Title: The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day
Written by: James Roberts
Art by: Alex Milne &Hayato Sakamoto
Colours by: Joana LaFuente
Letters by: Tom B. Long
Editor: John Barber
Publisher: Ted Adams
Plot
With seven hours left before the DJD are due to attack the Fortress, Velocity comments about the death flowers outside going out. Ratchet concludes that they're dying out because they're being used for the storm shield. Ratchet is patching up Megatron's wounds from his brief battle with Tarn, whilst doing so he's reading Velocity's notes on the crew's health since he left, and makes comments about how Tailgate's new powers affected the security crew who were near him at the time with signs of an artificial boost and subsequent crash.
Velocity worries that Tailgate is at risk, but Rodimus says he's fine, and breaking apart some interiors for Brainstorm to use for weapons and other things to help them against the DJD. Drift informs Velocity that Rewind is setting up the communications devices to send out their last wills and testaments to Cybertron, despite them not arriving for 3 weeks or so. Velocity looks despondent at this concept, but agrees that it's a good idea. Rodimus wants to speak to the captured Pet, to find out where their ship is, but Ratchet comments that he can't speak, Chromedome wakes up from his energy drain from his previous injecting session and says he can help.
Elsewhere, Minimus Ambus is being measured by Brainstorm for a new suit of armour, when Nightbeat comes to him to get permission to investigate the hollow planet, as it's bothering him and thinks it could save them.
Nightbeat manages to convince Ambus to agree to his plan, and takes Rung along with him, as he's expendable for the group, though they promise to return before sunset and the battle.
On their way to the lowest points of the base, Nautica grabs them and has the duo join her, Brainstorm, Skids and Velocity in a room, where Nautica performs the ritual to become Amica Endurae with her, as she considers the five of them her closest friends in the crew. Afterwards, Nightbeat and Rung leave, whilst Skids has an awkward goodbye with Rung first...
With six hours left until the battle, Chromedome begins to inject into the Pet's mind, but finds it all messed up, and finds it feeling wrong...
Elsewhere, Rewind has sent off the final messages from the crew, and starts going through the Necrobot's files, to try and learn where Dominus went again. Minimus comments that that's a waste of time given the circumstances, and through conversation actually reveals a secret about Dominus to Rewind, that he was a loadbearer too, and Rewind had never seen the real version of him.
Rewind pulls up the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, an old database on alternate modes created by the Functionist Council, and had Minimus find Dominus' true appearance from there....where he finds entry 113, a Turbofox.....
Back at the medibay, Chromedome discovers that the Pet is a transformer, but was domesticated s torture at some point, he thinks he can reverse the process, but the surgery is killing him due to his weakened condition. Drift contacts Rewind to tell him about what Chromedome is doing, and both of them realize what is happening at the same time...the Pet IS Dominus Ambus!
Rewind rushes to the medibay where he quickly punches Rodimus for letting Chromedome inject again, and Chromedome says he'll get Dominus back for him, Ratchet however tells him to stop as he's dying, but Chromedome cannot...if he stops mid-operation, then Dominus will die instead.
Chromedome is willing to make this sacrifice to allow Rewind to be happy, but Rewind wants to be with Chromedome, he snatches Drift's short sword from his sheath and slices off Chromedome's arm, severing the connection, and killing Dominus.....
Later, with just 30 minutes left before the deadline, the DJD start marching towards the Fortress to begin their attack. outside, Whirl and Cyclonus are setting up a cannon turret whilst Whirl bothers Cyclonus about his and Tailgate's relationship, with Cyclonus basically saying that he doesn't deserve Tailgate's love, but he will protect him no matter the cost...then Whirl tries out the cannon....
10 minutes later the crew are assembled in the Fortress where Rodimus reveals Whirl's discovery...the storm shield around the base doesn't allow gunfire OUT either, meaning they'll be left waiting until the shield dies out. Rodimus says that he thinks they should simply drop the shields and meet their fates honourably.
Megatron comes back from the Medibay and disagrees with Rodimus' plan, Rodimus offers a newly rebuilt fusion cannon to Megatron, built by Brainstorm, but Megatron ignores him and says they should stay hiding for as long as possible. Swerve and Rodimus realize through his words that Megatron doesn't intend on fighting the DJD at all, and Megatron admits to being scared. Rodimus points out that all of them are scared, but they need to fight the DJD. Megatron leaves to hide with the organics in their hidden chamber, whilst Ravage, his eternally loyal friend shouts that he is ashamed of what he's become....
