Overview of the Series

In contrast to the Cybertron-based setting of Robots in Disguise, More than Meets the Eye is set predominantly within the walls of the Lost Light, the spaceship captained by Rodimus that carries his crew on their expedition to locate the Knights of Cybertron, a mythical group who left the planet ten million years prior to the present day to spread peace and enlightenment across the universe. The book features an ensemble cast, who come and go from the spotlight with each passing issue, made up in large part of characters who have been overlooked by past fiction.

The "main cast" at the series outset includes Rodimus himself, a daredevil egotist who could not be more ill-suited to command; his officious second-in-command Ultra Magnus, whose obsessive-compulsive traits make life on the ship difficult for everyone; third-in-command Drift, now with a relentlessly positive outlook on life following a near-death experience; the talkative Swerve, who immediately became a fan favorite; ship's doctor Ratchet, now feeling his age and looking for something new in life; dangerously unhinged ex-Wrecker Whirl, who soon forms a murderous enmity with disillusioned ancient Cybertronian Cyclonus; "ship's genius" Brainstorm, the briefcase-wielding engineer of increasingly improbable weaponry; ship's security officer Red Alert, even more paranoid then ever; timid psychiatrist Rung, who slowly seems to be more than he appears; and diminutive archivist Rewind and mnemosurgeon Chromedome, who would come to draw much attention as the first truly official "gay" romantic couple in Transformers fiction. In short order, the crew is joined by Tailgate, a naive Transformer who has been offline for the duration of the war and finds himself forced to choose a side, and Skids, a long-missing Autobot who reappears with amnesia and a bad attitude. As the series progresses, more Autobots come into focus on the fringes of the story, like the over-eager, luckless Pipes, and resentful, boozy, one-trick-pony Trailbreaker.

The book occasionally takes breaks from the main cast to focus on the misadventures of the Scavengers: a group of bungling Decepticon misfits trying to start a new life in the post-war galaxy. More than Meets the Eye uses its "quest" backdrop to tell multiple smaller adventures, throughout which are threaded many, many seeds for future stories, together forming a grand tapestry that has clearly been planned out very far in advance.