End of Time

« Transformers #43 »
"End of Time"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	May 18, 2022
Cover date	May 2022
Written by	Brian Ruckley
Art by	Anna Malkova (pg. 1-2, 6-8), Juan Samu (pg. 3-5, 15-17, 22-25, 27-30), Blacky Shepherd (pg. 9-12), Ed Pirrie (pg. 18-21, 26)
Colors	David García Cruz and Heather Breckel
Letters by	Jake M. Wood
Editor	David Mariotte, Tom Waltz and Riley Farmer
Continuity	2019 IDW continuity

Besieged by ravenous rust worms and swarming Insecticlones, the Autobots engage in some heavy-duty pest control.

Synopsis

Cybertron is a world of wonders. As the Thirteen begat the Firstforged, so too did the Firstforged and their descendants tame a savage world and build a civilization steeped in glory and mythology. But, as Termagax lays out in her blistering speech before the Cybertronian Senate, the Nominus Edict has forced the people of Cybertron and their wonders into stagnation and complacency—but lawmakers cannot deny history, and when change comes, for good or ill, they will be the ones responsible for what happens next.

In the present day, Blades, Windblade, and Springer lead the brunt of the Insecticlones on a merry chase, giving Novastar and the rest of her insertion team the opening they need to breach the dead Titan that the Insecticons have turned into their primary hive. Outside Darkmount, meanwhile, Hound, Tap-Out and Road Rage try to capture one of the creatures alive, so that Prime's science team—Termagax, Blaster, Highbrow, and Perceptor—can reverse-engineer a data-bomb to breach the Insecticon neural network and bring down the swarm from within. However, Termagax reminds the Autobots that her plan is entirely contingent on whether or not Novastar can install the receiver inside the hive: for her, whether or not Novastar survives the adventure is a secondary concern.

Many kilocycles ago, in Iacon's Archives, Orion Pax speaks with Codexa about his recent tour of the Cybertronian commonwealth and his plans for the future. Orion muses that, for all that the Cybertronian race has done, the people of Cybertron still know very little about the wider universe, and Cybertron's inability to temper its infamously heavy-handed approach could lead to further conflict. Codexa, dissatisfied with Cybertron's changing political landscape, is already finalizing her preparations to go immersant... but when the time comes, it will not be Orion who takes over her position. Orion's already eyeing a new career in politics, alongside his friend Megatron; no matter where his spark takes him, however, Codexa tells him that she's proud to have known such a good 'bot.

In the present day, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the Prime Guard struggle to hold off the ravenous tide of rust worms, which attack not just from the front, but from below, and nearly snag an Autobot before Prime intervenes. Not far away, Chromia and her team accuse Red Wing of breaking their ceasefire, but the arrogant Seeker insists that the Decepticons are merely conducting an operation against the rust worms and orders them to turn back. When Ironhide orders the group to fall back, Chromia muses that they might not make it out of this one alive; Prime grimly agrees, but hopes against hope that they might still have enough time to pull off a miracle...

In Darkmount, Tap-Out grapples with one of the Kickback-type clones, who's carried him aloft to eat him—fortunately, Road Rage intervenes, shoots the monster out of the sky, and gives Tap-Out the opportunity to put his wrestling skills to work as he piledrives another clone into the ground, knocking it unconscious just long enough for Hound to fire a netgun and capture the Insecticon. Their victory is short-lived, however: already, another swarm darkens the horizon...

Inside the Titan, Cromar and the other members of Novastar's insertion team discuss their mission: the neural network that ties all the clones together is inexorably linked to their progenitor Bombshell, and taking him out is the only way they can hack the network. While Smokescreen and Cromar sweep ahead, Novastar and Javelin note that the tunnels seem empty, and wonder if the clones have spread themselves too thin... only to stumble across the latest batch as they swarm up toward the surface! Cromar combines with Javelin to help her hold off the clones, a sacrifice that gives Smokescreen and Novastar the opportunity to head deeper into the Titan and finish their mission.

Outside, Darkmount, Termagax and the other members of Optimus Prime's science team watch as the swarm darkens the sky. Having invested all their time and resources into repairing the comatose Lodestar and the final Ark-class starship, the besieged city has nothing left to stave off this latest assault; realizing what must be done, Termagax opens a secure channel to House and orders it into action. The sight of House striding away from the city walls baits the clone swarm into breaking off their pursuit of Hound and the other Autobots; bit by bit, the clones whittle away at House's structural integrity until the walking fortress reaches a safe distance. As the Insecticons swarm over the building, Termagax briefly thanks House for its service... then, triggers the "Endpoint" protocol that overloads House's reactor and obliterates the entire swarm, and House with it, with a single blast.

Inside the Titan, Bombshell orders the other two Insecticons to keep eating their fallen soldiers and generate the energon they need to power the cloning machines and recuperate their mounting losses. Tired and delirious from gorging themselves for cycles on end, Kickback grumbles that they're running out of stamina; when their leader slaps them into action, Kickback turns on Bombshell, and the scuffle leaves both of them distracted just long enough for Novastar to leap from a nearby access vent and slap the receiver directly into Bombshell's head. As Smokescreen, Javelin, and Cromar join the brawl, the three keep the monsters at bay just long enough for Termagax—still mourning the loss of her House—to patch her orders through the receiver and into the Insecticon net.

As Optimus and the other Autobots do what they can against the worms, another Insecticlone swarm darkens the sky... but these clones ignore the Autobots entirely and attack the worms instead! By turning the two threats against each other, Termagax has, for the moment, solved their problem, but this reprieve won't last forever. As the Autobots wade through the liquid rust back towards Darkmount, a flash of light heralds the arrival of Skywarp, toting an imploder and a message from Megatron as the Decepticon army rolls towards them: stay where they are, or they all die...

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"You want to freeze into stasis the story that began with Cybertron itself, the Primes, the Firstforged. But I tell you, the flood of all those countless megacycles of time opposes you. Its weight exceeds you. The flood of our capacities, our potential. It exceeds you. There is a force and a flow to a story as ancient as us that cannot be legislated away. We will be expressed. If you close off one path, another will be carved out. For better... or for worse."

—Termagax

"Wish I knew how I keep winding up in these situations."
"You're a compulsive volunteer. Or a compulsive something, anyway."

—Smokescreen and Novastar

"If it can get me in, I'll handle the rest."
"Hmm. And of course overconfidence never tripped you up, Termagax."
"Says Perceptor, who I hear accidentally shot a teleporter into the future. And imprisoned Titansparks. The lack of self-awareness in here makes my gears ache. No wonder the planet's coming apart. Literally."

—Termagax and Perceptor

"We tread heavily wherever we go. Wherever we have been. We can't do otherwise, it seems. But I think we have to."

—Orion Pax

"I'm okay. I choose to be okay."

—Javelin

"You know, if we're not getting out of here, you should satisfy my curiosity, Smokescreen. No one seems to know, so who do you actually, technically work for now?"
"Technically? I have absolutely no idea. Lost track ages ago, and I never really cared. But you know what? I know exactly what I actually work for. Cybertron. Corny, huh?"

—Novastar and Smokescreen

"Well, hello, Autobots!"
"Skywarp? What are you--"
"Hush, hush! History is trying to speak. Yes, yes, I think it's saying... this is an imploder, and I'll detonate it if you don't stay right where you are. Because someone's coming to see you... and he'll be very disappointed if you're not here to greet him."

—Skywarp threatens Optimus Prime

Notes

Continuity notes

• Termagax's creation story first shows the Firstforged emerging from an ornate pool of liquid. Given what we know about Cybertron's history, it's possible that this is, in fact, this continuity's take on the Well of All Sparks, a more literal take that depicts it as an actual "well" of liquid metal. If so, then this would also mark the future site of the Forge Pyramid, which was noted to have been built over the Well in issue #4.
• The first flashback depicts a battle between Halonix Maximus, Gaidora, and a pack of turbofoxes. Dialogue in issue #21 and a flashback in #25 noted that Halonix Maximus fought and defeated Preditron in ancient times, and later rescued Zarak Maximus from a lair of turbofoxes; the framing of this scene, however, combined with Termagax's description of a "victory over the raw world", suggests that these battles were part of a larger campaign against other Cybertronian lifeforms, including Transformers with beast modes. Perhaps, as was the case in IDW's original Transformers universe, this has something to do with some Cybertronians displaying prejudice against beast Transformers, as briefly discussed in issue #23.
• Working together, Blaster, Glyph, and Highbrow have developed a data-bomb; Slipstream's unit used the technology in issue #16 to incapacitate the planetary Titan Net in preparation for their assault on the Winged Moon.
• While sniping at Perceptor, Termagax notes the time he secretly imprisoned Titansparks under the terms of the Nominus Edict, as revealed in issue #29, and his accidental invention of time travel in the two-part storyline that ran from issues #31 to #32.
• The issue's second flashback is set four megacycles after issue #6's flashback, a story that included Orion planning a tour of Cybertron's colonies, a weary Codexa preparing for retirement, and Megatron contemplating a potential career in politics. With Orion going into politics instead of following a career in the archives, Codexa reveals that she's recruited Proxima to take over when she retires, a factoid that'd previously been discussed in issue #23. However, see "Errors" below.
• Since turning the siege of Crystal City in favor of the Autobots in issue #41, Prime notes that Scattershot and the other Technobots, having run low on energon, have retreated to Darkmount to recuperate with other civilians and noncombatants.
• While searching for the Insecticons, Smokescreen muses that "it's not like they chose their hunger". Indeed, a flashback in Galaxies #2 showed that the Insecticons emerged from the Forge Pyramid with the ability to process and metabolize any kind of raw material. This would, presumably, put them in the same category as other unusual Transformers like Mindwipe, Skywarp, and Jumpstream; as per a conversation in issue #20, they appear to be called "prodigies".
• Megatron and his retinue are on their way back from the events of the War's End miniseries, in which Megatron, Shockwave, and the three Rainmakers came into conflict with Exarchon. As seen in the final issue of the miniseries—which, unfortunately, was delayed in release and came out a week after this issue—Skywarp's stolen the imploder Exarchon had stored in his bunker, although artist Juan Samu draws it as a cartoonish bomb rather than the rectangular weapon seen in both War's End and the 2021 annual.

