Night of the Combaticons

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"Well, I'm just Prime."
"Night of the Combaticons"
Publisher	Dreamwave Productions
First published	February 4, 2004
Cover date	January, 2004
Story	Brad Mick
Pencils	Don Figueroa
Inks	Elaine To
Colors	Espen Grundetjern, Rob Ruffolo
Letters	Ben Lee
Continuity	Dreamwave continuity
Chronology	Modern era

Bruticus is unleashed on Earth by Starscream, while on Cybertron, something far deadlier awakens.

Synopsis

In Oregon, Starscream basks in victory, lamenting how Megatron is unavailable to witness Starscream's defeat of the Autobots. Jazz interrupts Starscream's celebration, but Bruticus squeezes Jazz into silence. Counting the bodies of his defeated foes, Starscream notices the absence of Ratchet and Brawn.

The two remaining Autobots, damaged after the fight, race back to the Ark. But due to a malfunction, the two have to dance around shots fired from the Ark's haywire defense systems. A quick drive-by from Brawn allows Ratchet to stumble inside, but leaves Brawn staring directly into one of the cannons.

On Cybertron, Runabout and Runamuck have fun burning Mini-spies as they raid one of Shockwave's laboratories. Stumbling into a room full of containers full of inactive Transformer bodies, Runamuck's interest is drawn to one chamber glowing very brightly. While Runamuck peers inside the chamber, a hand suddenly reaches out and grabs his neck. Outside, Runabout suddenly feels fatigued and falls in the presence of the same glowing hand. Praying to the Oracle for inspiration, the unleashed, radiant figure congeals a large orb of energy around himself and bursts out of the lab into space.

Inside the Ark, Brawn wipes off the frothy, white coolant that Ratchet sprayed in his face to mask Brawn from the malfunctioning auto-guns. Joking with Ratchet about the close call, the two notice the defeated Decepticons who were earlier stashed in one of the Ark's prisons. Passing the captives, the two radio for assistance as Bruticus proceeds to tear into the Ark's defenses, ripping right into the cells where the Decepticons were being held.

Bumblebee receives Brawn's distress call while en route to Earth with a small crew in the Autobot ship Orion. Brawn recaps how each faction on Earth had captured most of the other faction. When the signal is cut, Bumblebee orders hyperthrusters engaged.

The transmission was halted by a large piece of metal paneling wedged into the computer by Bruticus. Brawn throws the panel back into Bruticus' face as Ratchet activates the Ark's self-destruct sequence. The two are blown out of the Ark, astonished that Bruticus survived the destruction. Starscream blasts the two Autobots out of commission and berates the Combaticons for the destruction of the Ark.

Just outside of Earth, the Orion pulls itself out of orbit, only to find almost colliding with the radiant figure who escaped Shockwave's lab: the glorious Sunstorm.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

!MOOHT

• As Starscream gloats to himself, the water is so reflective that even the onomatopoeia is reflected! This only happens in one panel.

Continuity notes

• Much happened between this issue and the previous series. Portions of the gap are described eventually—most of the attack on the Autobots is recapped by Brawn, and the return of the Decepticons to Earth is expanded on in the next issue.

Transformers references

• Starscream's imagined attire which he sees in his reflection and portions of his dialog are lifted from The Transformers: The Movie.
• Language on Starscream's HUD reads sideways (and mirrored), "more", "the eye", (possibly "More than meets the eye" with some text obscured by the speech balloon) "Cliffjumper", and "Red Alert". Shockwave, Red Alert, and Cliffjumper are not on the same planet as Starscream at the time, so it may be an error, or possibly just an Easter egg.
• The back door that Brawn and Ratchet run out of after activating the Ark's self-destruct sequence is reminiscent of the doors installed by the Maximals when they took up residence in the Ark during third season of the Beast Wars cartoon. It even has half of a Maximal symbol on it.
• The Autobot Supply Vessel Orion is identical to Galaxy Shuttle.
• Brawn attaches a protective faceplate, which makes him more closely resemble his original toy.

Trivia

MISB

• Brawn has fuzzy dice in his cabin.
• After spending twenty years as an obscure trivia note from the original The Transformers toy line's early days, this issue finally establishes the yellow robot who transforms into a Mazda Familia 1500XG and shares the same basic robot mode design and transformation as Bumblebee and Cliffjumper as an actual Autobot character. What's more, it takes a long-running fandom nickname for this figure, "Bumper" (a shortened form of the earlier version "Bumblejumper", a portmanteau of "Bumblebee" and "Cliffjumper", thus making it sound more like an actual character's name), and makes it official.
• Shockwave's laboratory contains a clone of Ultra Magnus's body—but in the colors of Diaclone Powered Convoy, which had been recently re-released as "Movie Preview Magnus". The other tanks contain clones of Blaster (Twincast), Soundwave (Soundblaster), Perceptor (in Microman colors, which would later be labeled Magnificus) and Jazz (the recently reissued Ricochet).
• Bruticus' HUD reads "Megatron, I reserv (?) Vector Sigma."

Production notes

• The "Wavelengths" page has an article from the desk of Rob Ruffolo.
• Instead of reader mail, the "Prime Transmissions" section contained the results of the Dreamwave Student Artist Search contest, won by Apollo Okamura.

Covers (6)

• "Heavy Metal War" double-page cover
• Regular cover with Bruticus grabbing Jazz, art by Don Figueroa
• Dealer incentive variant featuring Sunstorm; Retailers could purchase one version of this cover for every 25 regular covers ordered
• Transformerscon exclusive cover, featuring the Dinobots raining from the sky
• Dynamic Forces exclusive cover, limited to 2500 copies. Also a gold foil cover (title and laser blasts in foil), limited to 1000 copies.
• Silver Snail exclusive with art by Rob Ruffolo (credited to Pat Lee), limited to 1000 copies

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