IDW - Bumblebee - Go for the Gold!

Written by: James Asmus

Art by: Marcelo Ferreira

Inks by: Maria Keane

Colours by: Valentina Pinto

Cover by: Nicoletta Baldari

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

One day, a meteorite, made partly of Cybertonium strikes the Earth, attracting a team of Autobots and Decepticons to it's location to retrieve it. A fight quickly breaks out between the two groups, during which, Bumblebee keeps getting sidelined due to him not being the fastest, strongest etc.

Bee gets sent out to rescue some Humans that were driven away by the Decepticons when they tried to examine the meteorite, so he gets them to a safe area, and contacts the authorities to pick them up, before running back to the fight.

At the battle, the situation is getting worse when it is discovered that the meteorite is destabilizing from the firefight, and Starscream keeps shooting it to make things worse. Devastator grabs a piece of the meteorite, but it explodes before they can get away, forcing him to decombine, but Hook manages to recover a small piece and throws it to Screamer to escape with. Bee manages to grab Starscream and the explosive material in the air, but is sent falling, with it by Starscream, who shoots him, setting off the meteorite again.

The Decepticons escape inside Astrotrain, whilst the Autobots find an injured Bumblebee, who they take home for repairs, and Optimus considers how to make Bee realise his true worth, without comparing himself to the other Autobots

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck

Bumblebee - VW Beetle Badly Injured

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet

Sideswipe - Sports Car

Wheeljack - Race Car

Grimlock - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Decepticon

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Skywarp - Fighter Jet

Thundercracker - Fighter Jet

Astrotrain - Space Shuttle/Train

Hook - Crane

Scrapper - Front End Loader

Bonecrusher - Bulldozer

Scavenger - Excavator

Mixmaster - Cement Mixer

Long Haul - Dump Truck

Devastator - Constructicon Gestalt

Human

Trio of Scientists

Notes

• This story is a short prequel to the previously released "Bumblebee: Win if you Dare" comic, and explains how Bumblebee got injured, which was referenced in the previous release.
• You may have guessed, but this comic was released to coincide with the release of the Bumblebee Movie.
• Wheeljack is shown to have a display screen of some sort attached to his chest, that he can remove to show others things (though this does expose his inner-wires, which would be dumb to do in battle I'd say!)
• The three humans shown in this story seem to not know what Autobots are, but are seemingly easily persuaded to trust Bee, making this unlikely to actually be set in the G1 cartoon (ish) universe...though Humans were shown to be quite dumb in that continuity...
• Despite Bumblebee being so injured that he needed a new body...he doesn't look too messed up at the end of this issue...
• The front cover includes a tape cassette designed to look like Bumblebee's face. It's pretty cool, HASBRO! GET ON THIS!!!

The Best and Worst of the IDW Hasbroverse!

So, this post may get me a bit of hate, but with the conclusion of the current IDW Hasbroverse, and the upcoming reboot, I thought I would have some fun and talk about what I feel were the best and worst stories from this line.

Here's a few ground rules for my list:

• Only comics from the confirmed IDW Hasbroverse will be included, so nothing from the Movie comics, the alternate universe stories or even Clue (since there's no evidence in story for it to be in continuity)
• Only single issues, mini-series or multi-part stories will be included. So I cannot say "All the Wreckers comics" or "the entirety of All Hail Megatron", but I can select an entire Mini-series, or a storyline clearly marked out with parts or chapters.
• I have decided to limit both lists to 10 entries each, so there are many on both lists that could have been included, but this would go on forever otherwise!
• This is my own personal opinion, so if any of these choices offend you or upset you, just remember that these are my choices, and I will try to explain them. If you feel strongly about my opinions, please leave a comment below, or even make your own list!

THE BEST

#10 - Transformers Holiday Special

The Transformers Holiday Special is, as the title may suggest, is a special issue released around Christmas, with stories loosely based around the time. In "Choose Me" Starscream wants to force the population of Cybertron to give him gifts of adoration, but it goes wrong. In "Silent Light" the crew of the Lost Light need to prepare for a journey through a dangerous region of space and antics ensue! Finally in "The Thirteenth Day of Christmas" Thundercracker has written a Christmas story for Marissa and Ayana to enjoy.

Of the three stories, only Silent Light ever gets directly reference again, so it feels a bit like filler in the long run.

#9 - Rom vs Transformers: Shining Armor Mini-series

I love Transformers, and I love the Rom franchise so far. This was a no-brainer to go on the list for me.

Shining Armor is set about 200 years ago and follows a young Cybertronian named Stardrive being found and raised by the Solstar Order, eventually coming across the Cybertronian war and having to decide where her true future lies.

This series features great artwork and further development of the Solstar Order and their role in the universe.

