The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage

	; "REAR RANK, FIRE!"; "Reload!"; "REAR RANK, FIRE!"; "Reload!"
	"The Dying of the Light; Part 5: Rage, Rage"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	June 22, 2016
Cover date	June 2016
Written by	James Roberts
Pencils by	Alex Milne
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long and Christa Miesner
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2016)

Through the sacrifice of one of their comrades, the Autobots are given the means to fight back... and Megatron takes up arms once more.

Synopsis

On the blasted ground outside the Necrobot's fortress, the Autobots tear into the Decepticon Justice Division and their allies with fire and fervor. As Swerve and Rewind man laser turrets built into the shoulders of Ultra Magnus's new "Maximus Ambus" armor, Rewind tries to tell Magnus of the recent discovery he made about his brother, but the battle has all of Magnus's attention. Cyclonus swoops in low to bear down on Overlord, but the Decepticon sadist punches him into the ground. Chromedome blasts Overlord in the face to draw his attention away, and the grinning monster proceeds to describe in grisly detail how he dismembered the original Rewind before Chromedome blew up the cell containing them both. Chromedome screams a scream of passion and rage, and hurls a punch at Overlord... a punch of such freakish strength that it lifts Overlord off the ground and sends him flying backward! As Nickel proceeds to shoot Chromedome in the arm with Vos's rifle mode, Deathsaurus observes that the Autobots are fighting with unprecedented strength. Tarn assures him it is merely a last-gasp effort, and is more interested in the absence of Megatron, but Deathsaurus is certain that something has happened to the Autobots to give them this boost...

Minutes earlier, as the Autobots engage in their group hug inside the fortress, an off-hand remark by Ratchet about the tightness of Tailgate's super-strength hug causes Velocity to have a brainwave. Reasoning that Tailgate's recent spark spasm released an energy wave that transformed him and, temporarily, those Transformers nearest to him, into super-strong outliers, it should theoretically be possible to induce such a spasm in someone else, thereby duplicating the effect on those assembled. The prospect of deliberately causing someone to have a nervous breakdown seems untenable, but Skids volunteers for the job and asks Chromedome to finally unlock his forgotten traumatic memories in order to accomplish it. Chromedome is unwilling to use his mnemosurgery needles, but as Tarn begins blaring "The Empyrean Suite" in advance of the DJD's attack, and the memories associated with the music begin to tickle the back of Skids's consciousness, Chromedome agrees to take another tactic: nothing more than a few awful, well-chosen words. Every memory from his time in Grindcore including the horrific, smelting death of Quark comes rushing back to Skids, and his spark erupts with light.

Powered up into Outliers by Skids's sacrifice, the Autobots tear their way through their enemies, with Rodimus even pulling off his old "Flame Out" maneuver to incinerate a dogpile of Decepticons. Unfortunately, no sooner has he sizzled their circuits than he collapses to his knees, suddenly weakened, as the power-up begins to wear off!

Inside the fortress, Ratchet tends to Skids, who has been so badly traumatized by the experience that his spark has shrunk away to almost nothing. Ratchet attempts to stabilize him so that he can join the fight and leave the job of tending Skids to Megatron, but the ex-Decepticon is having some health problems of his own, suffering from cramps caused by Fool's Energon. Ratchet insinuates that they are actually the product of fear and anxiety, but Megatron refutes the allegation, and explains to the medic that he is refusing to fight not because he fears the DJD, but because he fears what he himself will become if he straps a weapon to his arm once more. As far as Megatron is concerned, if he allows himself to commit violence again, he will be unable to stop himself from committing more and more,

Here comes the General

endlessly. This forces Ratchet into a confession: Fool's Energon is a placebo. It has never sapped Megatron's strength; Megatron only believed that it did, and every time he fought someone since he began taking it, he was—however subconsciously—acting with self-imposed restraint. Just then, Megatron looks at the monitor displaying the fight outside, and sees Ravage being torn in half by Tarn. Ratchet is distracted when Skids wakes up and falls off the med-slab, desperate to find Brainstorm and tell him what became of Quark. When the medic looks up again, screaming that he needs help getting Skids back on the slab before he dies, Megatron is gone...

