Termination

« Transformers Timelines #8 » « Wings Universe
"Termination"
Publisher	Fun Publications
First published	June 27, 2013 (BotCon 2013) January 8, 2014 (retail edition)
Writer	Jesse Wittenrich
Art	Josh Burcham, Jimbo Salgado (pages 1 and 2)
Layouts	David Reynolds
Letters	Jesse Wittenrich
Special Thanks	Lo, Jeremiah McNatt
Creative Director	Lanny Lathem
Managing editor	Pete Sinclair
Editor in chief
Continuity	Wings Universe
Chronology	2013
Price	$4.95

With Cybertron under the control of Megaplex and his clone armies, the scattered Autobot and Decepticon forces rally together in an attempt to retake their homeworld.

Synopsis

The second Golden Age of Cybertron has come to an end. The armies created by Jhiaxus, cloned from some of the most infamous Decepticons in history and led by Megaplex—clone of Megatron—have swept across the galaxy, devastating the forces of the Autobots and Decepticons wherever they are found. Optimus Prime falls in battle on Sigma Seven; with their leader left comatose, the understaffed Autobots on Cybertron divide their ranks, each polity headed by a City Commander charged with independently coordinating defense of their territory. A new war is looming: the Machine Wars.

Two days after the warning from Sigma Seven, as any and all able 'bots are being drafted for the coming conflict, Clamp Down interrogates Mirage and Electro, intending to offer them freedom to fight in exchange for a full confession implicating Earth commander Pyro in the smuggling of illegal war supplies to Cybertron. Electro defies him, insisting their actions (including the use of illegal body modifications on themselves) were necessary, but when an alarm starts blaring, Mirage quickly offers up the confession so that battle can be joined. They look out the window to see a huge fleet of bombers soaring overhead, wiping their city off the map. Frenzied communication between the Autobots ensues, but within half a day, every major city on the planet is conquered, and the surviving Autobots are forced into hiding.

Three-and-a-half days later, Thundercracker and a platoon of his drones respond to an incursion into his territory, but find that the trespassers are merely Empties from the Rad Zone. Believing they have merely come to scavenge the remains of the bombed-out city, he lets his guard down... and soon learns the folly of his actions, as the "Empties" cast off their cloaks to reveal that they are actually a rebel cell led by Obsidian and Strika! Battle erupts; the pacifistic Sandstorm is loathe to use lethal force, but when a Thundercracker drone charges him, he inadvertently shoots it at point-blank range and terminates it, much to his horror and Strika's grudging respect. As the other drones begin adapting to the rebel's attack patterns, Strika hurls an explosive sphere into the sky, blasting a path through the clone ranks that allows Obsidian and tagalong Decepticon Octane to take to the air. Octane rankles under Obsidian's command, though, and reminds him he is merely there to help his old friend Sandstorm. Presently, they defeat the drones, and, over Sandstorm's protestations against her violent tactics, Strika coerces the coordinates to Megaplex's location from Thundercracker.

In Iacon, Megaplex surveys the devastated planet, haunted by the exhilaration it makes him feel. Starscream warns him he is beginning to sound like Megatron himself, prompting Megaplex, his distaste for the comparison barely disguised, to caution Starscream that he should strive to be less like his own template. Skywarp arrives to report the capture of Thundercracker, and given that Starscream cannot send his drones in without fear of injuring their comrade, Megaplex decides to deal with the matter personally.