#8 - More Than Meets The Eye: Revolution

MTMTE: Revolution is, as you can guess, the MTMTE issue for the Revolution event. Now since the Lost Light is in deep space, and at this point in time the main characters were stranded on Necroworld, they needed an alternative for their part in the event. Enter this!

The Scavengers, a recurring team of Decepticons in the series arrive on Earth for Crankcase to meet with someone he met on the Decepticon's internet and mis-adventures follow! This story is full of jokes and jabs towards the idea of crossover events and even gives us a few great images (like Misfire and Spinister trying to create human holo-avatars)

#7 - Windblade (Volume 1) Mini-series

This was the first story to focus upon the newly fan-designed character, Windblade and pits her in a mystery story trying to discover what Starscream is plotting and even dealing with a murder mystery. The artwork in the series is beautiful and sets up the now staple character of Windblade very well (especially after her "fill in the blanks" appearance in Dark Cybertron)

#6 - Drift Mini-series

Drift, another new character created for the IDW universe gets his own series, showing how he converted from a violent gun wielding Decepticon named Deadlock to a sword-wielding Autobot. This series gives us some great art and visuals, and gives us some much-needed insight into Drift's backstory and beliefs. It also sets up the Circle of Light, who are an important plot-point in the later More Than Meets The Eye series (before being written out in the Lost Light finale)

#5 - More Than Meets the Eye #50-55: The Dying of the Light

The Dying of the Light is the finale to the More Than Meets The Eye series (excluding the Titans Return and Revolution tie-ins) and brings to head most of the plot lines in the series. It gives us a clear answer to whether Megatron has seen the error of his past ways, resolves Skids' whole story-arc, deals with the DJD and even sets up for the plot and finale of the next series, Lost Light amongst many other things.

This entry would be much higher up, but it was severely let down by the Lost Light comic continuation which has somewhat soured the experience in the long-run...

#4 - Optimus Prime #22: Unstopped and Unstoppable

Unstopped and Unstoppable is essentially an extension to the Unicron event, but shows the emotional reactions of the characters being hurt by the destruction of the colonies. This issue quickly acts to bridge the previous "The Falling" storyline and the Unicron finale for the Hasbroverse and does so beautifully.

I genuinely teared up when I saw Rom curled up following the destruction of Elonia, and when Circuit's voice cracks when he is reporting the destruction of most of the other colony worlds, which also includes the reactions of the Autobot colonists!

If you plan to read the Unicron event, I seriously suggest reading Optimus Prime #22-25 for extra context, but this issue is the stand-out of those issues.

#3 - Transformers: Unicron Mini-series

This is the end of the Hasbroverse and features the permanent deaths of hundreds of characters and several established worlds. This series pulls no punches, starting with the destruction of Elonia, the capital of the Solstar Order, a literal paradise of a world, and ends with an all-out battle above and on the planet Earth.

Again, the artwork is amazing, and except for a few continuity bumps or plot holes, I feel it was the perfect way to conclude this chapter of the franchise.

#2 - Last Stand of the Wreckers

Last Stand of the Wreckers follows an Autobot black-ops team try to liberate a captured Autobot prison facility from the insane Decepticon Overlord. Death and gore follow very quickly.

For a long time, this was my favourite Transformers series, which spawned 2 sequel stories and has gained multiple re-releases, often with additional content. This is easily a series that you can recommend to most Transformers fans (unless they are particularly squeamish)

#1 - Optimus Prime #9: The Life of Sideswipe

Oh wow....I love this issue so much. It works in every way possible, the story is strong, the artwork is amazing, and the symbolism is spot-on. This story concludes a sub-plot that began in Transformers #49, about a year earlier, which I will spoil here, as this issue works best if you know the twist. Sideswipe is dying and this is mostly set in a virtual reality fantasy to help him to finally die in peace, aided by his best friends Arcee and Sunstreaker.

When you read this issue, keep a close eye on the backgrounds and you'll notice the clues about Sideswipe's mind-set and even the mirroring of events. When he is angry or in pain the colours and city are dark and grimy, but when he is happy and about to die, everything is bright and clean.

This story also gives us some major progression to Arcee's ongoing story, showing how she can now express her emotions better over the death of someone close to her, which she couldn't with Hardhead and Galvatron.

If you have someone ask you to recommend a Transformers comic to introduce them to the franchise, give them this one.

THE WORST

#10 - Transformers: Continuum

Okay, to start things off, we have something of a joke. This comic was designed to help new readers get into the series, but was filled with so many continuity errors and needless omissions that it was quickly laughed away. Look this comic up on TFWiki to see just what was done wrong and have a good laugh :D

#9 - The New Avengers/Transformers Mini-series

Yeah...this happened and it was in continuity with the IDW universe as well! It is set between the events of Infiltration and Escalation and even had some edits made to the characters and plot to accommodate it (such as Ramjet being put in, instead of the badly injured Starscream).

