YMMV / The Transformers: Dark Cybertron

• Accidental Innuendo: The "Starscream won't come out of the closet" conversation in part 2.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Nice knowing you, Bumblebee. Towards the end, anyhow.
  • Even after all his hypocritical Jerkassery before the crossover, one can't help but be a little touched to see Metalhawk give up his second chance at life to undo Shockwave's plan.
• Angst? What Angst?: Nightbeat is surprisingly chipper about not only being dead but being greeted in the Dead Universe by the same person who murdered him. In fact, he thanks him for doing it without any apparent irony.
  Nightbeat: If you ever discover you've been brainwashed into being a sleeper agent for Nova Prime, ask Hardhead to take care of the problem - he's brilliant at it!
• Base-Breaking Character: Windblade. Not really the character herself, rather how IDW handled things when first introduced to the media. This actually led to a gigantic Flame War in the IDW forums, fansite forums, tumblr, twitter, blogs, et al, with extreme sides of the argument having feminists against misogynists, and even had Simon Furman publicly snapping at Mairghread Scott, after she brought up the whole Arcee and the Unfortunate Implications her origin story carries as baggage as the reason why Windblade will serve as an Orwellian Retcon to the canon that Cybertronians were the One Gender/No Gender Race Furman always pushed for.
  • Windblade also has fans split on her design. Her kabuki "makeup" and onna bugeisha "hairdo", remind them of Drift and how he was originally introduced into the IDW universe, Gratuitous Japanese and all, including the overly-narmy "Dorifto" kanji on his shoulders. Other fans like the aesthetic, feeling it makes her stand out and visually interesting. Still others don't care or don't mind the design.
    • It should be noted that Windblade was the winner of a fan-based poll to create a new character. The poll chose a "knight-like" female Transformer in the end, but Hasbro themselves decided to take her in a Japanese-themed direction.
  • Brainstorm having been Undead All Along. Some think it's a real shocking twist with extremely subtle Foreshadowing, others that it's a poorly written twist. Though reception seems to have largely warmed now that it seems the character in question will continue to function normally, there's yet a smaller contingent who find this objectionable, calling it a one-off Ass Pull to write Orion's team out of a corner.
• Broken Base: While many people like the art in the comic, the fact they're using 3 artists in a single comic alone to tell 3 concurrent stories is a big cause of complaints, due to its jarring effect. However, rumblings have started to be heard about the art for the "Lost Light" segments of the story. Continue below for more information.
  • Also, the seemingly slow pace, with Talking Is a Free Action being very prominent in the Cybertron thread, with Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots just talking, and the Necrotitan just standing there in front of them.
  • While some reviewers were initially okay with James Raiz' art for MTMTE#22, that's not the case anymore after seeing it constantly in "Dark Cybertron" for the Lost Light segments of the storyline, calling it a "Count the Rivets-game" art style, and coupled with the heavy inking make the Lost Light thread unnecessarily dark, sad and outright depressing.
    The Underbase Podcast: (paraphrasing) Ultra Magnus always looks so sad, like he would need constant hugs from a little pony to cheer himself up.
    • Raiz' style has softened up a bit, being less "rivety" and the lineart not as heavily inked as the first issues, drawing much better reviews in general than it did at the beginning.
  • Rojo has not escaped criticism either, with The Underbase Podcast even remarking about how he draws Starscream's head looking nothing like it should; and Rattrap having the same body build as a japanese high school girl.
  • Ever since Chaos Livio Ramondelli has divided the fans. Some love the picturesque images he creates, others hate them for their lack of detail and murkiness. There has been a lot of support for him drawing the Dead Universe scenes (and he has picked up quite a few fans since Chaos) as they find his art suits the dark dreary nature of the world. Some fans still have a dislike for his art (one of the biggest examples would be the hard to make out panel in chapter 6). Finally, there are fans who think he's hit and miss with his panels, some are good, some lacking.
