Swarm (issue)
From Transformers Wiki
| The name or term "Swarm" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Swarm (disambiguation). |
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 "Excuse me, will you please stop watching our horrible deaths, you sick freak?" | |||||||||||||
| "Swarm" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||||||||||||
| First published | May 1994 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | July 1994 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | Simon Furman | ||||||||||||
| Penciler | Manny Galan | ||||||||||||
| Inker | Jim Amash | ||||||||||||
| Colorist | Sarra Mossoff | ||||||||||||
| Letterers | Richard Starkings with Comicraft | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Rob Tokar | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Marvel Comics continuity | ||||||||||||
The Autobot-Decepticon Alliance discovers the secret of the Swarm... just in time to be attacked by the Cybertronians.
Contents |
Synopsis
"Swarm"
On J'asik, fourth moon of Kol, the Autobot-Decepticon alliance finds nothing but corpses and a world sucked dry. Optimus Prime's visions are now reality. Something is consuming worlds, and Prime fears it's related somehow to the Transformers. He orders a complete science sweep. Megatron thinks this is a waste of time, but is content simply to complain while he finishes healing.
Elsewhere, on the planet Karn, the furry purple locals are dealing with a threat no less lethal: the Cybertronians. The troops, under the command of Mindset, go about exterminating the humanoids with emotionless efficiency. When they lose contact with their northwest perimeter watch, they investigate, and discover the consuming menace of the Swarm. They fight back, briefly. As the Swarm consumes them, however, it recognizes something familiar in them. When Mindset transforms in front of it, the Swarm becomes certain that it has found what it is looking for.
Then it eats him. As Mindset dies, "billions" of light years away, the Decepticon Onslaught doubles over with pain. His fellow Combaticon, Blast Off, asks him what's wrong, but he just shrugs it off. Over the millennia, he has forgotten about budding, and even if he remembered, he would be unaware that he can feel it when a descendant of his is killed. Optimus Prime also feels it, and can somehow identify the cause.
On Ethos, where the alliance recently defeated the Imperials, Jhiaxus surveys the results. A stranger approaches. It's Starscream, and he wants to make a deal...
"Tales of Earth Part Six"
At Autobase on Earth, Optimus Prime, Megatron, and their science team examine the data regarding the destruction on J'asik. Perceptor reports that they found traces of matter that is unmistakably genetically related to the Transformers. Megatron accuses Prime of having known this was coming. Prime explains the visions he's been having, and tells Megatron about budding. Just as they resolve to confront this offshoot of Transformer reproduction, however, the base shakes. Time's up: The Cybertronians are attacking in force.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Cybertronians | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Ah! We will need all our energies, all our resources for the coming battle...a battle for our very existence!"
- —Megatron gets dramatic.
"Now, then. Are we finished making noises and waving sticks?"
- —A Cybertronian soldier is less than impressed by the aliens of Karn.
"Oh. Great Xal protect me!"
- —Mindset as the Swarm bears down on him.
"For a suitably eminent position in this new Decepticon hierarchy of yours, I'll hand you Optimus Prime and Megatron - on a plate!"
- —Starscream doing what he does best.
"I was a fool. I thought it was the very distillation of our race that was the threat, the subtraction from our descendants of any trace of morality. But no! There was something else...an offshoot, a by-product, call it what you will. Earlier, I felt it...it's out there, and it's coming for us!"
- —Optimus Prime
Notes
Artwork and technical errors
- Page 20: Prime's line "It's coming for us" is missing its punctuation.
Continuity errors
- Given what is understood about budding and the history of the Cybertronians, in order for Onslaught to be Mindset's ancestor, Onslaught would have to be millions of years old, and be from Cybertron. The origin of Onslaught and the Combaticons is not explicit in U.S. continuity, but it's strongly implied they were created on Earth in the mid-80s, in much the same manner as the Stunticons. (In the UK continuity, this is more explicitly the case.) This discrepancy is not explained.
- In addition to the Mindset-Onslaught matter, the whole "feeling one's descendants' deaths" part of budding is not written into the story all that well. Besides Onslaught and the Liege Maximo, no other Decepticon or Cybertronian ever shows pain at the gradual annihilation of the entire Cybertronian faction.
- Billions of light years? The Cybertronians must have seriously advanced space travel technology, when one considers that Cybertron was originally orbiting Alpha Centauri in the Marvel Comics continuity.
- The Decepticons and Autobots are hanging out on Earth, so soon after the Decepticons killed tens of thousands in a global terror campaign?!
Continuity notes
- A caption refers to the Combaticons as "fusilateral-quintrocombiners", one of the more complicated canonical terms for "combiner".
- Transformers have genes, apparently. Don't ask how.
Real-life references
- Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are among the wrecked robotic beings on page 3.
Other trivia
Furminated
- The inhabitants of J'asik are already dead as the issue opens, sucked dry of life by the Swarm.
- Several of the man-apes of Karn are incinerated on-panel by Jhiaxus's troops.
- Mindset and his Cybertronian troopers are consumed by the Swarm.
Cover
The Swarm attacks Jhiaxus' troops, by Derek Yaniger.
Advertisements
- None yet identified.
Reprints
- Transformers: Rage in Heaven TPB: Optimus Prime, Skydive, Starscream and half of the Liege Maximo, by Andy Wildman.
- Transformers: Rage in Heaven HC: Blast Off, Onslaught and Ramjet, by Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, and Chris Blythe.
- Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 91: Generation 2 Part 2: Silverbolt, by Dreamwave Productions and Jhiaxus smashing Optimus Prime, by Geoff Senior.
Rage in Heaven TPB
(Titan Books, 2002)
Rage in Heaven HC
(Titan Books, 2003)
The Definitive G1 Collection Vol. 91: Generation 2 Part 2
(Hachette Partworks, 2020)
