Thursday, May 29, 2014

PAD #7: Something I Didn't Know I Needed

So I was nonchalantly browsing at Half-Price Books today when I stumbled upon something that might very-well have changed my entire life.  Well okay, so it's nothing that drastic, but it sparked a surprising amount of joy that I probably haven't felt since I was a kid; or perhaps when I first saw The Avengers, anyway.  I was in the comics and manga section when I noticed a book sitting on the shelf, it was a Transformers book called All Hail Megatron.  I picked it up, curious, as I had no idea what I was supposed to make of it.  Then I opened it up and I swear it was like a golden light had shown-out from the pages, and a rainbow sprang forth while an unseen angelic chorus "ah"ed at the splendor.  A recent-looking comic done in the style of the Generation 1 Transformers.  I knew right then that I needed this comic in my life.

So naturally when I got home, the first thing I did was hit-up Google to demand answers.  I discovered that this was a part of a comic series that had been running since a couple years before even the Michael Bay movies were a thing.  Just let that sink-in, before the first Transformers movie, keeping in mind that the fourth is right around the corner.  Anyway, All Hail Megatron is a series that starts a little ways (a wiki article refers to it as the "second act"), and that one objective of the series was to serve as a sort of in medias res jumping-on point for new readers.  Basically, it starts-out with the Decepticons taking over Earth while the Autobots, having been defeated during a previous story arc, have been left desolated on Cybertron, and from the looks of things when I was flipping through the pages, have a bit of drama to sort-out before they can get around to saving Earth.  Probably the best part about it is that since they aren't being forced to adjust the story to accommodate a toy line (since there isn't one), they're able to actually tell a story without needing to worry about forcing-in new characters or contriving reasons to get rid of characters who aren't selling well enough.

Sign me up for that.  Depending on how All Hail Megatron fares, I might have to check-out the rest of this comic series.  Amusingly, and coincidentally, I also stumbled on an amusing Transformers parody on YouTube today based on when Optimus gets revived during Season 3 (or maybe it was Season 4).  I laughed quite a bit, I don't know if I should be ashamed to admit to that or not, but I did.  I've never actually seen the series of episodes where Optimus gets revived, probably because Season 3 was so terrible that I just couldn't keep watching it, and that's after surviving through Season 2.  SEASON TWO FOR FUCK'S SAKE!  We're talking about the season where one of the Autobots falls in love with some human chick after being tasked with being her bodyguard; the season where some Transformers and Spike time travel back to medieval times; the season where some big game hunter captures some Autobots so that he can hunt them for sport ; the season where... you probably get the idea.  Season 2 has a lot of very asinine episodes, yet Season 3 was somehow worse!  So yeah, that's my dirty little Transformers secret.  As much as I loved Generation 1, I haven't finished watching the entire cartoon series.  Though I think that those who have would tell me that it's nothing to be ashamed of, and that they're a little bit envious.

On that, and having added a number of new words to Firefox's dictionary, I think I'll sign-off for tonight.

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