IDW - Transformers/Back to the Future #1

Written by: Cavan Scott

Art by: Juan Samu

Colours by: David Garcia Cruz

Letters by: Neil Uyetake

Editors: David Mariotte & Chase Marotz

Plot

Rumble and Ravage have been deployed to Hill Valley where they are enjoying watching a kid in a Delorean being shot at and chased by some Libyan terrorists, however they're shocked when he suddenly vanishes and returns later. Analysing the area, Soundwave and Megatron determine that the vehicle is a time machine, and the too Cassettes are tasked with capturing it for them.

The duo follow Marty McFly and Doc Brown to Marty's neighborhood where they attempt to steal the time machine, but the Autobot Bumblebee finds and attacks them. When their fight starts to draw attention from the humans, Bumblebee band Ravage transform to hide, and Bee reverses over Ravage, crushing him in cassette mode.

Shortly afterwards, Doc Brown uses the Time machine again, shocking Bee to its abilities, but he neglects to report it to Optimus, who tells him to return to base.

Marty soon goes to bed, exhausted from his journey to the past, however he is soon awoken by his father, now wearing identical jumpsuits to the rest of the family, and are all led outside, where Marty finds the whole town has been enslaved by giant robots, the Decepticons.

Marty realises that something must have happened to the time stream and he needs to get away from the robots to try and find Doc Brown to try and resolve it. He escapes the human work camp, chased by Starscream, but the Decepticon is knocked out by the Delorean appearing through a time portal.

Initially Marty thinks it's the Doc inside the car, but it begins to transform, revealing another robot, Gigawatt, he knows who Marty is, and needs his help to fix the time stream!

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck

Bumblebee - VW Beetle

Hound - Military Jeep

Gigawatt - Delorean Time Machine

Decepticon

Megatron - Gun or Tank

Soundwave - Cassette Player

Ravage - Cassette Crushed by Bumblebee

Rumble - Cassette

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Thundercracker - Fighter Jet

Blitzwing - Jet/Tank

Long Haul - Dump Truck

Scrapper - Front End Loader 

Human

Marty McFly

Doc Emmett Brown

George McFly

Linda McFly

Dave McFly

Lorraine Baines-McFly

Coordinator Biff Tannen

Libyan Terrorists

Other Human Slaves

Needles (Mentioned) Presumably Dead

Other

Einstein, the Dog

Notes

• This comic series is part of the now constant "Transformers Vs X" series, which in this case is also being used to advertise the new Gigawatt figure from the special collaboration line.
• The opening page features a note from Doc Brown that essentially tells the audience to enjoy the comic, and don't worry about continuity, much like we were told at the start of the MLP crossover series.
• This story is set at around the end of the first Back to the Future movie, where Marty travels through time and saves Doc Brown from his murder 
• The Transformers side of this continuity seems to be based on the designs from the G1 cartoon again, but Rumble us coloured his more traditional red and black colours, rather than using Frenzy's colours like in the cartoon.
• It's unclear why Marty was immune to the timeline changing after he returned him, maybe he was protected by the trans-temporal particles around him?
• Starscream's bullying of Biff Tannen in this story mirrors Biff's own bullying of the McFly boys in the main timeline.
• It's not revealed what happened in the past to cause the new Decepticon ruling timeline, but I'll guess that when Doc Brown went through time Rumble snuck aboard, managed to get to the past where he woke up the Decepticons early.

IDW - Transformers Galaxies #10

Title: Storm Horizon, Part 1

Written by: Brandon Easton

Art by: Andrew Griffith

Colours by: Josh Burcham

Letters & Design by: Jake M. Wood

Editors: David Mariotte & Tom Waltz

Assistant Editor: Riley Farmer

Plot

During the war against the Threefold Spark, Ultra Magnus fought bravely and made a name for himself as a powerful General, and at some point made friends with the wise sage, Alpha Trion.

In the present day, Magnus is working for the Cybertronian Expeditionary Force and us currently stationed aboard the Fist of Iacon shuttle in deep space. Following a solo mission he receives a message from Jazz, saying that Alpha Trion gas gone missing, and he wants him to find him. Magnus immediately gas the ship redirected to his last known coordinates.

