Destiny, Part Four

« The Transformers: Regeneration One #94 »
"Destiny" Part Four
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 28, 2013
Cover date	August 2013
Writer	Simon Furman
Penciler	Guido Guidi
Inker	Stephen Baskerville
Colorist	John-Paul Bove
Letterer	Shawn Lee
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

It's a knock-down, drag-out slugfest for the ages as Ultra Magnus and Galvatron square off in the midst of Bludgeon's attack on Cybertron!

Synopsis

Galvatron descends through the skies over Cybertron like a comet, streaking straight toward Ultra Magnus. A momentary sense of déjà vu causes Magnus to hesitate, and Galvatron rockets into him, toppling both of them off a bridge, through a building and into the traffic below. Galvatron boasts of having slain Magnus before, causing Magnus to suspect he is insane—but regardless of his foe's mental stability, his strength is self-evident, and Magnus's reputation as "Cybertron's greatest warrior" is set to take a beating at the time-displaced Decepticon's hands!

Deep beneath Cybertron's surface, in Primus's chamber, the Transformers' creator-god communicates with Hot Rod through Grimlock's body, explaining that he exists across all space and time, and thus did not perish during the battle with Unicron as his children believed. Primus informs Hot Rod that he is "Prime", and that in order to fulfil that destiny, he must come to understand a "disease" eating away at reality. Primus casts Hot Rod through a portal to the mysterious realm of Zero Space, before departing Grimlock's body, leaving the onlooking Dinobots with no memory of what has happened.

As Ultra Magnus and Galvatron grapple, the Autobot commander hurls his foe off him by firing one of his shoulder-rockets into him at point-blank range, hurling him off the overpass they are fighting on. Blades then appears, having been sent to find Magnus when he failed to respond to the call to arms against the Decepticons' Warworld, which floats overhead. The Warworld disgorges a swarm of Blitz Engines, which begin tearing through the Autobots that attempt to stop them, but when Magnus transforms to roll out so that he can join the fight, Galvatron bursts from the rubble and lands atop the vehicle mode Autobot.

At the Autobots' command center in the Presidium, Prowl, Kup and Perceptor try to co-ordinate a counterattack against the Blitz Engines. Kup insists that he and the Wreckers be allowed to take the field, but Prowl refuses, insisting that the commando squad needs to be applied strategically, only he does not yet know where. Perceptor, at least, has an idea: his scans have revealed that the Blitz Engines are not self-sustaining, and are, in fact, being powered by Matrix energy from a remote source. This source has to be aboard the Warworld, and that is where the Wreckers will strike.

Ultra Magnus barrels down the highway with Galvatron atop him, angrily declaring that he has no time for the Decepticon with the greater threat of the Warworld and its forces hanging over them. Galvatron insists that he will destroy the other Decepticons once he is done with Magnus, but Magnus is above caring—he blasts the road bridge ahead, and slams on his brakes, screeching to a halt at the bridge's broken edge, momentum hurling Galvatron's forward. But as he falls, Galvatron manages to grab Magnus's bumper, and drags him over the edge with him.

Up above, aboard the Warworld, Krok advocates the use of the vessel's own weapons, and although Bludgeon is opposed to devastating the world he wishes to rule, he agrees that a single, symbolic strike is a good idea, selecting the fallen Magnus and Galvatron as his target. The resultant blast is miles in diameter, wiping out whole city blocks... but the Autobots have some "big guns" of their own to roll out in retaliation, as Prowl activates Omega Supreme to take on the Blitz Engines! However, Bludgeon has anticipated Omega's involvement, and Soundwave is on hand to order Monstructor into the fray to take on the giant Autobot. Soundwave is about to withdraw before the titanic conflict kicks off, but finds his way barred by Blaster!

Fire sweeps the Cybertronian landscape, the Warworld's blast having set it ablaze. For long moments, the inferno rages unabated... until at last, a victor emerges from the conflagration...

...and it is Ultra Magnus, who has decided it's time to start living up to his own hype!

Featured characters

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

Quotes

"Blades! About time! Did nobody notice me fighting for my life here?"
"Uh....no."

—Ultra Magnus and Blades

"Just like Bludgeon said..."
"Indeed, Wingthing. Every move the Autobots have made, he has anticipated...and countered. Monstructor, terminate Omega Supreme- with extreme prejudice!"
"Hold up, Soundwave- this is one party you ain't leavin'..least not 'til the fat lady sings!"

— Wingthing and Soundwave, the latter of whom is caught monologuing by Blaster.