Transformers references

• Termagax's creation story ties together both the original Thirteen Transformers and their immediate descendants, the Firstforged, by explaining that the Thirteen created the Firstforged, who in turn laid the foundations of Cybertronian civilization. As in The Covenant of Primus, it ties Solus Prime to the creation of Cybertronian life; while that version of the story ended with Solus Prime dying at the hands of Megatronus and subsequently becoming the Well of All Sparks, this version of the story—which already showed both her and Alchemist surviving all the way to the end of the Age of Primes in issue #40—has her using the "Ur-Forge" to create the second generation of Transformer life.
• The second part of Termagax's story shows Halonix Maximus battling Gaidora, a character who debuted in the Go! cartoon. It's likely not a coincidence that both Gaidora and Preditron fought Halonix Maximus: they appeared together in the Beast Wars: Uprising story "Safe Spaces", as depicted in this illustration.
• Fighting alongside Halonix is Big Bang, a Japanese-original also-ran who would've originally headlined the story that eventually evolved into 1991's Return of Convoy franchise, but later saw use in Fun Publications' Wings Universe stories. As the character never received an official color scheme, Fun Publications gave him a made-up red, white, and blue color scheme, but this incarnation of the character uses the orange, black, and red livery that originated with his Animated incarnation.

Errors

• A bit of artistic inconsistency means that Springer is drawn in this issue to resemble his Thrilling 30 toy, instead of the Siege body he's used up until this point. Similarly, Obsidian's alternate mode on the last page resembles his Beast Machines body, rather than the BotCon toy he's used up until this point. Meanwhile, instead of the original Anna Malkova design Pipes has sported since he first appeared in this series, Blacky Shepherd draws him as the Kingdom toy design... but with his cab configured like Huffer's Kingdom design!
• Throughout the comic, Bumper is drawn with two symmetrical arms, and lacks the asymmetrical replacement arm he kept as a badge of honor back in issue #31.
• As per the narration, the second flashback is set 496 kilocycles before the present day. Going by the dialogue, it's clear that it's meant to take place after the events of issue #6, which was set a mere three hundred kilocycles in the past, just after the construction of the Winged Moon and the Tether. Given that Optimus notes that he spent four kilocycles away from Cybertron, a likely guess is that it's meant to be set 296 kilocycles ago, and that someone made a mistake somewhere along the line.
• As the Insecticlones begin to consume the rust worms, Stakeout is mistakenly colored as Bumblebee in a single panel.
• The issue's title was accidentally left out of the finished product.^[1]

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Optimus and Bumblebee fight rust worms, by Stefano Simeone
• Cover B: The Insecticons bear down on Darkmount, by Thomas Deer
• Retailer incentive cover: Optimus, Prowl, and Bumblebee fight rust worms and Decepticons, by Geoff Senior and Nahuel Ruiz

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Reprints

• Transformers Volume 6: War's End (November 16, 2022) ISBN 1684059410 / ISBN 978-1684059416
  • Collects Transformers (2019) issues #37–43, War's End issues #1–4, and Fate of Cybertron.
  • Bonus material currently unknown, most likely alternate covers.
  • Hardcover format.

• 

  Volume 6: War's End – cover art by Cryssy Cheung

References

External links

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