Soon, the shuttle arrives at the Decimus Sector, where Splice-thieves are known to lurk. Upon arriving they're attacked by an unidentified shuttle, but they easily disable them, forcing them to crash on a nearby planet, Kworia.

Magnus' smaller shuttle craft heads down to investigate the shuttle, but can't land close due to the landscape. They land elsewhere and start walking toward the shuttle, finishing a hidden message along the way, seemingly from Alpha Trion saying he's searching for the lost artifacts of the Age of Expansion. They don't believe it's true, but most if the team decide to perform a deep scan of the area to see why someone would plant an obvious trap like this.

Magnus heads off on his own and finds the area near the trash full of Splice-thief ships, and finds that he's unable to communicate with the ship.

Back at the shuttle, Chromedome notices the signal jamming too, but also notice multiple Cybertronian hyperspace signatures in the area Alpha Trion vanished too. Suddenly the doors are hit by gunfire and the ship is boarded by several shadowy figures...

Magnus breaks into the Splicer compound and finds Spinister is behind the Splice-ring here. Spinister reveals that he's looking for Alpha Trion too, and knows his signal ended at the "Black Sphere", a system heavily affected by a black hole, and he wants Magnus to go there for him to find Trion for him.

Magnus begins to refuse, but stops when he is shown the prisoners from his crew, forcing his hand, agreeing to help him in exchange for their safety...

Characters

Cybertronian Expeditionary Force

Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport

Chromedome - Car Captured by Splicers

Erector - Truck Captured by Splicers

Discharge - Fire Truck Captured by Splicers

Powertrain - Truck Captured by Splicers

Rest of Fist of Iacon Crew Some Killed/Captured by Splicers

The Threefold Spark

Threefold Spark Troops (Flashback)

Exarchon (Mentioned)

Other Cybertronian

Jazz - Car

Spinister - Helicopter

Splicer Victim Killed by Spinister

Cybertronians in Spinister's Crew Some Killed by Magnus

Megatron - Mining Vehicle (Flashback)

Alpha Trion (Flashback)

Other

Splice-Thieves

Organics in Spinister's Crew

Native Kworians

Silicon Energy Leeches Killed by Magnus

Notes

• Ultra Magnus' flashback design is based on his design from the mtmte comics, while his present day body is based on his current Siege toy.
• This issue has a bit of a mtmte vibe to it, with Magnus and Chromedome serving on a deep space vessel and an enemy of theirs is Spinister (though all three of them have very different personalities compared to the older series)
• Megatron is shown as one of Magnus' co-warriors during the flashback, but he has his classic fusion cannon there, which we didn't see him use in the previous flashbacks. He could have picked it up and lost it during the war I guess though 
• Among the Threefold Sparks' forces we see a couple more Seeker body types, implying that, along with Skywarp being shown to be a past member, the Seeker body may have originally been designed as some of Exarchon's bodies.
• Chromedome is shown using his Titans Return body, whilst the other characters with current toys are all based on Siege designs.
• It's shown that Magnus used to be a lot more violent and cold before being influenced by Alpha Trion.
• It's mentioned that Cybertron's spacebridge communications array has been damaged. This was likely either done during the Reversionist attack or when the Tether collapsed.
• We don't see a badge on him, but from Sentinel's previous statements that he intends to pass the Matrix to him, we can assume that he's an Autobot here.
• The potentially fake message from Trion saying he's looking for artifacts from the Age of Expansion seems like a callback to the start of the Galaxies series where the Enigma of Combination was found. We also known from dialogue that the other artifacts aren't being looked for, most likely due to the dangerous monster created from the last one found.
• It's unknown yet if this version of Alpha Trion is a member of the Thirteen Primes, OR whether this version of the Primes are just normal bots like the previous IDW continuity, or more mythical like they usually are.
• Considering his comments about things being different on Cybertron and his being exiled, it's likely that Spinister is a part of the Rise, and us referencing the (then) upcoming attack on the Senate from issue 23, since this issue was originally meant to be released around the same time as issue 22.