  • Some of the MTMTE fans have voiced their displease at seeing their favorite series basically hijacked for 5-months for what truly is a RID-centric event, and have mentioned just taking a 4-5 month break and pick up MTMTE once Dark Cybertron is over.
• Crack Pairing: Some fans have started shipping Whirl with Arcee, thanks to both of them being incredibly violent Blood Knights who get a Back-to-Back Badasses moment in Issue 12, and are shown arm-wrestling on the cover of Issue 10. Considering who we're talking about here, that's probably pretty close to intense flirtation.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Nautica and Chromia were given a warm reception due to their amusing dialogue, passing The Bechdel Test, neat designs, and avoiding the divisive aspects that Windblade slipped into (one is a previously established character, neither has goofy Kabuki designs, etc.)
• Fridge Brilliance: Prowl's Kick the Dog moment with Chromedome makes a lot more sense when you take into consideration that Prowl probably thought Chromedome wiped out his own memories of Rewind, just like those of all his previous conjunx endura. Doesn't change that he's a Jerkass, but it does make him less of a totally stupid one.
• Growing the Beard: The crossover hasn't been without its low points, but towards the second half the writers' schedules cleared up and the series picks up tremendous steam as a result. The art has gotten much more streamlined in later issues as well.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Rodpod, and Getaway's incredulous reaction to it become this when it turns out over in MTMTE that that was the moment he began his plan to get rid of Rodimus.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Running Gag involving the binocular microscope and Shockwave is funnier once you remember that Whirl once complained about a targeting visor being designed for robots with 100% more eyes.
• Ho Yay: Brainstorm and Perceptor start finishing each other's sentences.
  Brainstorm: You? Me? Simpatico.
• Inferred Holocaust: Lampshaded by Starscream, who points out that Metalhawk's sacrifice took out over 70 billion Stentarians with him (granted, they were Ammonites working with Shockwave), likely crippling the Stentarian species.
• Jerkass Woobie: Galvatron gets screwed over by Shockwave just like everyone else and is revealed to be far less of a bastard than Nova Prime was. By the time of part 11, upon seeing what he's helped cause, he begs Megatron to kill him out of remorse.
  • Even more surprisingly: Megatron.
  • It's hard not to feel for Soundwave in the ending. He completely and utterly devoted his life to Megatron's cause and now after four million years of Undying Loyalty, Megatron has abandoned said cause. Unsurprisingly, this leaves Soundwave devastated at the perceived betrayal from the one person he looked up to the most. Even worse, this made it easy for Galvatron to sweet-talk him...
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Science! ^note How Waspinator was able to control the Metrotitan.
  • It's dangerous to go alone. ^note Brainstorm handing out Orion Pax two items he claims he'll need in order to stop the Dead Universe
  • Science! Again! ^note Perceptor explaining how the Ammonites were to hijack the Lost Light's quantum slipstream.
  • After fans spotted a microscope in Shockwave's lair that has two eyeholes (despite the fact that Shockwave only has one eye) its uselessness quickly became a joke in the fandom (especially on Tumblr).
    Shockwave:"I can't see shit"
  • AUUUUGHHHHAAAAHHH! ^note Megatron's nipple twisting torture at the hands of Shockwave makes him sound an awful lot as an alarm, as noted by the Underbase Podcast.
  • A comment from Ultra Magnus in part four says that the Lost Light is 15 miles long and 10 miles wide. On a two-dimensional perspective, this gives it a rough surface area of 150 square miles, roughly the equivalent of the Bronx and Brooklyn combined. However, because its a tri-dimensional figure, and based on the artwork, it has roughly a height of 3 miles, thus giving it a rough estimate of 450 square miles of total exterior surface area, about the total of ALL OF NEW YORK CITY. This also means that it dwarfs even the biggest starships in just about every science fiction story ever. And yet, The Benign Intervention, a ship seen in More Than Meets The Eye, is much bigger than the Lost Light and would be the size of Connecticut. This promptly became a Running Gag in the fandom.
