Title: Our Darkest
Written by: John Barber
Art by: Alex Milne
Colours by: Sebastian Cheng
Letters by: Tom B. Long
Editor: David Mariotte
Publisher: Greg Goldstein
It's a beautiful, peaceful and happy morning on Elonia, the capital planet of the Solstar Order, one of the three great powers in the galaxy. Everyone is happy, as the planet is a peaceful, happy paradise... That is until a giant planet-sized creature appears in the sky above them, and begins harvesting the planet, dragging Elonians and the ground up into his gaping maw.
Optimus and his team, joined by Rom of the Solstar Order arrive to try and help the Elonians, having learned of the Unicron anomaly approaching the planet recently. The Transformers plan to set up a global space bridge on the planet's surface to transport the population to Cybertron, and to safety.
Rom hopes this isn't needed, and points out the approaching phalanx of Solstar Knights approaching the planet eater , whom Rom joins in battle. The majority of the team approach Unicron's maw to attack him from inside, whilst Rom and Livia skim the surface of the anomaly, where they discover the destroyed remains of several planets, as well as the dead Velocitronian population, including their planet's leader, Override, and the Autobot Cliffjumper, who was set with his team to help the colony out when they were under attack.
Unicron, detecting the Knights, unleashes a blast on them, killing all who entered his maw, and sending Rom and Livia hurting back to the planet's surface.
Seeing they are running out of time, the Cybertronians orbital jump to the planet's surface and proceed to set up the space bridge relays, however when they activate the system, it fails. There is a disrupting signal on the planet, which Optimus and Arcee head out to investigate. They find Rom having crashed at the Thrail Mineral Mines, where he found the Solstar Order's ore, and they are all shocked to find a partially unearthed Titan, having been buried under the surface for millions of years.
The trio enter the Titan's open mouth where they discover that the ore is actually one Shockwave's Regenesis Ores and also identify the Titan as Emissary, the Titan of Prima of the Thirteen Primes, and he is sending out the disrupting signal as he doesn't understand what the space bridge is being used for. Optimus wants to try and explain to him, but there isn't any time. Arcee draws her swords, and despite Rom's protests (since he knows Titans are like gods to Cybertronians) she skewers Emissary's brain module, finally killing him.
The Titan screams and the disruption signal is stopped, however the scream has overloaded the remote function of the space bridge. Wheeljack notices this and says his goodbyes to Bumblebee, before transporting the planet's remaining population and the Cybertronian helpers back to Cybertron, but remains behind as the planet is fully destroyed.
The remaining Solstar Knights managed to get off the planet in shuttles, with Livia even being rescued by Sata, as Optimus, Arcee and Rom Orbital Jump back to the Ark-Zero, where they learn the death toll of the third of the planet.
Having finished devouring the planet, Unicron teleports away, ready for his next meal, in his wake, the stars begin to vanish...
In the aftermath, Rom is informed by Windblade, through a holo-communication that Elonia is the fifth known planet to be devoured by Unicron, and they now know that he is going after the Colony/Regenesis Ore planets, which means he will eventually arrive at Earth, which they are now more determine to keep safe.
Unknown to the team however, Unicron teleports into the skies of Eukaris, and begins feeding on the planet, finally speaking aloud..."I hungerrr..."
Characters
Autobot
Optimus Prime - Truck Cab
Arcee - Sports Car
Bumblebee - Sports Car
Wheeljack - Race Car Killed with Elonia
Pyra Magna - Fire Truck
Skyburst - Helicopter
Stormclash - Helicopter
Slug - Triceratops
Aileron - Space Shuttle
Sunstreaker - Sports Car
Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet (Over Holo-Communicator Only)
Cliffjumper - Sports Car Dead
Ironhide - Van (Mentioned)
Decepticon
Soundwave - Cassette Player
Swift - Helicopter
Other Cybertronian/Colonist
Bob, the Insecticon
Strafe - Two Headed Dragon/Car
Emissary - Space Ship Euthanized by Arcee
Override - Race Car Dead
Energon Hot Shot - Sports Car Dead
Velocitronian Civilians Dead
Cheetor - Cheetah
Manta Ray - Stingray
Prowl II - Owl Killed by Unicron
Various Eukarians Killed by Unicron
Primus (Mentioned)
The Primes (Mentioned)
Prion's Titan (Mentioned) Dead
The Necrotitan (Mentioned) Dead
Solstar Order/Elonian
Rom
Livia
Sata
Guar
Butin
Nikomi Killed by Unicron
Q'b Killed by Unicron
Prim Killed by Unicron
The Bat Knight Killed by Unicron
Elonian Girl
Elonian Girl's Pet
Elonian Civilians One Third Killed by Unicron
Elonian Animals
Other
Unicron - Ringed Planet
The Iron Ring
Notes
- So...this issue kind of spoiled that Bumblebee is coming back from the dead in an upcoming Optimus Prime issue huh?