Outside, the upgrade process has well and truly worn off, as Brainstorm finds when his fist crumples against Lugnut's armor. He turns to the Necrobot's holographic statue of Skids to offer his thanks for the temporary advantage, only to find that the statue has been switched off... because Skids's body now lies lifeless on the floor of the fortress med-bay, his spark extinguished.

The weakened Autobots seem certain to join him in death, surrounding by the enemy on all sides—until salvation is heralded by the thunderous retort of a fusion cannon. With his newly built weapon now attached, Megatron strides onto the battlefield, silently obliterating all opposition. Deathsaurus, fearing for the lives of his men, prepares to order a retreat but in the end, in the face of Tarn's orders, capitulates and sends them all in to 'wear out' the tyrant. (He doesn't know that Tarn has ordered his men to retreat, but a disappointed Nickel knows). Megatron reaches his comrades in fire and blood, gathers up the two pieces of the still-living Ravage, and orders them back to the fortress to get his feline friend help: he needs nobody's help.

Megatron roars for Tarn to come out but a well-placed shot from Nickel and Vos soon disables Megatron's cannon and leaves him open to attack. As the other Autobots watch through the monitor inside the fortress, Tarn and Overlord stand over the unarmed Megatron, and level their weapons as the man sinks, tired and distraught, to his knees. Tarn asks Megatron if it was worth it; the once and former Decepticon leader remains silent as he looks up at his would-be executioners, but shock crosses his features... just as three shots ring out...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots

Decepticons

Others

Swerve (1)
Maximus Ambus (2)
Rewind (5)
Ironhide (statue, 6)
Drift (9)
Velocity (10)
Rodimus (11)
Chromedome (14)
Tailgate (19)
Ratchet (20)

Skids (21)
Nautica (22)
Whirl (23)
Brainstorm (24)
Quark (25)
Megatron (27)

Helex (3)
Ravage (8)
Doryu (12)
Overlord (13)
Vos (15)
Nickel (16)
Tarn (17)
Deathsaurus (18)
Blue Bacchus (26)
Lugnut (28)

Ten (4)
Cyclonus (7)

Quotes

"The mnemosurgeon! I was hoping we'd meet again—I wanted to tell you something. I'm afraid your skinny little friend died before the missiles hit. I managed to pull off three of his limbs before the pain really drove him over the edge. The noises he made...! And he kept calling your name! "Domey! Domey! Save me!" I had to put his head in my mouth just to shut him up. Just popped it in and—chomp!—bit down 'til he stopped twitching."

—Overlord

"Ask me what I used to do for a living!"
"What?"
"Ask me what I used to do for a living!"
"What?"
"Same thing as I do now, dirtwad—waste disposal!"

—Tailgate tries some action hero banter, but a Decepticon doesn't play along

"You're not a coward, Megatron—or a pacifist, for that matter. At least not in the way I understand the word."
"I'm not afraid of the DJD. I am, however, afraid of rediscovering what I'm capable of. I'm afraid that if I got out there and fight—really fight—I won't be able to stop. Ever. Because I won't want to. Every day is a battle, Ratchet. Every hour. Every second. A battle between me and the real me—and I wish I knew which was which."
"So either way, it's about you. Quelle surprise."
"It's not about me—it's about everyone else."
"Riiiiight."
"If I step outside, that's just the beginning—the first of a thousand battlefields. If I don't keep myself in check, the war could reignite—and if it did, it would make what's gone before seem trivial by comparison. I'd surrender myself completely to my darker impulses—because I'd have to. If I were to avoid another day like this one—another day of being torn in two—I'd have to. I don't give a damn if Fool's Energon has sapped my strength or dulled my mind—I would not be stopped."

—Ratchet and Megatron

"Sleep tight, soldier."

—Ratchet bids farewell to Skids

"I don't need your help. I don't need anybody's help. But Ravage does."

—Megatron's line has two meanings!

