IDW - Transformers Annual 2017

Title: Ghost Stories

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Priscilla Tramontano

Colours by: Thomas Deer, Josh Perez, John-Paul Bove

Letters by: Chris Mowry

Editor: Carlos Guzman

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

Optimus Prime and Pyra Magna return to Cybertron, so they can have a discussion about their recent conflicts, so Optimus takes her to the singularity where Crystal City once stood in the Sea of Rust. Pyra asks Optimus to tell her how he met his friend Bumblebee, who died there.

Optimus explains how Bumblebee was once a courier, and was amongst the last Cybertronians to be forged naturally. He had a normal life, until he started seeing visions of demonic beings telling him to do things for them whilst he is sleeping. He tries to ignore them, but it begins to mess with his every-day life. One night, he decides to follow the instructions of the voices, and makes a mysterious pick-up and delivery. He does this a few times, until one day he learns that one of the locations he delivered to, a bomb was detonated. He takes this to mean that HE was the one to deliver the bomb, and hands himself into the police.

He explains everything to the police, but they aren't believing him, however, another observing officer, Orion Pax believes him, and thinks someone is influencing him. During his interrogation, Bumblebee starts getting another vision, and begins to freak out. Orion calms him down, whilst Prowl is able to triangulate where the signal being sent to Bumblebee is coming from.

Orion, Prowl and Bumblebee locate a warehouse, where the Decepticons, Soundwave, Shockwave and Ferak are using their experimental Nightmare Transmitter, having sent messages to control Bumblebee using it. Bumblebee goes after Soundwave and points out that the point of the Decepticons is that they're supposed to be FOR the people, not using them for their own means.

The Decepticons manage to escape, but Bumblebee's words have struck Soundwave, and he decides to not use his powers to force opinions or messages on people again.

Optimus goes on to explain that Bumblebee then joined the police force, and wound up as one of his most loyal troops, and that he believes that they are stronger together, than apart. Pyra, and a nearby spying Starscream are unimpressed. Pyra is prompted to tell Optimus about a time in her past when she saw another singularity like the one here...

Pyra recounts how she was once on a mission under her former commander, Praesidia Magna to Parvus Oppidum, where the mining town was just attacked by bandits. The team are greeted by Jumpstream, and her Conjunx Endura, Dust Up, the one who called in about the attack. Pyra is taken to see where the stolen Energon was stored, but starts to become suspicious about the supply.

Whilst they are gone, the town is attacked by the bandits again, a group of robots in bestial modes, who are tearing through the Torchbearers and townsfolk alike. Pyra manages to join the battle, but is only able to witness her commander being killed by a dark creature, and seeing the singularity appearing from nowhere, and starts to suck everything inside of it. Pyra is attacked by the dark creature, then passes out.

Later, Pyra wakes up to find the Mistress of Flame in front of her, and finds the bodies and survivors of the attack, but with no sign of the attackers or singularity.

Soon, Pyra starts remembering more about what happened, during her sleep, and comes to realize that the creature was Onyx Prime himself, the master of all beasts, and keeps hearing the poem "Cosmic Rust" coming from the Prime. Soon Pyra starts getting more cryptic dreams about the singularity, and about Praesidia being on the rusted world of Antilla, asking for her help.

Pyra later asks the Mistress of Flame about the name "Antilla" and learns that she and Praesidia found the colony of Antilla rusted.

After realising that the creature was a Prime, and the Paesidia seems to be asking for her help, she decides that she must have some sort of power that the Primes are afraid of, hence why she survived her battle with Onyx Prime

Soon, Pyra returns to the town, where she confronts Dust Up about her report about the attack, and learns that she let one of her attackers escape, planning for them to return, and have the Torchbearers take them down for her.

After a while, the Torchbearers recover from the attack, and Jumpstream and Dust Up join the team. Pyra reveals to Optimus that she saw the Matrix glow when he first arrived on Caminus, and started wondering if he was flawed like Onyx was. She confirms that she believes that her past with Onyx Prime, and her dreams are in some way related to Blackrock and Galvatron's messages of doom. They decide to try and work together to stop this possible hardship coming up, and head back to Earth.

Meanwhile, Starscream stops his eavesdropping of the two Autobots, and heads back to Iacon himself, reaffirming that he believes that Bumblebee is just his own mind trying to make him feel back for him killing Metalhawk.

Unknown to everyone though, Bumblebee still exists inside the singularity that also houses Crystal City....

