IDW - Lost Light #21

Title: Crucible Part 3: Farsickness

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Jack Lawrence

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

Rodimus sets the Lost Light onto the surface of Mederi, allowing the rest of his team to load up the now cured, but injured, former Sparkeater crew members, so they can escape the strange rift now splitting across the sky. In the ship, Rodimus forgives Perceptor and the rest of the mutineers for what they did and allows them to recover.

Before the ship leaves, Rewind finds a Geobomb that has just teleported onto the surface, which Rung warns him against touching. The ship tries to escape, but the gravitational pull of the rift is too strong and they are pulled through it...

On the other side of the rift, the Grand Architect is waiting with his fleet of Worldsweepers, being repaired by Flame, and having his crew wait for an incoming danger, that the Architect knows is coming here, to this point in time and space.

The Lost Light is flung out of the rift, only to find five multicoloured Cybertrons. Rodimus has the ship land on one of the Cybertrons, so they can investigate, there, Cyclonus recognizes the layout as Ancient Cybertron, from his time there, however, Anode and Swerve use their skills to determine that the metal on the world is very new, so it can't be Ancient Cybertron. Nautica and Rung recognize the location as where Skids described to them as visiting when he went through Tyrest's portal.

The group are soon encountered by a fleet of Black Block consortia ships, and a large Worldsweeper. They are soon surrounded, and the Architect gives the order to kill them, but are quickly stopped when Nautica speaks the word for the symbol of the Knights of Cybertron. The Architect is intrigued and allows Rodimus to bring a small team to the ship, whilst the rest will be killed, however Rodimus refuses, saying that everyone will come with him, which the Architect agrees to, despite complaints from the rest of his team.

Annoyed by the Architect's actions, and Tyrest's complacency in letting him do anything, out of a sense of loyalty to him for saving his life. He contacts his new allies, Sunder and Froid to attack the Architect to try and find out his identity in his mind.

The Lost Light parks into one of the docking bays, where the active crew departs from the ship amd wait for their "host" to join them. Whilst they have a moment of peace, Rung and Rodimus as Nickel about the Magnificence and she remarks that they found it, and it's been quiet for a while now, however when Rung examines it, following hearing it whisper his name, he is forced into his alternate mode, shocking everyone, especially since he spoke the transformation sound as he did it...

Out of the window, they notice Mederi is flung through the rift, and it starts to close. The crew start to wonder why this has happened when Froid and Sunder are brought into the room, revealed to be a large jail cell. There, the two new arrivals reveal that they tried to read the Architect's mind to find his name, but only saw his recent memories before being kicked out, and Sunder losing his Mnemosurgery skills.

Froid explains that from what they learned, the Architect created these worlds using a hollow world with a mould of Ancient Cybertron within it and used the Warren to bring them here, and had the Consortia, which is under his control, and use it to create the "God Gun" to use it to punch a hole in the universe to the next one over, to send a great evil he has been expecting though there, and trap it.

They couldn't use the real Cybertron for this, as it needs to be a pristine Cybertron, and thanks to the wars, the planet has been damaged too much over the years.

After the explanation, the Architect has the God Gun activated, and it starts poking a hole into the universe. Scorponok is contacted by the Architect, who explains that he didn't have a vision of this evil coming here, he saw it when he time travelled using the Warren millions of years ago, and has been preparing ever since. Scorponok however detects a powerful signal through the portal and declares that the Architect is wrong, and that by doing this, he has just summoned the evil here, since it was on the other side all along.

The Grand Architect, revealed to be Pharma, enters the room and kills Scorponok for his rudeness, and sending Sunder after him earlier.

Outside, the portal opens, and a fleet of ships, led by what appears to be another Lost Light exit, just as both Rodimus and Magnus receive a call at the same time...Megatron has returned from the Functionist Universe!

