“Transformers: Chaos Theory” (part two)

The best defence Optimus can provide for his prewar self turns out to be "I was a different person back then, just like you." Which, while it might be accurate, doesn't really seem like a satisfying answer to Megatron's question. It also seems like a cowardly, sanctimonious one, just like his previous answers. It would have given me a much less negative impression if Optimus bit the bullet and said "I was one of the bad guys back then (if, indeed, he was)," but this phrasing feels like a dodge.

Then, Optimus asks Megatron if he remembers the first time they met. Megatron says that he does; their first battle was at a place called Sherma Bridge. The decepticon forces practically destroyed the autobot army, but Optimus Prime chopped Megatron's body apart so badly that he wasn't able to lead again until undergoing months of repair. This leads to them recounting their many battles over the eons, including all the times they killed each other's friends, smashed each others' bodies to the point of needing years-long complete reconstructions, performed literal colony drops on each other's locations, etc.

They actually, sort of, seem to be managing to bond over this.

In general, I'm loving the art style and quality of this comic. The level of detail really rewards these kinds of greeble-heavy character and environment designs. It also manages to capture the weight and scale of these truck-sized characters, even without any humans for size comparison. Combined with the eons-long timescale of the story being recounted, this really makes the cybertronians seem godlike and beyond humanity. Fairly impressive, given that this is a franchise that started with animated toy commercials and still has characters with such cartoony names as "Megatron" and "Ultra Magnus" as a legacy of that.

But that said, in this particular panel, is it just me or has Megatron shrunk by at least a third?

Anyway, amid the battle reminiscing, while Optimus agrees that Sherma Bridge was their first combat encounter, they actually met once prior to that. Before the war had even broken out. Megatron doesn't remember it, but Optimus does.

Heh, okay, now that's the Megatron I remember from the SatAm show.~

Anyway, Optimus says that had it not been for that previous meeting, neither of them would be alive now. Or at least, they wouldn't be in their current positions. His meaning isn't totally clear. Hmm, well, my interest is piqued.

Rather than elaborating on this, though, Optimus follows up their reminiscence on battles past by telling Megatron that if he wanted to end this war right now, he could. If Megatron dies, the decepticons will replace him with one of the many opportunists chomping at the bit for more power (I was half expecting Starscream to Koolaid-man his way through the wall as soon as Optimus said this). However, if Megatron agrees to a settlement, his cult of personality is such that the decepticons - barring perhaps a few splinter groups occurring - will follow him in that. Will he do it?

Megatron doesn't answer.

Optimus then asks him, once again, why he surrendered himself. Megatron replies that it doesn't matter, even though clearly it does.

Cut ahead a little to a frustrated Optimus leaving the cell and conferring with his lieutenants. Most of them think this is a waste of time and they should just execute the fucker already. Others, like Optimus himself, think that this would be a waste of an opportunity to really weaken the decepticon cause instead of just the symbolic victory of killing a replaceable leader (and also handing the next one a perfect martyr while they're at it). Someone proposes turning Megatron over to a neutral species for impartial judgement under interstellar law, but pretty much no one in the galactic community wants to get the cybertronian civil war all over themselves. There's one cybertronian elder, a Chief Justice (of which court?) Tyrest, who was once an autobot but is now recognized as neutral by pretty much everyone, who they could maybe turn to.

Then Optimus...says something that kind of makes me look askance, given his self-professed philosophy. The other autobots also look askance at it, though for different reasons.

On one hand, them listening in on the conversation when they were told not to would be pretty WTF if this wasn't supposed to be a libertarian/anarchist adjacent paramilitary. On the other, Optimus being able to pull rank without needing to explain himself - about the treatment of an important POW of all things - would be pretty WTF in a libertarian/anarchist leaning paramilitary. The hierarchy and command structure of the autobots is confusing me here.

Granted, the others don't seem to be laying back and taking Optimus' attempt at pulling rank. But it's still weird that he'd have any expectation of them doing otherwise, if they were always a free association based army. Perhaps it's just a matter of their system having decayed over the course of this war's insane timescale.

...

You know, in my Lovecraft reviews I talked about how unimaginable - as in, literally impossible for a human mind to visualize - a multimillion year old society would be. I feel like with a multimillion year war, this is even more the case. The fact that some of the combatants, including the leaders of both factions, are personally old enough to remember the beginning of it makes it both easier and harder for me to try to wrap my mind around and relate to in human terms.

