Transformers vs The Status Quo: Change for the better

You know what's the most frustrating aspect of being a comic book fan? The Status Quo. Not diversity and introducing gay characters. Not killing your favorite character in gruesome and horrible ways. It's the Status Quo and the ever present reset button that the big two, Marvel and DC Comics, will always hit when it seems like the changes that are being made will finally sink in permanently. Here are some examples as of late.

1. Batman has to remain single because his mission to protect Gotham will never allow him true happiness in a relationship and will distract him from protecting the city. (Even though having a relationship with someone meaningful might give him one more reason to try and stomp out super-villains once and for all so he can have a family with someone like Selina Kyle)
2. Spider-Man MUST remain single, or at least not married, because Responsibility, Sacrifice, Greatest Power, and because it ages him so single and virginal comic nerds won't be able to relate to him. (Even though I'm pretty sure that the kids who grew up reading Spider-Man in the 60s have grown up, got married, got jobs, and moved on with their lives so who the Hell are they writing this for?)
3. Villains are villains. Eventually, even when they try to redeem themselves, they are gonna stay villains. Lex Luthor may try to change who he is, but he is going to still be Lex Luthor. For that matter, Doctor Doom is still going to return to being a villain. He may change briefly, but he will still be the nemesis of the Fantastic Four when all is said and done.

You can see where I'm coming from, right? Whenever a big change in superhero comics that isn't a Gay wedding or a non-white character being introduced occurs, fans are gonna be cautious because we know this cannot last forever. If the recent issue of Batman number 50 has shown, we may hope for a change in a character that is 80 years old in our understanding, but it may never really happen. The character is going to lapse back into the normal routine and things will go back as they should, at least by the company's standards. I don't want to blame writers like Tom King for decisions made because chances are that while they were behind them, the choices still came from the higher ups. That is the nature of cynicism and pessimism. When something too good to be true occurs, we expect it to go bad. We expect these things not to last and thus whenever the worst occurs, we go “I knew that was going to happen”. It's sad really, especially when we say that to a new reader that was intrigued by the changes that were going to happen, only for them to be disappointed.

So, it's hard for a newbie to come into something and get latched onto it. Hell, the changes being made may not have gone well with the OLDER fans because they may have seen it as out of character. Probably some older fans didn't want the wedding of Batman and Catwoman and lobbied against it. Who knows? However, while superhero comics are bound by the status quo, independent and non-superhero comics are not. Hence my topic for this blogpost... Transformers: More than Meets the Eye.

I am not a big time Transformer follower, being somewhere in the middle, but I do like the franchise and the legacy it has accumulated. If you have been under a rock for the past 30 years, then I say “Greetings to you alien visitors and welcome to Earth. I am HarmonicaJay, please don't stick things up my butt.” But in all seriousness, the franchise is about two warring factions of robots that can transform themselves into different vehicles and fight each other. The factions are the Autobots, lead by the heroic and ever awesome Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, lead by the charismatic and ever evil Megatron. While the stories may change along with motivations, the core of the franchise remains the same, summed up in the lyrics, “Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of... The Decepticons!”

Simple as can be, Transformers has endured through multiple incarnations and TV series to the delight of each new generation and is entertaining to behold. And of course, there are comics of Transformers. From Marvel to IDW, the license has stayed strong since the 80s. Over 30 years of comics and with many stories and characters for it. The current holders of the license are IDW and they have done a lot of good with it. Some of the best stories and characters have come from them and this includes the storyline we will be covering.

SPOILER WARNINGS!

If you are a child of the 80s, then you were familiar with the many villains that were created for Saturday Morning Cartoons. Cobra Commander, Shredder, Skeletor, and of course Megatron. Megatron was the leader of the Decepticons who would transform into a gun and would constantly tell Starscream that he was an idiot. He was a badass robot voiced by the legendary Frank Welker and would eventually be voiced by Leonard Nimoy in the film release where he would be the first villain of the 80s to kill his nemesis Optimus Prime. Megatron has made a name for himself and he has earned it. In comics, Megatron was pretty much the same. A tyrant with dreams of conquest of Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. However, it was during IDW's run of Transformers, in the pages of one of their two series at the time “Transformers: More than Meets the Eye”, Megatron underwent a change that no one expected to ever see. The villain became a good guy and STAYED a good guy.

