Comment on Human Megatron and Optimus Prime by Naihaan

I am definitely a fan of the concept of the two of them originally being friends (or allies, at the very least) that had conflicting methods/ideologies that led them down a path to becoming arch-enemies, and occasionally that shared history shows itself in their interactions.  When not faced with militarily facing each other, such as the post-war world of IDW's current continuity, they are able to have a civil conversation; even though they disagree on a lot of things there is some common ground they both tread.  It adds a lot of nuance to the characters beyond the clear-cut two-dimesional good vs. evil of the original G1 cartoon.  This piece captures the essence of that relationship as having more to it than hatred; the Great War was a civil war which pit (metaphorical) brother against brother and the only way to fight for a side and to maintain sanity was to reduce the adversary to a faceless symbol.  It's one thing for Optimus to rationalize fighting the symbolic Megatron, a despotic mass-murdering leader of a tyrannical conquering army, and quite something else to fight Megatron the old blue-collar miner friend and writer who had revolutionary and politically dangerous ideas to bring equality to the rigid caste system of Cybertronian society.

They walked very different paths, but neither was truly wrong - at least originally.  Megatron lost his way as the war went on, but at the beginning of the war both essentially stood for the same concept with harshly contrasting views on how to accomplish it.  The current IDW run is an excellent take on Megatron coming to terms with his dark past and making a conscious effort to atone and right what he set wrong without glossing over the fact that both Autobots and Decepticons committed atrocities in the name of their cause.