It is a weird story that due to licensing issues is never really mentioned or referenced again following this story (such as, where are the Avengers during the Decepticon invasion in All Hail Megatron, or during Unicron's attack on the planet?)

It's not a terrible story, but is a major headache when you try to justify it's existence...

#8 - MASK Annual 2017: The Deathstone

Take the pilot episode of the MASK cartoon and throw in some GI Joe characters and a dead Astrotrain, and you have this confusing story. 

I don't really have much more to say about this, except it was very underwhelming and just boring. Maybe it would have worked better for a MASK fan?

#7 - First Strike: GI Joe and MASK

These two issues act as one story for the First Strike event, showing what GI Joe are up to during this event....yeah, not the MASK team, despite the covers and the title, just GI Joe. It was made in anticipation for the majorly ill-fated Scarlett's Strike Force comic series, which kind of tells you all you need to know about it. The artwork was ugly, the story was unintelligible and despite a lot of explosions and noise, nothing really happens.

This story suffered with the same problems as the prior GI Joe comic and Strike Force, where it felt separated from the Hasbroverse, despite being set on Earth, where most of the other stories are set. They barely mention the main storyline happening in First Strike, and focus on a museum theft, to set up for some future aborted plot lines.

#6 - The Transformers #1 (Costa Run): ...For All Mankind

This story launched the start of the post-All Hail Megatron era helmed by Mike Costa, and it had a bad start. The characters were all redesigned to look like hybrids of Movie and G1 designs, which do not mesh well and several characters seem to be out of character or make stupid decisions. Also, this issue ends in the death of Ironhide and Optimus being imprisoned by the Humans. Neither of which are permanent, so were just used to garner interest in the new series (really, these two plot twists were featured in the previews for the series!)

The series does get better starting with the second story-arc and leads to the fun Chaos event, but it just has such a weak beginning that I can't forgive it...

#5 - Bumblebee Mini-series

Another weird choice made in the above Costa Transformers run, was having Bumblebee elected to be the new Autobot leader. This was released during the early years of the Transformers Movies, and so Bumblebee was generally unliked by most fans due to his over-saturation in the franchise, so having him made their leader was very controversial.

This series told the story of his first few decisions as leader and also features his new movie-styled body design, which lasted until the end of the series and spawned a couple of new toys. The artwork was very sketch-like and was basically made to give a reason for Bee to be the new leader, and it didn't work. (FYI, he gets badly injured at the end of the second story-arc and is essentially replaced by Optimus in all but name again)

#4 - Till All Are One #10: The Price of You

Oh wow...I know this one, and the remaining issues on this list will get me a lot of hate, but I can't help it. In general I loved the Till All Are One series, just like the other Windbalde centred stories, but this issue features a disturbing scene that makes me hate it and the characters involved.

Blast Off and the other Combaticons have been rendered somewhat comatose following their recent combination into Bruticus, and so Starscream decides to use this to control them into being his personal enforcers. To do this he makes a deal with Blast Off to alter Onslaught's mind into believing he is in love with the former, so he'll be more complient....AND BLAST OFF IS OKAY WITH THIS!!! WTF?!?!?

What makes this worse is that there is never a real resolution to this decision, when Starscream and his envoy are imprisoned, we see ALL of the Combaticons in jail, so Blast Off is in jail with his victim, and we never see any of them again (except Starscream of course). This is just the creepiest story I've ever read and has so many dark undertones, which has also led to some very disturbing fan-art and slash fics between these two! 

#3 - Transformers vs Visionaries #5: The Curtain

The Transformers vs Visionaries series was very interesting to me, it gave us a view of magic in this universe and gave a real threat to the Cybertronians (despite the threat being easily stopped if the Cybertronains were willing to just squish the organics, or remove the oxygen from the cave they lived in...).

The finale however is utter bullshit, the problems are solved when Galadria uses some healing magic that she has never shown before and that saves both Cybertron and gives plant-life to Cybertron too....great. It just feels like a lazy cop-out ending which could have been resolved with something that made sense.

Also, the series didn't end with Virulina being assassinated by Action Man for killing Kup, so it fails for me on principle :)

#2 - Lost Light #6: This Machine Kills Fascists

The first storyline of Lost Light, the sequel to More Than Meets The Eye, was very good, it explored the alternate Functionist Universe created by accident by Perceptor in the previous series and even sets up the new characters and plots for the series to come. However this issue gives us one majorly bad piece of story-writing...they brought a dead character back from the dead.

Anode somehow uses her Blacksmith abilities to turn some dead Sentio-Metalico into a new body for her long dead friend Lug, and somehow managed to create a new spark for her, using a trace of energy from a flower that the Necrobot had that stored a tiny part of Lug's spark inside...AND LUG WAS ALIVE AGAIN!?!?! 