- Cliffjumper hasn't been seen too much in recent years, so he was pretty expendable and could be killed off quite easily...seems a bit weird that they gave him a new Evergreen style body just before killing him though.
- Amongst the dead Cybertronians on Unicron's surface is the Energon version of Hot Shot. Whilst this is possibly just an Easter Egg, it's also possible that this is the already established Camien version of Hot Shot. We know that some Cityspeakers were sent to Velocitron to help repair Navitas, and Hot Shot is a Cityspeaker, so maybe he was sent there and just changed his body to better fit in with the locals.
- Something to note, as of this issue, with Override's death, we see the first confirmed permanent named female Cybertronina death (Praesidia and Magrada aren't confirmed as Shockwave probably did some experiments on them, and Lug was only confirmed dead for one issue before being brought back to life with the power of love)
- In case you don't read the Rom comics, the read beams in Elonia's sky is a forcefield designed to keep the planet free of Dire Wraiths.
- This issue confirms that both the planet Emissary crashed on was Elonia, and that the strange ore used by the Solstar Order for their suits is one of Shockwave's Regenesis Ores, which has been a long-standing fan theory.
- Optimus identifies the Solstar Ore as "Ore-12". It's not explained how he knows this, but most likely he either finds a dossier on the Ores in the Crystal City, or Shockwave gave him the knowledge before this issue.
- The ship used by Optimus is named the Ark-Zero, and is apparently the fastest Cybertronian ship available to them. Again, we don't know where this ship has come from or who built it. Maybe Wheeljack or someone has been building it in secret for the past couple of years just in case of the war restarting?
- Optimus can apparently read the thought patterns of Titans now! Again, we don't know how or why, but my guess is that he IS in fact "The Arisen" and this is just an innate talent he has, that was just never really shown before (other than him raising three different Titans in the past)
- So...we know that Emissary was carrying Prima's body on him, but Optimus says that he was travelling to try and spread the word of the Primes, and is claimed to be one of the Colony Titans...does that mean he had a Hotspot inside him that has just been eaten by Unicron too?
- Soundwave confirms that they managed to rescue two thirds of the life on Elonia (including animals) and Optimus states that three billion Elonians died in Unicron's attack. So we can guess that there was approximately nine billion Elonians on the planet (I'd assume that Optimus isn't counting the animals) meaning that Elonia is likely about the same size as Earth.
- This issue makes a potential soft retcon that the Colony Worlds, and the planets seeded with Shockwave's Regenesis Ores are the same worlds. It's unclear if this was always the plan, but it doesn't really contradict anything stated earlier. We just haven't seen the Ores of Velocitron, Caminus or the other colonies yet.
- It is confirmed in this issue that LV-117 was indeed destroyed by Unicron, and the red light in the sky etc we saw when Optimus was sent there during it's time-displacement was due to him.
- It is mentioned that Gorlam Prime was also devoured by Unicron...didn't that planet get destroyed by the portal to the Dead Universe? Maybe there was a husk remaining that he devoured or something?
- We learn here that along with LV-117 and Gorlam Prime that Prion and Velocitron have been recently devoured too, so I'm guessing this stuff will happen in the upcoming Optimus Prime issues.
- This issue ends with Eukaris being attacked by Unicron. Whilst we don't see it fully devoured like Elonia, we can assume that he does destroy another planet here.
- One of the Eukarians is based on the Transmetal Prowl II character, who was previously seen as part of the Chimeracons under Tarantulas' command. It's possible that he's the same guy who just relocated to Eukaris following the events of the upcoming "Requiem of the Wreckers"
- The "Allies" Windblade mentions, who have been monitoring Unicron and his actions for some time is likely Prowl's group, who we saw had a mass of weapons and even artefacts depicting Unicron.
- The winged Solstar Knight isn't named here but since he has a fairly big role this issue, I have decided to name him "The Bat Knight"...because he looks like a bat to me....that is all...
- Windblade reveals that the second Talisman pulse (Galadria's healing wave from the end of Transformers vs Visionaries) also sent out another message into space, the name "Unicron".
- Adding to my long-standing belief that Unicron is actually Mortilus of the Guiding Hand, Cybertron's messages to space refer to Unicron as "Death", which was the aspect that Mortilus is the "God" of. Considering it's been stated recently that Primus placed his consciousness into Vector Sigma, the core of Cybertron, thus meaning it was him, another of the Guiding Hand, who called out
- So...here's my twisted theory of the day. Unicron devouring planets and rebuilding himself with the remains is basically the IDW version of the concept of "till all are one" with all the Cybertronian colonies being fused into one (whether they survive it or not)
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