#athenia

astrobots really went lets have a cynical thoughtful determined robot catgirl sword mom protagonist and we are here for that:

anyone else on the edge of their seats w/ patient anticipation of what's going to go down in Astrobots #6? We are. the story so far lays out a complex world where mass produced bots r stratified by hardlined code thanks to humanity, hierarchy therein inherited from them too...

reading that in issues #1 and #2 alone for both atlas city & the persephone ship gave the impression that something was deeply wrong that would be the source of conflict (see: atlas being a jerk). also was nice 2 be able 2 see the overlaps between athenia & arcee, & references to transformers such as solus, scylla, and xaaron

#5 ends on such a massive cliffhanger. the conflict is laid out sure, but how is artimis going 2 be psychologically throughout the series? r her clashes with athenia going to have some level of homoeroticism, and can the latter help her? will atlas's bioessentialism end him?

his whole shtick of trying to make a genetically improved humanity without hate he learned from them & attempting to coerce a specific line of bots to do it may not seem like him being a misogynist at a first glance but when you account for humans making that line that way, well. a greek goddess-named line of bots who r sword wielding curvy bipeds w/ cat ears & hardlined coding to nurture with skills to raise humans no other line got (it is unclear at present if multiple genders exist per bot line or not, we genuinely hope for the former) sure does feel like humans had a particular idea about what kind of fierce parental figure they wanted to mass-produce that raise even more questions. one that leaves one realizing humans made the bots of all lines without thinking about programming modularity. frames too. they all have heels, no body type variety, gave us a feeling of the humans in charge not quite having humanity's or robotkind's interests in mind so much as perpetuating a specific kind of society especially since the one body type only thing is true of every other bot line because of adherence to an alienated concept of function (its still unclear whether the remaining humans in the sol system are capitalists or collectivists or what but we have a feeling which one it is). and atlas making the threats he does thus does come off as him having recreated a form of discrimination a few times removed from human context.

the other thing we like is that astrobots doesnt simply do humans vs robots. it is instead robots vs robots who are both custodians of different kinds of humanity, following up on conflict of genocidal reactionary humans vs robots and humans living in harmony responded to w/ dirty nukes, after exodus from earth.

Does Cybertron have a team made up of Cybertronian Superheroes with special abilities like the Avengers?

Dear Assembled Associate,

Certainly; across the multiverse, there are many such cases of Cybertronians banding together to fight evil, using special abilities unrelated to their alt-modes. In one universe, Shockwave established the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology as a place where Outliers, as such individuals were dubbed, could train in secret—and be deployed as needed on sensitive covert operations.

The Avengers, though, are a particularly interesting case study in trans-dimensional harmonic resonance—I presume you know them as a team of humans drawn together from disparate backgrounds, but in another reality, the Avengers were a team of Cybertronians, who adopted terran alt-modes and monikers after traveling to Earth—led by Man of Iron, who transformed into an upgraded F-22 Raptor. Their unique talents and penchant for gallantry quickly cemented them as superheroes in the eyes of humanity.

And in yet another reality, long before the Autobot/Decepticon conflict, the Avengers were a team recruited by Sentinel Prime—who, tired of the bureaucratic red-tape preventing him from tackling evil, had taken the alias Captain Iacon. His assembled allies may be familiar:

Swindle, an arms-dealer who, after undergoing a moral crisis, built himself a suit of armor to fight against the Decepticons, calling himself The Ironworks.

The incredible Bulkhead, a mild-mannered scientist who accidentally ingested a potent chemical serum which multiplied his strength a hundredfold—with his physical stature remaining unchanged.

Raiden, a gestalt from the distant land of Athenia, who used the iconic Wreckers Hammer of Rack'n'Ruin.

Pretender Inferno and his Conjunx, The Waspinator.

Over time, the roster changed, including the super-robot Ravage, speedster Blurr and enchanter Mindwipe, Flare-Up the sharpshooter, and defector spy Blackarachnia. The team had to battle a corrupted Vector Sigma, which tried to conquer Cybertron. It created a "son" that would do its evil bidding, but the new robot, calling himself Shockwave, rebelled against Vector Sigma and joined the team.

The team's final battle took place against Megadeath, who had come into possession of the Infinity Ores. They were victorious, but not before half the population of Cybertron was lost, which ruined their reputation and led to the team being disassembled.

Relationships: Steven Grant/Marc Spector, Layla El-Faouly/Steven Grant/Marc Spector, Jake Lockley/? Rated M, ongoing, currently 3k words, slow romance + eventual smut, post-canon

also look at Athenia. she's adorable. absolutely amazing figure who can balance so well with heel struts.

hope everything is okay, we heard more than a while ago there would be more astrobots this year, haven't seen anything yet about that