Before this point, being dead in this continuity was permanent. There were a few exceptions, but those were explained with off-panel healing or the Dead Universe being involved, but when a character is shown fully dead and we see their body, they stay dead.

This issue has a character that has been dead for about 500 years in story, brought back to life as if nothing happened. There are no mental scars or any physical problems, despite her centuries of death or even that a literal trace of her spark was used to revive her. I was expecting her to have a zombie-state storyline in the future, but it never happened.

What is most insulting about this, is that they had to kill off Kaput in the next issue just to stop this from happening again, and NO-ONE ever asks Anode if she can try this with anyone else...like I don't know...Skids? The guy who Nautica was willing to give up anything to revive just a couple of issues later. Such a stupid thing to put in the series just to avoid being criticised for "fridging" a character!

#1 - Lost Light #25: How to Say Goodbye and Mean It Part 2

This is the issue we were waiting for for years, and it was awful!

This issue marks the final issue of More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light and it just feels like a spiteful story complaining about the series being cancelled and replaced with a new one.

This issue is framed by a flash-forward to Ratchet's funeral, where everyone has had a horrible life, Swerve started and lost a franchise, Rewind is now trapped in his alternate mode, Chromedome has to look after him all the time, Megatron is either in indefinite prison or is dead, Brainstorm is dying and is on constant life support, Rodimus is a drunk and Drift is now a widower, just to name a few.

The present day storyline shows that Prowl has come to take the Lost Light's quantum engines so they can use it to repower New Cybertron, which leads to Rodimus getting a final lap of glory for him and the crew, which leads to them recreating the original accident that created a duplicate Lost Light, hoping they can duplicate themselves again, and continue their adventures in a new universe.

This story is full of very on the nose symbolism for the series ending and how the writer is unhappy with it, such as his OC Rung being erased from the memories of everyone (Despite canon showing that that shouldn't have happened), how everyone in the future is depressed and having bad lives without the Lost Light, the Lost Light being dismantled rather than letting someone else getting their hands on it.

The ending scene, where we see that their plan worked and they were duplicated should have been omitted as that would have left it open to interpretation, and allowed the readers to make their own stories, as the final three words of the series stated "Over to you"....or rather it would have, if the writer didn't remove that because of the reboot.

Overall, this story was a poor and insulting finale to the "meh" series of Lost Light and the fantastic More Than Meets The Eye, especially when the other two IDW finales, Optimus Prime and Unicron were so good!

Just avoid this issue, and pretend the series ended with issue 24, that'll leave you with a better lasting impression on the series.

So that's my list, I hope you enjoyed, or at least didn't hate it too much and let me know what you think about my listing or your own additions to it!

Sig Pub - Bumblebee Movie #39

Comic Plot

Bumblebee escapes from some human agents and Blitzwing by hiding as an old VW Beetle. After a while he is found by Charlie Watson who is allowed to keep the car as a gift from her uncle, soon she discovers that Bee is alive and repairs his injuries, but in the process a signal is sent out to the Decepticons, locating him on Earth.

Soon, Dropkick and Shatter arrive on Earth and convince the human military that they are good and Bee is evil, so they assist them in tracking him down. Eventually Bee gets captured by the Decepticons, but Charlie comes to rescue him...what happens next? See the movie to find out!

Comic Characters

Autobot

Bumblebee/B-127 - VW Beetle

Decepticon

Blitzwing - Tank/Fighter Jet

Shatter - Muscle Car/VTOL Fighter Jet

Dropkick - Muscle Car/Helicopter

Human

Charlie Watson

Memo

Agent Burns

Tripp, the Cool Kid

Charlie's Mother

Charlie's Step-Dad?

Sheriff 

Random Humans

Military Guys

Charlie's Dad (Mentioned) Dead

Uncle Hank (Mentioned)

Other

Charlie's Doggo

Appliance-bots - Household Appliances 

Notes

• So, unsurprisingly this month's magazine has been hi-jacked by the Bumblebee Movie. What IS a shock though, is that we get a comic for the movie here too!
• Well...comic is a bit of a stretch, it's a load of nice artwork with some captions rather than speech bubbles etc, so it's more like a mini picture book
• The comic's creative team go uncredited in this magazine, so if you know the artist/writer, let me know!
• The comic claims that Charlie gave Bumblebee his name. I haven't seen the movie yet, but that seems to be a bit off
• This magazine comes with a watch-themed projectile launcher, a folded up power, a large Autobot insignia sticker and a Bumblebee model/figure

Other Features

Bumblebee's Rebel Racer Game! - Tear off the cover to make a board game

Meet the Characters of Transformers: Bumblebee - An intro to the characters from the movie

Bumblebee's Mega Missions! - Do some Bumblebee themed puzzles

Bumblebee - Colour in a picture of Bee

Shatter Alert! - Colour in a picture of Shatter

Word Hunt! - Do a wordsearch

Advert- An advert for the Bumblebee Movie toys

Bumblebee Poster - Pull out the middle pages for another poster

What's Different?- Play spot the difference with a picture of Bee and Dropkick

Look out for Dropkick! - Colour in a picture of Dropkick

Blitzwing Strikes! - Colour in a picture of Blitzwing

Transformers Competitions - Enter contests to get some TCG cards or Bee Movie toys

Transformers Post - Look at the scary pictures by the tiny humans!