Then again, I might be trying to read this comic in a way it doesn't want to be read. The depiction of the old Cybertron regime as "literally twentieth century America, but robots" suggests that the big numbers and otherwise inhuman set dressing isn't supposed to actually mean anything in terms of sociology and characterization. So, maybe trying to imagine the unimaginable and trying to analyse the autobots through that lens here isn't what the story actually wants me to attempt. Which is...definitely the more reasonable option, heh.

In that case though, calling attention to the multimillion year war and similarly long lives of its participants and what that timescale means to organics a few pages ago might not have been a good idea. It kind of forces the reader to try to think about this stuff.

...

So, Optimus Prime freaks out at his underlings for daring to question him, in that stalwart champion of personal liberty way of his, and then sulks for a while, staring into space. This has got to be the most unflattering portrayal of Optimus in any Transformers media ever, or at least close to it. We then return to the flashback, which presumably will lead to that original meeting that Optimus remembers and Megatron doesn't.

We pick up in that police holding cell, where Megatron is getting ACAB'd hard by the new arrival.

Looks like the state sanctioned thug is friends with the other state sanctioned thugs who are currently being welded back together and may or may not start up again. Also, he's the only transformer to have been denied an actual face by his creators, so that's got to give him a permanent bad mood even before anything else.

It's worse than just a beating, actually. Acabot tells Megatron that he intends to keep going until his brain is crushed and his spark (the cybertronian concept of the soul or consciousness) is gone. He'll tell his fellow officers that the suspect slipped his bonds and had to be killed in self defence, and no one will ever ask questions. No one will ever miss Megatron. He's just a miner. Millions more just like him are churned out every day.

...

This issue of the IDW Transformers comic was published in 2011. Before even the Trayvon Martin case, let alone the BLM movement as such.

If this came out today I would have been sure this author was just some pseudo-progressive vulture chasing the headlines, albeit a much better writer than most such. But no, for this to have come out at the time that it did, the writer would have needed to actually care about these issues. Whatever merits and flaws this story ends up having, it seems to be an earnestly political work.

Alright. Colour me pleasantly surprised.

...

Before Acabot can commit the murder, the other, dorkier robocop comes back in and asks him what the hell he's doing. Acabot, obviously surprised to be interrupted, let alone questioned, provides no answer besides "You didn't see this." Officer Dorky nonchalantly agrees that he did not, in fact, see this, but also tells Acabot that they've been ordered to let this suspect go. A command straight from the captain's office. It turns out the precinct captain had a hunch about this situation, and called the proprietor of the café/bar that the fight took place at. The witnesses confirmed that Megatron didn't initiate the fight, and in fact was trying to deescalate it for as long as he could, fighting only to defend himself even after that point.

That means that the damage to the army cadets was all done by Impactor, alone. That guy is well named, it seems.

Megatron is so badly beat up that he needs help walking out of the station. On the way, he's brought to the captain's office, where...oh.

...I'm not sure that I even have words.

Officer Dorky walks the battered, oil-leaking Megatron the rest of the way out of the station. Behind them, Captain Optimus Prime (technically not his name yet; the "Prime" suffix is attached to a certain specific class of cybertronian that he doesn't appear to have joined at this point. But still, same guy) continues reading a copy that he made of Megatron's manifesto.

I wonder. Did Optimus just assume that Megatron's injuries were sustained in the initial fight? If so, shouldn't he have been getting medical attention instead of just sitting in a normal cell? The alternative is that Optimus knows what the transformers under his command get up to, and either doesn't care or has just given up trying to discourage it.

He did care enough to go out of his way to determine his hunch that Megatron was innocent, though, which doesn't seem consistent with that kind of callousness. So, that leaves option A. Optimus was actually so stupid that he didn't notice anything suspicious about Megatron's condition.

...it's kind of uncomfortable to me that Optimus not letting Megatron get convicted for a crime he didn't commit and/or murdered in his cell here is basically an "oops, you saved baby Hitler!" scenario. Maybe that's not what the comic is going for, but...mmm. Well, I'll reserve judgement until the end. It's earned enough credibility up to this point for me to give it that.

Back to the present. Optimus Prime returns to Megatron's modern-day supersecure prison cell, and tells him to cut the bullshit and just tell him why he surrendered already.

Knowing the circumstances of their first meeting...yeesh, yeah, I understand why Optimus was so uncomfortable about this. I...hmm. I was going to say he probably should have someone else doing this, but I get the sense that there's more to it than personal rivalry. Given that the other autobots all seem much less sympathetic to Megatron than Optimus is, it may be that putting himself in charge of the prisoner - violently, vehemently so - is an act of mercy. Or, perhaps, an act of shame. After all, what happened the last time one of Optimus' underlings had Megatron in a cell?