After waiting for an hour outside Iacon, Electro and Mirage are finally met by Obsidian's group, who have deliberately taken their time approaching to ensure they have been seen with Thundercracker, exploiting the clones' genuine concern for their own to prevent any attacks. Megaplex and his forces arrive and demand that Thundercracker be turned over, but Obsidian refuses, aggravating the clone commander by comparing him to Megatron. Casting his sword aside, Megaplex lunges for Obsidian, intending to crush him with his bare hands... at which points Obsidian orders Mirage to shut down his electro-disrupter, revealing the larger force of Autobots and Decepticons who have surrounded the clones. The Autobots withdrawing from the cities was a ruse, Obsidian reveals, allowing them to regroup and corral Megaplex's armies into one location. A mighty battle erupts; Electro seizes Megaplex's discarded sword and uses his Forestonite-granted Laser Rod powers to energize it, dispatching Starscream with its blasts. Megaplex is impressed, but as he battles Obsidian one-on-one, notes that he has plenty of impressive weapons of his own, like the fusion cannon he unleashes against the rebel leader. His rant is interrupted, however, by a howl of pain from Sandstorm, who undergoes a sudden change in personality, and viciously opens fire on Obsidian, cutting him down. Sandstorm is not, in the fact, the original pacifistic Autobot that everyone believed he was, but another of Jhiaxus's clones, hidden amongst the Autobot forces as a sleeper agent and trump card. Megaplex is indignant at Sandstorm's assumption of command, but moments later, Jhiaxus and the rest of his forces arrive on Cybertron to explain: the war has changed Megaplex, awakening the urges of his template within him. Jhiaxus has no need of a Megatron in his army, and so he offers Megaplex the same choice he gives the Autobots and Decepticons: leave Cybertron, or be destroyed...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Notes

• Characters mentioned but not seen include: Fixit, Megatron, the original Starscream, Pyro, Sizzle, Architract, and the original Sandstorm.
• Characters mentioned in Strika's profile include: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Shockwave, Obsidian, and Jhiaxus.
  • Strika is noted to be among those who served as resistance against Shockwave in the 4 million years after Prime and Megatron left Cybertron.
• Characters mentioned in Obsidian's bio include: Strika, Shockwave, and Unicron.
  • Obsidian helped oust the Decepticons after the events of The Transformers: The Movie.
  • Obsidian practices kratomechafora; from "krato", Greek for "strength"; mecha; and "fora", Latin for "out of", roughly translating into "Strength brought out of the machine."
• Characters mentioned in Megaplex's bio include: Jhiaxus, Megatron, Optimus Prime, and Galvatron.
  • Megaplex's sword is made of duranium, a metal from Star Trek.
  • Megaplex is thought of as a "decoy" by the real Megatron's personality; the original Megaplex's function was to serve as Megatron's decoy.
• Characters mentioned in Thundercracker's bio include: Jhiaxus and Thundercracker's drones.
• Characters mentioned in Mirage's bio include: Unicron and Electro.
  • As mentioned in his original tech specs, Mirage hunted turbofoxes before the war.

Continuity notes

• As part of the Wings Universe, this story takes place in (a slightly different version of) The Transformers cartoon continuity. The Golden Age referred to at the start of the story dawned at the conclusion of the original cartoon, in "The Rebirth, Part 3".
• Jhiaxus's clone schemes percolated throughout A Flash Forward, the 2012 comic storyline published in the official club magazine. In particular, the "Machine Wars" were foretold by the precognitive Sizzle in the final chapter of the story, as pointed out in a footnote.
• Hoist and Mirage were last seen near the end of season 2 of The Transformers. Sandstorm (the original) was last seen on Earth in season 3. Strika, meanwhile, was last seen in "Flames of Yesterday".
• Rewind and Springer last appeared in season 3; Hardhead in season 4; Hauler, Bitstream, Hotlink, and Sunstorm in "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1"; and Jazz in "Generation 2: Redux".
• Optimus Prime died in The Transformers: The Movie.
• Octane refers to his friendship with Sandstorm, originally seen in the cartoon episode "Starscream's Ghost".