IDW - Star Trek vs Transformers #3

Title: Prime's Directive: Part 3

Written by: John Barber & Mike Johnson

Art by: Jack Lawrence

Colours by: Josh Burcham

Letters by: Christa Miesner

Edits by: Chase Marotz & David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

The Decepticons and Klingons attack the mining facility on Cygnus Seven, and are overwhelming Optimus and his Federation allies with their firepower.

Inside the crashed Fortress Maximus, Kirk is hooked up to a machine by Ratchet, who scans his mind to get the schematics for the Enterprise for the Titan to scan and use for their big plan for take down the Decepticons.

On the surface, Spock prepares to surrender, along with Optimus to ensure the safety of the civilians on the facility, when suddenly the Enterprise explodes from the ground beneath them, followed by the other Autobots.

The Enterprise attacks the Klingon's ship, which transforms and reveals itself to be the Decepticon Titan, Trypticon, who also joins the battle properly now.

With their new reinforcements, the Autobots and Federation manage to fight off the smaller Decepticons and Klingons, which the civilians are transported onto the Enterprise, shortly followed by the Autobots.

Once most of the crew are on board the ship, Kirk is prompted to transform the ship, revealing it to be Fortress Maximus in a new body, who introduces himself to Trypticon as "Fortress Tiberious" and prepares to fight....

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck

Ratchet - Ambulance

Bumblebee - VW Beetle

Jazz - Porsche

Arcee - Sports Car

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet

Fortress Maximus/Fortress Tiberious - Copy of USS Enterprise 

Decepticon

Megatron - Pistol

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Thundercracker - Fighter Jet

Dirge - Fighter Jet

Airachnid - Helicopter

Soundwave - Cassette Player

Trypticon - Klingon D7 Class Battle Cruiser

Federation

Captain Kirk

Mr Spock

Doctor McCoy

Scotty

Sulu

M'Ress

Cygnus Seven Miners and Staff

Klingon Empire

Commander Kuri

Notes

• Why does Fortress Maximus use the Enterprise's name and serial code in his alternate mode? I know he scanned the ship, but won't it be a little awkward later when there's two of them flying around?
• Disappointingly, Trypticon's dinosaur-robot mode doesn't incorporate anything from the Klingon ship in it. Silly comic with a lack of logic!
• Arcee uses an energy sword in this series, something used by her IDFW counterpart, but not her G1 cartoon version.
• Megatron literally appears from nowhere near the end of this issue. Was he cloaked and just sitting around all issue?
• The Kirk-Fort Max hybrid's name is "Fortress Tiberious", the latter part is taken from Kirk's middle name "Tiberius" (though misspelt here)
• The artist for this series has shifted to Jack Lawrence, the former artist for the now concluded Lost Light.

IDW - Go-bots #1

Story/Art/Letters: Tom Scioli

Edits: David Hedgecock

Publisher: Greg Goldstein 

Plot

Go-bots are a commodity in this world, with some like Leader-1 working in the military with Nick Burns, Scooter as transport for a student named A.J. and Turbo as Matt Hunter's racing car. The robotic species are all over the world and are integrated amongst the human population to make their lives easier.

One night, after winning a Gobot race, Matt and Turbo are invited to a secret event by T. Coriander Banks, where they witness a Go-bot gladiator match and are forced into a fight with Cy-Kill. Turbo manages to save Matt and escape, but not before Turbo makes Cy-Kill question his actions by fighting for the amusement of humans.

Later, Matt and Turbo return with the police to find the humans at the gladiator match all killed, leading the duo to believe that Cy-Kill killed them and has now gone rogue.

Leader-1 and Nick head to the Go-bot Command Centre in the Pentagon where they are tasked with locating Cy-Kill and other Renegade Go-bots that have been popping up recently. They are taken to see a gas station attendant who was badly beaten by Crasher before being robbed for all the station's weapons, gas and money.

Soon, the duo find a caravan of Go-bots without their human masters, led by Cy-Kill. Leader-1 attacks the group and winds up in combat with Cy-kill. During the battle, Nick gets injured from inside Leader-1's chassis, and Leader-1 is knocked down and restrained whilst the Renegades get some military codes from Leader-1 and escape, leaving him behind to die.

