Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #31 – Review

By: James Roberts (writer), Atilio Rojo (art), Joana Lafuente (colors)

The Story: Was it Megatron? In the Rod-Pod? With the Fusion Cannon?

The Review: Remarking upon the main cast of Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, one bot famously observed that, “as far as I can make out, all you do is argue, crack jokes, and get sidetracked doing pointless, silly things that only you find amusing!” It may hold a scant thirty issues and an annual against the full history of the Transfomers brand, but MTMTE has carved out a well-defined niche as a place where the brand can indulge its sense of humor, its talkative nature, and its love of narrative experimentation. If you need proof, look no further than More Than Meets The Eye #31.

“Twenty Plus One” is a classic bottle episode, a television term for a dialogue-heavy story that takes place in a single location with few guest stars or visual extravagances. The idea was pioneered and perfected by the original Star Trek in an attempt to stretch the budget for other, more effect heavy episodes. Despite their pragmatic origin, bottle episodes are frequently an opportunity for character-building and significant conflict thanks to the difficulty of holding audience attention and their similarity to staged theater. Thoroughly enamored with the trope, James Roberts conducts the issue like an old-time murder mystery, paranoia, prejudice, well-timed power outages, and all.

Stuffing twenty Autobots(?) into close quarters allows Roberts to call upon the myriad tones of MTMTE all in one issue. Fittingly, the best elements of this story are generally the highlights of the series: a blurred, honest line between comedy and drama; a complex but easily followed plot; razor-sharp dialogue; and a contemplative approach to the social and political aspects of being a Transformer being notable examples.

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #22 – Review

by James Roberts (Writer), James Raiz (Artist), Josh Burcham (Colorist)

The Story: ”Lost Light: The Movie” starring the crew of the Lost Light!

The Review: Humor isn’t the easiest thing to write. No matter how funny any creative team think they are, there’s a certain sense of timing and a pre-established knowledge of the humor material that is needed in order for anything to produce laughs. Some books may create a line or two that may cause chuckles or amusement, yet comedy that actually do make people laugh is actually pretty hard.

Well, it seems that James Roberts can very well proclaim that he can actually do comedy well, as this transition issue before the big crossover event is a fun and laugh-worthy entry to this series as the writer continues what he does great: characterization.

Simply put, Roberts let the character speak for themselves as the context of a sort-of documentary film allows for some kind of study in how most of the crew of the Lost Light are pretty dysfunctional. Close to every important characters from this series get to appear here, with some funny lines that adds to the whole experience. The jokes are not only a bonus here, as they are the key to what makes the issue works as they not only bring laughs, but characterization as well.

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #16 – Review

By: James Roberts (Writer), Agustin Padilla, Jose Aviles (Artists), Josh Burcham (Colorist)

The Story: People reacts in different ways to the fact that Overlord had been on the Lost Light as blames get pushed on someone. Meanwhile, Chromedome has to live with the fact that his most important person has just died.

The Review: I have no words.

Okay, that’s not entirely true, I have a good lot of things to say about this issue, but I feel like nothing I will say shall do justice to what I have just read. To say that this is an emotional issue would be underselling it. To say that the character work here is majestic would be just superfluous as it is something that I do believe should be experienced before anything else is said or written about it. With all the huge stuff that just happened in the last issues, with characters dying, being beaten to near death, with all the chaos just laid down on the cast and the book, we now see the fallout of all that.