Notes

Continuity errors

• Despite being shown making it to safety under Primus's visage in the last issue, along with the other Dinobots and Hot Rod, Snarl is nowhere to be seen in this issue. (Another TFTM homage, maybe?)

Continuity notes

• Ultra Magnus remarks that it was possibly Emirate Xaaron that coined the term 'Cybertron's greatest warrior'. That term (and a relationship between Magnus and Xaaron) originates from the Marvel UK comics also written by Furman. Although the UK comics as a whole are not in-continuity with Regeneration One, this line suggests a similar relationship may have nevertheless existed between the two Autobots in this timeline.
• In Simon Furman's original Marvel UK stories, Galvatron and Ultra Magnus had a running rivalry that never got the chance to be fully resolved. In a spiritual sense, this story serves as that resolution, even though a) the Marvel UK stories aren't part of Regeneration One continuity (as made clear by Magnus's comments in this issue that he's never met Galvatron), and b) even if they were, this is a different Galvatron from another timeline and not the one who fought Magnus (however, it seems that this Galvatron has previously defeated Magnus in his own timeline).
• This issue is full of subverted homages to Galvatron and Magnus's classic blow-out brawl from the eighth chapter of "Target: 2006". As in the original story, Galvatron clings to the roof of Magnus's vehicle mode, and Magnus screeches to a halt to throw him off a broken overpass... except where Galvatron was sent flying in the original story, here, he seizes Magnus's bumper on the way down and drags him with him. Then, at the issue's climax, both combatants are consumed in a fireball, but where "Target: 2006" saw Galvatron emerge triumphant, here, Magnus is the victor, appearing through the flames in a direct full-page, three-panel homage.
• Zero Space has been lurking on the fringes of the Regeneration One storyline since the very beginning, with issue #80.5.
• Little-seen Action Master character Krok puts in another brief appearance serving as confidant and adviser to Bludgeon, as he did in the last few issues of the original Marvel series.
• Prowl swears by Straxus and his smelting pools, artifacts of Marvel continuity from back in issues #17 and #18.
• Omega Supreme's got his reputation back as a world-shakingly powerful tool of destruction, as he was back in his debut in issue #19; this rep took a bit of a beating as the original series rolled on.
• Wingthing not only gets another appearance in this issue but even gets to talk, something Soundwave's other beast-form minions were rarely shown to do in the US series after the first few issues.
• The idea that Primus exists simultaneously across all of time and space has been knocking around for a while, and is here used as an explanation for his continued existence after his apparent death in issue #75—which was something most fans had taken as read for a while, too.

Real-life references

• When Windbreaker is killed by a Blitz Engine, his death is accompanied by the sound effect "PARP". That's... a-heh... that's a bit of British onomatopoeia for farting. 'cause, well... y'know. Windbreaker. (giggle) Simon Furman noted on his blog that it was an homage to long-running character Johnny Fartpants from the "adult" comic Viz and that he had considered "HONK", "CHUFF" and "QWOFF" as alternatives.^[1]

Transformers references

Next: Megatron in safety colors.

• The missiles the Warworld fires on page 9 are drawn to resemble the safety "bopper" missiles used by Italian toy company GiG for their Pre-Transformers Trasformer [sic] line, down to the coloring. Italian artist Guido Guidi, who drew this issue, grew up with the GiG toys.
• Galvatron threatens to "crush the life from [Magnus] with [his] cold bare hands!", an extended paraphrasing of Megatron/Galvatron's famous line from The Transformers: The Movie: "I will crush you with my bare hands!"
• Ultra Magnus swears by the "Great God Ginrai", the story repurposing the Super-God Masterforce character's name as that of some kind of deity (since we assume he's not swearing by a teenage human truck driver).
• Omega Supreme going up against Monstructor seems to be a reference to the characters' history together over the in the mainstream IDW continuity, as established in Furman's own Spotlight: Optimus Prime (and later in more detail in the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual).

Furminated

• A couple of generics are killed in the Blitz Engines' initial volley.
• Catilla gets fried by a Blitz Engine; maybe Chainclaw too.
• Windbreaker gets a huge spike shot through him by a Blitz Engine.

Covers (3)

• 

  Cover A

• 

  Cover B

• 

  Cover RI

• Cover A: The Aerialbots attack the Warworld, by Andrew Wildman and Jason Cardy.
• Cover B: Omega Supreme versus the Blitz Engines, by Guido Guidi.
• Cover RI: Galvatron atop a vehicle mode Ultra Magnus, by Geoff Senior and Josh Burcham.

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External links

• Simon Furman's Script (W)rap

References