So, the least bad option for Optimus is to take on jailor duties himself. And, in so doing, reprise their original power disparity.

Ouch.

Megatron asks if he's to be executed, then. Optimus replies that that has yet to be determined, and trying to find out why Megatron surrendered is part of deciding the sentencing. Megatron sneers at him, and tells him that he's not being honest; rephrase the question, and perhaps he'll answer it.

So, Optimus rephrases it. This war, four million years old and counting, has claimed countless lives. Habitable planets have been ruined. Innocent civilizations destroyed, wiped out, so their resources can fuel the decepticon war machine, or bombed back into the stone age during autobot attempts to liberate them. All for a war that Megatron could have ended at any time just by declaring that enough was enough and the decepticons would content themselves with what they had. But no. Trillions of lives sacrificed, planets ruined, the cybertronian race reduced to vermin in the eyes of the galactic community, for what? Ego? Spite? An inferiority complex? So, in light of all that, what Optimus really wants to know - and what Megatron seems to have already guessed - is whether or not he regrets it. Does he have any remorse for any part of what he's spent the last four eons doing?

The question having been rephrased to his satisfaction, Megatron keeps his word and answers it.

He goes on to say that if he had to swim through a literal river of blood and corpses in order to reach the last autobot and kill it, he would do so. Not for the greater good. Not because it would serve his ideology. Just because he would want to. He just hates them that damned much.

Optimus reminds him that if Megatron likes death so much, then perhaps Optimus should just put a kinetic round through his brain right now. The rest of the galaxy would applaud. Megatron looks him in the eyes, and tells him that if killing him would really be such a good thing to do, then why is Optimus still talking to him instead of standing over his hulk? The reason, Megatron says, is because Optimus isn't really motivated to do what's best for the galaxy. He's motivated by the desire to see himself as a good person. It's all about him. His fantasy of redemption, that still conveniently puts himself in a position of power and authority. Really, Megatron says, Optimus is probably glad for this war. It gives him an evil to fight against, to make up for the one he didn't fight back when it benefitted him.

Optimus surmises that Megatron is trying to goad him into hurting him. And, surprising and disappointing me, he decides to give him what he wants. Megatron is still in his shock harness this time, so all Optimus has to do is throw the switch.

As Megatron thrashes, Optimus looks up and sees one of his officers looking down at him. Very visibly judging him.

Optimus shuts off the power and leaves the room. Before he does, though, Megatron reveals that he hadn't been quite honest in their previous conversation. He actually *does* remember his first ever meeting with Optimus.

Megatron knows. Megatron remembers. No matter what Optimus does, no matter how many people he fights to save, he will still have been the police captain who let an innocent man be tortured and then laughed him off with paternalistic condescension. Simultaneously, he's ALSO the police captain who allowed Megatron to go free again with that experience, with the eventual consequences of the decepticon faction being created. And it doesn't even take that much needling to get him to torture the same man again, right now. The best part of all, though? Optimus can't even kill him, because then he'd never be able to feel like he's righted his old wrongs.

After leaving the cell, Optimus asks the observing autobot why he didn't cut off the power when Optimus lost his cool and zapped the prisoner. The officer replied that he did, after just a split second; most of what Optimus saw there was the aftershock. If he hadn't shut it off as soon as he did, that would have certainly been a lethal shock.

...okay, maybe Optimus *can* bring himself to kill him then, my assessment was off. Heh.

Said underling doesn't seem overly troubled by what just happened, which...not sure how to feel about that tbh. He asks Optimus if he managed to learn what he was trying to learn, and Optimus answers.

Cut back four million years to prewar Cybertron, again. Megatron has managed to regain the strength to walk on his own, and Officer Dorky is leading him back out onto the street. He vacantly tells him to be free, citizen, go enjoy the rest of your life. No apology. No indication of even having acknowledged anything wrong with what just happened. Megatron tells him that he and his captain actually mixed something up earlier, when they were talking about his name. They both seemed to think the "tron" suffix of his name was derived from "electronic." But no, Megatron says, it's actually from "neutron." As in "neutron bomb." Dorky shrugs and says "whatever," clearly missing the subtext of what Megatron just said.

Heh, nice choice of munitions, by the way. Neutron bombs are the most maximally destructive type of nuclear weapon to computers. The connotations are even more genocidal for a race of AI's like the cybertronians than they would be for humans.

