I thought I might want to explain myself a bit. Maelstrom is a Transformers fanzine I started in the late 80's/early 90's. If I had been smart, I would have dated them but I wasn't. I can't give an exact date. Except one. I started the story, in my mind at least, the day after "The Return Of Optimus Prime" aired for the first time. I got serious when "The Rebirth" aired. OO...I hated that. All I can tell you for sure is Maelstrom was one of the few fanzines out in the long, dead stretch between the Gen 1 cartoons and everything else. When I began the series we all thought Transformers was over. As far as I know, (and I'm not saying this is really true, just what I knew at the time) I was the first to explore a partnership between the Primes, and the first to explore a link between them through the Matrix. I was also the first to explore seriously what would happen if you made a TF human for any length of time. Um...it won't be a party, I promise. This book serves several purposes for me. First, I was furious the writers spent so much time developing Rodimus as a character (which bothered lots of people for some reason, but made purest sense to me) and then dropped it all with the Rebirth. I personally do not think of leading the Autobots as something to be smug about, but a huge burden. I would have been far more concerned about Rodi's personality if he'd taken a nonchalant view of it rather than struggling like he did. If my life was in someone's hands I'd want them to take it seriously, ya know? Second, it was my chance to plug plot holes. I love Gen 1 but some of the plot holes were just stupid. Consider Maelstrom grout. I've had to go to some pretty far extremes to seal them. Wait till we get to Vector Sigma. Last, and this is purely personal, it is my way of venting some of the things I see in my job. I work with kids, it isn't always pretty, and I haven't always been able to help. So, my characters get to do the stuff that would get me arrested. That's all. Please feel free to speak your mind. I truly do like criticism.