Panini - Armada #9

Cover Date: 31 Dec 2003

Price: £1.75

Main Story

Title: Dawn of Destruction

Script: Simon Furman

Pencils: Andrew Wildman

Inks: Stephen Baskerville

Colours: Nigel Dobbyn

Letters: Neil Porter

Plot

Cyclonus crashes on the Moon, following his failed mission with the Autobot Mini-Cons, and is soon found by the Destruction Team...

Later, at the Decepticon HQ, the Decepticons are concerned about Cyclonus not contacting them, and Megatron is annoyed since he's lost most of his new base in this endeavour, and doesn't even have the Autobot Mini-Cons to make up for it.

Leader-1 detects Cyclonus approaching, and soon the Decepticon, now being controlled by the powerlinked Destruction Team, attacks the Decepticon base, destroying it.

The Decepticons confront Cyclonus, and are willing to kill their ally to destroy the rogue Mini-Cons, resulting in a battle between them.

Before Cyclonus, controlled by the Mini-Cons, is about to kill Megatron when Starscream turns his new sonic disruptor weapon on him, forcing the power links to be removed, freeing Cyclonus from their control, and the Mini-Cons run away to dafety.

Later, Starscream contacts the Destruction Team, and proposes an alliance between them to take down Megatron...

Characters

Decepticon

Megatron - Tank

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Cyclonus - Helicopter

Demolishor - Battle Tank

Mini-Con

Leader-1 - Cannon Truck

Swindle - F1 Race Car

Blackout - Anti-Aircraft Vehicle

Dualor - Battle Tank

Buzzsaw - Buzzsaw Truck

Drill Bit - Drill Tank

Tales of the Mini-Cons...

Title: Counter-Strike!

Script: Simon Furman

Pencils: Simon Williams

Inks: Bambos Georgiou

Colours: Junior Tomlin

Letters: Neil Porter

Plot

In the distant past, on Cybertron, the Decepticons are attacking Mini-Con villages to gather supplies for their experiments.

Elsewhere, the Mini-Cons are holding an emergency meeting to plan a way to stop the Decepticons, the Destruction Team plots to rig the Autobot base with explosives, and send out a message to the Decepticons to head there, as it is filled with Mini-Cons, but when they arrive, they will just be destroyed, along with the Autobots as collateral damage.

Later, the plot is set and the Autobase is attacked by th Decepticons. The Mini-Cons prepare the explosives, but Sparkplug, whilst seeing the merits of killing Megatron, he can't allow the deaths of the innocent Autobots.

Just before the explosives are set off, Sparkplug sends a warning to Optimus about the explosives, allowing him and the Autobots to escape, unfortunately the Decepticons are far enough away to avoid most of the explosions, and Dualor ows revenge on whoever warned the Autobotss about their plans...

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck

Hot Shot - Sports Car

Red Alert - Emergency SUV

Smokescreen - Tow-Crane Truck

Decepticon

Megatron - Tank

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Demolishor - Battle Tank

Cyclonus - Helicopter

Thrust - Fighter Jet

Mini-Con

Sparkplug - Sports Car

Dualor - Battle Tank

Buzzsaw - Buzzsaw Truck

Drill Bit - Drill Tank

Jolt - Helicopter

Liftor - Fork-Lift-Bulldozer Truck

Commetor - Moon Buggy

Skyblast - Rocket

Ransack - Pick-Up Truck

Spiral - Race Car

Mirage - F1 Race Car

Dirt Boss - Stock Car

Generic Mini-Cons

Notes

• This was the final issue released due to dwindling sales, the next official UK Transformers comic series would come out in 2007 with the Titan movie comics.
• Cyclonus plummets to the Moon at the beginning from the end of the previous issue, placing this issue directly after that story.
• The Destruction Team's familiarity with Cyclonus and the mention of Punishment Cubes seems to be references to the Dreamwave comic, but we all know these two series don't fit in continuity together.
• Cyclonus appears to destroy the Decepticon's new base here...well that lasted a long time!
• Starscream's sonic destabilizer sure is a powerful weapon! I bet that if the series ever continued it would have never turned up again!
• It's revealed that the Destruction Team have been hiding in the old Mini-Con shuttle...so I guess they were woken up by Optimus when he got Liftor and Rollbar to reactivate, but just ignored his requests for help....yup!
• Commetor finally makes an appearance, despite Jetfire appearing much earlier in the series.
• It irks me that only SOME members of the Race and Space teams appear here
• Again, despite the front cover, Thrust have a VERY minor role in this comic!
• How did the Mini-Cons rig the Autobase with explosives with no one noticing?

Other Features

Various Contests and Adverts

Mini-Con Marble Madness! - Destroy the comic to make some crappy targets

Data File #17: Jetfire

Cyber Puzzles - Various "puzzles"

Cyclonus Upgraded! - Pull-out puzzle of Cyclonus against the Decepticons

Cyber Space! - Article on more upcoming toys

Data File #18: Commetor

High Wire's Festive Fun Factory! - Make some Christmas things!

Starscream's Hate Mail! - Read the mail and stuff!

Next Issue...

Whilst this was the last issue released, there were more planned, the next issue would have included the Adventure Mini-Con team, finding Sideways, and presumably leading up to some Unicron Battles plot lines.