reworking of the Galvatron/Megatron conversation in the former’s cell here). Even in the gap between my last reading of the book to coincide with when it was set and now I’ve spotted influences on the last two years worth of issues, most notably in 49. Roberts has even toyed with subverting and reinventing the origin story (in conjunction with John Barber) in a smoother and more interesting way than he has managed here. For any fans of the current comics this is a completely essential read, an author’s blueprint for what was to come.
Plus, it’s just bloody good.
Next week, back to 1989 as all the Autobots decide Rodimus Prime is a dick and turn against him. Though why I'd mention that after a paragraph talking about influences on More Than Meets the Eye, I've no idea.
ISSUE 200
1989
COMMENT
