IDW - Heart of Darkness

Characters

Cybertronian

Galvatron - Cybertronian Tank
Cyclonus - Space Jet
Scourge - Space Shuttle
Sweeps - Space Shuttles
Jhiaxus - F22 Jet
Thinkbox - Wheelhouse/Head
Nemesis Prime - Truck (Body possessed by D-Void) Killed by Galvatron
"Tap-Out" Devoured by D-Void
"Twin Cast" - Cassette Player
Spindrift Recruits
Million Strong Army
Junkions
Insectoids/Lizards
Aquatic Robots
Micromasters Dead
Dykayra Transformers Devoured by D-Void
Alternate Megatrons and Galvatrons

Autobot

Arcee - Cybertronian Car
Hardhead - Gun Mounted Personnel Carrier
Hot Rod - Sports Car
Wheelie - Cybertronian Car
Optimus Prime - Truck Cab
Prowl - Police Car
Jazz - Porsche
Kup - Pick Up Truck (Monitor) Zombie
Whirl - Helicopter (Flashback)
Roadbuster - Armoured Vehicle (Flashback)
Garrus-9 Guards (Flashback)

Decepticon

Thunderwing - Space Shuttle

Other

D-Void
Captain Karrg (Spindrift Hunter)
Master Eeems (Spindrift Hunter)
Karrg's Crew
Gorlam Prime denizens Devoured by D-Void
Zombies (Monitor)

Storyline

Galvatron, Scourge and Cyclonus have found Gorlam Prime as a deserted world but can't find any real reason why, all they know is that everyone just disappeared one day with no trace. The team go for a ride to try and find out more, and Galvatron reveries about all that had happened to him lately, from him being thrown into the Solar Pool at Garrus-9, resurfacing and scaring the guards into letting him leave, afterwhich he flew to Gorlam Prime and found Cyclonus and Scourge dying and learns that it's been years since he disappeared. Galvatron restores his Seekers to their former glory and manipulated them into being willing to help him again in finding out what happened to Gorlam Prime, leading to this moment.
Galvatron leads his team underground to the old excavation tunnels to try and find the silver water portal. They find several of the Micromaster's bodies from when Arcee killed them trying to get at Jhiaxus, and once inside they find that the portal has disappeared, and on top of that they find Jhiaxus' half-dead body lying on the ground where he explained that Arcee was killing him repeatedly for a long time, until Hardhead led her away and they both disappeared a few years ago.
Galvatron uses the power of the Heart of Darkness to revive and repair Jhiaxus, like he did to Scourge and Cyclonus earlier. The group try to find out what happened to the portal when Jhiaxus detects similar energies to the portal down a corridor. The group follow the corridor and find it filled with alien artifacts and markings and then they find a sphere of silver water hovering in the middle of a room. Galvatron goes to touch it, but is blasted by a returning Arcee and Hardhead, who are intent on killing the Cybertronians.

The two Autobots are easily tearing through the four Cybertronians, until an injured Galvatron touches the portal and taps into the power of the Dead Universe and repairs himself, he then attacks the Autobots. Hardhead tells Arcee to leave and warn the other Autobots offworld about Galvatron, and so she transforms and rides away, leaving Hardhead to take the brunt of Galvatron's attacks. Cyclonus chases Arcee and manages to cause the bridge she is riding along to blow up, sending her plummeting.
Galvatron taps into his new prisoner, Hardhead's mind and sees how his memories. In the past Hardhead returns from exploring the cities to find Arcee and the denizens of Gorlam Prime, even the crippled body of Jhiaxus all trying to reach the silver water, entering it, and disappearing. Arcee was spared by Hardhead grabbing her, and Jhiaxus couldn't reach it. Suddenly there was a flash of light and all the left behinds were knocked out, when they woke up, there was the silver water sphere in place of the pool. Arcee and Hardhead went looking for answers until Galvatron and the others came.
Galvatron warps Hardhead's mind and makes him his to command, and then he walks into the sphere to investigate it. Inside the sphere he sees a massively chaotic scene which makes no sence and starts hearing words about the D-Void whilst being torn apart, down to his skeletal features. The D-Void tries to devour Galvatron, but he manages to escape and leaves the water (fully restored) scared and blasting the sphere, trying to kill the D-Void. He says that D-Void feasts on sparks, and that it's going after Cybertron, and they have to stop it.
Elsewhere Arcee climbs out of the chasm she was blasted into and decides that she has to warn the other Autobots about Galvatron.

