Written by: John Barber & Christos Gage
Art by: Alex Milne
Colours by: Josh Perez & Priscilla Tramontano
Letters by: Tom B. Long
Editor: Carlos Guzman
Publisher: Ted Adams
Plot
Ultra Magnus/Vekktral has hold of Starscream by the neck, and has his Wraith army pin down the other Decepticons. Both personalities inside the hybrid agree that Starscream should die, but are stopped by the Knights attacking the creature, managing to free the Decepticon, whilst Ultra Magnus fights for control inside the beast.
The other Decepticons help to free their fellows, and they intend to leave...once Starscream can retrieve the Energon Synthesizer. Stardrive notices them leaving and gives chase, and is in turn chased by Livia. The Knights concentrate their fire on the hybrid onto his chest, having learned about sparks from the Cybertronians, but the armour is too thick to break through.
Stardrive soon engages Starscream at the Synthesizer's location, and the two fight, with Livia helping Stardrive out.
Bumblebee tries to reach to Magnus, but seems to be failing...on the outside anyway. Inside his mind, Magnus is determined to overwhelm Vekktral, who reveals that he knows how Cyebrtronians work as he studied the dead body of Sky Blast, but finds that Magnus' body is different somehow, giving Magnus an idea...he opens his armour's chest from the inside and allows the Knights to shoot his now exposed spark.
Stardrive appears to be winning her battle with Starscream, even tearing off his wings, but he is rescued by the rest of his Decepticons, they decide to leave, but Starscream decides to be petty and shoots the Synthesizer, intending for it to detonate so no-one can use it. Stardrive immediately tries to access the safety systems to override the detonation, but Livia stops her, since they need to raze the planet to get rid of the infection.
Bumblebee looks over Magnus' now-dead body, and is consoled by Rom, but he questions why there is a smaller robot inside Magnus. Bumblebee reveals that Magnus was a title held by a group over the years, and this one was named "Convoy". They mourn him, but it is cut short when Sata notices that Vekktral escaped the body before he died, and is heading towards the imminent explosion.
At the explosion site, Stardrive is still trying to get to the Synthesizer to save it, and prevent the destruction of the planet, but Livia continues to stop her. Ultimtaely, as Vekktral approaches her it detonates, forcing Stardrive to transform and fly away, with both Livia and Vekktral hanging onto her wings, but Vekktral looses his grip and falls into the explosion, and rubs it into Stardrive that she is the cause of this destruction.
Stardrive manages to scoop up the rest of the team, including Magnus' body, and flies off the planet, as the Synthesizer fully blows and wipes out half of the planet.
In the planet's orbit, the group witness the destruction with no-one having really won this conflict. Stardrive has had enough and rips off her Solstar Armour, which is otherwise thought to be impossible, and returns it to a crystal form, and returns it to Rom, resigning her commission before flying off into space alone. The Solstar Knights head towards the Orchid Crossing escape pods, whilst Bumblebee declines joining them, since he knows the Magnus Armour will teleport back to home base before long. Rom leaves him, hoping that he never comes across the Cybertronians again...
Starscream returns to Megatron and suggests that they not work with the Dire Wraiths again in the future due to all that happened during this conflict, with Megatron commenting that he has disappointed him again... Meanwhile, the Dire Wraiths are watching a magical projection of Vekktral's failure to control the Cybertronians properly, which cements their plans to rely on magic, rather than technology in their future campaigns.
Bumblebee returns to the Autobot fleet, where he reports Magnus' death to Optimus, and is upset that the Decepticons managed to destroy another world with this war. Optimus accepts that this is the cost of war, but does mourn their deaths. It is decided that a previous Magnus, Minimus Ambus will come out of retirement and wear the armour again. Bumblebee says his final goodbyes to Convoy, and admits that he kept the Synthesizer hidden from Optimus, as he is worried that even the Autobots might do horrible things to get it, like the Solstar Order believed at first...
