The Badlands

Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 1 is on sale at Barnes & Noble. It also comes in Nook.

I strongly urge you to check this book out if you haven't been reading the series but enjoy:
- Transformers
- robots
- space
- science fiction
- Doctor Who

Seriously. I would recommend this to people who don't even like Transformers. Some Transformers comics are good 'for a Transformers comic'. This is just a good comic, period.

Roberts refers to TF:MTMTE as "an unholy hybrid of Dark Star, Justice League International, Doctor Who and Arrested Development. Heck, you can throw in Magnolia and X-Files in there too. And Community, for that matter. Essentially, MTMTE is what happens when a superhero team book collides with a space opera sitcom." (Roberts is the writer.)

No word is wasted. The dialogue is packed with history, character quirks, and how the character relate to each other without seeming rushed or forced. The art is great, too. It's easy to understand what's going on, and there are so many little Easter eggs going on in the background. The characters have expressive body language. The plot lines are self-contained and yet set up for what is coming next seamlessly and flow like a river.

This is the sort of series where having the rest of the context is nice but not necessary. If you don't want to pick up the TPB, just go into your local comic store and pick up whatever issue they have and start there! That will work just fine. Or go on the IDW website and buy the e-copies - if you wait a month to purchase them, they're cheaper.

MTMTE is just wonderful. Please, please check it out.

Edit: Here's creator commentary on #6.

The cover of MTMTE #1 homages a Justice League cover.

This cover, in fact

So:
Rung - Doctor Fate
Rodimus - Green Lantern
Eject - Captain Marvel
Drift - Doctor Light
Chromedome - Blue Beetle
Ultra Magnus - Batman
Red Alert - Martian Manhunter
Whirl - Oberon
Ratchet - Mister Miracle
Cyclonus - Black Canary

This is amazing and hilarious.

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Two of my friends commented that Transformers: Prime is nice and all, but they'd rather see IDW's MTMTE as a cartoon than more of Prime, and for the time being, I have to agree with them. MTMTE is designed in something of an episodic fashion, which would suit a TV show well.

However, there are two main cast female robots, Arcee and Airachnid, in Transformers: Prime. There are no women in MTMTE thus far. So, clearly, two of the MTMTE cast need to be genderswapped. We concluded that Red Alert and Ratchet should get turned into ladies. Red Alert was female in Animated, so why not? Budiansky wanted Ratchet to be female in G1, but Hasbro wouldn't let him, so why not make Ratchet female now?

It would have to be cel animation. Glorious cel animation.

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One of my friends has the theory that Rodimus and his crew, who are out looking for the Knights of Cybertron, who left Cybertron a very long time ago, have been cast into the past and are actually the Knights of Cybertron that they are looking for and just don't know it yet.

I would like to further add to the wild speculation and suggest that Rodimus one of the ancient good Primes, thereby making him something like his own grandfather. Optimus never noticed Rodimus in the Matrix because of, uh, name translation errors, yeah. Rodimus did not die but handed the Matrix off to Nova because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then Rodimus returns to the future, very confused and mildly disturbed.