In the vapours of Spindrift a Bloomship and it's crew are busy hunting when they're attacked by a Cloud Leviathan, when suddenly they are saved by Galvatron killing the Leviathan. He boards the ship with his crew and they start scanning, confusing the hunters, but Galvatron detects a Cybertronian lifesign in the Wheelhouse, he uses his powers to revive it, and he is revived as Thinkbox and he's conscripted into Galvatron's team, they abandon the hunters and return to their own ship.
They travel to an old Cybertronian battle site on the planet where Galvatron proceeds to revive all the dead combatants and adds them to his ranks to challenge the D-Void.
They all return to the main ship in orbit and Jhiaxus activates the Space Bridge system on the ship which takes them to several other old battlefields on various worlds, allowing Galvatron to build up his army to the millions, returning to Gorlam Prime where they have made their base of operations.
The team is taken to Dykayra where they have located ruins similar to those seen in the tunnels under Gorlam Prime, so they decide to investigate where Galvatron finds some dead Cybertronians that even he can't revive with his new powers. Galvatron and some of the others enter a temple where they find another silver water sphere like on Gorlam Prime, and they find an old friend exiting it...Nemesis Prime, whom is possessed by the D-Void.

Galvatron is shocked to be in the presence of his old commander again, whilst Nemesis Prime has been waiting for this moment for some time now, since Galvatron killed him. Nemesis goes after Galvatron, and the two fight, they fight through a wall in the temple and end up outside, where some of Galvatron's troops assist their commander, but to no avail as Nemesis Prime uses D-Void's power to drain the life from some of his troops and kills them.
D-Void takes full control of Nemesis Prime and mutates his body into a larger, more monstrous one. Galvatron and his loyal troops attack D-Void but they can#'t cause him any damage, until Scourge returns with the whole army and they blast him into the silver water sphere again and Galvatron destroys the sphere. However he understands that this was just a part of D-Void and the real thing will be much stronger and that he needs more help.
Galvatron heads to Earth and helps Optimus Prime deal with some zombies and asks him to join him against D-Void, but he refuses. Jhiaxus Space Bridges Galvatron back to Gorlam Prime before leading his army to Cybertron.
Once they arrive on Cybertron the army starts to spread out and search the planet, when a Sweep finds Hot Rod and Wheelie and chases them. Galvatron sends out more of his troops to chase him and try and get him and his group to join them, but he reaches his ship and takes off into orbit. Galvatron waits on Cybertron for when D-Void arrives.

Notes

• It turns out that it's been years between the end of Revelation and Galvatron being reborn, now considering that, that implies that he was reborn AFTER Last Stand of the Wreckers (since All Hail Megatron, which is when LSOTW's beginning is set is about a year after Revelation) so that means that since there are Autobot guards on Garrus-9, that implies that the Autobots have retaken the facility and are rebuilding it.
• When Galvatron enters the silver water sphere he is shown a vast number of alternate versions of himself and Megatron, including some voice actors who played them, and some toys of him. However Megatron is separate to Galvatron in IDW, so why he's there is just confusing
• Thinkbox was an ancient Headmaster, due to his size it would imply that he formed the head of a larger robot (maybe Metroplex sized?)
• Galvatron's re-population of the species increases the Transformer race's numbers from the 10,000 mentioned by Prowl in his Spotlight issue to more than 1,000,000
• There are a lot of generic characters in this comic..but it's fun to give them names!!!
• One of the revived Transformers has taken on the form of a blue tape player...Twincast anyone?
• Hardhead is shown fighting alongside Galvatron's crew here, but in later stories he's shown to still be with Arcee...DAMN YOU CONTINUITY!!!!
• It's likely that this was originally meant to be a Galvatron mini-series (like Drift, Ironhide and Bumblebee were) but it was changed for some reason.
• The red Garrus-9 guard seems to be based on the Marvel Crossovers figure Venom's robot mode, but with a new head
• It's not clear why Hardhead was immune to the silver water's call, but no one else on Gorlam Prime was...

My Thoughts

Art

The artwork isn't bad, it's just quite simple looking or have needless extra details, compared to most other things in this continuity so far. The colours are very nice.

Story

This story explains what Galvatron and his troops have been up to lately and does so pretty well in my opinion

Continuity

This story is set after Revelation, during the All Hail Megatron Coda issue Rebirth, Infestation and during the Space Opera section of Chaos Theory's TPB, and leads directly into Chaos as well.

Other

The characters mostly keep their character models from the previous IDW titles, albeit simplified. Galvatron has randomly been given a new tank mode, possibly based on his Universe toy, but not actually resembling it, this is the only place it's been seen so far. Jhiaxus' vehicle mode seems to be an F22 jet, much like the Movie-continuity Starscream which was the basis for Jhiaxus' redesign here originally as well.
Despite being called Nemesis Prime in all his appearances, he actually uses his Nova Prime colours!