After leaving sight of the precinct, Megatron produces the tablet that Optimus handed back to him; the one with his reformist manifesto saved on it. Growling with rage, he throws it against a nearby monitor screen, shattering both. The cracks on the broken screen form a pattern that seems to inspire him:

In the following centuries, it will be refined into the Decepticon logo, and engraved onto each of their hulls for eons to follow.

And, that's where issue #22 of the IDW Transformers comic, and the first half of the "Chaos Theory" arc, ends.


So...are the autobots actually just the remnants of the old regime? I hope not. Optimus seems to truly regret what he was and what he enabled back then. That doesn't feel right.

Hmm. Notably, Optimus said that neither of them would be where they are if it hadn't been for that meeting. Implying that this was a transformative experience for Optimus as well as for Megatron. I guess it's possible that he just meant that in terms of the war never happening (or at least happening very differently) due to Megatron being dead, but I'm not sure.

I guess I still need to postpone judgement on the overall political framing until I finish the second issue. IE, after two more posts. The story being told with these two characters though, absent the broader implications of the autobot and decepticon faction histories, is a pretty fascinating one. Both in its raw portrayal of systemic injustice, and its engagements with intraleft controversies like reformism vs. accelerationism, the particulars of decolonization, and how sometimes the message itself is less important than the choice of messengers.

People were talking about this stuff in 2011, of course. But not very many people, at least in America where this comic was written and published, and they weren't often given much exposure. I sure as hell wasn't. Most of the leftists I know currently weren't leftists yet, or were only just starting to be. For this kind of discourse to have found its way into a major publication connected to a pop culture heavyweight like the Transformers in that era is really surprising.

As far as the characters go: my own exposure to them through their various versions and reimaginings is limited, as I said at the beginning. I know that in the original G1 cartoon, Megatron was just the hammiest, most hilariously one-note Saturday Morning villain ever, but that in some of the subsequent versions he's been rewritten as a cunning, secretive mastermind with some layers to him. This version seems like a reconciliation, with the hammy megalomaniac persona being a character he puts on for demagogic purposes, while his true self is more of the political chessmaster archetype.

One question that I'm not sure if the comic is going to acknowledge is what kind of person was Megatron really, back then? He obviously knew how brutal and corrupt Cybertronian society was to begin with, before writing that manifesto. And yet, experiencing the police brutality that he already knew about firsthand was enough to make him abandon his whole philosophy and start trending Strasserobot? He accuses Optimus of being insufferably, unconvincingly sanctimonious, but honestly, Megatron himself gave me exactly those vibes when he was trying to talk Impactor down in the café scene. Not that Impactor was in the right, obviously, but...well, look at these two panels:

Especially given what Optimus said before, about Megatron playing a character to fire up the crowd, how genuine does this sheltered, too-good-for-this-sinful-cybertron pacifist shtick actually seem to you?

Megatron might not have been wrong in his assessment of Optimus, but I think he was also projecting quite a bit. If he's accusing Optimus of not having actually changed since then, well...that might just be true of himself as well.

On the other hand, this is also such an unflattering portrayal of Optimus Prime that I'm almost tempted to call it character assassination. I get that if you're doing a "horrors of war" story with the Transformers then you have to give the characters some more layers and nuances, including adding flaws to the paragon types. But...electrocuting a captive out of sheer frustration, even if that captive is Megatron? That's just something that I don't think I can reconcile with the essence of Optimus Prime. If you want to do that, I feel like you should use a different character for it.

On the other hand, young!Optimus as a self-absorbed NIMBY liberal too idealistic to even notice that his department is packed with thugs and murderers when the evidence is literally right in front of him...that aspect, I can buy. If these were humans I'd be skeptical that such an individual would be able to reach Captain while keeping their naivete intact, but given the caste-based nature of prewar Cybertron it's possible that he was purpose built to be a commander and thus never had to climb the ranks. That would actually be a refreshingly alien detail in this otherwise way-too-familiar imagining of their society. Back to my main point though, this reads as something the Optimus we know could have actually been before he developed his critical thinking skills, and something that his regret of could play into his later characterization as he's been pretty consistently written.

Just...the performative sanctimony, and especially the electrocution...that's not Optimus. I was never even a big Transformers fan, and I still know that that isn't Optimus.

So, in short, I like what they're doing with Megatron so far. I have much more mixed feelings about what they're doing with Optimus. The dynamic between them, and what message it's ultimately sending, I'll have to finish the arc before I can really say.

If nothing else, the art is also pretty great.