IDW - Lost Light #23

Title: Crucible Part 5: The Unremembering 

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Jack Lawrence 

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

The Functionist Primus tears apart the fourth Cybertron copy, despite being attacked by Adaptus' forces.

Inside his Worldsweeper, the Lost Lighters are disbelieving of Adaptus' claim that Rung is actually their god, Primus, however when he is directly asked, Rung manages to instantly repair his arm using just his mind, and accepts the truth.

Rung reveals that he has had some idea of this for a while, which is why he first started studying psychiatry, and after he was mentally attacked by Sunder at an earlier date, he began thinking about this more.

Soon, Rung reveals that he remembers that it was Adaptus who started the war between the Guiding Hand, when he wanted to invade their neighbouring planets. The Hand drove him off-world, but Adaptus used an EMP from Luna-1, wiping out the population's memories of both their history to that point, and who they are, also starting the early stages of Information Creep. Trying to protect his people, Primus takes the brunt of the pulse and becomes utterly forgettable in the process. Eventually Adaptus escapes with Luna-1 into the Warren, where he discovered this moment in time...

Adaptus, now finished with his story begins to give new orders to his troops, when Tyrest, now remembering his life as Solomus, shoots Adaptus in the back and the two Hand members battle it out, with Adaptus stabbing his chainsaw right into Solomus' spark after cutting off his emergency transporter button from his hand, but seeing Pharma's personality peeking out again, he takes the opportunity to jab his finger drill into Adaptus' head, killing him. The duo turn to dust and Whirl is impressed with the show.

Flame starts to panic as Adaptus was the only one who had the code to open the door, but Rodimus finds Solomus' severed hand and recovers it, to recover the Lost Light and rescue the others with it.

Soon, the Lost Light and Last Light land on the fifth Cybertron, where the two crews reunite in the former and start planning how to stop the evil version of Primus.

The real Primus, Rung, explains that he has no real powers, he can't warp reality of anything, but after some prompting from the Magnificence, actually Epistemus, he does reveal that he created the Matrix. The Magnificence explains that he needs to make three more for Rodimus, Ratchet and Tailgate to open inside of "Primus" and detonate his brain, spark and T-Cog, killing him. Cyclonus however refuses this plan since that would mean killing Tailgate and the others too.

"Primus" finishes the fourth Cybertron and starts attacking the final one. The crew work together to come up with a new plan however. Rather than blowing up "Primus" they will create twelve Matrixes and plant them on all of the planet's hot spots, allowing them to fire directly into Vector Sigma, killing the Functionist Council themselves, and keeping the innocents trapped inside the planet from being harmed too.

The crew agree, but the Magnificence wont allow it, and fires energy bolts from itself, killing Froid, Sunder and Nine-of-Twelve instantly. The Omega Guardians, speaking through Epistemus' remains explain that they need a Cybertron-sized explosion to return home, and when they return they will devour everything in the universe. Nickel however crushes the Magnificence between her hands, reducing it to dust, leaving Primus as the only member of the Guiding Hand left alive.

The Lost Light lifts off just as the final Cybertron is destroyed, but Megatron orders Crankcase to turn the ship around, as they prepare to save the universe from the Functionists and their version of Primus....

Characters

Autobot

Rodimus - Car

Megatron - Tank

Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport

Primus/Rung

Drift - Car

Ratchet - Ambulance

First Aid - Ambulance

Velocity - Race Car

Nautica - Submarine

Brainstorm - Jet

Thunderclash - Truck

Grimlock - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Whirl - Osprey Helicopter

Riptide - Boat

Swerve - Van

Tailgate - Car

Chromedome - Car

Rewind - Data Slug

Sunder - Truck Killed by The Magnificence

Pharma - Jet Body Killed with Adaptus

Decepticon

Nickel - Rocket Buggy

Crankcase - Van

Krok

Spinister - Helicopter

Fulcrum - K-Class Bomb

Misfire - Jet

Grand Architect's Forces

Adaptus Killed by Solomus

Solomus/Tyrest Killed by Adaptus

Flame

Grand Architect's Troops

The Infinites (Mentioned)