At a Solstar station, Orphion is contacted by some representatives of the Galactic Council, and both sides fling accusations against the other over who was to blame for what happened on Xetaxxis. Rom leaves, clearly fed up with the finger pointing, and gets worse when he sees several new recruits being introduced to the Order by Livia and Sata.
Stardrive ends up on a peaceful and beautiful alien planet, and tries to live apart from her Cybertronian and Solstar pasts...until she sees something approaching her...something with tendrils....
The end.
Characters
Autobot
Optimus Prime - Truck
Bumblebee - Two Wheeled Car
Ultra Magnus/Convoy - Vehicle Transport Killed by Rom
Prowl - Emergency Vehicle
Ironhide - Van
Ratchet - Ambulance
Minimus Ambus - Minesweeper (On Screen)
Chief Justice Tyrest (On Screen)
Original Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport (Mentioned) Dead
Sky Blast - Rocket (Mentioned) Dead
Decepticon
Megatron - Tank
Starscream - Jet
Dirge - Jet
Ramjet - Jet
Thrust - Jet
Astrotrain - Galactic Council Shuttle/Land Train
Blitzwing - Tank/Jet
Soundwave - Acoustic Tank
Laserbeak - Cassette
Ravage - Cassette
Tarn - Tank
Onslaught - Anti Aircraft Tank
Acid Storm - Jet
Thundercracker - Jet
Skywarp - Jet (Mentioned)
Solstar Order
Stardrive - Car/Jet Leaves Solstar Order
Orphion
Rom
Livia
Sata
New Solstar Order Cadets
Orchid Crossing Crew (Mentioned) Most Died in Attack
Dire Wraith
Vekktral Killed in Synthesizer Explosion
Xetaxxis Wraiths Killed in Synthesizer Explosion
Magic Purist Wraiths
Other
Xetaxxans Half of Population Killed in Synthesizer Explosion
Galactic Council Representatives (On Screen)
Galactic Council Envoys (Mentioned) Dead
Notes
- So, Stardrive uses Sata as a sword...this is actually really cool, and I hope we get to see her with a sword alternate mode Mini-Con in the future or something :)
- The landscape in Magnus' mind seems to be based on the old G1 toy packaging
- Oh wow! I never expected Ultra Magnus to actually be a different character from the one we've grown to know over the years, and totally didn't see that coming! It was a surprise that Ambus was revealed to be the Magnus before Convoy, only to have retired for a while though.
- Stardrive removing her Solstar Armour would have been a nice surprise...if we didn't see her sans armour at the end of Optimus Prime #13, released a week before this issue...
- The Dire Wraiths are shown to swear off of using technology following the events of this story, this has been maintained throughout their appearances in IDW otherwise, where they rely solely on Magic.
- It's revealed that Optimus and Ironhide also know about Ultra Magnus being a title. Ratchet and Prowl's knowledge was revealed at separate times in More Than Meets The Eye.
- Bumblebee is shown to have known about the Magnus Armour for some time, since people like to talk to him.
- Orphion makes it sound like the devastation on Xetaxxis was caused by the Dire Wraiths and Cybertronians....whilst Starscream was the one who shot it, causing it to overload, and the Wraiths were the reason for the Decepticons even being there to do that, he fails to mention that it was Solstar technology, which could have been disabled by Stardrive, had Livia not of stopped her, since she wanted the planet to be razed, due to the Wraith infection.
- The ending shot of Stardrive with Dire Wraith tendrils in her optic can be taken a couple ways, either she has a Wraith taint inside her...which given what we've seen of it, and seen of her from 200 years later, seems unlikely. The more likely explanation, coupled with her optic widening slightly, is that she has seen more Wraiths on the peaceful planet that she has landed on.
- Whilst I wouldn't believe that Optimus would "go after" the Energon Synthesizer, it is a smart move by Bumblebee to not share that information with him, as we all know how Prowl would act in this situation....
- I am actually shocked, I thought Sata would have died by the end of this series, especially since we haven't seen her in the modern era or even any other Solstar flashback stories.
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