  • MORE SCIENCE! ^note The explanation to Shockwave's master plan, and how to do it
  • Shockwave/Jhiaxus's Milking Machine ^note The device they created in order for Shockwave to siphon in the Dead Universe's energies with the Ores and finish their plan looks like an automatic milking machine normally used on cows.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Shockwave murders Bumblebee. Subverted in that he's horrified once his old, pre-shadowplay self re-emerges.
  • Many fans can list Prowl smirking about Rewind's (Chromedome's late Conjunx) death at his indirect hands as the moment they lost any sympathy with the character. Especially since Prowl was romantically involved with Chromedome in the past.
• Narm: Nova Prime and Galvatron entering the normal universe through Megatron's body starts off as pure, unleaded Nightmare Fuel. But than on the first page of part 5 the way it's drawn (juxtaposed with Casual Danger Dialogue) causes it to look really silly. It's less "undead abominations entering our plane of existence" and more "Jane get me out of this crazy thing!".
  • There's also the revelation that Waspinator controls the Necrotitan with his "staff", i.e. the gun formed out of his energon stinger in beast mode. As one reviewer pointed out, this means Waspinator controls the Metrotitan with his butt. Even worse when Shockwave takes off his gun hand so he can replace it with the aforementioned butt-gun.
  • In-Universe, the comic makes plenty sure to lampshade how completely ridiculous the Rodpod is. By the end of chapter 6, Whirl is hoping that someone steals it and later tries to smash it up with a pipe because of how obnoxious and embarrassing it is.
  • Some feel that Windblade's Japanese styling counts as this, though for others it looks fine or fits into Narm Charm.
• Narm Charm: Some of the action scenes in Dark Cybertron #5 are so ridiculous, with the Casual Danger Dialogue and stuff that its almost as if the comic is self-aware of how bad it can be at times — Shockwave using the GunButt included.
  • Megatron's speech on stopping the Necrotitan, and trying to be badass, becomes really Narmy because Bumblebee is carrying his torso in one arm, and his legs in the other. It's obviously a joke, especially when Bumblebee admits that Megatron had him wait before walking over in order to make it more dramatic.
  • Few characters in all media can say something as earnestly and nakedly righteous and good as "If he stands between us and freedom, Nova Prime doesn't stand a chance." Optimus Prime is one such character.
• Nightmare Fuel: Hardhead's death.
  • The Dead Universe's gradual corruption of Cyclonus. Hell, the Dead Universe in general.
  • The assorted Body Horror the Necrotitan's blast causes.
• One-Scene Wonder: Astrotrain's revelation that he has bad eyesight surprisingly gained him lots of fans.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Bumblebee has been notably better received in the crossover than RID itself, mostly for finally growing a pair, his interactions with Megatron, and everybody else lampshading what a poor leader he is. Dying also helped a bit.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Many fans had begun to dislike Bumblebee in Robots In Disguise due to his behavior and poor leadership. Here Prowl, the Dinobots, and Soundwave all call out Bumblebee on his incompetence and stupidity as a leader, with Prowl clearly wanting to kick him out of leadership position.
• Tear Jerker: Bumblebee's death at the hands of Shockwave, right after a particularly poignant Heartwarming Moment with Megatron.
  • In part 10 a brief scene shows that Blurr doesn't remember who Swerve is. At all. And than he comments that he thinks Swerve is annoying.
  • Metalhawk giving up his life to stop the Ammonites.
  • Shockwave's death.
  Optimus: The bench with the broken leg! Remember? You'd say, 'Forget overthrowing the Senate—I'd settle for a decent bench!'
  Shockwave: ...And I fixed it myself in the end, didn't I. My greatest achievement. From fixing a bench to breaking the universe. How did that happen?
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The fandom went crazy after finding out Alex Milne is doing the art for Dark Cybertron #10.
  • Andy Griffith's work on Dark Cybertron #9 was also welcomed, especially after Rojo's art.
  • Having Ensemble Darkhorses turn up (sort of) alive certainly didn't hurt.
  • More female Transformers showing up.
  • Bumblebee dies after swallowing the plot since Mike Costa's run.

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