Anti-Vocationist League

Nine-of-Twelve Killed by The Magnificence

Clicker - Laser Pointer

Decibel - Cassettes

Ruckus - Buggy

A Lunabot - Space Shuttle

Other Cybertronian

Functionist Primus - Functionist Universe Cybertron

Epistemus/The Magnificence Crushed by Nickel

Froid - UAV Jet Killed by The Magnificence

Cyclonus - Jet

Roller - Truck

Anode - Bi-Plane

Lug - Backpack Equipment

Wipe-Out - Car

Mortilus/Censere (Flashback Only)

The Functionist Council (Mentioned)

Ten (Mentioned) Dead

Other

The Warren Omega Guardian (Flashback Only) Dead due to crossover

The Omega Guardians (Voices)

Notes

• Rung's innate healing powers have been hinted at before in continuity, with him receiving no real injuries despite being part of the war, and of course his surviving having his head blown off
• It's revealed that it was Adaptus, who caused the war between the Guiding Hand, and not Mortilus, as it was always told in the past, explaining why Censere/Mortilus was always so friendly, and not power hungry and evil whenever we've seen him in the series.
• Adaptus took control of Luna-1 and turned it into a weapon against Cybertron's population, before building the thrusters onto it and moving it through the Warren to, at first this point in time, and later to it's location where it would later be found by Tyrest.
• Cybertron's misremembered pre-history and multiple origin stories, as well as the "Information Creep" phenomenon is explained as being caused by Adaptus' energy weapon. It does make me wonder if Information Creep only affects those who were already alive at the time, or if it was "inherited" by later births too.
• Rung/Primus seeing Luna-1 leave Cybertron into the Warren in the past is a mirroring to him seeing Luna-1 through a portal at the end of Season One of MTMTE. It also FINALLY explains his sense of deja-vu from that scene.
• Rung's state of being "compulsively forgettable" is finally explained too, when he was hit by the memory wiping beam at full blast, not only did it wipe out his own memories of himself, but also made him naturally forgettable to others.
• We learned when the Necrobot/Censere/Mortilus died that when an old Cybertronian dies they turn into inert Sentio Mettalico so seeing Solomus turning to dust isn't shocking. But why did Pharma's body do the same? Is Pharma as old as the Guiding Hand? I ask since we know Alpha Trion and the Original Thirteen were amongst the earlier Cybertronians, yet when Trion died he remained in one piece. Just seems like a bit of logic waving here (it was a cool scene still though!)
• So we know now that Rung created the Matrix, which was obviously what Nightbeat discovered before he was killed on Mederi (he saw the photonic crystals leading to the Matrix replica where Rung was waiting remember). But unless his alternate mode is a mould for the Matrix's casing, then we still don't know what it is for...
• The Matrix being an energy bomb of sorts has got some precedence. When Optimus used it on Unicron in the Marvel comics, it exploded, killing both Unicron and Optimus, as well as a similar seen with Rodimus in Transformers: Deviations. Also the original design of the Matrix by Floro Dery was known to be based on a bomb as well.
• The Magificence as it turns out, is just Epistemus' head, rather than just his brain module as I originally believed. It is also revealed that the Omega Guardians are the ones who have been speaking through it, and the reason it knows the future and can answer any question is because they can see all possibly outcomes from the higher realms.
• The Magnificence/the Omega Guardians were responsible for Tailgate being transported to Mederi, as well as the Scavengers (though that was more obvious, since he gave them the coordinates). It also was the one who spoke through Ten to get the rest of the crew to Mederi and started teleporting Ratchet to make him seem to be dying earlier.
• Functionist Primus tearing the last copy of Cybertron in half is strikingly similar to the concurrently released issue of Unicron #4 including Unicron tearing the real Cybertron in half too!
• It's not mentioned here, but past issues told us that one of the Knights of Cybertron became the Magnificence and stayed behind after the Omega Guardians ascended. It seems likely that the Guardians turned him into the Magnificence so they could have a window back to their home universe, just in case.
• This is also conjecture, but remember when we first met Censere and he mentioned he had a friend named Tusk who was older than he was who "died"? Well I think that friend was Epistemus, and he took on that name and Censere just believes he died when he went missing. (Let's face it, you cant get anyone older than him, except potentially one of the other members of the Guiding Hand).
• We learn that Cybertron has twelve natural hot spots on it's surface where Sparks are directly grown from Vector Sigma.
• Pharma's dialogue seems to imply that he has a crush on Ratchet, explaining somewhat his obsessive personality around him...
• The Warren is revealed to be a dead Omega Guardian, who tried to return home the wrong way, and ended up turning into a multi-dimensional, trans-time maze.