Notes

Continuity notes

Now imagine if the Decepticon just happened to be a K-Con…

Overlord reveals what happened to the original Rewind, after they were trapped in the slow cell together in issue #15. Given the time dilation involved in the cell's function, either he was lying to hurt Chromedome or Overlord works disturbingly fast.
Skids recalls the two previous instances in which Chromedome stopped him from remembering his lost memories, in issue #8 and #49. As Tarn blares "The Empyrean Suite", Skids starts to feel hot, as memories of the smelting chamber seen in issue #49 start to creep in.
If you're wondering why Transformers aren't turning into Outliers as a result of traumatic experiences all the time, recall that it's only the unique mixture of quantum energy that the crew of the Lost Light have been exposed to in their travels that has mutated their sparks to the point that they are capable of this stress-induced evolution, as explained in issue #49.
This issue marks the culmination of Tailgate's character arc that began all the way back in issue #1: Originally, the inscription on his left arm only read "osal", with the rest of it having been worn off by the elements during the six million years he spent lying unconsciously underground. In issue #2, after Swerve had inquired about it, Tailgate insisted it should say "Bomb Disposal"; prior to issue #6, he had Ratchet "fix" it (although an artistic error for the original single release of that issue accidentally gave away the subsequent twist, but that was later corrected for the trade paperback collection); in issue #12, he actually attempted to disarm a bomb (while tricking Rewind into talking him through the process), which nearly resulted in himself, Rewind, Cyclonus, and Whirl getting killed; in issue #13, he finally came clean to Cyclonus about the truth, revealing that the inscription on his arm did originally say "Waste Disposal"; and finally, following his near-death experience in issue #21, he decided he no longer wanted to pretend to be someone he isn't, and had the inscription on his arm changed to its original form, "Waste Disposal", prior to issue #29 (he specifically drew attention to it while talking to Getaway in issue #30). Now, having gained super-strength, he turns what once was his source of secret shame into the set-up for an epic one-liner, knocking the head off a Decepticon with a single punch while pointing out that what he's doing does still, in a way, qualify as "waste disposal".
Rodimus uses his "Flame Out" ability for the very first time since it was introduced all the way back in Maximum Dinobots #3. He even remarks on how long it's been since he last did it.
Fool's Energon is revealed to be a placebo, in actuality being standard yet disgusting tasting Energon; its foul taste was previously evidenced when Trailcutter sneaked some in issue #29. Ratchet explains they couldn't give Megatron a real sedative because of the damaged state of his internal organs, caused by Shockwave, which we learned about in issue #28, meaning Megatron's apparent physical weakness and change in personality were merely psychosomatic. In an incredibly subtle bit of foreshadowing of this, Ratchet briefly stumbles when explaining its supposed nature to Rodimus in issue #30 as he outlined the bogus chemical's effects.
Ratchet recalls previous instances in which Megatron restrained his strength: fighting Whirl in issue #28, punching Perceptor in issue #38, and lashing out at Tailgate in issue #47.
As Skids crawls along the floor after falling off the med-slab, he calls himself "scum" for what he unknowingly helped Tarn do in Grindcore. This hearkens aaaaaall the way back to his first appearance in this series in issue #2, in which, while struggling to remember anything about himself, the last vestiges of this memory caused the amnesiac Skids to briefly think his name was "Scum".
Back in issue #44, Skids remarked "who doesn't want to survive the dying of the light?"
Tarn sounds almost glad to find Megatron to have his "fire" back while Overlord dismisses this as him just finding a big gun. Both views fit into their ongoing desire to kill Megatron: Tarn was angry and upset that Megs, by surrendering, was no longer the 'real' Megs back in part 3, while Overlord has been constantly talking down and demeaning Megatron in a protests-too-much kinda way since "Last Stand of the Wreckers" #2.
This issue marks the first time Velocity is shown in her vehicle mode, while the Autobots retreat with the severely wounded Ravage back into the Necrobot's fortress.
Ten is distraught to see Skids' corpse. Back in "Our Steps Will Always Rhyme", Skids was in his mural of favourite crewmembers.
Megatron is distraught over the thought of "another day of being torn in two". As he says it, he gestures at the screen in which Ravage is being hunted down by Tarn, foreshadowing events that occur just one page later.

Transformers references

When Rewind attempts to tell Magnus about what happened to Dominus last issue, Ultra Magnus paraphrases his most famous line from The Transformers: The Movie: "I can't deal with that now."
In a cute touch, Autobot Megatron's new fusion cannon fires orange beams, just like all Autobot weaponry in the Generation 1 cartoon, rather than Decepticon purple. Having been built by Brainstorm, it brings to mind his talk of weapons that could differentiate between Autobot and Decepticon by firing different coloured lasers back in issue #28, but the cartoon color-coding has actually always been in effect for pretty much all weaponry throughout "season two," independent of anything Brainstorm might've made.

Real-life references

As with the previous chapters, this issue's title (and the title of the multi-parter itself) is taken from the poem "Do not go gentle into that good night," by Dylan Thomas.
In the left-side background on page 14, in the big crowd of Decepticons, you can just see a dead ringer for Evangelion Unit-01.
Chromedome's words when he asks Tailgate to keep a distance while everyone else is given a temporary power boost by Skids, "Not you, Tailgate. You've already taken your magic medicine.", appear to reference French comic Asterix, where Asterix's friend Obelix is constantly denied drinking from the magic potion, which temporarily gives the Gauls superhuman strength, because he had fallen inside the local village druid's cauldron containing the potion as a child and gained permanent superhuman strength as a result. Like Tailgate, Obelix is a naive, light-hearted simpleton with a childlike intellect and a tendency to be easily upset or enraged. The characters are drawn in the same sort of placement too, gathering around Skids the way the Gaulish villagers gather round Getafix's cauldron.

Errors

I'm not hugging too tight — I'm panicking. Your speech bubble is suffocating me!

In the "Story So Far" recap, Minimus Ambus is said to be the alter ego of Fortress Maximus. Sounds like someone at IDW had Titans Return on the brain when writing that!
On page five, panel 1, Ratchet tells Tailgate not to squeeze so tightly as they hug—but his speech bubble's been stuck right on top of Tailgate's head, making him almost unnoticeable in the panel. The speech bubble was moved in the trade paperback.
On the same page, Ratchet says Tailgate was "taken the brink," rather than "taken to the brink." This was corrected in the trade paperback.

Other trivia

Vos's sole speech bubble in this issue, spoken when Tarn forgets to credit him along with Nickel for blasting Chromedome, translates to "Bears love sushi." Eh??
The Autobot emblems are exceptionally emotive this issue, ranging from sad with "tears" (Ratchet), enraged (Megatron) and OH GOD IT BURNS (Rodimus).
The month that this issue came out in Europe, the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, the bloodiest and most brutal battle of World War I was commemorated—the battle in which hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers died within moments of going 'over the top', forced to run straight towards German guns as little more than cannon fodder. Technically the Allies won that battle, but casualties for both sides were catastrophic.

Soundtrack

For all of "The Dying of the Light":

"Hurt" by Johnny Cash

For this issue alone:

"Slow Parade" by Broken Records^[1]
"Superman" by Cinerama^[2]
"The Birds Will Sing For Us" by Ed Harcourt^[3]

Covers (3)

Regular cover: Our heroes, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
Subscription cover: Drift versus Deathsaurus, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
Retailer incentive cover: Cyclonus, Tailgate, Nautica, and Velocity all share a drink with Windblade, by Sara Pitre-Durocher and Josh Perez; one of three retailer incentive covers by Pitre-Durocher for June's Transformers titles, which all feature Windblade in commemoration of the launch of Till All Are One.

Thanks to Tarn, Decepticon costume parties have a very strict dress code.
How to kill your dragon.
Last call in 15 cycles!

Reprints

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Volume 10 (October 5, 2016) ISBN 1631407163 / ISBN 978-1631407161
- Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #50–55.
- Bonus material includes covers of each issue.
- Trade paperback format.

Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 72: The Dying of the Light (January 24, 2018)
- Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #50–55.
- Bonus material includes the bonus story "No Guns, No Swords, No Briefcases", essential background material on the DJD, a cover gallery and a forward by Simon Furman.
- Hardcover format.

The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 11 (June 17, 2020) ISBN 1684056403 / ISBN 978-1684056408
- Collects The Transformers Holiday Special: Silent Light, Redemption, The Transformers (2012) issues #46–50 & "New Worlds Order", and More than Meets the Eye issues #50–55 & "No Guns, No Swords, No Briefcases".
- Hardcover format.

More Than Meets the Eye Volume 10 – cover art by Alex Milne and Joana Lafuente
The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 72: The Dying of the Light – cover art by Don Figueroa (Cyclonus) and Alex Milne (retro)
The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 11 – cover art by Marcelo Matere