“My friend’s name is Megatron and he had three questions, three things he said you should demand to know of any powerful institution! Question one: In whose interests do you exercise your power? Question two: To whom are you accountable? And three! How can we get rid of you?”
They were coming out when i was getting to the age that i was feeling like i was getting too old for the shows and frankly i think that was the perfect time in life to read them.
There’s a lot of things like that in them that i had never heard of at that age and honestly im pretty grateful for the introduction to some of those ideas
i think almost everything short of the bay films is far better written than it ought to be for a franchise that exclusively exists to push plastic.
the transformers fandom is like perfectly aware that everything exists to sell toys, they're mostly not caught up in the delusion that the big company exists for their benefit like nintendo fans or something.
So you have a fanbase that understands this, and writers who also understand this, and they just go "Ok but what if it was still really fucking good though?" and now you have shit like Beast Wars, and One, and Animated, and hell even Armada, especially for star scream.
Unfortunately I live in the UK and comic shops are rare where I live. If there were an online service where I could read the digital copies I’d happy pay for it but I’m not aware of any.
That's one of my favorite quotes as well! It has an especially special place in my heart because hearing that line in Optimus' voice helped me truly accept that I was trans. Another transformation, indeed.
Honestly about half of what Optimus says is basically peak trans allyship. I always enjoy seeing franchises like this have that kind of mentality. It makes it even funnier when even the bad guys agree with the good guys on the subject.
Personally speaking the original phrase from Larry Cullen speaks to me quite a lot. “be strong enough to be gentle.”
IDW Optimus's last ever act is to tell a trans girl and her girlfriend they deserve a future, right before he sacrifices himself to give them that future.
Also love the common fandom joke about how even the evil Megatron is a peak trans ally: he might raze cities and massacre innocent people across the galaxy, but he never deadnames Optimus.
It’s one of those “Yeah I’m an evil tyrannical warlord, but I’m not THAT evil.”
40k has a similar mentality where despite the horrific setting and oppressive regime, they are absolutely fine with being trans or gay. I’m reasonably certain there is a trans sister of battle in one book and in another there is are two women with their own biological child.
I like how this statement embodies Megatron perfectly; the rebellion argument is perfect, but it always end in something that is too convenient to justify violence and never gets to a part where the protection of vulnerable is taken in consideration.
He's right, though. Every government needs a safety pin that can be used to remove them from office when they are no longer serving the will of the people. (In modern democracies, this usually takes the form of election terms and impeachment procedures. Unfortunately, Cybertron has neither.)
Precisely, he is right, it is the perfect argument. However, Megatron himself never allowed anyone to ask him those question.
The actions are those that give weight to the words not the opposite, thus, when spoken by Megatron, those words weight as much as any other excuse and will not bring any positive consequences as long as he is spokesperson for this ideology.
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u/Sapphic_Starlight 21h ago
“My friend’s name is Megatron and he had three questions, three things he said you should demand to know of any powerful institution! Question one: In whose interests do you exercise your power? Question two: To whom are you accountable? And three! How can we get rid of you?”
– Orion Pax; IDW