Despite Megatron's hiding, and Nightbeat and Rung not returning from their mission yet, the crew get ready for their final stand. Brainstorm escorts Ambus, now in his new "Maximus Ambus" armour to join them, and the DJD start shooting the shields.
Rodimus gathers his friends and crew together for a group hug, he thanks them for travelling with him and then leads the charge into battle with the storm shield down....
Characters
Autobot
Rodimus - Car
Megatron - Tank
Minimus/Maximus Ambus - Minesweeper/Tank(?)
Drift - Car
Chromedome - Car
Rewind - Data Slug
Ratchet - Ambulance
Velocity - Race Car
Tailgate - Car
Whirl - Osprey Helicopter
Skids - Van
Swerve - Van
Brainstorm - Jet
Nightbeat - Car
Nautica - Submarine
Rung
Dominus Ambus/Agent 113/The Pet - Turbofox Allowed to die by Rewind
Getaway - Car (Mentioned)
Strafe - Jet (Mentioned)
Powerflash - Jet (Mentioned)
Decepticon
Ravage - Cassette
Deathsaurus
Overlord - Tank and Jet
Tarn - Tank
Tesarus - Mobile Metal Shredder
Vos - Rifle
Nickel
Leozack - Jet
Deathsaurus' Troops
Cybertronian
Cyclonus - Jet
Ten
Functionist Council (Mentioned)
Other
Organic Captives (Mentioned)
Notes
- So Megatron's fusion cannon blast hole was quite easily fixed wasn't it?
- This issue explains that the energy wave that Tailgate created when his Outlier powers activated also caused some power surges in the security crew around him at the time....I wonder if Cyclonus was affected in any way?
- Nautica shows here that Cybertronians are able to have multiple Anima Endurae at the same time.
- Rewind mentions that Minimus was sitting down all afternoon...he wasn't, he was standing on some boxes being measured.
- Considering his brother is an established point one percenter and a loadbearer, it shouldn't have been much of a shock about Dominus being one too
- The process of Domestication was previously shown in issues 45-46. Little did we know that was a precursor to this issue!
- Agent 113's discovery was hinted at earlier in the series...we didn't know he was still technically in the team, albeit lobotomized and handicapped badly though....
- So Agent 113 was actually Dominus Ambus all along (and later turned into Kaon's "Pet") Why didn't Minimus know about this job of his brother's?
- This also somewhat explains why the DJD never referred to the pet as any other name, it would have been a major spoiler
- It's been shown since pretty much the start of MTMTE that Chromedome "knows" that Rewind loved Dominus more than him, but this issue shows us that Rewind choses him over his old lover after all....n'awwww
- The panel showing Chromedome with Rewind after his arm being severed is a mirroring of the scene in issue 15 just after Chromedome destroyed the Slow Cell, killing his original Rewind.
- Dominus' history shown in the series so far makes more sense knowing what he really looks like. He's a beast-former, which has been seen as an undesirable form, along with Disposable classes like Rewind, explaining his desire to create equality between the different body-classes.
- Also, it was hinted earlier in the series that Prowl was the one to send Dominus on his mission as Agent 113, ultimately making it his fault that he was captured and domesticated, thus hurting Chromedome and Rewind even more....I swear one of them will kill Prowl before this series ends!
- Cyclonus confirms here that he and Tailgate are not in a relationship, because he doesn't think he deserves Tailgate's love. Regardless of this, Cyclonus is willingly shown holding Tailgate's hand for comfort later.
- I just noticed that the bolts on Whirl's claws look a bit like wrist watches. Considering his past as a watchmaker, this is a nice touch.
- Brainstorm turned the teleportation chamber into a new fusion cannon for Megatron...guess they really have given up on escape here?!
- The messages shown in issue 50 are revealed to have been recorded off screen at the start of this issue. This doesn't explain the comments of a gun in the background by the Luna-1 crew though....
- Ravage is ashamed of Megatron now for his hiding...N'AWWWWWW!!!!!
- The new Maximus Ambus body looks like it turns into a tank, if so then it is likely a reference to his originally planned body for the MTMTE series by Nick Roche.
- Rodimus has the team perform a group hug and gives a sincere sounding "thanks" to them all....N'AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment