IDW - Optimus Prime #18

Title: The Falling Interlude: The First Who Was Named

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Sara Pitre-Durocher and Livio Ramondelli

Colours by: Josh Burcham

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

Optimus, now chained up by Shockwave asks what happened to his old friend, and how he is posing as Onyx Prime. Shockwave happily explains it all to his friend...

After he was drawn into the singularity in Crystal City, he was launched twelve million years into the past, badly injured, but still alive. He is soon found by a roaming shepherd, the original Onyx, who asks if he can help him. Without hesitating Shockwave kills Onyx, sending his beasts running to safety. One of the "beasts", a biped remains, who Shockwave named Megatronus.

Soon, Shockwave manages to gather the beasts again, and becomes known as Onyx Prime. Along with Megatronus, he teaches them to fight, creating an army of his own. Before long, he sends Megatronus out to create his Darklander army and begin his siege on other territories. Shockwave dons his full disguise as Onyx and sets out to unite the Thirteen Primes to create their new society.

Following their founding of society, Shockwave manages to convince the others to attempt Expansionism, and spread their message to the stars, however on the first world they encounter Shockwave manipulates things so the Cybertronians attack the natives, slaughtering them, and traumatising Alpha Trion, who was there to document the mission.

When they returned to Cybertron, Prima had a screaming match with Megatronus, blaming him for the slaughter on the unnamed planet. This eventually leads to Shockwave manipulating Liege Maximo into, in turn, manipulating Megatronus into attempting to kill Prima. During their battle, Solus rushes to help Prima, but she ends up being run through by her own Star Saber, Megatronus escapes, taking the sword with him, and the other Primes renounce him as "The Fallen".

Liege Maximo is captured for his manipulation of Megatronus, imprisoned inside his own Titan, Vigilem, with his people charged to be his wardens and keep him away forever. After Vigilem is sent away, Prima leads a mission with "Onyx" and Trion to hunt down Megatronus aboard his own Titan, Emissary.

Soon, Prima and Onyx encounter Megatronus on planet Tsiehshi, where Megatronus manages to cleave Prima in half with ease, however "Onyx" betrays Megatronus and decapitates him, and brings their bodies back to Emissary, where he tells Trion that they died fighting each other. Trion believes his story and they are interred back on Cybertron.

Emissary takes Prima's body into space, however "Onyx" sabotages Emissary, causing him to eventually crash onto the prehistoric world of Elonia, bringing about the end of the era of the Primes...

Back in the present, Shockwave explains that all he has done has been to spear-head the progress of Cybertron, even these dark days he has brought about by attacking the planet. Optimus disagrees, which Shockwave always knew he would. 

He decides to give Optimus the chance to change his mind, by sending him into the Singularity too...as he pushes him right into it....

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab Thrown into Crystal City Singularity by Shockwave

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet

Metrotitan - Autobot City Seemingly Dead

Decepticon

Soundwave - Cassette Player

Needlenose - Fighter Jet

The Primes

Onyx Prime/Shockwave

Liege Maximo

Megatronus/The Fallen (Flashback Only) Killed by Shockwave

Prima (Flashback Only) Killed by Megatronus

Solus Prime (Flashback Only) Killed by Megatronus

Alpha Trion (Flashback Only)

Alchemist Prime (Flashback Only)

Amalgamous Prime (Flashback Only)

Nexus Prime (Flashback Only)

Quintus Prime (Flashback Only)

Vector Prime (Flashback Only)

Micronus Prime (Flashback Only)

"The Arisen" (Flashback Only)

Maximal

Iguanus - Iguana

Snarl - Lion

Backstop - Rhino

Ramulus - Ibex

Other Maximals/Herd Members (Flashback Only)

Other Cybertronian/Colonist

Mistress of Flame

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Devastator - Constructicon Combiner

Original Onyx (Flashback Only) Killed by Shockwave

Vigilem - Space Ship (Flashback Only) Lobotomized by The Primes

Emissary - Space Ship (Flashback Only) Crashed into Elonia by Shockwave

Arcee - Cannon (Flashback Only)

Galvatron - Cannon (Flashback Only)

Omega Supreme - Space Shuttle (Flashback Only)

Omega Sentinel Army - Space Shuttles (Flashback Only)

Darklander Army (Flashback Only)

Knights of Cybertron (Mentioned)

Ancient Headmasters (Mentioned)

Other

Primitive Elonian (Flashback Only)

Cybertron's First Victims (Flashback Only) Dead

Notes

• Wow sometimes being behind schedule on these things does have it's benefits! The planet that Emissary is shown crashing on has been confirmed as being Elonia in Unicron #0
• So...turns out Shockwave is pretty much responsible for everything that happened in Cybertronian history, even the seemingly coincidental stuff, such as the Eukarian ship that would end up doing the Hearts of Steel re-enactment being filled with a crew that just happened to look like the main G1 cast of Transformers. We know that "Onyx" sent them towards Earth, where he knew his younger self was going to experiment on them...YIKES!
• Shockwave has immense knowledge of what happened on Cybertron in the early years of the Primes because he listened to the stories told by Alpha Trion.
• It's revealed here that Shockwave was launched twelve million years into the past when he was drawn into the Crystal City singularity. We learned a while ago that Bumblebee was somehow alive inside the Singularity, and thanks to the Unicron #0 preview, we knew he was going to be returning to the "real world" soon anyway. So at least this isn't out of the blue I guess?
• In an astonishing amount of detail, the original Onyx, whom Shockwave killed and replaced is shown to be a quadruped, where the Shockwave version of him has been mostly bipedal...and people just thought that was an art error!
• It's revealed here that Shockwave named Megatronus here, explaining why his name is similar to Megatron's, given that in this continuity Megatronus' name was unknown until recently.
• This issue explains that Shockwave, knowing of their doomed futures, managed to manipulate the Primes to doing as he pleased, especially when manipulating Megatronus and Liege Maximo
• It's revealed here that, despite what was shown in earlier stories, Solus Prime was killed by Megatronus stabbing her with her own Star Saber.
• This issue confirms that the Matrix was indeed originally the hilt to the Star Saber
• Briefly during the flashback we see a heavily silhouetted figure of "The Arisen". We should presumably discover who he really is, and his supposed connection with Optimus soon

TLK - Who is Quintessa? (SPOILERS - The Last Knight)

So, the new villain for the Bayverse movies is Quintessa, but we actually know nothing concrete about her, however, through the film I did notice a few things about her, which could solve her mystery....

First up, is the most obvious point, her name is a reuse of the name of the planet the Quintessons lived on in the G1 continuity, and her design even evokes the species as well (tentacles, green-ish colours and manipulative). So, in my opinion the most likely explanation for her is that she is an AI of some sort that represents Quintessa and the Quintessons in general who is sent out to conquer worlds for them to rule over.

The reason I believe that she is an AI is that she was clearly not really there during the film, Bumblebee "destroyed" her with an energy blast, and she just vanished, reappearing in the credits in a human form, again starting to manipulate someone, seemingly trying to get close to Unicron (he is the planet after all) for unknown reasons.

A little known piece of trivia now, the Quintessons were at one point in development for G1 considered to be associates of Unicron's who picked off anyone who escaped his planetary om-noms. So maybe we'll get a return of that plot point in a future movie?

But, since I like over-analysing things, let's take a gander at who Quintessa could be otherwise, as I believe there could be a few options...

Due to her appearance and Quintesson god like attitude, most people would probably consider her to be a female version of Quintus Prime, who was introduced in the Aligned continuity as one of the original Thirteen Primes, which when comparing the above and below images, you can see why...however as I implied earlier, Quintus was male, whilst Quintessa is clearly female, making it less likely to be him.

Next up I have a couple of options based on Quintessa's self-given title of "Prime of Life", there are two Primes that could be considered life givers, the first is the least likely option, which is Prima, the original Prime. His sword has the Matrix as the jewel on it's hilt, which is a life-giving device, which could be the reason for the title. The problem here though, is that Optimus already has the Matrix, meaning that the Star Sabre isn't in his possession, and the title would be null-and-void.

 The most likely option that is left is Solus Prime, the weapons-smith of the Thirteen Primes, she is literally someone who gives life and creates new things, also, in the Aligned continuity, upon her death, her body created the Well of Allsparks, allowing the sparks within the core to be released, and create the Cybertronian species, thus creating new life.
Now you may be about to point out that with this point, it means that she couldn't be Quintessa since she should be dead. But no. In recent issues of Transformers: Lost Light, we've learned about a new medical profession that helps in the progress of new life on Cybertron: the Blacksmith. A Blacksmith in Cybertronian culture is able to help a newly born protoform and spark into a natural shape, allowing them to be born...remember that Solus' design is one of a blacksmith as well, possibly showing a connection.

But wait....there's more words here...what else could I have to say? Quintessa must be either Solus or Quintus Prime right? Well...one more line of dialogue in the film had me asking questions...the Knights of Iacon refer to her as the "Deceiver". Quintessa is shown to be able to change forms (we see her as a robot and a human through the film) and we also see that she can brainwash other Transformers, and perfectly manipulate them with "magic" and her words. There is another Prime with that ability, EXACTLY that ability, the Liege Maximo....

For those who do not know, in recent years, Liege Maximo has been characterized as being pretty much the Transformer version of Loki from Marvel Comics, in the MCU films we see him using holographic-looking disguises to change his appearance, a lot like how Quintessa seems to do as well.

Also, due to Hasbro's tendency to use the same plot lines and characters across their different media, and Liege Maximo was only just dramatically released from his prison in the IDW comic universe a couple months ago for an upcoming major storyline I can assume these things will converge in a future film.

So what do you guys think? Is Quintessa a simple AI or Robot Loki after all? Is she just a Quintesson or something else? Let me know, and I might pay attention and change my head canon!

See ya later!

(I promise comic reviews are comic soon, but I am lazy!)