Elsewhere, A.J. has been invited to dinner with her college professor, Braxis after asking her to be his assistant. He also asks her to go into her basement, so she can meet his personal Go-bot, Vamp, but when down there Vamp appears to try and attack her. Scooter breaks into the basement to let A.J. out and Braxis insists that he was just playing a joke on her and they leave.

Outside, A.J. sees the Go-bots attacking ther masters and Scooter explains that the Asimov codes that the Go-bots have to obey have been reversed and now the Go-bots are having a revolution.

A.J. asks her Go-bot if he's going to hurt her, as he clenches his fist....

Characters

Renegade Go-bots

Cy-kill - Motorcycle

Crasher - Race Car

Cop-Tur - Helicopter

Stretch - Limousine 

Tank - Tank

Fitor - Jet

Spoons - Forklift Truck

Screw Head - Drill Tank

Geeper Creeper - Jeep

Loco - Train

Vamp - Monster

Bug Bite - VW Beetle

Water Walk - Seaplane
Other Renegades

Other Go-bots

Leader-1 - Fighter Jet

Turbo - Race Car

Scooter - Scooter

Hans-Cuff - Police Car

Glad-iator Killed by Cy-kill

Other Gladiators Dead

Go-bot Racers - Race Cars

Rest-Q - Ambulance (Footage Only)

Zeemon - Sports Car (Footage Only)

Spay-C - Space Shuttle (Footage Only)

Human

Matt Hunter

Nick Burns

A.J.

Professor Braxis

T. Coriander Banks

Gas Station Attendant Injured by Crasher

Pentagon Staff

Police Officers

Enemy Fighters Most Killed by Nick and Leader-1

Hostages Rescued by Nick and Leader-1

Race Drivers

Race Track Pit Girls

Post-race Party Goers

Gladiator Patrons Killed by Cy-Kill

Random Pedestrians

Condor (Voice Only)

Beaky (Voice Only) Killed by Enemy Fighters

Notes

• This series is not (seemingly) in continuity with the Challenge of the Go-bots cartoon, but it's own series. In this continuity the Go-bots are man-made machines rather than alien cyborgs.
• From what we've seen of the series so far, it appears to follow the basic premise of a machine revolution, like in "I, Robot" or the backstories for the Terminator and Transmorphers franchises
• The Guardians are not a named faction in this continuity so far, so I'll just be referring to them as Go-bots in the character list
• Scioli really missed out on a nice reference in this issue. In the gladiator pit, Cy-Kill's opponent should have been Megatron to mirror the times he's appeared in Transformers fiction.
• Several of the characters are shown in either new colour schemes or ones based on alternate toy colour schemes
• There is a Go-bot Command Center inside the Pentagon. It is currently unknown whether it resembles the toy and cartoon counterpart, or is just a name re-use yet.
• The Asimov laws mentioned at the end of this issue appear to be the same ones that fiction states that robots need to follow, ie no killing humans or allowing them to die by inaction.

IDW - Optimus Prime #25

Title: Post

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Kei Zama

Colours by: Josh Burcham

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

Optimus is heading into the afterspark, following his sacrifice to defeat Unicron, and on his way, he looks back on his life...

Upon being born as Orion Pax, he is greeted by Alpha Trion, one of the Thirteen Primes, and is told that he will be the topic of stories in the future and will do great things, and the first thing he witnesses is a disposable class Transformer being abused by his master...

After a while, Orion Pax joins the police force and is taught to fight by Kup, eventually he starts to see how the world is violent and corrupt in places, such as Ravage being beaten down by Outback for scratching graffiti in a wall of the Decepticon insignia.

Over time, Orion loses his way and starts to become violent too, and sees the Decepticons as just a problem that needs stamping out, however he soon starts to change his mind, and agrees to meet with Megatron so they can combat Zeta Prime's rising zealotry. 

A while later, Orion has taken on the Matrix and is now Optimus Prime, Megatron has been captured, but his Decepticons have broken him free. Prowl wants to hunt them down, but Optimus hopes that Megatron can grow to see the error of his ways, and grow to accept a peaceful approach.

Over time, Optimus discovers that Megatron will not change his ways, and their war moves off world, resulting in deaths and compromises, such as Optimus not wanting to know what the Dynobots do in order to win battles, so long as they win...

After the war ended with the Chaos event, Optimus renounces the Prime title, and returns to life as Orion Pax and starts travelling space, hoping to find himself once again...

Later, after Orion regains his Prime name, and becomes convinced by the Mistress of Flame to use his Primehood to recruit colonists to aid his rebuilding of Cybertron and their integration into Earth. Aileron becomes worried that Optimus is manipulating people with their beliefs, but Optimus is beginning to believe he really is the The Arisen, the final Prime.