Characters

Autobot

Rodimus - Car

Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport

Drift - Car

Megatron - Tank

Thunderclash - Truck

Grimlock - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Ratchet - Ambulance

First Aid - Ambulance

Velocity - Race Car

Swerve - Van

Riptide - Boat

Brainstorm - Jet

Chromedome - Car

Rewind - Data Slug

Whirl - Osprey helicopter

Nautica - Submarine

Tailgate - Car

Rung - Photonic Crystal Generator? Forced into Alternate Mode by Magnificence

Sunder - Van

Perceptor - Tank In Recovery

Hound - Jeep In Recovery 

Skids - Van (Mentioned) Dead

Getaway - Car (Mentioned) Dead

Nightbeat - Car (Mentioned) Dead

Metrotitan - City/Ship (Mentioned) Dead

Metroplex - City/Ship (Mentioned)

Rest of the Lost Light Crew (Mentioned) In Recovery

Decepticon

Misfire - Jet

Spinister - Helicopter

Crankcase - Van

Krok

Fulcrum - K-Class Bomb

Nickel - Rocket Powered Buggy

Overlord - Jet and Tank (Mentioned)

The Decepticon Justice Division (Mentioned) Dead

The Firstborn (Mentioned)

Other Cybertronian

Cyclonus - Jet

Roller - Truck

Anode - Bi-Plane

Lug - Backpack Equipment

Wipe-out - Car

Froid - UAV

Primus - Cybertron (Mentioned)

The Necrobot (Mentioned) Dead

Proto-Functionists (Mentioned)

Grand Architect's Forces

The Grand Architect/Pharma - Jet

Tyrest

Scorponok - Scorpion Killed by The Grand Architect

Flame

Black Block Consortia Biomech Soldiers

Grand Architect's Troops

Other

Telepathic Aliens Comatose

Scraplets Quarantined in Lost Light Medibay

Galactic Council (Mentioned)

The Grand Architect's Enemy (Mentioned)

Notes

• First Aid refers to Misfire as "Flyhigh". This was his original name, implying that First Aid knew him before this encounter. He also refers to him as "red"...he's more of a pink....
• Nickel can be seen looking at Roller, seemingly interested. This is likely a reference to the long-standing theory that he was Tarn's identity under his mask, before it was revealed to be Damus/Glitch.
• Crankcase declares "we're being sucked into it!" a clear nod to the Transformers Movie, when Spike and Bumblebee were eaten by Unicron.
• Before the end of this issue, Flame was seemingly the only one to have seen the Grand Architect, considering Pharma's known hatred of Decepticons, this makes sense, since Pharma was originally an Autobot.
• The world Skids was sent to through Tyrest's spacebridge led him to one of these new Cybertrons, and that they were made using the hollow Necroworld in the past, which was a mould created of Ancient Cybertron, and was located in the Benzene Cluster, a part of space mentioned many times in this series.
• It's finally revealed that the Black Block Consortia were infiltrated by some of the Grand Architect's biomech troops to cause them to go to war with the Galactic Council
• It's revealed that when Tyrest was transported away after his capture on Luna-1, he only reached the planet's thrusters, where The Grand Architect was for some reason located at the time.
• Rung reacted to the Magnificence by involuntarily transforming...I'm gunna guess that they are connected in some way.
• Cybertron originally being a weapon or being converted into one has been a plot point explored a few times in the past of Transformers media.
• It's likely that Primus' intended target for the God Gun would have been Unicron.
• Scorponok is killed in a similar manner to Ambulon...I guess this means we can guess he is indeed dead now.
• It's implied at the end of this issue that the monster the Grand Architect was fearing was Megatron, but this seems unlikely since he's only been in the Functionist Universe for about a year now (maybe less in-universe). It's more likely, due to the big event this year, that it's Unicron he was fearing. Honestly, the Architect's plan to shunt Unicron to the next universe over is a good idea...so long as he doesn't have the ability to cross universes here...
• Pharma being the Grand Architect is quite unexpected...he was a loyal Autobot until he was coerced into harvesting his patients for their T-Cogs by the DJD, so how is he the "big bad" here? He was even active when Anode was first "killed" and when Scorponok and Flame were released from Garrus-9. The last time we saw Pharma, his headless, seemingly dead body was being dragged into the portal by some tentacles into what is now revealed to be one of these worlds. More than likely, the Grand Architect is actually the identity of that giant spark that Skids interacted with, and he is simply controlling the dead body of Pharma now.