Transformers Mosaic: "Phantoms"

Oh, hey, wow, it's the 1986 movie the way everybody and their grandmother wishes it had been.

Bumblebeast wrote:Yeah, Hotrod, way to screw it up.

I have been telling people for decades that Hot Rod was the one that REALLY murdered Optimus....but NOOOOO! Everyone always says "Shaddup, Decepticon! It was Megatron....blah blah blah....."



I kinda liked this Mosaic!

Nice story. You touched upon something that we all have wondered about at one time. I like the title too.

Pyrostrata wrote:

Bumblebeast wrote:Yeah, Hotrod, way to screw it up.

I have been telling people for decades that Hot Rod was the one that REALLY murdered Optimus....but NOOOOO! Everyone always says "Shaddup, Decepticon! It was Megatron....blah blah blah....."



I kinda liked this Mosaic!

ashe5k wrote:Oh please. Hot Rod was in on it with Megatron. The conspiracy theorists were right!

On a more on topic note, well done!

No no, see, Hot Rod was just the innocent scapegoat. It was REALLY Ultra Magnus behind it all. Who else had the clout to leave an entire Autobot City defenseless until the last moment? The chain of command to tell Perceptor not to try and repair Optimus? Was the next in line to receive the Matrix? Magnus wanted power, and there was a red and blue truck in his way who got to lead while he was stuck commanding a single city.

now
it all makes sense

ashe5k wrote:Oh please. Hot Rod was in on it with Megatron. The conspiracy theorists were right!

On a more on topic note, well done!

You heard it here first! Transformers the Movie was an inside job! Unicron was rigged to explode! The Battle of Autobot City was orchestrated to get humans to side with the Autobots! There are no WMD's on Cybertron! Galvatron presents no real threat! Rodimus is a member of the Skull and Cross-Servos Secret Society!

I know no one will agree but Rodimus was a better "Character" than Optimus. He had real depth. He had doubts about himself. He lived in the shadow of the greatest Autobot ever.

Optimus was just this hero that rode in on his white horse and saved the day. Sure he had his "protection of sentient life" bit, but he was not as deep of a character. I am glad the Movie was made the way it was.

If Op doesn't die, there is no real loss, and hence no great sense of victory/struggle.

It's called Phantoms as Hot Rod / Rodimus is dealing with the "ghost" (i.e., phantom) of what "could" have been. He's wracked with guilt. Here he is, someone who other people look to in order to solve problems, and he feels like he is the cause of all the problems. He will always be haunted by the dream of what "might have been" if only he hadn't been so rash to help out.

That said--Hot Rod didn't cause Optimus Prime to die, as Prime never would have killed Megatron. He had opportunity after opportunity to do so in the past, but always let him go. He would have stood there for an hour lecturing Megatron on how good is good and bad is bad, all the while never realizing that Megatron was going for a gun.

I think this was an excellent "What If...?" situation. If Hot Rod hadn't screwed it up and Megatron had made it to the gun unhindered, Prime already had his rifle leveled at Megatrons' head. Prime would have had zero time for conscious thought and just reflexively pulled the trigger. At that point it's not about good or bad intentions it's just survival instinct. Prime even would have had a decent chance if Hot Rod had just pointed and shouted "He's Still Armed!"
which would have been faster than jumping on Megs and probably caused Megs to draw the weapon on him first which still would have caused Prime to get the first shot off.
Yeah, Hot Rod screwed the pooch no matter how you look at it and now he has to live with his inner demons. That's worse than just the burden of leadership all on it's own.
Excellent story. This definitely will be on my top 5 list. Great Job!

Thanks for the kind words, guys! As I said on DeviantArt, this is the first piece of finished sequential art that I've done, and it was a real challenge and learning experience! I finished it back in June, and I've learned a few tricks since then, so it is really interesting to look at, and there are a few things I would have done differently with some techniques I picked up, but I definitely put some blood, sweat, and tears into it! Can't wait to do more!