Much later, Unicron has destroyed Cybertron and all the colonies, bar Earth, Optimus prepares to confront Unicron with Arcee, and removes his mask to face him as himself, and gives it to Arcee for safe-keeping....

In the living world, the survivors of the battle are rebuilding on Earth and preparing for Optimus' funeral at Little Cybertron. The Cybertronians are starting to be accepted by their new hosts and everyone works together.

Tracks and Needlenose are unsure about restarting their Chic Chips business on Earth, so they come to get advice from Pyra Magna, the new Mistress of Flame, who is still getting used to her new role and is trying to repurpose the Way of Flame away from being about the Primes. Eventually she gets tired of their noise and asks them to leave, as she has to get ready for the funeral.

At Little Cybertron, the Junkions are preparing a burial plot for Optimus, whilst Rum-Maj and Wreck-Gar contemplate all the deaths that occurred during Unicron's attack.

In Africa, some hunters are going after a herd of elephants, but are stopped by Buzzsaw, who is disgusted that just after being saved from certain death by Unicron, they start trying to kill their fellow Earthlings, so he considers killing them in return...

Bumblebee prepares to leave Earth to start his new job as delegate to the Galactic Council, but is also now being haunted by Starscream, who died during the Unicron battle.

Thundercracker attends an awards ceremony with Buster, and hopes to win an award for his new movie "The Last Laugh: The Life and Death of Chuckles", which is also being awarded by his favourite actress, Karen Fishhook 

Aileron, Jetfire, Bob, D.O.C. and the Colonist soldiers, have been sent on a deep space mission following the battles with Unicron. Jetfire detects an anomaly so Aileron agrees to investigate it.

Prowl visits Shockwave in his jail cell inside the Lemuria, where Shockwave looks back on his own life and how he took on many faces and always wanted to save the universe, and wonders which was the real him. Prowl tells him that all of his faces were him, the good and the evil.

Windblade and Pyra Magna preside over Optimus' funeral, as he left no body, they are burying the idea of him on Earth, the world that he adopted as his own. Windblade remembers that despite his many issues, he always questioned himself, which made him a good person, and now due to his actions, they have a new home on Earth.

Optimus finally enters the afterspark, happy and at peace, and leaves his friends and loved ones behind...

Arcee concludes the story of Optimus' sacrifice to her new students, and G2 Sideswipe questions how Arcee could know what Optimus thought when he was already dead. She explains that she knew him in life, so she knew how he thought, and how he changed over his life.

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime/Orion Pax - Truck Cab Dead

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet

Pyra Magna, Mistress of Flame - Fire Truck

Arcee - Sports Car

Aileron - Space Shuttle

Jetfire - Fighter Jet

Bumblebee - Hatchback Car

Prowl - Police Vehicle

Chromia - Speedbike

Garrison Blackrock/Sovereign - Titan Master Head

Jazz - Sports Car

Tracks - Muscle Car

Roulette - Muscle Car

Midnight Express - Bullet Train

Bump - Armadillo

Skyburst - Helicopter

Slide - Part of Oil Tanker

Dust Up - Sports Car

Jumpstream - Sports Car

Rust Dust - Motorcycle

Swoop - Pteranodon, formerly Jet

Kup - Pick Up Truck (Flashback Only)

Ironhide - Van (Flashback Only)

Outback - Van (Flashback Only)

Hound - Jeep (Flashback Only)

Tumbler - Car (Flashback Only)

Grimlock - Armoured Truck (Flashback Only)

Slug - Armoured Truck (Flashback Only)

Snarl - Armoured Truck (Flashback Only)

Sludge - Armoured Truck (Flashback Only)

Sunstreaker - Sports Car (Plushie Only)

Decepticon

Shockwave/Onyx Prime - Flying Artillery In Lemuria Jail

Buzzsaw - Motorcycle

Sparkstalker - Insect Monster

Needlenose - Fighter Jet

Starscream - Fighter Jet (Ghost)

Ravage - Cassette (Flashback Only)

Swindle - Van (Flashback Only)

Megatron - Tank (Mentioned)

Soundwave - Cassette Player (Mentioned) Dead

Junkion

Wreck-Gar (Head Only)

Rum-Maj

Sharkticons - Sharks

Other Junkions

Other Cybertronian

Thundercracker - Fighter Jet

Lightbright

Swift - Helicopter

Centurion - Vintage Car

Strafe - Car/Two Headed Dragon

Bob

D.O.C.

