Transformers More Than Meets The Eye Vol1

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME COVER B

BY NICK ROCHE COLORS BY JOSH BURCHAM
Cover by Alex Milne Cover Colors by Josh Perez
Collection Edits by Justin Eisinger and Alonzo Simon
Collection Design by Jeff Powell
Special thanks to Hasbro’s Aaron Archer, Andy Schmidt, Derryl DePriest, Joe Del Regno,
Ed Lane, Joe Furfaro, Jos Huxley, and Michael Kelly for their invaluable assistance.
THE TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, VOLUME 1. JUNE 2012. FIRST PRINTING. HASBRO and its logo, TRANSFORMERS, and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used
with permission. © 2012 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices:
5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this
publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.
DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME

Originally published as THE TRANSFORMERS: DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME and THE TRANSFORMERS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE COVER
Issues #1–3. B
THE DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME

WRITTEN BY JAMES ROBERTS & JOHN BARBER ART BY NICK ROCHE
COLORS BY JOSH BURCHAM LETTERS BY SHAWN LEE EDITS BY CARLOS GUZMAN

WRITTEN BY JAMES ROBERTS ART BY NICK ROCHE (ISSUE #1) AND ALEX MILNE
COLORS BY JOSH BURCHAM LETTERS BY SHAWN LEE SERIES EDITS BY JOHN BARBER
DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME COVER
COVER BRI-A
BY LIVIO
NICK ROCHE
RAMONDELLI
COLORS BY JOSH BURCHAM
DEATH OF
PROMOTIONAL
OPTIMUS PRIME
IMAGES
COVER B
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #1 COVER E
BY NICK ROCHE AFTER KEVIN MAGUIRE, COLORS BY JOSH BURCHAM
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #2 COVER A
BY ALEX MILNE COLORS BY JOSH PEREZ
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #2 COVER RI
BY ALEX MILNE
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #3 COVER RI
BY ALEX MILNE
RODIMUS ULTRA MAGNUS DRIFT
Commander of the Lost Second in command/ Nominal third in
Light Autobots/One-time Duly Appointed Enforcer command
Matrix holder of the Tyrest Accord Ex-Decepticon. Longs to
Brave, charismatic, Takes job (and everything be defined in some other
reckless. Easily bored. else) extremely seriously. way. Recent brush with
Smiled once and regretted death has reawakened his
it ever since. spiritual side.
BRAINSTORM RATCHET RED ALERT WHIRL

Weapons engineer/ Chief Medical Officer/ Director of Security Warrior/practicing
prolific murderer prolific life-saver Professional eavesdropper. troublemaker
Amoral, single-minded A world-weary super-medic Part-time conspiracist. Ex-Wrecker. Twice voted
workaholic and possible with unreliable hands. Full-time paranoiac. “Autobot most likely to
genius. Carries Kind, but not as kind as he defect.” Best avoided.
briefcase containing The once was.
Unmentionable.
RUNG SWERVE CHROMEDOME

Ship’s psychiatrist Metallurgist Mnemosurgeon
Weak of body, sharp of Good friend to all, best Cynical. Prone to moping.
mind. Always present, friend to none. Weapon of Resents own talents. Relies
seldom noticed. choice: the mouth. on Rewind to keep him
honest.
REWIND CYCLONUS TAILGATE SKIDS

Archivist/Historian Ex-lieutenant of Galvatron Bomb disposal Theoretician
A walking database. Excitable Dour and unrepentant. A Making up for lost time… Carefree amnesiac who
and trusting. Uses head- fierce patriot still reeling never lets go of his gun.
mounted camera to record from the loss of “his”
history as it happens. Cybertron.
MEET THE CREW

DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME COVER A
PHOTO BY VIKTOR KIS
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #1 COVER B
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #1 COVER C
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE #1 COVER D
BY NICK ROCHE COLORS BY JOANA LAFUENTE
ALEX MILNE SKETCHBOOK
EVERYTHING YOU DIDN’T REALIZE
YOU NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT
(PART 1)
The search for the Knights of Cybertron began with this paragraph in an IDW editorial memo written
by the then editor of the Transformers line, Andy Schmidt:
“Schism’”[the original name for “The Death of Optimus Prime”] ends and the ongoing series splits
in two. The Autobots are left in charge of Cybertron. Bumblebee decides that he believes that change
is needed. He wants to build a Cybertron based on new rules, new ideas, and new minds. As such, he
refuses to use “the old ways.”As a consequence, Rodimus, Ironhide, Drift and others leave Cybertron
because they believe in tradition, in the beauty of what Cybertron once had. Drift knows of a place
where the “old ways” still exist. And they set off into space to find the Knights of Cybertron, who have
been protecting Cybertron’s culture for millennia.
MTMTE began life as Robots in Disguise, but Schmidt swapped the two titles around when he saw what
James Roberts had planned for his characters.
After Rodimus and Drift, Chromedome, Rewind, and Whirl were always going to be part of the
crew. The other key characters came later. Conscious that the Lost Light was crewed by lesser known
Autobots, Roberts was keen to bag Ratchet (but was unable to secure the use of Wheeljack or Mirage).
Swerve was promoted to “main character” status only after Roberts came to write his dialog in issue
#1. Future issues were tweaked to give the Mini-Autobot a bigger role—the “new” issue #2 (see below)
was invaluable in this regard.
Rung’s first appearance in the IDW universe was in Last Stand of the Wreckers—sort of. He wrote
the new Wreckers’ psychological profiles that appeared as bonus content in issues #1, #2, and #5 (and
which are reprinted in the hardback collection of the series).
Roberts was asked to write MTMTE before he wrote the two-part “Chaos Theory” for issues #22-23 of
Mike Costa’s ongoing series. He made Whirl the prison guard who beat up Megatron knowing that the
character was going to be a regular in MTMTE. Rung also has a cameo in issue #22.
When Roberts and Costa co-plotted the “Chaos” storyline, Costa generously let Roberts script the
scenes on board the Kimia escape shuttle, knowing that most of the characters (including Chromedome,
Brainstorm, and Swerve) were destined to appear in MTMTE.
Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase makes its first appearance in “Bullets,” a prose story written by
Roberts that appears as part of the Last Stand of the Wreckers collection. Trailbreaker, Xaaron, and the
ill-fated Animus—the three members of the Ethics Committee—also appear, as does Swerve.
The name of the first three-issue story arc, “Liars, A to D,” is a play on the 1981 Dexy’s Midnight
Runners song, “Liars A to E.”
MTMTE issue one was originally subtitled “Launch Issue,” referencing the fact that this was the
beginning of a new series and (less metafictionally) that Rodimus had problems with getting the Lost
Light safely off Cybertron.
Earlier versions of issue #1 were radically different, with Skids arriving on Cybertron (still
being pursued by the “1984 bots”) before the Lost Light took off. But this action sequence added
to what was already a packed and frenetic opening installment, and so it was pushed back to
become the spine of an entirely new issue #2 (which was originally the sparkeater issue). The
fight between Whirl and Cyclonus replaced Skids’ arrival in issue #1.
In the earlier drafts of issue #1, we first meet Whirl queuing up to board the Lost Light. In
a moment of spite, he destoys Rung’s precious collection of model spaceships. Cyclonus,
meanwhile, is simply granted an audience with Rodimus on the bridge.
Tailgate—trapped underground for six million years—was originally going to be Powerglide,

until the latter character appeared on present day Cybertron in “Chaos.” Roberts had first
pitched the idea of a Transformer being trapped underground for millions of years, oblivious
to the passage of time, when he was sketching out stories for the abortive Transformers: War
Stories project. In the War Stories version, Powerglide would have fallen underground before
the war began and climed his way to the surface to find the Autobots being attacked by the
Swarm—a scene from All Hail Megatron.
Roberts says that issue #1 is conceived as a grand pre-credits sequence similar to those seen
in films like Magnolia or The Player, where dispirate characters and sequences are connected
via long tracking shots or narration. He also says that the hardest part of writing issue #1 was
spelling the “transformation sound” phonetically.
Skids’ arrival in issue #2 was originally longer, with the amnesiac Autobot leaping from segment
to segment of the shuttle as it slowly came apart.
In issue #3 of Last Stand of the Wreckers, Topspin speculates that a sparkeater might be inside the
Aequitas chamber. Until the lettering stage of MTMTE issue #3 (when it was cut for reasons of
space), the scene where the Autobots stand over Shock’s body featured the following dialogue:
Trailbreaker: Yeah, but has anyone actually seen [a sparkeater] before?

Red Alert: I heard there was one on Garrus 9. Interrogation tool. High Command
denied it, of course.
Trailbreaker: Okay, anyone apart from him?
Trailbreaker: (No offence, Red.)
In the same scene, Rewind says, “I’ve got 29 seconds of grainy footage that’s supposed to show
a sparkeater attacking the Gimlin Facility on Varas Centralus.” This is a reference to Robert
Gimlin, who with Roger Patterson told the world that they’d captured Big Foot on film.
Later in the issue, in an effort to prove his navigation skills to Skids, Swerve boasts that he once
“tiptoed across the Mitteous Plateau”—this terrain was decribed by Tailgate in issue #1 as the
most fragile on Cybertron, shortly after he’d fallen through it.

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MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME COVER B

DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME

THE DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

BRAINSTORM RATCHET RED ALERT WHIRL

RUNG SWERVE CHROMEDOME

REWIND CYCLONUS TAILGATE SKIDS

MEET THE CREW

Tailgate—trapped underground for six million years—was originally going to be Powerglide,

Trailbreaker: Yeah, but has anyone actually seen [a sparkeater] before?

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