IDW - Transformers #23

Title: Rise of the Decepticons, Part 5: We Have Deceived You

Written by: Brian Ruckley

Art by: Anna Malkova

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters & Design by: Jake M. Wood

Editors: David Mariotte & Tom Waltz

Assistant Editor: Riley Farmer

Plot

The special session of the Senate has come to discuss the recent actions of the Rise and for Sentinel to formally denounce the Ascenticons, however Megatron and his Ascenticon co-Senators arrive, uninvited, as this is about them. Orion Pax allows them to enter since they ARE elected officials, but also requests more guards inside the senate building.

At the prison, Bumblebee is being held for the murder of Quake, and Starscream visits him, and implies that the world is about to change, and he may have a place for him in this new world...

At the meeting, Megatron takes the podium where he accepts the name "Decepticon" for his faction, and claims that he will no longer wait around while the Autobots let the world fall apart around them. He claims that the Rise have surrendered to him, and implies that the Autobots were the ones to destroy the Tether...

Outside, the Decepticons make their move, attacking the guards outside and breaking into the main Senate hall, where Ion Storm uses his abilities to shoot an EMP through the assembled Senators, though draining him at the same time. During the attack, Strika grabs hold of Sentinel, intending to bring sanity back to Cybertron.

Several guards are killed or captured, but Strika chases Ironhide and a couple others out of the Senate building. From the front doors, she declares that the Decepticons are now here to rule Cybertron, and the crisis caused by the Autobots is over....

Characters

Autobot

Sentinel Prime - Space Shuttle

Orion Pax - Truck

Security Operations

Prowl - Police Vehicle

Strongarm - Police Vehicle

Bumper - Car

Vibes

Nightbeat - Car

Sideswipe - Car

Chromia - Car (Mentioned)

Senate Guard

Ironhide - Van

Grotusque - Winged Beast Detained by Decepticons

Chainclaw - Bear Detained by Decepticons

Brawn - Van

Groove - Motorcycle

Backstreet - Car

Roulette - Car

Pipes - Truck

Subsea - Submarine Seemingly Killed by Nova Storm

Flareup - Motorcycle Seemingly Killed by Nova Storm 

Decepticon

Megatron - Mining Vehicle

Strika - Battle Tank

Ratbat - Cassette

Acid Storm - Jet

Ion Storm - Jet Drained from using Powers

Nova Storm - Jet

Apeface - Jet/Ape

Runamuck - Car

Runabout - Car

Clench - Truck

Ravage - Cassette

Howlback - Cassette

Laserbeak - Cassette

Buzzsaw - Cassette

Squawktalk - Cassette

Beastbox - Cassette

Refraktor - Hovercraft (Mentioned)

Sixshot - Gun/Car/Jet/Winged Beast/Tank (Mentioned)

Quake - Tank (Mentioned) Dead

Other Cybertronian

Starscream - Jet

Bumblebee - Winged Hovercraft Imprisoned

Proxima

Andromeda

Voxpop

Cyclonus - Jet

Assembled Senators Hit by Ion Storm's EMP

Crowd Outside Senate Building

Highfire (Ghost)

Gridlock (Ghost)

Grudge (Ghost)

Provoke (Ghost)

Primus (Mentioned)

Other

The Thraal (Mentioned)

The A'ovan (Mentioned)

Notes

• Voxpop's theory about the Thraal dropping to Tether to try and take out the A'ovan actually sounds plausible since one of their compounds was destroyed in the fall. Though we know from an outsider's perspective that it was caused by the Rise.
• Megatron has now formally adopted the Decepticon name for the Ascenticons, and claims that the Rise have surrendered to them. I think it's safe to just stop pretending that they're separate factions now.
• Proxima is revealed to have been made head archivist now, the position that Orion was primed to take on before taking on his senatorial position.
• Flareup appears to be a scaled up and bulked up version of her original toy, so I'm assuming she still turns into a motorcycle here too.
• Starscream knows about the attack on the Senate this issue because of his mole within the Decepticons, Refractor.
• We don't see which of the Rainmakers shoots the electricity that takes out Subsea and Flareup, but since we see Ion Storm's ability, and we can assume the acid rain is from Acid Storm, it's most likely that Nova Storm is the one who blasts them.
• The Infiltration Troopers mentioned earlier in the storyline are revealed to be Soundwave's future cassette minions.
• Clench's trailer is designed to eject the troopers out of it...this is something I never knew I needed from an earth vehicle mode for Soundwave...