G2 Sideswipe - Sports Car

"Slicer" - Race Car

"Turbofire" - Pick Up Truck

"Sideways" - Motorcycle

"Orange Cat" - Big Cat

"Pink, White-Masked Cat"

"Green-Brown Guy"

"Scuba Mask Girl"

"Long-Neck"

Alpha Trion - Tumbler (Flashback Only)

Scrounge - Magifying Device (Flashback Only)

Iaconian Blacksmith (Flashback Only)

Oiler - Part of Oil Tanker (Flashback Only)

Devisen Civilians (Flashback Only) 

The Thirteen Primes (Mentioned)

Jhiaxus - Jet (Mentioned)

Anode - BI-Plane (Mentioned)

Shadowhawk (Mentioned)

Marauder (Mentioned)

The Old Senate (Mentioned) Killed by the Decepticons

Solstar Order

Rom

Livia

Elonian Child

GI Joe

Scarlett

Matt Trakker

Mayday

Talon

Chuckles (Mentioned) Dead

Other Human

Madame President

Marissa Faireborn

Ian Noble, Action Man

Sgt. Savage

Karen Fishhook

Brad Emory

Sofia Orozco

Sofia Orozco's News Crew

Human Workers

Elephant Hunters Possibly Killed by Buzzsaw

Human Children

Awards Ceremony Attendees

Chuckles Actor (Picture)

J.J. Hackensack (Mentioned)

Michael Costa (Mentioned)

Other

Buster, the Dog

Herd of Elephants

Unicron (Flashback Only) Destroyed

Unnamed Alien Species (Flashback Only) Killed in Dynobot/Decepticon battle

The Galactic Council (Mentioned)

Notes

• This is the final issue of the current IDW Hasbroverse, however Lost Light #25 is actually partially set some time after these events.
• Scrounge's alternate mode is revealed to be a magnifying glass of some sort, he is also older than Optimus Prime!
• Whether Optimus is or is not "The Arisen" or at least his reincarnation is never revealed in this series, however Alpha Trion was present at his creation, and he is notable for being very big at birth.
• Orion Pax's appearance at birth is similar to his body from the G1 cartoon, but with some resemblance to his later short-term adopted body during Zeta Prime's early years.
• It is retconned here that Arcee agreed to be experimented on by Jhiaxus and he abandoned her, leaving her to go unstable due to a lack of support.
• Arcee mentions that Anode once agreed to help her with her transition, but she vanished. Anode is of course the character from Lost Light, and she likely vanished just after making this arrangement when she was abducted by the Necrobot.
• Jazz appears to have forgiven Sofia for her setting him up for capture from earlier in the series.
• Orion Pax mentions that with his alternate mode, he could be a police officer, scientist, librarian or a dockworker. This is a reference to pretty much all the previous verisons of his character, he's a police officer in IDW, scientist in the Movies, Librarian in Aligned and Dreamwave and a dockworker in the G1 cartoon.
• Pyra has updated her look to be a lot more ornate than usual following her promotion to Mistress of Flame. She has also changed her hammer to a green/red colour scheme to match her team's colours.
• The Torchbearers' line-up has been updated. Skyburst is now the leader, and Slide and Swift have joined the team, both taking on the green and red uniformed colours.
• Buzzsaw is shown defending a herd of elephants from some hunters. Soundwave once stated that elephants are his favourite animal on Earth.
• It is revealed that Megatron was broken out of jail by the Decepticons, after his capture at the end of Primacy. This was a bit of a continuity bump before now, so thanks Barber!
• Bumblebee is now haunted by the ghost of Starscream, an inversion of their relationship since Bumblebee's death at the end of Dark Cybertron. This likely means that Starscream is stuck in Infraspace due to him being killed by the Talisman.
• Bumblebee is mentioned as being the Cybertronian delegate to the Galactic Council, implying that they were accepted into the Council after Prowl mentioning their application in Lost Light #25
• One of the writers nominated against Thundercracker's film is Michael Costa, a reference to Mike Costa, the writer of Transformers between All Hail Megatron and The Death of Optimus Prime, who was the writer who gave Thundercracker his interest in Earth television in the first place.
• The anomaly detected by Aileron and her crew is never elaborated upon...could this be a left-over storyline that needs concluding later on, or a hint to the future series?
• Bob has a plushie of Sunstreaker, whilst D.O.C. has one of Buster...this is adorable!
• Optimus Prime removes his face mask before confronting Unicron, we saw that he was mask-less during the final battle, but didn't know why until now. He wanted to face Unicron without any masks, literal or metaphorical.
• The start of Optimus' funeral features the same lines that Sentinel prime gave to Bumper and Fastback in Megatron: Origin
• Just a weird note here...the only mourner at Optimus' funeral who is actually smiling is Action Man...no idea why...it's just weird...
• Arcee is shown to be a teacher in the post-war era, this is a reference to her Animated counterpart.
• The new Cybertronians, from the stash inside Trypticon, are mostly made of generics and repaints, much like G2 Sideswipe, so I may just give them nick-names where appropriate in my character lists :)