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime/Orion Pax - Truck Cab

Pyra Magna - Emergency Truck

Bumblebee - Muscle Car (Formerly Cybertronian Car) Trapped in Singularity

Prowl - Police Vehicle (Flashback Only)

Jetfire - Fighter Jet (Flashback Only)

Megatron - Tank (Mentioned)

Blackrock/Sovereign - Head (Mentioned)

Zeta Prime - Truck (Mentioned) Dead

Decepticon

Shockwave - Flying Artillery (Flashback Only) Possibly Trapped in Singularity

Soundwave - Acoustic Tank (Flashback Only)

Ferak - Fighter Jet (Flashback Only)

Ravage - Cassette

Galvatron - Tank (Mentioned) Dead

Horri-Bull - Bull (Mentioned) Dead

The Seekers (Mentioned)

United Cybertron

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Council of Worlds (Mentioned)

Camien

Mistress of Flame (Flashback Only)

Praesidia Magna (Flashback Only) Killed by Onyx Prime

Jumpstream - Sports Car (Flashback Only)

Dust Up - Sports Car (Flashback Only)

Stormclash - Helicopter (Flashback Only)

Skyburst - Helicopter (Flashback Only)

Rust Dust - Motorcycle (Flashback Only)

Fastback (Flashback Only) Killed by Onyx Prime's Forces

Other Torchbearers (Flashback Only)

Parvus Oppidum Townsfolk (Flashback Only)

Crash Test (Mentioned) Dead

Other Cybertronian

Onyx Prime (Flashback Only)

Seaspray - Hovercraft (Flashback Only)

Blurr - Race Car (Flashback Only)

Blaster - Acoustic Tank (Flashback Only)

Hubcap - Car (Flashback Only)

Cliffjumper - Car (Flashback Only)

Scrounge - Wheel (Flashback Only)

Functionist Cops (Flashback Only)

Pre-War Cybertronians (Flashback Only)

Onyx Prime's Forces (Flashback Only)

Primus (Mentioned)

Solus Prime (Mentioned)

The Thirteen Primes (Mentioned)

Metalhawk - Fighter Jet (Mentioned) Dead

Notes

• Instead of one Annual for each of the Transformers comics, it was opted for just one to be made between them. However due to the characters used, and the plot lines mentioned etc, it is pretty much just an Optimus Prime Annual
• This story seems to be set following the current Optimus Prime storyline, which sort of spoils that Optimus and Pyra both survive the Junkion's attack, and likely win the battle. It also shows that Jetfire joins the police force with Orion Pax and Prowl following their flashback storyline.
• It's revealed that both Crystal City and Bumblebee still exist in the singularity. This likely means that Shockwave is alive too, and is possibly using some version of the Nightmare Transmitter to project Bumblebee to Starscream's mind. Since he is shown to be involved it's development in the flashbacks this issue. It's also possible that Praesidia Magna is also in a similar limbo-like state in the singularity that Onyx Prime made on Caminus.
• Ferak is later credited with creating the Nightmare Engine, obviously an enhanced version of this one.
• This issue is formatted in a mirrored style, having the same panel layout on parallel pages, and even having similar things happening on those pages
• Amongst the cops interrogating Bumblebee when he gives himself up are what appear to be some Functionaries. Those shouldn't exist in this universe as they only came to power in the Functionist Universe, and this is set during the reign of Zeta Prime, after Megatron has started his uprising.
• Soundwave's "real face" under his helmet seems to be based on the Titans Return "Soundblaster" toy's head mode
• Ferak's character model is based on his Botcon toy from the Pirates vs Knights theme.
• It's shown that the Torchbearers are made to take on their colour scheme after joining the team. Caminus must have a strict uniform policy!
• Also, now I want a set of Torchbearers in their pre-Torchbearer colour schemes...get on it Hasbro!
• Pyra's sword in the past appears to be a scaled-down version of Victorion's combined sword.
• Onyx Prime's appearance here confirms that he is based on his Aligned universe counterpart, and also absolutely confirms that he is the "black angel" from Blackrock's backstory.
• The Cosmic Rust poem and Antilla come directly from the G1 episode "Cosmic Rust". The poem is also grafted onto the toys of the Torchbearers
• Dust-Up's secret, which was referenced by Jumpstream during their introduction in Combiner Hunters, is revealed that she lied to get the Torchbearers to come to their village, ending up causing a lot of damage.
• Bumblebee inside the singularity is still in his muscle car body, and doesn't use a cane. His "ghost" form is in his Cybertronian car body, and DOES need a cane...how confusing!
• Magna is revealed to be a title used by the Torchbearers, much like "Prime"
• Pyra promises that the story of how SHE joined the Torchbearers will be told later...I think we have he plot for Annual 2018 ready!