Now, to talk about why I think this is revolutionary for comics, consider how often a villain goes good, but manages to turn back to the side of evil. We've seen villains stay good, like in the pages of Thunderbolts from Marvel Comics. Many former villains in that comic have managed to remain good guys while others just stay the same. When a villain turns good, there's a shadow hanging over them. Like the Sword of Damocles waiting to drop to cut away the good guy shell they have built about themselves to let loose their villainous center. Now, minor villains have turned good, but a Big Bad like, say, Lex Luthor, The Green Goblin, or Doctor Doom? The villain may change sides once in a while, but they still retain their villainous nature. They are aligned with good, but they are not good people. Their motives are not for the greater good, but for their own personal good. However, what made Megatron's turn to the side of good so well done was that writer James Roberts not only changed Megatron's alignment, he actually examined the key motive for Megatron's turn to the Light Side: Regret for his past.

During the big crossover event comic, Dark Cybertron, the character of Megatron went through an arc that saw him change for the better. During this arc, Megatron did something that most villains don't usually do: Understand that the things they did were genuinely bad things. The problem with villains like Doctor Doom is that we've seen them act so full of themselves, so certain that what they are doing is right that any change they seem to go through seems disingenuous. This works for Megatron though because of the different continuity that IDW set forth. In this continuity, the Cybertron of the past that Megatron rose up against was actually a totalitarian government. However, because of the things that Megatron did during the war, he became so much worse than the old government that not many Autobots really remember how bad things were before the war. Megatron is less of a monstrous dictator and more a freedom fighter that became exactly what he was fighting against and seemed to forget what he was fighting for in the first place.

At this time in the comics, the War is over. The Autobots have won and the Decepticons have lost. Megatron's grand vision of a freed Cybertron has not come to pass. He has lost pretty much everything and has been wondering "Was it all worth it?"

With the help of Bumblebee, Megatron understands just how bad a person he used to be and after the death of Bumblebee, fully renounces his past and dons Bumblebee's Autobot insignia. He helps Optimus save the day and after a series of events, becomes an Autobot full time.

Now, this would be fine enough even without the aftermath of the event. What happens to Megatron in the pages of More than Meets the Eye makes his change to good even better. Megatron joins the crew of the Lost Light to find the Knights of Cybertron as part of his goal to make penance for his past while delaying his own big trial for his crimes. While he is on the Lost Light, it is made perfectly clear that while the readers can see he has changed, it's not exactly easy for the crew to forget about 4 million years of brutal warfare or to forgive him.

Megatron has done terrible things and James Roberts has made it clear that even if you change in the present, that cannot erase your past. This is what makes the writing work. So many times in other forms of media, a villain who changes is easily forgiven for the bad things he did. It would be like if Hitler suddenly turned against the Nazi Government and fought alongside the Russians and all he had to say to earn forgiveness was "Hey, guys, about me ordering the deaths of 6 million Jews... we're cool right? Sorry about that stuff. Mah bad. Mah bad." That sort of heel-face turn doesn't work in real life. You cannot just shrug away the past and James Roberts understood that. Which is why when Megatron fully completes his arc, it makes it all the more satisfying to see one of the greatest villains start to change and finish the change as a good guy.

At the end of More than Meets the Eye, Rodimus, Megatron, and a select number of Autobots that were loyal to Rodimus are exiled in the aftermath of a mutiny because they were okay with Megatron being onboard the Lost Light. This threw a big monkey wrench into the goals of the main characters and the journey became one of getting back the ship. However, at the end of Lost Light's first arc, Megatron completes his arc by going back to where he started: leading a rebellion against a totalitarian government. But with a twist.

In More than Meets the Eye, we were introduced to an Alternate Cybertron where Megatron did not succeed in overthrowing the Cybertronian Government and a new Government was formed: The Functionist Council. This was a totalitarian government where the ability to choose your class and job was entirely dependent on your Alt-Mode. Choice was completely removed and you were under control of the state. At the end of Lost Light, Megatron stayed in this alternate universe, though not entirely by his choice, and decided to head the resistance with a new motto: Peace Through Empathy. 

With this story, Megatron has the chance to start over, to do what he originally started out to do, but to be better about it. To be a figure for change, but not by being the monster he used to be. By doing this, Megatron has come full circle and has become what he thought he was when he started out: A hero. And this change is solidified by him hearing the voice of Orion Pax, Optimus Prime's original name, and smiling, knowing that this is a chance for him to start over with his oldest enemy.

This is why I love More than Meets the Eye. It sets up an arc and follows through on it to the fullest. It takes the status quo of Transformers and changes it with no sign of going back to how things used to be or without a heroic sacrifice. I wish more comics did this.

At this time, the Fantastic Four has returned to Marvel Comics and Doctor Doom has returned back to basics. I wish this hadn't been the case due to the possibility of reforming one of the Biggest Bads in comic history. However, I doubt that they would have done it as good as James Roberts and IDW had. The status quo is a funny thing. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it holds everything back. Change is good and comic companies should not be afraid of it.