Transformers references

• As to be expected, many toys from the Machine Wars line appear. Soundwave, Prowl, and Hubcap are all in their original toy bodies, while the toys for Thundercracker, Starscream, and Sandstorm represent the drone clones. Skywarp's drones, meanwhile, are represented by his BotCon toy for their brief appearance.
• Empties and the Rad Zone originate from the Marvel The Transformers comic.
• Octane appears in his Universe toy body (sold under the name "Tankor").
• Obsidian and Octane execute Pattern Kappa-Beta-Ninety-Six (Κ-Β-9-6) while dog fighting the Thundercrackers; it takes its name from KB Toys (the store that sold the Machine Wars toys) and 1996, the year before the Machine Wars toys were released.
• Sigma Seven, the planet on which Optimus was sent into stasis lock, takes its name from G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 and Sector Seven, from the live-action Transformers movies.
• A lot of characters make their first appearances in Wings continuity here; Triggerbots Override, Dogfight, and Backstreet; Sparkabot Guzzle; Pretender Vehicle Gunrunner; e-Hobby exclusives Clampdown, Deep Cover, and Magnificus; and Monsterbots Grotusque and Doublecross. Additionally, Micromaster Fixit is mentioned.
• Multiple Autobots are promoted to City Commanders, the group under which the original toys for Ultra Magnus and Galvatron were sold.
• Jazz has been upgraded to a form based on his Reveal the Shield toy in the color of his Alternators/Binaltech toy. Zoom-Zoom, his "clone" from Binaltech, also appears based on the Reveal the Shield toy.
• Magnificus is based on his e-HOBBY Generations toy, which was also sold via the Collector's Club.
• Hauler is a virtual redeco of Universe Inferno.
• Among the minor offenses that Hoist rattles off as being pet peeves of Strika is people "misspelling her name with a 'Y'." This is a light jab at the fandom's longstanding tendency to misspell her name as "Stryka".
• "Arms regulations SOU-246 and IRO-368" are references to the Prime Arms Microns Sou and Iro, partners of Swerve and Ironhide respectively.
• Established Transformers cities Iacon, Praxus, Protihex, and Nyon are mentioned; Trigat is new, while Durax has only previously been mentioned in the name of the Durax Hospital for Protoforms from the Shattered Glass continuity.

Real-world references

• Obsidian's portrayal in this story is inspired by Revolutionary War general Francis Marion, known for his guerilla attacks and his...questionable tactics.
• When dropping the Empty disguises, Obsidian orders his troops to initiate crossfire maneuver Beta-Alpha-Tetra-Two, which takes its name from the Battle Android Troopers from G.I. Joe, aka the B.A.T.s.
• Architract's Rule of War is inspired by 7th century Chinese general Sun Tzu's military treatise The Art of War.
• Megaplex mentions Khyber Hounds, after Khyber, an alien bounty hunter from the 2012-2014 animated series Ben 10: Omniverse.

Other notes

• An unrealized prologue to this story would have shown the battle wherein Optimus Prime and Galvatron were taken down by Jhiaxus's forces, led by Scourge (based on the contemporary Timelines toy).^[1]
• This story led to the accidental creation of the Seeker Red Wing. See his page for more information.
• Perhaps notably in contrast to the other "classic" characters in this story, Optimus Prime appears in his G1 cartoon design despite having numerous toy updates over the years. Not that we're complaining!
• Artist Josh Burcham previously was involved in a project for Machine Wars.
• The Diamond Edition contains profiles for Strika, Obsidian, Megaplex, Thundercracker, and Mirage.

Errors

• The art credit for Jimbo Salgado is omitted from the retail version of the comic.
• Probably due to a yet-unfinished toy design process, Megaplex and Starscream appear with their BotCon 2013 toy bodies in this story, but in "A Flash Forward, Part 6", their shadowed silhouettes clearly had the bodies of their original Machine Wars toys. Less explicable is Optimus Prime's classic Generation 1 design in this issue despite appearing in "A Flash Forward, Part 6" as his toy from the 2010 Transformers toyline.
• On the final panel of the page that introduces Megaplex, "Starscream" is misspelt as "Starcream".
• Duranium is misspelt as "duranimum" in Megaplex's profile.

Covers

• BotCon Edition: Art by Marcelo Matere and Evan Gauntt
• Retail Edition: Generation 1 Starscream, Megatron, and Soundwave, with Machine Wars Starscream, Megaplex, and Soundwave reflected beneath them, in homage to Frank Quitely's cover to the JLA: Earth 2 paperback graphic novel.

References