Lord of Misrule: Sea of Rust I

« Transformers #34 »
"Lord of Misrule: Sea of Rust I"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	September 1, 2021
Cover date	August 2021
Written by	Brian Ruckley
Art by	Anna Malkova
Colors	David García Cruz and Evan Gauntt
Letters by	Jake M. Wood
Editor	David Mariotte, Tom Waltz and Riley Farmer
Continuity	2019 IDW continuity

Termagax has a secret—and when the Decepticons go after Megatron's old mentor, Landmine and Geomotus are caught in the middle.

Synopsis

While conducting a geological survey near the Sea of Rust, Geomotus and his best friend Landmine observe that the frenzied rust worms have disrupted the usually placid sea, putting it in a state of upheaveal. Termagax cuts in to explain that the creatures have been in a frenzy ever since the Titan Citadel splashed down in their feeding grounds and provided them with a feast, the likes of which they haven't seen in eons. Since her last confrontation with Megatron, the reclusive engineer has retreated into the deep wilderness to evade the Decepticons who've been searching for her; with the latest such patrol inbound, Termagax warns the pair that they should take shelter inside her mobile House. Indeed, when the Decepticon flier Red Wing and his Seekers spy Termagax's tower, the trio immediately recognize the building for what it is—when Red Wing suggests they fall back and inform their superiors, the reckless Space Case and Wingstun ignore Termagax's warnings, attempt a landing, and are promptly repelled by an electrical field. The pair don't take the hint and try a second pass... at which point House launches a barrage of surface-to-air projectiles that transform into energy-draining clamps. As Wingstun retreats, Space Case loses power and crashes into the sea, where the rust worms promptly devour him alive.

In Crystal City, the remnants of Cybertron's Security Operations division have come together with the specialists, scientists, and engineers displaced by Megatron's coup to form a new Autobot faction. As Optimus Prime wraps up his speech congratulating the new recruits, he informs Pyra Magna that he's got news: thanks to a tip-off from his former spy Bumblebee, he's learned that Termagax may possess the most powerful weapon on Cybertron—something that could change the course of the war. Although finding the notoriously reclusive philosopher will pose a challenge, Highbrow points out that tracking her down might not be an issue—he's just received an interesting transmission from Geomotus, out near the Sea of Rust...

Elsewhere, Megatron has arranged an audience with notorious war criminal Skywarp. Although most Cybertronians thought him dead after the end of the War of the Threefold Spark, the mercurial Seeker explains that after he abandoned Exarchon, he was banished from the planet... but when he grew bored and attempted to return home, he wound up stranded in unspace for kilocycles. Megatron has no patience for his antics, and when Soundwave informs Megatron that Red Wing has located Termagax out in the Rust Sea, the Decepticon leader tells Soundwave to get Shockwave on the job. Skywarp, eager to spread his unique brand of mayhem once more, asks if he can come along too, but when Soundwave refuses to tell him where he can find Shockwave, Skywarp just teleports away.

While Termagax catches up with Landmine and Geomotus, Insecticon leader Bombshell receives a transmission from Shockwave: although Bombshell and Shockwave have agreed on a ceasefire, that agreement came with the stipulation that Bombshell and his clone-drones must support the Decepticons when asked—and right now, he's delegating the task of capturing Termagax to the Insecticons. When his minion Soundblaster wonders why Shockwave's not using his own army of superior Insecticon clones, Shockwave explains that forcing his rival's hand will give Shockwave an edge—forcing Bombshell to throw his army of cheap, shoddy clones into combat will weaken him in the long run. If Bombshell succeeds, then Shockwave will have the Enigma of Combination... and if Bombshell fails, then Shockwave will still have undermined a potential competitor while still having Devastator to fall back upon.

Landmine warns Geomotus that they really should leave before the Decepticons show up in force—but Geomotus, taken by Termagax's collection of rare Cybertronian strata, wants to dawdle and enjoy himself. Termagax reminds Landmine that it will take time for the Decepticons to muster a coordinated response... but when the House AI detects something on the horizon, Termagax sees what the Decepticons have sent after her: a gigantic swarm of Insecticon clones!

Meanwhile, in Praxus, Ratchet and Perceptor have finally awoken Jumpstream from her slumber. Jumpstream groans that she saw another world... but Perceptor reveals to her that his teleport harness took her across time, not space. This revelation shakes Jumpstream to her core: if she saw the future, then that means the darkness she saw is still coming. Exarchon never died, Jumpstream tells them; Exarchon will return... and when Exarchon comes back, he wins.

At first, House tries to outrun the swarm; as a panicked Landmine and Termagax snipe back and forth, Termagax finally decides to take charge and fight back. With a few verbal commands, House brings every weapon to bear—concealed missile launchers and antipersonnel weapons emerge from recessed compartments and begin chewing through the swarm. With their safety temporarily assured, Termagax takes a moment to explain why the Decepticons are after her: she holds the Enigma of Combination, and although she might doubt the veracity of the Thirteen, there's no denying the power of their incredible artifacts. Megatron will do anything to get that power in his hands... but before she can finish that thought, the House AI cuts in to alert the three that its systems are about to run out of ammunition. The surviving Insecticons promptly swarm over Termagax's fortress, and Termagax apologizes to the pair for getting them involved... until House picks up more contacts, coming in hot. A gout of flame incinerates multiple Insecticons and heralds some Autobot reinforcements: Sky Lynx, Blades, Windblade, and Springer!

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"You waited until Exarchon was losing, then changed sides to save your own life."
"I survived, you won. Good result all around. And now we get to dance again, Sixshot."

—Sixshot and Skywarp

"Of the fourteen artifacts, only it and the Matrix have been seen since the Primes fell. And it has only resurfaced twice in all those ages, each time creating terror... and wonder. And only I know where the second of those wonders is, and how to direct it. If the Insecticons succeed, I gain the Enigma. If they fail, we lose nothing. I already have what the Enigma offers. I have Devastator. A monopoly on wonder and terror is a good thing to hold."

—Shockwave

"I don't understand. How can you not have heard that there's an Insecticon swarm on the loose?! They attacked Darkmount! They've been roaming the mountains for cycles! Everyone knows!"
"The best way of avoiding attention is paying no attention. I am hiding, you idiot!"

—Landmine and Termagax

"I never really believed in the existence of the Thirteen—the Primes—as actual beings. Solus, Quintus, Nexus, Alchemist, and the rest. Metaphors. The embodiments of all the mysteries and abilities that make us. Everything that makes us unique, given a name and a face. And what else does a species do with its mysteries? But then there are the artifacts. I have seen the Matrix. Held the Enigma. And if they exist, perhaps the others do. The Mask and the Cog and the Stone. All the others. Perhaps the Primes were invented to explain them."

—Termagax

"Never fear, lesser beings! SKY LYNX is here!"

—Sky Lynx brings the cavalry

Notes

Continuity notes

• Termagax went on the lam in issue #26 and took House with her after a final attempt to make Megatron see sense. She's still in possession of the Enigma of Combination, which she'd previously used to create Devastator in Galaxies #1. Her central workshop still includes both a dead Voin in a tank and what appears to be Gridlock's severed head, furnishings that'd previously appeared in #8.
• Geomotus's best friend Landmine last appeared in issue #21. Termagax commends his traumatic descent into Cybertron's Sonic Canyons, an ill-fated expedition that Geomotus had previously mentioned in #14.
• The mysterious rust worms first appeared in issue #26, but weren't specifically named until Escape #2. During an exchange with Highbrow, Geomotus identified them as a serious threat to the planet's integrity, and they later appeared in again in #29 after the Titan Citadel crashed in the Sea of Rust. This issue finally clarifies the relationship between the worms, the sea, and the rest of Cybertron: the rust worms were originally a hostile, possibly invasive species who threatened the planet at some point during the Age of Expansion. They ate their way through the planetary strata, defying all attempts to contain them, until finally the living planet did what Cybertronian could not by forming an impermeable basin to contain both the worms and the liquid rust particulates they excreted, and creating the Sea of Rust in the process.
• Red Wing's compatriots give him a hard time about his recent encounter with Pyra Magna's Companions in #30. According to Nacelle, Red Wing turned tail in the middle of the fight and left him—to be more precise, Red Wing told Nacelle to fall back when he saw who they were up against, but Nacelle didn't understand why Red Wing was retreating and got wailed on by a pissed-off Windcharger as a result.
• Although Pyra Magna claims that she barely knew Termagax, Optimus tells her that she became "something of a cause" for the ambitious Ascenticon leader. As discussed in issue #8, Termagax viewed Pyra's punishment as unjust; she told Megatron that she'd only return to society if Sentinel Prime pardoned the former Great General.
• The last few issues have been a bit vague about Skywarp's situation, but his exchange with Megatron clarifies some details—most prominently, Skywarp changed sides at some point before the end of the war, and was later banished from the planet by Nominus Prime like Shockwave and the Insecticons. At some point afterwards, he attempted to jump back home using his teleportation powers, but wound up stranded in unspace instead, or so he claims, anyways...
• Bombshell and the other Insecticons deserted Shockwave and went rogue in the pages of Transformers: Escape to raise a clone army of their own—Landmine even recalls their attack on Darkmount in the final issue. At some point over the forty-cycle timeskip between then and Transformers #31, it seems as though Bombshell and Shockwave have reached some kind of truce, although Bombshell points out that he only suggested a ceasefire after realizing he couldn't root them out—he sent Hydradread and Rage to assassinate the main trio in Escape #4 but things quickly went Aliens for them and they barely got out alive.
• Galaxies #10 ended with the reveal that Shockwave had been using the raw materials sourced from Soundblaster's splice-thieving operation to construct an army of Insecticon clones of his own, with the implication that these clones would play a role in the then-upcoming Escape miniseries. In the actual Escape story, however, the clones were instead created by Bombshell and the gang after they stole one of Shockwave's cloning machines. This issue addresses the apparent discrepancy by revealing that Shockwave did create clones of his own, and they are noted to be of higher quality than the mindless monsters the Insecticons have created. Perhaps this sophistication has something to do with the Insecticons we saw in #32's bad future, which possessed the power to transform?
• In the same conversation, Shockwave finally confirms that Soundblaster is indeed a clone, presumably of the original Soundwave. Shockwave speaks of a "we" when discussing Soundblaster's creation, which suggests that he might have been a collaborative effort between Shockwave and Exarchon.
• As he contemplates the Enigma of Combination and the other lost artifacts of the Primes, Shockwave notes that the Enigma has only been used twice in recent history: it created Abominus at some point before the War of the Threefold Spark, and Devastator immediately afterwards, who's shown to be sulking on an asteroid somewhere in deep space. Although Shockwave gloats that his command over Devastator gives him a monopoly on combiner power, he doesn't know that another combiner's recently come into play—Scattershot and his team absorbed Airachnid's artificial Enigma of Combination and became Computron in the 2021 annual.
• As the Insecticons overwhelm House, Termagax attempts to power up a spectrosynth drone, the same kind of life-model-decoy tech she used in issue #26 to confront Megatron.
• The final panel shows that Blades has returned to duty—he was sidelined for a while after Sixshot mauled him in #23, but evidently recovered over the course of the timeskip.

Transformers references

• The rust worms that plague the region resemble the Drillers from the Dark of the Moon film. Their wormlike shape, serrated fangs, description as "machine-animals", and their mysterious appearance at some point in Cybertron's deep past also recall the Dweller from the Generation 1 cartoon episode "The Dweller in the Depths".
• Space Case and Wingstun originated in the Generation 2 and Robotmasters franchises respectively. Much like Hooligan in #30, the pair use the generic Siege Seeker body-type, even though they weren't Seekers in their original franchises.
• Since returning to Cybertron in issue #28, it seems as though Huffer has upgraded to a new body off-screen based on his recent War for Cybertron toy.
• Termagax's brief flashback features a look at seven members of the original Thirteen Transformers and some of the artifacts they carried. Many of them—Solus, Nexus, Quintus, and Micronus—are immediately recognizable, but a few have been reinterpreted to varying degrees.
  • If we assume that the sword on the top right is Prima's Star Saber, then that would probably make the beardy, blade-wielding 'bot in the top left corner Vector Prime, who's wielded a different sword in various Transformers stories.
  • Although basically all of the Liege Maximo's contemporary fictional appearances have based the character on his Loki-esque depiction in The Covenant of Primus, this continuity returns Liege to his roots by giving him fangs, claws, a shrouded face, and a tentacle loincloth, all traits lifted from his monstrous Generation 2 look.
  • Alchemist Prime, sporting a windscreen chest, round shoulders, and smokestacks, is physically based on Maccadam as he appeared in the Cyberverse cartoon, who was revealed to be Alchemist Prime in the cartoon's final season.
• The other side of the spread features several Artifacts of the Primes: in addition to the well-known Matrix of Leadership, Star Saber, and the Enigma of Combination, other artifacts include Onyx Prime's Triptych Mask, an hourglass trinket that's probably the Blades of Time, and two artifacts that hadn't shown up in visual media before this: an atom-themed sphere that represents the Chimera Stone of Micronus Prime, ^[1] and a crystalline Transformation Cog of Amalgamous Prime. ^[2]

Errors

• Throughout the comic, Landmine's chest is colored solid grey instead of orange.
• On page 4, the Seekers' underslung cannons disappear in panel 2.
• On page 7, Huffer's chest is orange instead of blue.
• When they first appear, Geomotus's comfort shapes are colored bronze. When the Insecticons attack, the shapes are colored blue, red, and green, and stay that way for the rest of the comic.

Other trivia

• Originally solicited for August 18th, this issue arrives two weeks late, on September 1st.

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Termagax, Novastar, and Red Wing, with the Enigma of Combination, by Winston Chan
• Cover B: Termagax grabs the flyswatter, by Susan Margevich
• Retailer incentive cover: Shockwave and the Insecticons, by Andrew Griffith and Priscilla Tramontano

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Reprints

• Transformers Volume 5: Horrors Near and Far (June 8, 2022) ISBN 168405883X / ISBN 978-1684058839
  • Collects Transformers (2019) issues #31–36 & Annual 2021, Transformers Halloween Special, and Wreckers—Tread & Circuits issues #1–4.
  • Bonus material includes alternate covers.
  • Hardcover format.

• 

  Volume 5: Horrors Near and Far – cover art by Cryssy Cheung

References

External links

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